THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 PRIVILEGE 
 
 A NOVEL OF THE 
 TRANSITION 
 
 BY 
 
 MICHAEL SADLEIR 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 Ubc Ikntcfeerbocfeer press 
 1921
 
 Copyright 1921 
 
 by 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
 printed in the United States of America 
 
 Sfr*
 
 To 
 ELIZABETH 
 
 for obvious reasons 
 
 and to the 
 
 gracious memory 
 
 of 
 
 WILLIAM BECK FORD 
 OF 
 
 FONTHILL 
 
 who found in kindliness 
 and in the egoism 
 
 of 
 
 secluded splendour 
 
 the 
 
 true gentility 
 
 I DEDICATE 
 
 this book. 

 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 TO THE AMERICAN EDITION 
 
 When this book appeared in England, I prefixed a 
 brief note disclaiming any idea on my part of having 
 written a "probable" story. By this I laid no claim to 
 the creation of fantasy. Indeed , fantastical fiction even 
 at its best, falls short of perfection in that it lacks one of 
 the three essentials to the true novel as I conceive it. 
 These essentials are plot, characterization, and period 
 psychology. The story must hold attention by its in- 
 cident; the imaginary society to which the reader is intro- 
 duced must consist of individuals of coherent personality; 
 the affinity of that society to the age in which it is supposed 
 to exist must be recognizable. My attempt to explain 
 that Privilege does not pretend to detailed actuality but 
 rests, nevertheless, on a basis of motivation proper to its 
 contemporary setting was in many quarters misunder- 
 stood. Because in the United States more study is de- 
 voted than in England to the history and development of 
 literary forms, I hope for my readers' indulgence in an 
 attempt to indicate briefly where Privilege departs from 
 the present day fashion in novels and why it does so. 
 
 The epithets of literary criticism are dangerous play- 
 things. If I say that this is a "romantic" novel, I use 
 a word of which no two definitions are the same. And 
 
 vii
 
 viii Advertisement 
 
 yet I can think of no word more suitable, for surely every 
 one of the great romantic novels of the nineteenth century 
 derives part, if not most, of its effects from atmosphere or 
 decor, and these are the elements of romanticism that I 
 have striven to recapture. Privilege is " written up" 
 to the high level of its own emotionalism. The very land- 
 scape is conceived in a spirit of somber luxuriance. So 
 deliberately to contrive interaction of staging and plot 
 seemed to me not only legitimate but, to the achievement of 
 my desired effect, essential. Some critics have spoken of 
 the book as ''precious"; others as "over-elaborate"; I 
 comfort myself with the kind words of again others, who 
 feel, as I mean them to feel, the suitability to an impres- 
 sive and tragic theme of a fastidious and purposely 
 rhythmic prose. Privilege is stylistic; intentionally 
 so. But I maintain that it is not for that reason 
 inevitably damned. 
 
 More serious — because I had thought them anticipated 
 by my foreword — are the attacks of those who find the 
 speech of my characters unreal and their behavior in- 
 credible. If it is necessary that the conversation of 
 characters in a novel should, word for word, be trans- 
 latable into speech and, as such, ring truly and uncum- 
 brously, then, indeed, Privilege goes under. It sinks 
 willingly and in good company, leaving in the air and 
 sunshine those ultra-modern narratives in which sen- 
 tences are given exactly as spoken and fleeting thoughts as 
 fleetingly entertained — disjointedly, perhaps without 
 subject or predicate, a breathless series of dashes and in- 
 terrogation marks. On the score of behavior I am more 
 sensitive. Would the Barbara of Chapter VI act as 
 does the the Barbara of Chapter IX? I think she would,
 
 Advertisement ix 
 
 because in the Barbara of my imagination and of my 
 heart there is a touch of the divinely wanton, lacking 
 which woman is but an incident in a man's life, pos- 
 sessed of which she is the most passionate disillusion- 
 ment of his experience. Would the Michael, to whom 
 family honor is dearer than life, offer the honor of his 
 wife to save the reputation of his house? Again I think 
 so. For the fanatic has his own sense of proportion, 
 and that herein attributed to fanaticism such as Michael's 
 is neither impossible nor improbable. 
 
 Of a somewhat different nature is the charge that Privi- 
 lege contains a serious error of fact. Toward the end 
 of the book there is mention of a possible revival of an 
 English peerage by the son of a man married to his 
 brother's widow. From numerous quarters I have been 
 assailed for suggesting an impossibility. My ' ' blunder ' ' 
 is catalogued with one made by Florence Barclay. To 
 share a dunce's stool with so triumphant a best-seller has 
 its fascination which, however, I must beg leave to resist. 
 American readers already familiar with English law 
 will forgive my explaining here that, although a man may 
 in my country marry his deceased wife's sister, he may 
 not marry his deceased brother's wife. The anomaly is 
 ludicrous but exists. The characters in Privilege take 
 steps to acquire nationality in a land where their mar- 
 riage may be legally solemnized. Any children of that 
 marriage would be legitimate. There is no necessary bar 
 to the succession of a non-national to an English peerage; 
 the doubt is whether a claimant born of such a mar- 
 riage as this could succeed in his claim. Expert 
 opinion assures me that it is not possible to prejudge the 
 result of such a claim. Wherefore, although my hero may
 
 x Advertisement 
 
 be suggesting an unlikely thing, he is suggesting nothing 
 impossible when he speaks of an attempt by his child 
 {yet unborn) to revive the title that he himself proposes to 
 disuse. 
 
 In conclusion, let me slate categorically that Privi- 
 lege is not a tract for the times. It teaches no lesson, 
 urges no political creed, presents no "real people' 1 in 
 guise of characters of fiction. It is merely a story, born 
 of the strange allurement of passing greatness, which 
 sets an imaginary love drama against the tapestry of our 
 turbulent and changing England. The characters are 
 at once of their own age and of any age. Their trousers 
 and their petticoats, their tobacco and their slang are of 
 the twentieth century, but their temptations, and their 
 longings are those of men and women any time this 
 thousand years. 
 
 Michael Sadleir.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. — The Braden Succession 
 
 3 
 
 II. — Whern Abbey 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 III. — Portman Square . 
 
 
 
 36 
 
 IV. — The Bad New Times . 
 
 
 
 52 
 
 V. — The Family at War . 
 
 
 
 67 
 
 VI. — The Passing of Harold 
 
 
 
 85 
 
 VII. — Privilege 
 
 
 
 119 
 
 VIII.— A House Party . 
 
 
 
 152 
 
 IX. — The Tenth Commandment 
 
 
 
 194 
 
 X. — The End of Carnival 
 
 
 
 222 
 
 XI. — Treachery . 
 
 
 
 253 
 
 XII. — The Passing of Michael 
 
 
 
 283 
 
 XIII. — The Passing of Whern 
 
 
 
 3IO 
 
 XIV. — Love in Wintertime . 
 
 
 
 331
 
 PRIVILEGE
 
 PRIVILEGE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE BRADEN SUCCESSION 
 
 ''' Man that is born of a woman hath but a short 
 time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up 
 and is cut down like a flower; he fleeth as it were 
 a shadow and never continueth in one stay." 
 
 The words hovered one moment in the air and 
 the next, jerked on to the back of the sulky wind, 
 were borne faintly wailing towards the long, wet 
 woods of Whern. The parson, his surplice twitched 
 hither and thither by the gusts of wind, the leaves 
 of his prayer-book fluttering beneath his restrain- 
 ing thumbs, bent his head a fraction lower and 
 continued his monotonous, muted rendering of 
 the burial service. 
 
 1 . . .to take unto himself the soul of our dear 
 brother here departed, we, therefore, commit his 
 
 3
 
 4 Privilege 
 
 body to the ground ; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, 
 
 dust to dust " 
 
 With a strange feeling of detachment I focused 
 before my eyes the ironic discomfort of the scene. 
 Through a veil of mist spotted with drops of rain, 
 and as though they were set in the frozen perspec- 
 tive of a stereoscope, I saw my brothers, my sisters, 
 the handful of relatives, and — at a respectful dis- 
 tance — the crowd of villagers. The black clothes 
 cut stencils on the grayness — curious rigid stencils 
 of conventional form so that the figures had little 
 more human significance than the yew trees dotted 
 among the graves. And then the chasm of the 
 grave itself — our grave, our father's grave, the 
 grave of Black Whern — a foolish pit lined with 
 green and white, scored irrelevantly across the 
 sodden turf. Ironic it was that Black Whern who, 
 when there was not room, forced a way and let 
 the weaker give place, should now at his end en- 
 counter a throng even he could not displace — the 
 throng of the dead. He would have his stately 
 tombstone in the church, but his body would rot 
 among those of carters and woodcutters with little 
 to mark the place of its decomposition except, 
 maybe, a headstone a little more ornate, a railing 
 a little more elaborate than those on either hand.
 
 The Braden Succession 5 
 
 " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love 
 of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be 
 with us all evermore." 
 
 The parson closed his book and, his hands 
 clasped before him, bowed his head over the grave 
 in prayer. What prayers was he saying for Black 
 Whern? Did he remember dinners at the Abbey 
 when the old man would insult his cloth, taunt his 
 submissiveness, make mock of his embarrassed 
 silences? Did he remember the great day when the 
 fox took cover behind the chancel screen? Did he 
 see once more hounds streaming up the nave with 
 my father in their midst kicking and swearing — 
 for no huntsman dared gainsay Black Whern how- 
 ever foul his hunting manners — the moment of 
 ugly scrimmage, the shatter of glass as one of the 
 lamp standards caught a brandished crop, the kill 
 in the chancel itself under the very eyes on the 
 one hand of Black Whern tenibly alive, swarthy, 
 and exultant, on the other of the pale effigies of 
 his ancestors, couched stiffly tier above tier in the 
 rigid armor of their time? What pravers indeed 
 could be said for Black Whern? 
 
 Then in my cynicism I looked at the mourners. 
 Harold — Lord Whern at last — held his silk hat 
 unflinchingly and his too full lips were set into
 
 6 Privilege 
 
 something approaching gravity. He was like the 
 dead man, with all the cruelty gone to sensuality, 
 all the rugged strength to the lax lines of good 
 living. I wondered if he were moved. Likely 
 enough. Men of his type are easily swayed to 
 pompous solemnity. As a child, as a youth, he 
 had gone through alternating fits of sentiment and 
 selfishness. Probably for the moment he felt 
 genuine grief, but even so rare a profundity could 
 not make him dignified. He was handsome and a 
 fine figure of a man, but he was soft — at once soft 
 and reckless, a product of great traditions and too 
 much facility for self-indulgence. Well, well — 
 doubtless there had been Bradens like him before; 
 but some forgotten flicker of family pride scorched 
 my heart one moment with regrets. Michael 
 would have made a worthier heir, thin-lipped, in- 
 tractable though he was. He was holding himself 
 very straight, and his fine, pale brow and narrow 
 eyes showed neither sign nor pretense of grief. 
 Rather it was contempt that he felt for the whole 
 scene — contempt primarily for the corpse, then 
 for the shivering clergyman, for the crumbling 
 tower, for the humble headstones planted crazily 
 about the grass (like the almonds on Ursula's ice 
 pudding that July night five years ago — the foolish
 
 The Braden Succession 7 
 
 memory hurt as keenly as though it had been 
 yesterday that her bitter words had driven me into 
 the stifling streets to limp lonely to my rooms). 
 ... I riveted my mind on the present and found 
 that my attention, unsupported by conscious 
 reasoning, had left Michael and passed to Monica. 
 Arrogantly she held herself, beautiful in her black, 
 her golden hair like the flash of a bird in flight 
 under the brim of her small, defiant hat. Rakish, 
 almost, that hat, in view of the occasion, but 
 wonderfully Monica. Cold she looked, cold, 
 proud, magnificent — and again my cynicism smiled 
 inwardly, gloating a little, for I knew Monica for 
 the loose, flashy thing she was, whose extravagances 
 weie the delight of keyhole whisperers, whose ship- 
 wreck on some shoal of prudery every muck-raker 
 of the servile Press that at present fawned about 
 her little shoes looked for and forward to. Poor 
 Monica! But she had fearlessness and a nobility 
 that in those early days I was too shallow to detect. 
 And, finally, when the crash came she held her 
 head high and smiled that brilliant smile so that 
 I, for one, loved her in her failure as I had never 
 loved her during the vivid years of her success. 
 
 And then, Anthony. Perhaps it was only his 
 greater youth that gave him transparency and
 
 8 Privilege 
 
 charm. But Harold was gross, Michael pitiless, 
 Monica blatant, in comparison with his graceful 
 reverence. His fair hair and long pale face, the 
 curve of his arm and relaxed right leg blended 
 with the sadness of the day, where the others were 
 hostile blots on the compassionate shroud of au- 
 tumn. Anthony in normal life was languid and 
 a thing of mannerisms. He collected jade, went 
 to confession, wore black pyjamas with a scarlet 
 belt. And even now, in my softened mood, I 
 seemed to detect a whiff of the scent he used and, 
 as I smelt it, the gulf between me and this my 
 family widened once again and Anthony became 
 as much an interruption as the rest, perhaps the 
 more repulsive for his very elegance. 
 
 The group swayed and broke. Harold was 
 moving towards the churchyard gate. One by 
 one the others turned to follow. I stepped back 
 and looked about for Mary. A few moments 
 before I had seen her standing demurely beside 
 Monica, her black coat dowdy (or maybe beautiful 
 with the beauty of a different world) in comparison 
 with the elaborate simplicity of the other's fur- 
 trimmed velvet. Mary was the youngest of us, 
 at that time just eighteen to Anthony's twenty, 
 to my twenty-seven. Even those of us who were
 
 The Braden Succession 9 
 
 privileged to be children of Black Whern could 
 only guess at the secret of those seven years during 
 which our mother had had no child. Our nurses, 
 perhaps, and old Studland, the butler; the London 
 specialist, a handful of relations . . . they may 
 have known the truth. I gleaned something of it 
 when I came of age because — well, I suppose they 
 thought my withered foot entitled me to a word 
 of explanation. Yet Anthony was sound, though 
 delicate, and Mary frankly healthy. An odd thing, 
 heredity. I was often struck by the difference 
 the four elder of us and the two who formed the 
 postscript of the family. All the harshness of the 
 breed seemed to have ended with me. Anthony 
 had pliability, and Mary gentle persistence, where 
 we others had turbulence or arrogance or reckless 
 levity or self-protective irony. Perhaps because 
 I came last of the first litter (the brutal metaphor 
 was my father's before it became a commonplace 
 of statesmanship) I was more sympathetic to the 
 younger ones than were my seniors. Certainly I 
 loved Mary as, to the time of which I am speaking, 
 I had loved no one else, and Anthony's effeminacy 
 called to the banter that was my kindliness more 
 than to my scorn. That the adaptable may be- 
 come flaccid and the quietly persistent fanatical,
 
 io Privilege 
 
 after events taught but too thoroughly. Perhaps 
 I should have foreseen them; if so, my obtuseness 
 has been punished. 
 
 I looked about for Mary and, as I looked, she 
 crept from behind the shrub at the grave head and, 
 casting a flower into the hole, stood for a moment 
 solitary on the brink, her hands clasped lightly, 
 her face impassive. She was about to hurry away 
 when she saw me watching her. 
 
 "I should like to walk home, Dick," she said. 
 "Would it bore you too much?" 
 
 We explained to the others, waiting impatiently 
 by the short line of motors in the road. Monica 
 shrugged and stepped into the limousine. One by 
 one the "mourners" found places and with a throb 
 and a screech the cars slid towards Whern. The 
 men touched their hats and one or two old women 
 curtsied, as I limped up the village street by 
 Mary's side. 
 
 The hamlet of Whern St. Nicholas lies to the 
 south of the Abbey grounds in a shallow dip 
 between the still more southerly downland and 
 the gradual slope to the lip of the curious crater 
 in which the home of my ancestors was situated. 
 The road begins to rise directly one leaves the 
 schoolhouse on the left-hand side but does not,
 
 The Braden Succession " 
 
 for the ordinary traveler, rise all the way, as it 
 turns half a mile northward of the village and 
 traces a switchback easterly course skirting the 
 crumbling wall that marks the boundary of the 
 Abbey woods. Mary and I entered these woods 
 by a gap in the wall and began to pick our way 
 upwards through the damp leaf drifts and among 
 the lichenous tree trunks. 
 
 The year was rotting to its end. Along the 
 carpet of trodden leaves, brown-yellow with an 
 occasional slashing of vivid green, the trees crept 
 like mildewed ghosts, an endless procession of 
 noiseless specters, emerging from one tangled 
 mistiness only to blend instantly with another. 
 
 The solitude of this familiar woodland seemed 
 peopled with melancholy sprites. Each raindrop 
 clinging to a twig was a tear for the decay of 
 Whern, each gurgle of the spongy ground a sob 
 for the late autumn of an ancient race. I saw our 
 beloved woods with new and older eyes. The few 
 and brief visits to Whern which I had paid during 
 the last ten years had been visits of duty, and I 
 had found their constraint and antagonism endur- 
 able only thanks to a deliberate keeping alive of 
 memories of happier childhood. Indeed more than 
 once I had sought out some corner of the woods —
 
 12 Privilege 
 
 an abandoned pumphouse which had been our 
 brigands' cave, an overgrown quarry in which we 
 had hunted grizzlies, practiced rock-scrambling, 
 picnicked on golden summer afternoons — to brace 
 myself for an evening in my father's company. 
 Now, for the first time, I let slip make-believe and 
 left to the past the lure of its own witchery. I saw 
 Whern and its woods and ourselves, its inheritors, 
 sinking, as the old year was sinking, towards an 
 inevitable December. The blaze of autumn is a 
 painted flame, without heat, without core; Black 
 Whern for all his apparent strength was a braggart 
 and a thing of hollow sound. He was dead, and 
 the October leaves were wind-tossed and stained 
 with damp. Where they had flaunted their tran- 
 sient glory were now naked twigs; even the few 
 that clung still in foolish obstinacy to the trees 
 hung limply and askew. In the seat of Black 
 Whern was Harold. And there were tears in my 
 heart because of the great past of Braden and be- 
 cause death is angry sadness to the young. 
 
 We had not spoken since entering the woods. 
 Our silence and the gloom of my own thoughts 
 prompted me to that awkward levity which was 
 my treacherous refuge from embarrassment. 
 
 "Thank God, that's over!"
 
 The Braden Succession 13 
 
 Mary did not answer but bent her head and 
 hurried forward. I cursed myself for a blunderer. 
 
 "What is the matter, Mary?" 
 
 "Oh Dick — nobody cared. Not one of you 
 cared an atom. Poor, poor father!" 
 
 "He was an old man, child, and a lonely one — 
 Don't grudge him his rest." 
 
 "Grudge it! If you knew how I envied it!" 
 
 "Mary! To talk like that ! " 
 
 She turned on me. 
 
 "You haven't to live on here — with Harold." 
 
 Her bitterness startled me and my uneasiness 
 increased to see her quiet eyes dark with dread. 
 
 "But, child — you can come to Monica " 
 
 "She would thank you for saying that and so 
 do I!" 
 
 "Well then, to me." 
 
 " I may do that, Dick dear, sometime. But you 
 don't really want me — and, besides, I cannot run 
 away before the battle." 
 
 She was tired and nervous and this intensity 
 was, according to my then superficial judgment, 
 too foreign to Mary to be real. So I merely said : 
 
 "That is a promise, then. You can come to me 
 when you wish, and I will try to veil my reluctance 
 to receive you."
 
 i4 Privilege 
 
 Perhaps the conventional irony did service on 
 that occasion. At any rate Mary brightened and 
 we spoke no more of the funeral nor of its problems. 
 
 II 
 
 I suppose the others had been in an hour or more 
 when we reached the Abbey. Lunch had draggled 
 off into cheese and crumbled bread, with Anthony 
 like some fastidious bird still picking delicately at 
 its fringe. He explained that the relations had 
 gone . . . trains . . . only "us" left. . . . 
 While waiting for fresh food and too lazy to follow 
 Mary's lead and go upstairs to change, I wandered 
 towards the billiard room in search of further 
 company. Across the hall through the front door 
 I saw a small mauve car like an enameled snail 
 waiting in the drive. At that moment Monica 
 appeared by the baize doors of the library corridor ; 
 they snapped to behind her with their curious 
 sound that suggested an angry dog with no bark. 
 She took no notice of me but going to the foot of 
 the staircase removed the cigarette from her mouth 
 and shouted : 
 
 "Fli— im!" 
 
 There was no reply.
 
 The Braden Succession 15 
 
 "Fli — im! Where the devil have you got to? 
 I'm ready!" 
 
 Still no reply. 
 
 "Fli— i— i— im!" 
 
 "Better," I remarked. "Much better. But 
 remember to trill on the high note and to throw 
 the head well back." 
 
 She turned to see who was speaking. 
 
 " Hello, Dick," she said carelessly. " Got in from 
 your weep- walk ? Have you seen Flim anywhere ? ' ' 
 
 "Anything is possible," I replied. "What is it?" 
 
 Ignoring me completely she began to shout once 
 more, this time with better fortune. 
 
 "All right, all right! I'm coming," said a male 
 voice a little testily, and a small springy man with 
 cheeks shaved black and tight close-cropped black 
 moustache hurried from the far corner of the hall. 
 He was wearing very new herring-bone tweeds of 
 striking cut and a stiff pink-lined turnover collar 
 with a bow tie. Altogether a nasty little man. 
 
 "God bless the man!" cried Monica. "Where 
 the hell have you been? Here am I waking the 
 dead " 
 
 "I am even surprised you remember there are 
 dead to wake, Monica." 
 
 The sardonic interruption came from one of the
 
 1 6 Privilege 
 
 small balustraded galleries that on the first floor 
 landing overlook the central octagon of the hall. 
 Michael leant a little forward to see the effect of 
 his remark, and I could see the righteous cruelty 
 of his contemptuous mouth. Monica turned her 
 back angrily, but I noticed that her voice was 
 sensibly lowered when she spoke again: 
 
 "Shall we push off right away?" 
 
 Her friend nodded and muttered inaudibly, 
 glancing round for a servant. One of the men 
 crossed the hall to the dining-room with the pre- 
 liminaries of lunch for Mary and myself. 
 
 " Hullo — you there ! " shouted the little stranger. 
 "Fetch me my coat, and be quick about it!" 
 
 I chuckled. Verily there were rents already in 
 the garment of our inheritance. The footman — 
 he was a junior and nervous — vanished into the 
 dining-room and reappeared immediately in search 
 of the coat. I shrank back in the shadow of a 
 pillar lest the departing, if unbidden, guest should 
 see me — and delay his going. Michael, from his 
 vantage post, observed in silence. Monica had 
 gone through the outer hall to the front door and 
 was standing on the steps gazing sulkily at the 
 tearful sky. With some struggling the stranger 
 settled his coat to his liking, placed a Homburg
 
 The Braden Succession 17 
 
 slightly askew upon his head, and swaggered ab- 
 surdly towards his car. 
 
 When the mauve snail had crawled out of sight 
 I crossed the hall to the dining-room and began 
 lunch. Mary came down in a few moments. We 
 ate determinedly. 
 
 "Coffee in the billiard room?" 
 
 I told the man and followed Mary thither. In 
 front of a huge wood fire Harold sprawled his 
 great bulk on a lounge chair. Whisky stood by 
 his side. The hearthrug seemed solid dog, for, on 
 it, in a fair imitation of their master's attitude, 
 lay an Irish wolf-hound, three spaniels, and a 
 rough-haired terrier. Over the huge and hideous 
 room brooded the spirit of stupor after gluttony. 
 Harold greeted us without emotion. 
 
 "Hullo! Had lunch?" 
 
 We advanced to the outworks of the nearest dog. 
 
 "Cold ..." I said suggestively. "Isn't it?" 
 
 Harold grunted. Then with a crooked grin he 
 hoisted himself to one elbow. 
 
 "Scared of the dogs, eh? Poor little Polly. She 
 shan't be plagued with nasty dogs. Get away, 
 you brutes!" 
 
 His kick cleared a pathway to the fire. Mary 
 slipped to the curb and settled on the fire-seat.
 
 1 8 Privilege 
 
 From the edge of the billiard table I swung my 
 legs. 
 
 With the coffee came Michael, cool and correct 
 in a short black coat. It was like Michael to have 
 changed his morning coat and nothing more. He 
 walked quietly to the fire, trod on the tail of the 
 fattest spaniel, stepped neatly over the fire-seat 
 and wedged his shoulders against the chimney 
 breast, his feet against the curb. Harold, from the 
 shapeless mass of his old shooting suit, glanced 
 sullenly upwards. He was doubtless painfully 
 aware — for even I had a foreboding — that Michael 
 was about to hold forth. 
 
 "Where is Monica?" 
 
 Harold shrugged sleepily. 
 
 "Who was that little swine with her in the hall? " 
 
 "In the hall," replied Harold. 
 
 "What do you mean — in the hall?" asked 
 Michael crossly. 
 
 "Trying to answer your question, old chap," 
 grumbled Harold. "You asked where Monica 
 was. I replied, 'In the hall,' a reply which, on 
 your own showing, is correct." 
 
 Michael sniffed. 
 
 "No — seriously, Harold. You must speak to 
 Monica. It's rotten bad form to import a little
 
 The Braden Succession 19 
 
 bounder like that on the day of father's funeral 
 and then go screaming for him all over the house 
 as if it were a railway station. You're the head 
 of the family." 
 
 Harold grinned. 
 
 "What a prig you are, Michael! As if it mat- 
 tered. He's not a bad fellow either, is little 
 Grayshott. Damn fine horseman. He told me of 
 a horse ..." 
 
 Michael turned to me. 
 
 "Dick, for God's sake, say something!" 
 
 I was apt to shirk on these occasions and for 
 the moment, although I was with him on this par- 
 ticular point, Michael's tactlessness made me 
 hate him. 
 
 "'Railway station' is very good," I said reflec- 
 tively. " I have long wanted to know what Whern 
 reminded me of. Of course — a railway station. 
 Perhaps Monica thought it was St. Pancras and 
 wanted a porter." 
 
 Harold guffawed. 
 
 "Monica's quite capable of wanting half a 
 dozen porters if they were good-looking," he 
 said. 
 
 Mary shifted in her place and glanced appeal- 
 ingly towards me. Michael darted a furious look
 
 20 Privilege 
 
 at Harold, shook himself free of the chimney-piece, 
 and walked quickly from the room. 
 
 Clearly the subject required changing. 
 
 "Well, Harold, what's the next move? Are you 
 going to make a coronation speech to the tenants? " 
 
 "God!" replied Harold, "I see myself." 
 
 Anthony lounged into the room. 
 
 "Exquisite!" he exclaimed mincingly. "The 
 purple, browns, and greys . . . And the sad 
 menace of the down. . . . Harold, the old 
 brandy is finished. I was constrained to finish 
 my lunch sans liqueur." 
 
 I condoned. Harold sniffed loudly. 
 
 "You smell like a girl," he growled. 
 
 Anthony smiled gently. 
 
 "Parjum cT amour — what is more delicate? The 
 frail white flesh " 
 
 Mary got up and hurried to the door. On the 
 threshold she turned passionately. 
 
 "Father is dead," she cried, "and you are his 
 sons ..." 
 
 Her voice broke and she vanished from sight. 
 
 Harold sniggered. 
 
 "Dramatic," he said. "She gets on my nerves, 
 that girl. Too damn pernickety." 
 
 "Only Victorian," drawled Anthony. "Were
 
 The Braden Succession 21 
 
 she not one's sister one would say bourgeoise. 
 But there is infinite freshness in virtue. Indeed, 
 maidenhood is getting fashionable again." 
 
 "It's never been very cheap," sneered Harold. 
 
 "Gross — gross," murmured Anthony. 
 
 And once more I chuckled.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 WHERN ABBEY 
 
 If I write something now of the Whern I knew 
 and loved, it is perhaps as much to convince my- 
 self of what I won when I lost it and to brush away 
 from the memory of the crowded years that fol- 
 lowed my father's death the cobwebs of wistful 
 sentiment, as to provide a proper setting for my 
 narrative. The "Dream Palace" that one reads 
 of in the letters of its creator, the fantastic erec- 
 tion — adorable in its very absurdit}*- — in which I 
 was born and in which I spent my childhood, has 
 vanished now even more completely than has 
 Beckford's Abbey of Fonthill, its inspiration and 
 its prototype. What strange misfortune pursues 
 things, animate and inanimate, that defy the cus- 
 tom of their time? Has conformity a divine sanc- 
 tion after all? While they remained decorous 
 children of their age the Bradens, in their unob- 
 
 22
 
 Whern Abbey 23 
 
 trusive way, prospered. One erratic, decadent 
 genius, twenty short years of feverish eccentricity 
 — and the centuries of steady if stupid growth 
 counted for but a fraction of their lasting. Lancelot 
 Braden died loathsomely under soaring vault of 
 his mighty house not three months after the last 
 touch of gilding had dried on the weather vane of 
 the northern tower. Geoffrey, his nephew and 
 successor and my grandfather, was killed in the 
 Crimea. My father, an ironical exception, lived 
 out his passionate life to its forlorn and solitary 
 end. Subsequent events — the fun grew fast and 
 furious — are my story. Many a time have I felt 
 the grim justice of my melancholy on that wet 
 woodland walk with Mary, of my sense of strange 
 and desolate happenings brooding over Whern and 
 over Braden. . . . 
 
 In a great cup of the Wiltshire hills, under the 
 lee of the western slope and on the bank of a shal- 
 low lake made by a stream that traversed the 
 arena from north to south, there were erected 
 in the eleventh century a Cistercian Abbey and 
 cloister which took their name from the hamlet of 
 Whern lying in the adjoining valley. The foun- 
 dation was not a rich one, as the place was at once
 
 24 Privilege 
 
 remote and too near Sarum to flourish more than 
 modestly. Its obscurity did not, however, save 
 it at the Reformation, and its lands and buildings 
 were bestowed by the Crown on Sir Richard 
 Braden, whose father had joined Henry Tudor on 
 his march to Bosworth Field taking in his train 
 young Richard and a company of yokels from his 
 home in the Welsh marches. The lad by his 
 skilful parade of shrewd economy at the expense 
 of other people won the approval of the new king 
 and, with the coming of Henry VIII., was knighted 
 with a place at court. The bestowal of Whern 
 paid the loyal debt of gratitude for a variety of 
 services, rendered staunchly and with tact, and 
 began the transfer of the Braden home from Shrop- 
 shire to Wiltshire, which by the end of the six- 
 teenth century was finally accomplished. It seems 
 that a succession of unambitious and none too 
 durable houses sheltered those ancestors of mine 
 that held Whern from the accession of James I. to 
 the time of the French Revolution. Perhaps every 
 second generation pulled down and began afresh. 
 Certainty, at stated intervals, the ruins of the old 
 Abbey were pillaged for material and the original 
 and noblest Whern of all faded into a tattered 
 fragment of ghost-gray loneliness, while across
 
 Whern Abbey 25 
 
 the green basin of the wooded hollow house after 
 transient house blossomed and died. 
 
 Then came the reign of great-uncle Lancelot, 
 the birth of the Braden peerage, the meteor splen- 
 dor of golden Whern and — the zenith passed — the 
 tilt on to the final downward slope to decadence. 
 
 I ha.ve spoken of Fonthill as the inspiration and 
 the prototype of Whern. It was more than that. 
 It was its material as well as its spiritual forbear, 
 some, part of Whern being actually fashioned of 
 the marble, stone, and glass of the notorious Non- 
 Such wonderland of an hundred years ago. This 
 makes it all the more surprising that in an age of 
 rapid tourism so few would-be visitors stopped 
 their cars for an hour or two at the high cross- 
 roads on the down or forced the slumbrous peace 
 of Whern Royal to stay a night at the really 
 admirable inn and catch a glimpse of a house 
 which was, with all its faults of beauty, undoubt- 
 edly unique. 
 
 Deliberately I concentrate on Whern and not on 
 its creator, for this is the story of my brothers and 
 sisters and myself and not of our ancestors. But, 
 freely, the tale of Lancelot Braden, first Viscount 
 Whern ("Great-Uncle Lance" we always called 
 him, the familiarity mirroring the admiring repul-
 
 26 Privilege 
 
 sion in which, by tradition, we held his memory), 
 would make finer and more sensational reading 
 than that of our more discreet shortcomings. 
 Some other time, perhaps . . . Enough, here, 
 to state that Lancelot Braden, vastly rich, physi- 
 cally beautiful, saw in the pioneer gestures of the 
 great William Beckford a hint for his own super- 
 eccentricity ; that he became first an admirer, then 
 a protege, finally an adoring intimate of the Sultan 
 of Lansdowne Tower; that, whereas London knew 
 him only as a figure of sinister and remote licen- 
 tiousness, to Bath he was a frequenter of the trea- 
 sure house in Lansdowne Terrace, a companion 
 of old Beckford on his rides along the down, an 
 enthusiast for sale catalogues, rare manuscripts, 
 pictures of foreign schools. Concerning the strange 
 friendship rumors went about; in explanation of 
 the bestowal by George IV. on Lancelot of a peerage 
 the coffee houses knew something more substantial 
 and less savory than even the basest rumour. . . . 
 But all this, again, is irrelevant. Let us get back 
 to Whern. 
 
 It is history that in 1823 Beckford, mainly for 
 reasons of economy but partly also from disgust 
 at realizing the frauds practiced on him by his 
 architect, sold the entire Fonthill estate, including
 
 VVhern Abbey 27 
 
 the famous Abbey, to a Mr. Farquhar. It is also 
 history that, not long after completing his pur- 
 chase, the new owner saw the great tower fall down 
 (for the second time in its brief period of life), and 
 decided to cut his losses and sell the mansion for 
 building material. At this point, where history 
 turns to things of greater moment, Braden family 
 pride takes up the tale. Under other names, and 
 unknown either to Farquhar or to Beckford, 
 Lancelot Braden, then twenty-five years old, 
 bought a large part of the more decorative elements 
 and caused them to be transferred, circuitously and 
 unobtrusively, over the hills to Whern, which was 
 not many miles away. He was no fool and made 
 a good bargain. He argued that Wyatt, however 
 dishonest in his furnishing of the hidden essentials 
 of good building, was not likely in those externals 
 visible and of greatest interest to the owner to use 
 anything but the best quality of material ; further, 
 that the second collapse of the structure would so 
 rudely have shocked the facile admiration of the 
 crowd for Beckford and his works that prices 
 might be expected to rule low. On the whole he 
 argued soundly and became possessed of a quantity 
 of fine carving, rare marbles, and unusual archi- 
 tectural miscellanea at a reasonable figure. The
 
 28 Privilege 
 
 way was then open for the building of yet anothet 
 Whern. 
 
 And what a Whern! An extravagant facade, 
 three soaring towers, a nightmare chapter house, 
 cloisters, and flying buttresses. ... On the 
 hills above Oban on the west coast of Scotland 
 stands a foolish parody of a Roman coliseum — 
 but built of rosy stone some two feet thick. From 
 below, the idiot edifice seems to be cut from card- 
 board. And so it was, in less degree, with Lancelot 
 Braden's Gothic abbey. One felt that every arti- 
 fice had been used to extend that ribbon of crisped 
 and crocheted exoticism as far as possible along the 
 northeastern slope of the wooded basin. At the same 
 time the house had no depth ; it was flush with the 
 drooping margin of the woods; a demented vision 
 of the medieval age, slung like a painted cloth 
 along the ancient Wiltshire hill. 
 
 I loathe its memory and yet I loved it. There 
 is a point when improbability becomes logic once 
 again. Maybe the astounding contrast between 
 Lancelot Braden's abbey and the moldering shred 
 of ruined dignity across the tranquil lake had in 
 itself something of greatness. Maybe, also, some 
 spark of my great-uncle's feverish allegiance to 
 the Gothic style (sad, misguided fanaticism that
 
 Whern Abbey 29 
 
 thought to recapture spirit by reproducing trap- 
 pings only) burnt always like a mystic lamp within 
 the temple of his fashioning and, by its glimmer, 
 drew my pilgrim spirit to the shrine it served. 
 
 But I think in reality my love for Whern was 
 partly love for Braden, partly yearning fondness 
 for the English country, that no defilement can 
 rob of its sweet soundness. On snowy days when 
 the wooded slope glittered with frost jewels, when 
 the frozen lake was like a sheet of polished pewter 
 athwart the black-green of the iron-hard turf; in 
 May when the leaves sang their color part in the 
 spring symphony and the marshy ground by the 
 stream was powdered with meadow saxifrage and 
 marigold; in summer rain, when through the 
 streaming curtain of the rain the old abbey and 
 the climbing woods drooped in the weeping heat; 
 in the pale melancholy of October sunlight, when 
 the whole Whern arena seemed sinking to sensuous 
 sleep under the caressing mist, when even the new 
 house took on the unearthly fineness of a mirage- 
 city, when the trees — from palest yellow, through 
 red and brown to dark defiant green — bent like 
 high tiers of praying women beneath the slow 
 veils of the mist — my home, because it was home 
 and yet not only because it was, had loveliness
 
 30 Privilege 
 
 and Englishry and my heart was wrung for it, 
 being forsaken of its age. 
 
 II 
 
 Whern Woods cover the whole rim of the arena 
 in which the Abbey stood, spreading to the level 
 bottom on the inside and some way down the 
 outer slopes to south, west, and east. On the 
 north there is no outer slope, the rim of the crater 
 being the edge of a high plateau of downland over 
 which in winter blow black winds to rattle the 
 bare boughs of the twisted trees that mark the 
 outskirts of the wood, and then to slant their 
 bitter course diagonally downwards to the frozen 
 lake. The titanic fancies of great-uncle Lancelot 
 did not spare the woods, but the power and age of 
 their beauty had absorbed his freakishness and 
 given it that melancholy charm which is the lure 
 of all human handicraft abandoned by its creators 
 and subject to the nature it provoked. Thus, 
 apart from the usual scattering of small classic 
 temples, the usual moss-grown fauns and nymphs 
 in glade and dell, there existed (and for all I know 
 may exist to this day) a chain of fishponds — five 
 or six of them on descending levels — created,
 
 Whern Abbey 31 
 
 doubtless, to satisfy our great-uncle's sense of 
 monastic fitness. Wide flagstones edged these ob- 
 long ponds in which two feet of water, filmed with 
 weed, lay stagnant. Decorative gratings, masking 
 the overflow from one pond to another, were long 
 since choked with slime and mud and rust. 
 Grasses, pushed into life between the flags, 
 dropped nonchalant untidy heads over the edges 
 of the paving. The ponds were in a shallow valley 
 from which the woods held back in humorous 
 contempt. The spring that fed them was, in our 
 day, little more than a stirring of dampness, but 
 it must have survived, for I never remember the 
 ponds being dry. I suppose that under the blind 
 surface of the weeds a senile flow of water was at 
 work, humbly secret, patiently struggling to fulfil 
 the dream of the man who first yoked it to his 
 will. I shudder a little now at the thought of 
 wading in those fetid pools. But as a boy I 
 taunted Monica with the best of them because 
 she shrank from dirtying her white feet in the pulp 
 of the clinging slime. Harold's favorite game was 
 to take the whole chain of ponds in a series of 
 flying leaps so that mud and water splashed the 
 bushes on either hand and our sisters and girl 
 guests fled shrieking out of range. Naturally I
 
 32 Privilege 
 
 was debarred from this amusement, but perhaps 
 the limited range of bullying possibilities made me 
 doubly ingenious. At any rate I well remember 
 sitting on a plank across the lowest and dirtiest 
 pond and holding Anthony head downwards over 
 the water until he promised to give up some boyish 
 Naboth's vineyard that I coveted. I was strong 
 in the arms and thighs and his struggles were 
 fruitless. Whether I achieved my purpose or 
 what that purpose was, I no longer recall. Why 
 does one remember the methods of torture but 
 neither the object nor the end of it? I can under- 
 stand Inquisitors not being themselves always very 
 perfect Catholics. 
 
 Another much-loved legacy of great-uncle Lan- 
 celot's was the miniature feudal fortress on the 
 crag. In one part of the woods the hill is so steep 
 that there is an outcrop of rock and quite a decent 
 little cliff. Ingeniously perched on an outstanding 
 rocky bluff our enthusiastic ancestor had caused 
 to be built a Norman keep with turrets and bar- 
 bican. The whole affair was not forty feet in 
 height, but its folly among the shrubs and moun- 
 tain-ash and tufts of bilberry, the hollies and oaks 
 and woodland commonplace of Whern obscurely 
 fascinated even our oarbarian boyhood. I could
 
 Whern Abbey 33 
 
 hardly approach it without a thrill and I think we 
 all fell uneasily silent as we clambered up the woods 
 towards the rocky corner where it stood, peering 
 through the trees for a first glimpse of its rough 
 stonework, catching our breath at the imagined 
 sight of a face framed in one of the three narrow 
 windows of the tower. Psychologists might detect 
 prophetic imagination in our youthful terrors, for 
 Otranto (as we called it) was to play a grim part 
 in the lives of all of us. I prefer to think that the 
 subconscious influence, if such existed, was the 
 malignancy of Great-Uncle Lance rather than our 
 own sense of coming tragedy. 
 
 Finally — and at once the most terrifying and 
 the most extraordinary of all the embellishments 
 lavished by Lancelot Braden on his woods — there 
 were the Tilting Knights. High on the eastern 
 slope, in a sudden crease of the hill, were two 
 colossal mounted figures carved in stone and repre- 
 senting knights in full armor riding to the shock of 
 tournament . Some twenty yards apart , these mon- 
 ster imbecilities hung on the frozen gallop of their 
 steeds, perpetually plunging at each other, per- 
 petually motionless, while nettles grew to choke 
 their horses' feet, birds defiled their visored heads 
 and built nests in the crook of their lance-arms,
 
 34 Privilege 
 
 and the lush vitality of the indifferent forest 
 swelled from brown to green and shrank to brown 
 again leaving them gray and dead and fatuous. 
 Frankly we were frightened of the Tilting Knights, 
 frightened but hypnotized. One winter evening 
 Harold bet me his stamp collection I would not 
 go and tie a skipping rope round the leg of one of 
 the horses, as proof the next day that I had indeed 
 braved the knights in the dark. I wanted that 
 stamp collection frightfully (there were several 
 admirable Liberians with beasts and fruit on them ; 
 one or two were actually triangular) and I suborned 
 Michael to come secretly with me, promising him 
 my own collection of birds' eggs. I saw myself 
 devoting my life to philately, becoming the world 
 authority on Liberia; what did I want with birds' 
 eggs any more? We crept across the grass and 
 stood for a moment at the margin of the black 
 wood to take a last look at the friendly lights of 
 home. Then we started to stumble upwards 
 through the darkness. I can still smell the cold 
 damp of the dead leaves and lichened boughs; I 
 can still feel the squelch of the wet ground as we 
 blundered across the stretch of bog near the great 
 clump of rhododendrons. At last we reached the 
 little ridge that cut off the knights from Whern
 
 Whern Abbey 35 
 
 and was the outer bank of their private valley. 
 The starlight filtered through the sparser 
 trees. Vaguely looming, one of the statues 
 showed the menace of its bulk. At that moment 
 I distinctly heard a crashing in the undergrowth 
 over in the shadow of the rising hill where stood the 
 second knight. I read instantly the secret of the 
 horrid pair — after dark they came alive. My 
 nerves, already strung up, gave way. I turned 
 and fled, clumsily dragging my bad foot down the 
 dark hill, over the wide grass and safely to the 
 stableyard. Half an hour later I met Michael in 
 the passage. 
 
 "Funky little fool ! " he said peevishly. " If you 
 were going to bunk you might at least have left 
 the rope for me to tie on!"
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PORTMAN SQUARE 
 
 It was three days after my return to London 
 that I ran into my twin cousins near Burlington 
 House. They were jolly kids with nice legs, but 
 their parents were absurd. 
 
 "Hullo!" cried Jane. "Here's Uncle Dickie 
 back!" And they embraced me demonstratively. 
 We proceeded along Piccadihy three abreast, Jane 
 and Vera chattering like sparrows while I basked 
 in the quiet contentment of their youth and 
 merriment. 
 
 "Scraps," I said solemnly, "here is Stewart's. 
 Slightly to your left and down the hill is Rumpel- 
 mayer's. Which?" 
 
 We exchanged family news. They were comi- 
 cally serious about the funeral. 
 
 "Mother is taking up eurhythmies," said Vera. 
 
 "Your mother is a very remarkable woman, my 
 
 36
 
 Portman Square 37 
 
 dear Vera," I replied, "but I wish she would take 
 up things that conceal her figure. Arctic discov- 
 ery, now, or developing photographs — plenty on 
 and a poor light. But there you are . . . 
 People never do. Here am I, for instance, a 
 learned bibliophile, wasting my afternoon on two 
 little ..." 
 
 "Try 'bits of fluff,' uncle." 
 
 I looked shocked. 
 
 "Really, Jane " 
 
 "No, uncle dear, only pretence." 
 
 "Vile midgets," I cried. "Tell me about your 
 brother." 
 
 "He is getting up a quarterly art paper — with 
 two or three others. They think you'll subscribe." 
 
 I groaned. 
 
 "Another quarterly! Called 'Watersheds,' I 
 suppose, or the 'Iguanodon.' Subscribe! That 
 young man will get into Monica's clutches if he's 
 not careful." 
 
 The twins clapped their hands and shouted: 
 "He's in them already," in piercing unison. 
 
 "Perfidious minuscula," I said severely, "why 
 have you hidden this? From brother to sisters. 
 The tentacles of my sister's set will seize your 
 little bodies next and suck your warm and eager
 
 38 Privilege 
 
 blood. Jane will write villanelles about ham and 
 Vera will lecture on Egyptian tombs." 
 
 The twins laughed gleefully. 
 
 "Old croaker, to talk like that of your sister." 
 
 "You are too young to know that Art to-day has 
 lost her head. Ays est celare tar tern, as the scholars 
 say. I am old and gray with the sins of others 
 and I know. Wherefore I forbid you to turn 
 your minds from chocolates and lingerie to culture 
 and cubist furniture. You wouldn't like to be cut 
 out of my will, would you?" 
 
 The foolish darlings looked quite sad, as though 
 I had foretold my early death. Their joyous 
 freshness, its credulity and pertness, filled me with 
 a ludicrous protective yearning. I seemed to see 
 them drawn by invisible threads towards Monica's 
 faked but lurid blaze, see their candor melting like 
 candlewax, their heedless ardor becoming merely 
 one more tongue of painted flame in that furnace 
 of artifice and flippancy. The next moment I was 
 paying the bill and (by request) admiring the 
 twins' new shoes. 
 
 After a solitary dinner at the club I went round 
 to Portman Square. Michael had just arrived
 
 Portman Square 39 
 
 from Whern. He was in evening clothes and 
 received me with a wave of the hand. I watched 
 him striding nervously up and down the long 
 drawing-room, his upright slimness darkening one 
 after another of the tall mirrors between the 
 windows. 
 
 "Monica here?" I asked at last. 
 
 He shook his head and stopped at the far end 
 of the room gazing at me abstractedly, his thin 
 lips pursed. Then with an obvious effort: 
 
 ' ' Dick, ' ' he said, ' ' there'll be trouble at Whern." 
 
 I raised inquiring brows. Michael went on, 
 speaking rather fast. I had not formerly seen him 
 so near emotion. 
 
 "He's mad and obstinate! I tried every means 
 — persuasion, entreaties. He'll have the place by 
 the ears. Seemed to resent my interference. Had 
 the insolence to try the elder brother touch on me — 
 on me\ Harold! I wish the devil " 
 
 "You were it, dear Michael" I put in. "Well 
 — it might have been better. But you are not. 
 Nor I, thank God. But — if I may suggest — it was 
 perhaps hardly tactful to lecture Harold — er — so 
 near the beginning of his reign, was it?" 
 
 Michael sniffed. 
 
 ' ' Family honor is not a matter for tact or com-
 
 4° Privilege 
 
 promise. The name is mine as much as his. I 
 will not have it lowered." 
 
 "But what's happened ? " I asked. ' ' What's all 
 the fuss about ? " 
 
 Thus challenged, Michael was unsatisfactory. 
 Nothing had happened; merely the tone of the 
 thing was wrong; the servants were uneasy — or 
 rather some of them were; the new master lounged 
 in bed till midday, demanded whiskies at one a.m. ; 
 let the dogs sprawl on the chintzes of the drawing- 
 room; drove the small Renault along the grass 
 paths of the rose garden to see if she'd take the 
 corners cleanly. Poor Michael! I could under- 
 stand the disgust in his tidy soul. But at the same 
 time I sympathized with Harold's resentment at 
 reproof ; Michael was so irritating in his corrective 
 mood. 
 
 " I hope you are over-pessimistic," I said at last. 
 "Things will settle down. They must be different 
 from the old days (good luck to them in that) and 
 old servants are easily shocked. I shall believe 
 something is really wrong when Studland invades 
 town to tell us so." 
 
 Michael turned away impatiently. 
 
 "You are never serious," he said shortly. 
 
 At that moment the doorbell pealed noisily.
 
 Portman Square 41 
 
 From below on the steps we could hear laughter 
 and talking. Michael listened a moment. 
 
 "Monica!" he said angrily. "With the usual 
 crowd ! You shall have the privilege of welcoming 
 them." And he hurried from the room. 
 
 I sat and listened to the servant's steps along 
 the hall. The latch clicked and the babble of 
 voices lost its muted fringe and became, in the 
 echoing confinement of the hall, hard-edged and 
 strident. I heard Monica shout to the man: 
 
 "Anyone in?" 
 
 Then, in reply to inaudible information: 
 
 "Bring something to drink and the cigars to 
 the drawing-room." 
 
 I made no move. The door swung open and 
 Monica appeared, followed by another girl and 
 three young men. She wore a tight dress of silver 
 mail that flashed and wriggled as she moved; a 
 black turban with a steel-blue plume half covered 
 her red-gold hair. Her companions were varied. 
 The girl I knew to be Sally Presteign, a sallow, 
 secretive creature with a sudden, hiccoughy laugh 
 that startled as would a yodel from an undertaker. 
 Of the men, two were in evening clothes and doubt- 
 less in the daytime wore cloth-topped boots and 
 braided short black coats; their dress waist-
 
 42 Privilege 
 
 coats were gray and they had velvet lapels to 
 their dinner jackets. The third man protruded a 
 swarthy face and a head of long black hair from a 
 dark blue flannel shirt ; on his feet were sand-shoes. 
 
 Monica was not one for introductions. 
 
 "You might have the manners to stand up when 
 ladies come into the room," she remarked. 
 
 "I might," I agreed. 
 
 "Take pews, you," she told her friends. "Where 
 are the cigarettes?" Finding them on the piano 
 she threw the box to Sally Presteign. It knocked 
 the chair arm and scattered its contents on the 
 floor. 
 
 "Damn," said Monica. "Leave them" — as the 
 fattest gray waistcoat creaked towards the floor — 
 "they'll clear them up. Dick — give Sally a fag." 
 
 I obeyed, skimming my case along the carpet to 
 the visitor's none too dainty feet. 
 
 "Mr. Moffat," went on Monica, with that tight 
 graciousness she always used when speaking to her 
 artistic proteges, "is going to run a paper for me. 
 We want fifty pounds from you, brother Richard. 
 And another from Michael. Where is he?" 
 
 I pointed to the ceiling. 
 
 "As a shareholder I should like details of this 
 scheme. What kind of a paper? And is it the
 
 Portman Square 43 
 
 same as Walter's? Because, if so, I've already 
 told the twins I shall boycott it ruthlessly." 
 
 "It's my show, not Walter's," replied Monica, 
 tartly, "and anyway you and your old boycott 
 . . . ! As for details, the editor will supply." 
 
 Moffat blinked at me behind his pince-nez and 
 began in a voice low with intensity : 
 
 "Miss Braden feels that there should be some 
 platform from which the — er — rebels in art can 
 state their case. The established journals are 
 hidebound with academic prejudice, tied hand and 
 foot to advertisers, ignorant of the new in litera- 
 ture and art, dazzled by popular success. Miss 
 Braden most generously proposes to find the money 
 for a quarterly review which shall provide this 
 needed rostrum and wants me to — er — sort of 
 edit it ... " 
 
 He ended tamely and cast a look at Monica for 
 encouragement. But she only lay back in her 
 chair, with half-shut eyes and blew smoke rings 
 at the ceiling. I felt sorry for the shaggy man and 
 coughed helpfully. He resumed, less intently and 
 more nervously than before. 
 
 "We hope before very long to pay our way and — 
 er — with good fortune and merit — even to make 
 some profit. But it is not likely that there will
 
 44 Privilege 
 
 be anything in the nature of a — er — dividend — 
 er — for some years. We are anxious to avoid the 
 snare of advertisement and cadging. We wish to 
 keep our hands free, our policy unpledged. We 
 wish " 
 
 Monica interrupted with sudden brutality. 
 
 "Got it now, Dick? Send me a check, there's 
 a good boy. You shall have a copy of each number 
 for nothing. I'm going to publish all my poems 
 and Sally has written a looking-glass version of 
 the Roi Pausole. Damn funny." 
 
 Miss Presteign screeched and was silent. As 
 she never moved, one had the impression that the 
 noise came out of the top of her head and was 
 released by sudden pressure of her tongue on a 
 button in the roof of her mouth. 
 
 "Are there to be any contributors besides you 
 and Miss Presteign?" I asked. "There must be 
 a few more rebels left." 
 
 Monica smiled lazily. Moffat ventured: 
 
 "I thought, Miss Braden, it would be wise to 
 secure some permanent contributors and I have 
 a list " 
 
 An explosion of laughter from the men in gray 
 waistcoats, who had been whispering together for 
 several minutes, brought Moffat up in midspeech.
 
 Portman Square 45 
 
 He looked ingratiatingly towards the interruption, 
 afraid the mockery was for him. 
 
 "What's the joke, Waggles?" asked Monica. 
 
 With a glance at me the man addressed (he was 
 the more repulsive of the two, lean, with a dark, 
 Jewish face shaved blue to his cheek bones) crossed 
 the room and whispered in my sister's ear. The 
 communication was clearly entertaining, for Moni- 
 ca's features kindled one by one to merriment. 
 At the end she laughed with artificial embarrass- 
 ment and waved him away. 
 
 "Really, Waggles. You are the limit. Tell 
 Sally. But I think it's a bit steep that one, don't 
 you, Fellowes?" 
 
 The fat gray waistcoat heaved with sympathetic 
 humor. Rubbing his pale thick hands down his 
 black thick thighs, Fellowes nodded conspiratori- 
 ally and observed hoarsely : 
 
 "He's a one for 'em is Waggles." 
 
 Moffat was forgotten. He sat crouched and 
 deserted in his chair, a forlorn reminder that once 
 long, long ago the ghost of an idea had flitted 
 across this bestial scene. The sight of him broke 
 the last shell of my aloofness. I got up and limped 
 towards the door. 
 
 "Are you coming?" I said as I passed.
 
 46 Privilege 
 
 He shuffled eagerly to his feet and ran after me 
 from the room. 
 
 A short way down the street he turned on me 
 suddenly. 
 
 "Damn you!" he said with a hoarse violence 
 that was as ludicrous as it was startling. "Damn 
 all of you — with your wealth and your assurance 
 and your cursed levity! You dare to talk of 
 helping art and artists, when you want only an- 
 other fillip to your boredom. Lecriers, you are, 
 lechers in mind and body. I wish — I wish " 
 
 He sputtered into silence. I glanced at his work- 
 ing face, heard his stick beating a ragged tune on 
 the pavement. The interval of quiet seemed in- 
 terminable; then gradually the noise of traffic 
 crept round the corner of consciousness once more ; 
 a hurrying servant-girl tapped by on the opposite 
 side of the street. Once more I looked at him. 
 He was mumbling inaudibly and staring at his 
 ludicrous shoes. The situation was embarrassing. 
 I wanted to hear more of this volcanic under- 
 Moffat but felt myself not well placed for saying so. 
 I found a card in my pocket. 
 
 "That's my address," I said. "Come and see 
 me on Wednesday evening. You're right in one 
 way but you're wrong in a hell of a lot of others."
 
 Portman Square 47 
 
 And I left him screwing his features with short 
 sight and puzzlement over the visiting-card. 
 
 A short detour brought me round again to Port- 
 man Square. Before going to my rooms I felt I 
 must have this out with Monica. I let myself in 
 and stood in the hall listening. The pile of coats, 
 hats, and sticks showed the visitors had not de- 
 parted. A crash of glass and loud laughter from 
 the drawing-room decided me. As I reached the 
 first-floor landing, I saw Michael half-way down 
 the next flight of stairs. He beckoned me to 
 him. 
 
 "I'm going to clear the lot out," he said. "You 
 must support me." 
 
 I nodded. As we opened the drawing-room door 
 one of the men toppled backwards off the sofa 
 and a spirt of liquid patterned the gray carpet. 
 Shrill applause from Monica and Miss Presteign 
 showed that the catastrophe was someone's vic- 
 tory. I gathered from the foolish position, and 
 still more foolish expression of the other man, that 
 the game was a form of cock-fighting. 
 
 Michael watched the vanquished rooster 
 scramble to his feet and, his empty glass in one 
 hand, adjust his crumpled shirt-front and waist- 
 coat. He giggled as he took in the newcomers.
 
 48 Privilege 
 
 Michael continued to watch him in contemptuous 
 silence. Monica shouted for a fresh contest. 
 
 "Come on! Have one more. You're two all 
 now. A fiver on the winner!" 
 
 But the combatants hung back; they disliked 
 Michael's eye; their efforts to appear at ease be- 
 came more and more infantile. Realizing the 
 cause of their hesitation Monica got up and 
 lounged to the mantelpiece. 
 
 "What's the matter, Michael? Are we keeping 
 you awake?" 
 
 He took no notice but, by continuing his arro- 
 gant survey of first one and then the other stranger, 
 intensified their discomfort. Monica knew she 
 was beaten. The spirit was gone from her con- 
 federates; even Miss Presteign showed signs of 
 restiveness. But she meant to carry the loss 
 proudly. As though Michael and I were not in 
 the room, she joined the small group near the 
 sofa end and stretched her gleaming limbs. 
 
 "I'm sleepy," she announced. "Better toddle 
 off now, children. See you to-morrow, Sally? — 
 Oh yes, lunch at Grimwoods; I remember." 
 
 Glad to cover their retreat with her nonchalance, 
 the visitors left the room and were on the landing 
 before they remembered there should be a servant
 
 Portman Square 49 
 
 to show them out and some mechanical prepara- 
 tion for their homeward journey. Monica saw she 
 had been too hasty and returned to the drawing- 
 room to ring the bell. There was no sign of em- 
 barrassment in her walk as she crossed the room 
 to do so, but the awkwardness of the huddled 
 visitors on the landing was a treat. In reply to 
 the bell the man came upstairs, with discreet sur- 
 prise edged his way round the obstructing figures, 
 and stood respectfully at the door awaiting in- 
 structions. Before Monica could speak, Michael 
 cut in: 
 
 "Show those people out, Hughes." 
 
 And, as the man disappeared, he closed the door. 
 
 I admired Michael's skill. He had got rid of 
 the intruders and imprisoned Monica without 
 addressing a word to any one of them. When 
 the front door had thudded the finis to their 
 visit, he turned with a sneer to our sister. 
 
 "Very pretty, Monica. Do you think this is a 
 night club? Be kind enough in future to enjoy 
 your scavengings in their native dustbins." 
 
 Monica was almost too angry to speak. 
 
 "I've as much right — ," she began. 
 
 1 ' Your rights fatigue me. This Is Harold's house 
 and not yours and in his absence I give orders. 
 
 4
 
 50 Privilege 
 
 Please understand once for all that I will not 
 have those people here, nor any others like 
 them." 
 
 She lost her temper and stormed at him, growing 
 less dignified every minute. At the most passion- 
 ate moment of her abuse Michael coolly turned 
 his back and left the room. She stared at the 
 closing door and stammered the few words of fury 
 necessary to complete the rhythm of her sentence. 
 Then, remembering that she was also a stylist in 
 manners, she throttled down her bitterness. I 
 always remember the mastery of that instantane- 
 ous transformation. 
 
 "What did you think of little Moffat?" she 
 asked amiably. It was as though in mid-thunder- 
 storm, lightning had turned to flickering sun- 
 shine. It was not in my heart to open a fresh 
 dispute. 
 
 "I hope to see more of him," I replied. "He 
 seems the kind of person who might prove unex- 
 pected. Have you seen my pipe lying about? I 
 think I must have left it." 
 
 We searched without diligence — I because I 
 knew the pipe was in my pocket, Monica because 
 she sought merely some cover for the completion 
 of her self-control.
 
 Portman Square 51 
 
 I yawned. 
 
 "No good," I said. "Must have left it some- 
 where else. Good-night." 
 
 "Good-night, Dick," she answered easily.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE BAD NEW TIMES 
 
 In those days I spent my time as unofficial 
 helper in the department of Printed Books at the 
 Museum. When I was at college I conceived an 
 enthusiasm for bibliography and was able in the 
 years that followed my going down, by the good 
 fortune of my circumstances, to give that enthusi- 
 asm an adequate backing of knowledge. Forrester 
 found me useful as an extra hand and I had no 
 taste for hectic idleness. Hence my establishment, 
 a year before my father's death, in two rooms in 
 Fitzroy Square, great soaring rooms with windows 
 like poised swans and delicate moldings in plaster 
 low relief. Michael preferred Portman Square 
 where he had his own suite and could study the 
 political chessboard in dignified seclusion, but the 
 blend of ceremony and disorder which pervaded 
 the family house bothered me and I made proxim- 
 
 52
 
 The Bad New Times 53 
 
 ity to the Museum an excuse for clinging to my 
 separate home. 
 
 I was wearily staring at the fire one evening 
 shortly before Christmas and wondering whether 
 there was to be a family gathering at Whern and, 
 if not, to whom I should propose myself as guest, 
 when the telephone shrilled an unexpected promise 
 of solution. Michael, at the other end of the line, 
 sounded tense and irritated ; his voice snapped, as 
 though one after another the strings of his self- 
 control were breaking. He was coming round at 
 once, now that he knew I was at home. As I 
 waited I felt the soothing magic of the room begin 
 to work. It always seemed to come to my help 
 at moments of anxiety. Five minutes before I had 
 been tired and restless for no reason; now some- 
 thing had happened and I felt cool and level- 
 minded. Above the warm mosaic of my books 
 the dull gold walls rose into shadow; the firelight 
 leapt from point to point, kindling to intricate 
 life or transforming into a winking series of ghost- 
 gray gleams my carved and polished or austere 
 and bleached oak furniture. Outside, the square 
 lay dead under a black frost. There was no 
 traffic and only an occasional pedestrian, but I 
 could hear, fluttering about the darkness, the un-
 
 54 Privilege 
 
 easy whisperings of winter-London, a barely audi- 
 ble rustle of brittle fragments of sound as would 
 be made by innumerable tiny splinters of glass 
 swirled to and fro in the grip of a noiseless wind. 
 Listening to the breath of London had been, ever 
 since I settled there, a fondness of mine and I 
 was by now able to distinguish faint differences 
 between the air-voices of summer and winter, of 
 damp and drought, of clear and foggy nights. On 
 this particular evening I gave special attention to 
 the city's breathing, because this blight of frost 
 was still somewhat unfamiliar to me and I felt 
 all the eagerness of the student discovering a new 
 field for investigation. So engrossed was I that 
 it annoyed me to hear a car purr round the corner 
 and stop below my windows. Quick steps crossed 
 the pavement and the bell rang sharply. Groping 
 my way downwards to the door I wondered why 
 Michael was not alone. On the doorstep I recog- 
 nized Studland, a little behind my brother, bowed 
 and shivering; but even in these unusual circum- 
 stances vaguely a gecture of dignified respect. We 
 went upstairs in silence. Studland awaited per- 
 mission to remove his coat and seat himself. I 
 got my visitors drinks and tobacco. Michael took 
 up his favorite position on the hearthrug, hands in
 
 The Bad New Times 55 
 
 pockets, a smoking-coat buttoned tightly over his 
 evening shirt. He was excited and spoke with 
 sneering abruptness. 
 
 "You may remember, Dick, saying that you 
 would believe things were wrong at Whern when 
 Studland came to town to tell us so. Here he is. 
 He's been sacked." 
 
 I turned an inquiring eye on the butler, who 
 rubbed one hand along his thigh in an embarrassed 
 way, while with the other he played with his 
 traditional cravat. 
 
 "What have you been up to, Studland?" 
 
 Michael shook himself impatiently. 
 
 "Don't be funny, Dick. It's serious. Harold 
 has sacked three quarters of the staff — wages in 
 lieu of notice — and is taking on a new lot. Stud- 
 land came straight to Portman Square to see me. 
 I have brought him here so that you will believe 
 he has really come. I shall go to Whern next 
 Monday and you will come too. It is impossible 
 for me to get away before." 
 
 I was too accustomed to Michael's methods to 
 resent this autocratic phrasing, but I felt uncertain 
 of the object of the proposed visit and of our 
 status in the matter. 
 
 "What do you mean to do, Michael?"
 
 56 Privilege 
 
 ' ' Do ! Why find out what the reason for this is." 
 "I don't quite see where I come in?" 
 Michael replied by bidding Studland repeat his 
 narrative of events at Whern. 
 
 "Well, sir, it was a fortnight ago that the house- 
 keeper told me something was afoot. One of the 
 girls gave her sauce and, in reply to reprimand, 
 hinted that Mrs. Summers would not for long be 
 in a position to find fault. Then a day or two later 
 I had trouble of the kind with Dale. Then, 
 
 again 
 
 The recital continued and reached its climax 
 with the sudden dismissal of Studland, Mrs. 
 Summers, and those of the house, stable, and gar- 
 den staff who had been longest at Whern. When 
 he finished the old man dropped his head on his 
 hands and sat motionless. His world had turned 
 upside down. Forty of his sixty years of life had 
 been spent at Whern. He did not understand, 
 and had come to London to see Michael as a 
 child will come to someone it knows and trusts for 
 explanation of the strange customs of an alien 
 household. 
 
 Michael respected the poor man's bewilderment 
 for a few moments. Then he said, gently enough : 
 
 ' ' Thank you, Studland. That will do at present.
 
 The Bad New Times 57 
 
 Go back in the car. I will walk. They will have 
 a room ready for you at Portman Square." 
 
 I was solemn enough now, but felt no easier as 
 to our descent on Whern. When the butler had 
 gone: 
 
 "It's astounding," I said. "Studland! To be 
 given the boot like that ! What the hell is Harold 
 after? But, Michael, it's damned awkward to 
 interfere. He's master." 
 
 Michael tossed his head. 
 
 "If you funk it, you needn't come. But I'm 
 going. Awkward or not, it's got to be done. If 
 he imagines he can play old Harry with Whern 
 just because he's the eldest ..." 
 
 I had an idea. 
 
 "Don't you think it might be wise to go down 
 as though in the ordinary course? Why not for 
 Christmas ? Then we could look round and gauge 
 the situation. I must confess that to dash down 
 with a 'What's all this?' manner strikes me as 
 devilish risky. It might put Harold's back up and 
 lead to a thumping big row, whereas a little di- 
 plomacy, now, and ... At least we shall be 
 no differently placed for a row if one is necessary." 
 
 Michael was always fair-minded and he listened 
 attentively. His sense of injury was bitter and
 
 5 8 Privilege 
 
 urged immediate action, but after a little argument 
 he admitted that my plan was reasonable. We 
 concocted a telegram announcing ourselves for the 
 following Monday and to stop over the New Year. 
 We agreed that it was fortunate that Monica and 
 Anthony were otherwise engaged. 
 
 II 
 
 Snow fell on the Sunday and it was to a white 
 Wiltshire that we traveled through the leaden 
 light of Monday afternoon. I half wondered if we 
 should be met and found myself for the first time 
 looking anxiously for the car as the train jolted 
 into Laylham. It was almost a relief to see one 
 waiting in the road. I recognized the man who 
 took our bags and although the chauffeur was 
 strange he seemed an ordinary-looking fellow 
 enough. The station-master greeted us effusively 
 and I thought the salutations of the two or three 
 country people who got out of the local train a 
 shade more emphatic than I had remembered to 
 be usual. Michael made no sign and I decided I 
 was imagining differences where none existed. 
 
 We were cold and sat in silence during the three- 
 mile drive. The fields and hedges were white, and
 
 The Bad New Times • 59 
 
 in the falling dusk it was impossible to take in 
 any details of the woods or park, as we passed 
 through towards the house. The first serious re- 
 minder of the changed order was the appearance 
 of the new butler, a rosy-faced, shifty-looking 
 person with a fat, servile voice. 
 
 "His lordship is in the smoking-room. I was to 
 inform you gentlemen that tea is awaiting you." 
 
 Harold greeted us with cordiality, drawing us 
 to the fire, rattling the keys and money in his 
 pockets, beaming geniality. 
 
 "Good of you fellows to come down. Keep up 
 old customs, eh ? If only this damned snow would 
 go, we might get some decent shootin'. Huntin's 
 been impossible for a fortnight . Ground like iron . ' ' 
 
 He rattled on, while we had our tea and stretched 
 cold limbs to the roaring fire. Was it a mare's 
 nest we had come out to find ? 
 
 "Where's Mary?" 
 
 "She'll be down to dinner. Bit tired, I think. 
 We have a few folks here and it makes late hours." 
 
 "Who are the guests?" asked Michael omi- 
 nously. 
 
 Harold paused a moment. 
 'Don't know if you know 'em," he said. "Oh, 
 yes — you know Petersham and Molly Harter and
 
 60 Privilege 
 
 Chris Speelman. They're here — and one or two 
 others." 
 
 Michael did not reply and I felt things were 
 veering round once more to the significant. 
 
 The next incident strengthened this feeling. 
 On my way to my room, I passed a housemaid 
 who, instead of becoming merely part of the land- 
 ing wall and fading impersonally away, gave me 
 a distinct and provocative glance of a kind with 
 which I have definite associations. 
 
 Finally — and I felt it almost a confirmation of 
 my forebodings — came the following occurrence: 
 My bedroom was unsatisfactory. There was a 
 cigarette end on the window sill, no hot water, a 
 black smoky fire, and a small tray with a used 
 glass on it pushed into the corner behind the 
 hanging cupboard. I rang the bell. It was an- 
 swered by a maid in regulation cap and apron. She 
 looked at me with a faint challenge in her eyes. 
 
 "Where is the valet?" 
 
 "Me, sir," she answered pertly. 
 
 "What do you mean? Where is the man who 
 is to look after my things?" 
 
 "I am to look after you, sir," she said, and her 
 tone gave a new significance to the commonplace 
 phrase.
 
 The Bad New Times 61 
 
 "In that case," I said coldly, "would you be 
 good enough to make this room decently tidy, to 
 remove that tray, to bring me hot water, and to 
 unpack those bags. I gave the keys to the butler. " 
 
 The girl's manner lost its subtle familiarity and 
 became sulky. She picked up the tray and dis- 
 appeared. I wondered whether Michael was hav- 
 ing a similar experience. 
 
 To give the girl time to finish her duty, I decided 
 to look up my sister and to sound her for fresh 
 evidence of what was afoot. Mary was in her 
 sitting-room, an exasperating place tucked under 
 the battlements of the central tower, with small 
 traceried windows and an attic ceiling. But I 
 had not been with her for five minutes before I 
 was once more blaming myself for exaggerated 
 fears. She talked quietly and cheerfully of normal 
 things and seemed not the least surprised that 
 Michael and I had come to Whern. In a way it 
 was mortifying. The dramatic planning of our 
 journey, the rosy scoundrel of a butler, the incident 
 of the housemaids, had encouraged me to think 
 our appearance opportune. I was even prepared 
 to be greeted, if not as a deliverer, at least as a 
 welcome reenforcement to the angels. Instead I 
 was taken for granted and Mary was talking about
 
 62 Privilege 
 
 dogs and tapestry and the need for varnishing 
 two of the portraits in the great hall, as though 
 the occasion were actually only one of a series of 
 ordinary Christmas gatherings. I tried to draw 
 her about Studland. 
 
 "He was getting old and ill," she said, "and 
 Harold decided to pension him off. Summers 
 went in a huff over some silly point of status. 
 I still have Grantham and you will find lots you 
 know as you go round to-morrow." 
 
 My exultation drooped and drooped. I felt 
 angry with Michael for the mountain he had con- 
 jured from the veriest molehill. Then I congratu- 
 lated myself that the "diplomatic" method had 
 at least saved us from open blundering, Mary 
 talked on. She was coming to town about the 
 middle of January; Alice Snaith was engaged to 
 young Clifford ; could Michael persuade Harold to 
 make overtures to that odd creature, Shrivenham? 
 Mary was dying to see Dauntney. . . . "We 
 meet none of the real neighbors," she complained. 
 "All Harold's friends are people from town." 
 
 "Time to dress," she said at last, and I went 
 downstairs to find my room. 
 
 Everything was in order. My evening clothes 
 were lying out ; the fire glowed generously. I was
 
 The Bad New Times 63 
 
 half dressed when a knock on the door announced 
 a man servant. 
 
 "Excuse me, sir, but I could find no dress ties 
 among your things. In case you had forgotten 
 them, I asked hi's lordship's permission to bring 
 these few for your use." 
 
 I thanked him and he withdrew. Had I dreamed 
 the encounter with the girl ? From feeling ashamed 
 of my suspicions, I became uneasy as to my men- 
 tal-balance. Certainly the fellow was strange to 
 me, but as certainly he had unpacked my bags and 
 was now in attendance on my wants. I slipped 
 along to Michael's old room and found him nearly 
 dressed and humming one of those tight, well- 
 corseted ditties of which he alone seemed to have 
 the secret. He answered my leading questions 
 with humorous astonishment. What did I mean 
 by "noticed anything" ? Of course his things had 
 been unpacked. By a valet, he supposed. No, 
 he had not noticed the butler's face particularly. 
 Why should he? It appeared that even Michael 
 was conspiring to make me seem a fool. Subtly 
 he was now on the side of Whern and meeting 
 with bland condescension the impertinent queries 
 of an outsider. Much rufned, I went down to 
 dinner.
 
 64 Privilege 
 
 The guests were not my sort, but they behaved 
 with perfect suitability. Harold's boisterousness 
 and lounging manner were in no way more exag- 
 gerated than usual. The evening passed in bridge 
 and billiards, while two or three practised songs 
 for theatricals due for Christmas Eve. When I 
 awoke next morning I was fiercely determined that 
 all was well at Whern, that Michael had let me 
 down, and that in future I was impervious to 
 alarms. 
 
 in 
 
 This deliberate obtuseness lasted a week. The 
 weather remained snowy and cold. I saw little 
 of the rest of the party, as I spent my time mainly 
 in the long library examining a set of locked 
 shelves in the gallery never accessible in my 
 father's day and now yielding to my eager eyes 
 contents of considerable interest. 
 
 Then came New Year's Eve. It had snowed 
 hard all day and Harold, when he came down to 
 dinner, was clearly far gone in whisky. At dinner 
 Petersham swayed about in his seat and spilt 
 claret on the table-cloth. During the savoury he 
 challenged his neighbor to a balancing match on 
 the back legs of their chairs. Inevitably both
 
 The Bad New Times 65 
 
 tipped over and the company applauded the swirl 
 of underclothes and the long silk leg that, in the 
 lady's fall, traced an admirable curve backwards 
 from the table edge. One of the guests boasted 
 he could drop tumblers from a great height without 
 breaking them. Harold suggested betting and 
 heavy stakes were made. The party adjourned to 
 the clerestory of the octagon hall and footmen 
 carried upstairs dozens of tumblers. There fol- 
 lowed an hour of uproar, shrieks of excitement, 
 crashes of splintered glass, oaths, and shouts of 
 encouragement. Michael went up to Harold and 
 said something in an undertone. There was an 
 insolent reply, and, tightening his lips, the younger 
 shrugged his shoulders and went to his room. 
 Mary had long ago disappeared. I sat on the 
 settle by the drawing-room door and watched. 
 When the game of tumblers palled there was an 
 interval for drinks. 
 
 "A pyjama dance," suggested someone, and the 
 revelers fled to their bedrooms to undress. 
 
 From my own room I heard the music and 
 laughter till nearly one o'clock. Then silence 
 sagged down on Whern and once more the soft 
 mutter of the snowy wind crept about the mold- 
 ings of the great facade. I could not sleep. This
 
 66 Privilege 
 
 wasteful rowdiness made me nervous and miser- 
 able. I had left my tobacco in the smoking-room 
 and went to fetch it. From the last stair I flashed 
 my torch along the marble hall. It was frosted 
 and glittering with broken glass; most unsuitable 
 walking for bedroom slippers. Mounting to the 
 first floor I went towards the servants' quarters, 
 meaning to take the service staircase and so ap- 
 proach the library from the other side. Suddenly 
 a door opened ahead of me and a beam of light 
 shot across the corridor. I shrank into a recess. 
 A woman in a heavy cloak hurried out and the 
 door closed behind her. But not before I had seen, 
 stretched indolently across the bed, Harold, red- 
 faced and seemingly sunk in sleep. 
 
 The next morning I told Michael that I was 
 going back to town and that Mary was coming 
 with me. Monica had gone abroad directly after 
 Christmas; Anthony was in Leicestershire with 
 friends. Michael asked no questions. 
 
 "All right," he said, "I'll follow in a day or two. 
 I want to have a look at the property beyond 
 Nicholas."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE FAMILY AT WAR 
 
 In the train I prepared to evade questions, 
 Mary had come away meekly enough, but I an- 
 ticipated some demand for explanation. None 
 came, and I began to feel neglected. The man of 
 action should be saluted; the god, after he had 
 alighted from his car, should receive some word of 
 homage. My arrival at Whern had fallen flat, 
 but I had mastered the event with energy and 
 speed and now deserved from the rescued one, if 
 not respect, at least complaint. 
 
 "Sorry to rush you off, Polly," I began in- 
 geniously. 
 
 Mary smiled at me pleasantly. It seemed my 
 precipitance was forgiven. Her lack of perception 
 was irritating. She must be made to realize 
 why Whern was at present no place for her. I 
 coughed. 
 
 67
 
 68 Privilege 
 
 "You see — things were going on. . . . I 
 didn't like to feel you were alone. ..." 
 
 "My good Dick, I know all about it. You talk 
 as if you'd discovered something!" 
 
 I stared at her. 
 
 "You knew! Then why to goodness didn't you 
 let me and Michael know?" 
 
 She tossed her head. 
 
 "And despise myself and be despised by both 
 of you for doing it, I suppose?" 
 
 "I'm sorry," I said. "Apologies." 
 
 We sat in silence and the train swayed towards 
 Paddington. I was ashamed of my lapse. Not so 
 much did I regret the imputation on Mary of tale- 
 bearing, but it worried me that I had not instinct- 
 ively assumed the code of caste and that it had 
 been possible for me to imagine a sister of ours, 
 from fear or unhappiness, betraying the wrong- 
 doing of one brother to another. Nevertheless I 
 was unconvinced by this projection of schoolboy 
 honor into life, by the persistence — against com- 
 mon sense — of this conventional, stilted courage. 
 No doubt the fault was mine — indicated some 
 strain of commonness in me that preferred prac- 
 tical good sense to traditions of quality. But that 
 begged the question, because tradition was good
 
 The Family at War 69 
 
 sense and admitted no exceptions. Evidently I 
 was tinged with a baser morality than that of my 
 ancestors or of my contemporaries. The thought 
 was mortifying, but at the same time mildly flatter- 
 ing. I daresay the Ugly Duckling secretly thought 
 himself rather a fellow. 
 
 As the journey proceeded I reviewed with in- 
 terest the varying circles to which my brothers 
 and Monica belonged. I suppose I was in those 
 days what they call a "superior" young man, 
 because I habitually found amusement and in- 
 struction in analysis of the different categories of 
 that minority of aristocrats — relatively so few in 
 number but so great in influence — that was our 
 world. But my recent excursion into caste-honor 
 had extra-sharpened my critical wits. 
 
 Harold's taste was — not surprisingly and maybe 
 by compulsion — tending to the flash metropolitan. 
 The local landowners fought shy of him, and he 
 was driven to look for company among the mem- 
 bers of that student plutocracy that, at certain 
 seasons, descends riotously from London to splash 
 blatancies about the resentful but helpless shires. 
 From these invaders the real residents, whose occu- 
 pations were horse and dog breeding and a little 
 farming, shrank in distaste and fear. The loose
 
 70 Privilege 
 
 complacency of Mrs. Harter and her friends they 
 might in some moods have enjoyed for its physical 
 abandon. But its perverted mentality jarred their 
 vague instincts of propriety. A few were sots and 
 a few mere brutes, but in the main they were or- 
 dinary, healthy animals who kept for London the 
 indulgences of which they were at heart ashamed. 
 
 Very different were Michael's friends, both from 
 the people Harold knew and from those he might 
 have known. They included at once the cream 
 and the intelligence of the aristocracy. By the 
 "best families" (and in Michael's parlance that 
 meant literally five or six, and not the ten thousand 
 of press chatter) my brother was regarded as one 
 of the few hopes for the future, for he loved politics 
 and understood them, but he loved breeding more. 
 It was rare to find a young man of ancient English 
 lineage who was neither dissolute nor touched with 
 democracy. Michael was rigid for privilege, but 
 he was ready to do his part honorably and with 
 industry. One might say that he believed at once 
 in the divine right and the earthly duties of the 
 aristocrat. 
 
 While the former of these two beliefs earned him 
 the affection of the most exclusive, the latter, to 
 which was allied efficiency and zeal, won him the
 
 The Family at War 71 
 
 respect and interest of the political intelligentsia 
 of conservatism. He had been on the verge of 
 Parliament for a year before my father died, and 
 only the mass of his outside political engagements 
 had held him back. He was not an intoxicating 
 speaker, but his manner was clear and forceful 
 and his sincerity obvious. It is easy to understand 
 that such talents were in great demand among a 
 kindly and bewildered class of titled landowners, 
 who resented and feared the attacks ever more 
 fiercely made upon them, but had neither capacity 
 nor knowledge to defend themselves. 
 
 In Monica's circle were to be found at once the 
 prodigals of the great houses, the cleverest of the 
 younger members of the new aristocracy, and the 
 dabblers in art of the upper middle class. The 
 intermixture of charlatan was frequent; Jews 
 abounded. But then you cannot play Maecenas 
 at eight and twenty without cherishing a few 
 charlatans, nor at any age without encountering 
 innumerable Jews. I disliked Monica's friends 
 however exquisite their taste, for the sound of 
 their voices and the smell of their pomade. Never- 
 theless they were all good company, and, whatever 
 their motives, helped new ideas to spread, because 
 they had money to buy pictures and books, time
 
 72 Privilege 
 
 to spend at concerts and private theatrical pro- 
 ductions, and superlatives to squander on any 
 artistic freak. 
 
 My own friends were few then as they are now, 
 because I have always preferred animals to human 
 beings. Besides I was family peacemaker, con- 
 tinually on the fringe of quarrels, continually a 
 confidant from one side or another. The position 
 was no sinecure, but it allowed me to gauge my 
 relations to my brothers and sisters. Harold de- 
 spised me for a weakling, but he feared my tongue. 
 Michael was gently scornful of my taste for com- 
 promise, my very half-hearted socialism, but he 
 knew me for an ally of order and decency and 
 recognized my value as a go-between. Monica 
 liked me because she knew that I liked her and 
 because I laughed at her jokes. We both had a 
 real love for beauty and, I think, throve on mutual 
 criticism. But there were times when I hated her 
 for vulgar cruelty and she me for officious acidity. 
 Anthony had not at this period won access to the 
 family lists; he was treated as a junior and it was 
 something of a chance that such mistaken treat- 
 ment did not lead to actual disaster. As for Mary, 
 she and I were fast friends, for all that she would 
 scold me sometimes as supercilious and reaction-
 
 The Family at War 73 
 
 ary, while I, amusedly mindful that I was myself 
 regarded by Michael as playing with anarchy, 
 would lecture her severely on the dangerous trend 
 of her extremism. Later we drifted apart; the 
 reader shall judge whose was the fault. 
 
 At this point I recalled with a start how oddly 
 positions had been reversed in our conversation 
 of a little while ago. Then it was she who had 
 flown the colors of the old regime. I looked at her 
 sitting opposite. As she read, she pursed her fine, 
 thin lips something as Michael did, the lower lip 
 drawn inwards against the teeth. Her face was 
 small, with straight, fair eyebrows and a creamy 
 skin. She had none of Monica's vivid coloring 
 and her normal manner was diffident and shy. 
 But there was temper in her rather long, sharp 
 nose and in the tense quietness of her attitude. 
 She was featured like Michael and Anthony — 
 finely, too finely. Harold was heavy-faced and 
 would be an unpleasant dotard. Monica and I 
 had open foreheads and wide, easy eyes, but the 
 treacherous sensuality of the Bradens was stamped 
 on our lips. She had the luck of recklessness and 
 I was a cripple, so we might have survived our 
 heritage, the one flinging over the chasm, the 
 other limping sardonically to its brim. But there
 
 74 Privilege 
 
 were other pitfalls, pitfalls we could not have 
 foreseen. 
 
 II 
 
 It was not that I had regarded Harold as a 
 thing of no will or that I had consciously taken his 
 blustering habit for an impatient cloak for indo- 
 lence, but I was frankly surprised at his written 
 demand that Mary should return home. It came 
 three weeks after her sudden flight to town and 
 was all the more unexpected in that Michael, who 
 left Whern some days later than we did, described 
 Harold as unmoved by the sudden departure of 
 his sister. 
 
 "She is wanted here," he wrote, "and I shall 
 appreciate your seeing that she leaves London on 
 Friday morning. The car will meet her at Layl- 
 ham." 
 
 Michael, with that infuriating obtuseness that 
 so often characterized his handling of other folks' 
 affairs, read this aloud at breakfast at Portman 
 Square. Mary told me afterwards she nearly 
 shook him for the owlish interrogation of his 
 glance across the litter of toast and fruit and 
 opened envelopes. There was a servant in the 
 room at the moment and, when he had disappeared,
 
 The Family at War 75 
 
 Mary asked angrily why Michael must read per- 
 sonal letters aloud for anyone to hear. Then she 
 snatched Harold's note and brought it round to 
 the Museum for me to see. I rang Michael up. 
 
 "This letter of Harold's," I said. "What are 
 you going to do?" 
 
 "Do? Nothing. What's the excitement?" 
 
 "She can't go back there." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Good God, Michael, you don't suggest, after 
 going off like that " 
 
 "Like what?" 
 
 I began to realize he knew nothing of the reason 
 for Mary's departure, that he had noticed nothing 
 at Whern but a tendency to rowdiness and de- 
 struction of property, that he might regard Mary's 
 return as some small security for better behavior 
 and therefore desirable. I had not discussed the 
 matter with him because we had hardly met. 
 What a damned, high-thinking, simple-minded 
 dunderhead ! 
 
 "Are you in to lunch?" I asked. 
 
 "lam." 
 
 "All right. I'll come home." And I rang off. 
 
 The explanation was a little funny. Mary tore 
 Harold's letter into bits and was comically dra-
 
 76 Privilege 
 
 matic in her refusal to obey or even to reply to it. 
 Michael was puzzled and then bored and finally 
 incredulous. He sent Mary out of the room and 
 demanded details. I gave them. He shook a 
 bewildered head. The whole thing was incom- 
 prehensible to him. It was as though he had been 
 suddenly informed that titles no longer existed. 
 Gradually, however, he saw that I was serious. 
 With the realization of what such behavior might 
 mean to Braden, he froze into one of his cold, 
 contemptuous rages. He apologized with grave 
 formality to Mary for his breakfast indiscretion, 
 pledged himself to support her against Harold, and 
 then proceeded to write out the following telegram : 
 
 " Whern, Whern Royal. 
 
 Go to hell. — Braden." 
 
 I was reading over his shoulder, hardly believing 
 my eyes. 
 
 "But, Michael " 
 
 He raised a pale, interrogating glance; the in- 
 terruption annoyed him. 
 
 "It'll be all over the place! All the tenants 
 will hear and the servants! You know what a 
 gossip Mrs. Rundle is!"
 
 The Family at War 77 
 
 "I am not afraid of the tenants," he sneered; 
 "not even of the servants." 
 
 I pleaded with him. For all our sakes it must 
 not be heralded abroad that Braden was divided 
 against itself. A letter, at least, would be discreet. 
 Perhaps with diplomacy Harold might be per- 
 suaded to change his mind. But Michael was 
 touched in his tenderest spot. He had heard the 
 call of outraged breeding and others might count 
 the cost. It was only when I argued that a care- 
 fully worded and sealed refusal might wound 
 Harold more, that he began to listen to reason. 
 He prided himself on the writing of elaborately 
 sarcastic letters. The opportunity was unique. 
 At last he tore up his telegram and consented to 
 use the post, but of conciliation or circumlocution 
 he would hear nothing. 
 
 "Incidentally," he said, as I was leaving the 
 room, ' ' I now understand an interruption the night 
 before last at Bristol. I won't repeat it to you, 
 but it invited me to look nearer home for certain 
 excesses more commonly met with among the 
 vulgar." 
 
 That afternoon I had little mind for anything 
 but the coming breach. Michael could be trusted 
 to make Harold writhe. To be insulted and
 
 78 Privilege 
 
 shamed at a public meeting would be gall indeed 
 and it was in the first smart of understanding that 
 he was writing his fatal letter. I felt I should 
 hold my breath for three days. 
 
 Nevertheless the time crept by and nothing 
 happened. I began to wonder if the letter had 
 arrived. But even if it had not, Mary's failure 
 to appear on the appointed Friday would have 
 produced some result. Then one evening in the 
 club I heard two new members talking. One had 
 a book he was apparently recommending : 
 
 " — First rate statement of the case." 
 
 "Who's the fellow? Oh— Michael Braden. 
 Isn't he the brother of the chap who keeps a dis- 
 orderly house in Wiltshire?" 
 
 "I don't understand. Braden's brother is 
 Whern." 
 
 "Yes — that's the name. Haven't you heard 
 about it? Good Lord, another Medmenham " 
 
 And they moved away. 
 
 I sat and thought. They were club gossip now, 
 Harold's debaucheries. The scandal had soon 
 spread beyond the family. I felt a violent hatred 
 of Harold tighten the fibers of my brain. That 
 he should be able so to desecrate Whern and her 
 loveliness and our good names! In more brutal
 
 The Family at War 79 
 
 days we should organize a troop of bullies and do 
 him in. I went home to bed but could not sleep 
 for the misery that, the more bitter for its tardi- 
 ness, now poisoned my habitual nonchalance of 
 thought. 
 
 It was barely light when my telephone rang. 
 Michael — his voice, always impersonal, sounded 
 quite dehumanized across the wire — bade me come 
 round at once. "Harold is here," he added. 
 Through the deserted streets I dragged my useless 
 foot. How different the gray was from that of 
 twilight! The lamps were burning, but instead 
 of conspiring with the darkness to give it rich- 
 ness and secrecy, they strove with dull resentment 
 against the fumblings of dawn. The thousand 
 lovers who had trembled homeward through the 
 dusk to ecstasy were now turning uneasily in their 
 sleep of weariness and shivering under the thin 
 veil of their dreams. 
 
 When at last I let myself in at Portman Square, 
 I was tired and nervous. There was to be a 
 quarrel and Harold had come to bluster and to 
 threaten us. More than ever I loathed him for 
 his betrayal of our honor. I went straight to 
 Michael's study. A fire was roaring behind the 
 draft screen and, from between the bars, an un-
 
 8o r Privilege 
 
 certain light colored the lower stratum of the air. 
 Higher and above the level of the grate there was 
 only black grayness, as through the uncurtained 
 window the paling sky looked in with night- 
 filled eyes. I closed the door behind me and took 
 in the figures of my two brothers. Harold, 
 wrapped in a dark coat, sprawled in an easy chair; 
 Michael, in trousers and a dressing-gown, stood at 
 the mantelpiece. There was a moment's silence. 
 
 "What a curious hour, Harold," I began easily. 
 "Did you motor?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He answered with a touch of eagerness, as 
 though my ordinary enquiry came as a relief. 
 
 "Yes," he repeated. "I motored. The car has 
 gone round to the mews." 
 
 "Beastly cold, I should think," I said. 
 
 "Rotten." And he shivered noisily. 
 
 Michael made a slight jerking movement. To 
 prevent him speaking I crossed the room towards 
 the fire. 
 
 "Let's have the shutter up. It's caught now." 
 
 As I threw back the slide, the bright light 
 splashed like a sudden wave up the bulk of Harold's 
 muffled body and broke upon his face. It was 
 pale and sullen, and a pipe drooped from the corner
 
 The Family at War 81 
 
 of his mouth. I turned once more to the dancing 
 flames and held out my cold hands. I was think- 
 ing hard and decided to forestall Michael in bring- 
 ing the assembly to business. 
 
 "I suppose," I said, looking into the fire and 
 enjoying the unstable brilliance that leapt and 
 sank again and leapt not quite so high a second 
 time, "that Harold has come about Mary. I am 
 sorry I have had to keep you waiting and have 
 missed the early conversation. Might I hear 
 briefly what has happened?" 
 
 "Mary must come home," replied Harold qui- 
 etly. "I want her." 
 
 "How— want her?" 
 
 "As hostess, of course, you fool." 
 
 I ignored the rudeness, and went on as calmly 
 as I could. 
 
 "Come, Harold. There's something more." 
 
 "Well, if there is, you won't get it," he said with 
 a short laugh. "It's enough that I say she is to 
 come. You forget she is not twenty-one for two 
 years yet. Time enough for heroics after that." 
 
 I was silent and Michael broke in with his 
 studied drawl. 
 
 "The point is — now that you have finished your 
 little conversation about the weather — that Harold 
 
 6
 
 82 Privilege 
 
 has come to command. I have already refused to 
 obey. What do you say ? " 
 
 "I refuse also," I said in a low voice. 
 
 Harold struggled from the depths of his chair 
 and walked towards us. Out of the corner of my 
 eye I saw Michael's feet nervously taut against 
 the curb. They never moved. I remained on my 
 knees, my face towards the fire. I could hear 
 Harold's heavy coat swing sulkily as he moved. 
 He stopped a yard behind me. 
 
 "Rebellion, eh?" he asked. "You realize there 
 is such a thing as crushing a rebellion? As I could 
 crush your miserable skulls if I wanted to!" he 
 added ferociously. 
 
 "Don't lose your temper, Harold. I'm not 
 frightened of you, nor likely to be. Better spare 
 the effort." 
 
 I heard Harold turn and stride away down the 
 room. I hobbled on my knees to a pouf at the 
 side of the fireplace and faced the room. The light 
 was getting stronger. Tall bookshelves alternated 
 with spaces of pale wall. Harold's angry bulk 
 swayed slowly to the far window, heaved round 
 and moved menacingly forward once again. When 
 he spoke, I knew that Michael's contempt had 
 pricked the bubble of his violence.
 
 The Family at War 83 
 
 "All right, then. You challenge me to carry- 
 little Mary off. But I shan't do that. You're 
 welcome to the . You won't, however, ex- 
 pect to receive any further subsidy from Whern, 
 will you?" 
 
 I almost laughed with surprise. He was cutting 
 us off with a shilling ! I wanted to ask whose idea 
 it was. Michael shrugged. 
 
 ' ' Your harem will welcome the extra cash. You 
 will of course bear the entail in mind. As for Mary, 
 the last word has been said." 
 
 Harold was searching for his gloves in the depths 
 of the armchair. Without a word, having but- 
 toned his coat, he drew them on and pulled a cap 
 over his eyes. 
 
 "You'll miss all this," he said carelessly mo- 
 tioning with his hand to the long, luxurious 
 room. 
 
 "Shall I?" asked Michael. 
 
 " — because," went on Harold, as though no one 
 had interrupted, "I am selling this house in four 
 hours' time — with immediate possession. The 
 buyer will expect all the furniture and objects that 
 do not belong to me and therefore not to him to be 
 cleared out within one week. I hope you will find 
 comfortable quarters. So long!"
 
 $4 Privilege 
 
 And he went out, shutting the door noisily 
 behind him. 
 
 I looked at Michael. He was staring at the 
 closed door, motionless and pale. At last he 
 turned to me and raised his eyebrows. 
 
 "On the whole I think Harold has won," I said. 
 "How much have you to live on? I think I have 
 about two hundred pounds a year." 
 
 Michael shook himself impatiently. 
 
 "Oh, that! I can go to a dozen places. But the 
 damned insolence " 
 
 ' ' The rights of property must be kept inviolate, 
 Michael," I quoted unkindly. "We are experienc- 
 ing for once the joys of the under dog. Our land- 
 lord has turned us out and we have no remedy. 
 Our wages are suddenly cut off — and again we have 
 no remedy. Rotten, isn't it?" 
 
 He turned his back on me and stood, biting his 
 ringers and gazing at the fire. I heard a servant 
 stirring on the drawing-room floor below and went 
 in search of her or him and food.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PASSING OF HAROLD 
 
 It was strange how little immediate outward 
 difference to our lives was caused by Harold's 
 drastic punishment. Certainly appearances were 
 not kept up without an effort and the process was, 
 to my thinking, the most distasteful feature of the 
 new life. But Michael insisted. He pointed out 
 that real damage might be done to the cause of 
 aristocracy (and incidentally to his own political 
 prospects) by a public scandal. He virtually for- 
 bade me to leave Fitzroy Square, although I had 
 reconciled myself to a hunt for lodgings in Highgate 
 or Westbourne Park or Battersea. 
 
 "Bloomsbury or whatever it is," he said, "is bad 
 enough, but then people know you are a freak; it's 
 a fine old house, and your neighborhood is so 
 fantastic that only deliberate choice can explain 
 your being there. But rooms at thirty shillings a 
 
 85
 
 86 Privilege 
 
 week! They would be plain necessity, and neces- 
 sity cannot drive a Braden." 
 
 I explained I could hardly continue to pay £100 
 a year for rent alone out of an income of £250. 
 
 "I'll arrange," said Michael. . . . "Tell me 
 when you get into difficulties." 
 
 He transferred his own belongings to an elegant 
 flat in Queen Anne's Mansions. It later transpired 
 that the flat belonged to a wealthy manufacturer 
 in the Midlands, who desired social advancement 
 and the survival of the existing order. At a po- 
 litical dinner he had heard Michael say that "we" 
 had sold our house in Portman Square. The 
 transaction was apparently a relief in that it set 
 the speaker free to find a quieter and more central 
 place in which to work. The manufacturer drew 
 Michael aside. He would be greatly honored . . . 
 
 Acceptance of such a favor from commerce may 
 seem inconsistent, but it was logical enough. 
 Whatever makes life easier for the ruling class is 
 justifiable and natural; the duty of the rest is to 
 help. To make a fetish of independence and to 
 distrust charity is characteristic of the erstwhile 
 slave. Aristocracy has the same right to gifts from 
 inferiors as have victorious kings to tribute from 
 their vassals.
 
 The Passing of Harold 87 
 
 I am doubtful whether, had not Harold chosen 
 to remain invisible at Whern and but for the 
 chance that Monica was out of England, we should 
 have succeeded in keeping all hint of scandal from 
 the papers. Anthony's absence was convenient, 
 but less essential. He was manageable. There 
 was no danger from Mary. She was in the secret 
 and not likely to feel anxious to divulge it. She 
 declared a sudden intention of going to college, and 
 the trustees of her small private income (like the 
 rest of us she had inherited a little money from 
 our mother) raised no objection. Also we had 
 singularly few relations and my father was not 
 the kind of man to have made many friends, so 
 that the kindly peering of an older generation was 
 not greatly to be feared. Thus assisted by fortune, 
 we acted with promptitude and discretion. People 
 wondered, a few talked, but the one or two out- 
 siders who knew the truth (the bank manager, for 
 instance, and Mary's trustees) held their tongues. 
 
 With Monica on the spot, however, things would 
 have been more difficult to manage. She was 
 herself quick-tempered and careless- tongued, her 
 friends were amateurs of indiscretion. So palatable 
 a piece of gossip as the degradation of Whern and 
 the forcible abduction of Mary would have been
 
 88 Privilege 
 
 irresistible: Fortunately Monica's absence facili- 
 tated falsehood. After consulting Michael, I 
 wrote to her describing some alarming discoveries 
 made during an overhauling of the family finances. 
 Numerous investments had proved unsound; 
 heavy repairs to Whern were necessary. I ex- 
 plained the selling of Portman Square as an im- 
 mediate means of raising money. Although, so 
 far as we knew, Harold would continue to pay 
 her and Anthony's allowances (they were not 
 involved in the quarrel), it seemed wise to be pre- 
 pared for disaster and I therefore hinted that the 
 estate might find itself so embarrassed that allow- 
 ances would have to be reduced or temporarily 
 suspended. It was a good letter, full of the most 
 beautiful lies. Monica's reply deserves reproduc- 
 tion here 
 
 Dear Dick, 
 
 I hope to God you haven't gone and sold my 
 Bouchers with P. Square. There are four and an 
 album of naughty French moderns. I couldn't bear 
 to lose them. What have you done with my clothes? 
 It's monstrous to start selling everything you can 
 lay your hands on as soon as my back is turned. I 
 wonder you didn't raise money on my hair and wire 
 for it to be cut off and sent by registered post. It's a 
 rare color and must be worth several pounds.
 
 The Passing of Harold #9 
 
 Tell Harold he'd better try monkeying about with 
 my allowance! I haven't the least intention of econo- 
 mizing. Anyway, in order to be on the safe side, 
 I've blushingly affianced myself to a Hungarian. 
 Frightfully rich. I can't spell his name or I'd tell it 
 you. I call him Putzi. We move to Cap Martin 
 on Tuesday. 
 
 Yours, 
 M. 
 
 Michael's face, as he read this production, was 
 a masterpiece of bewildered disgust. He handed 
 the letter back with a sniff of contempt. 
 
 "Putzi— !" he said. 
 
 II 
 
 The weeks passed and April blustered into Lon- 
 don. Existence began to seem cramped and unreal. 
 I had never lived extravagantly, but I missed my 
 valet and a motor when I needed it and the thou- 
 sand costly trifles that I had assumed to be ne- 
 cessaries. Even as it was, and after only a month, 
 I w r as badly overdrawn at the bank. But most of 
 all did the breach with Whern bother me. I felt 
 a longing for the restless sighing of the untidy 
 woods, for the skirl of w r ings over the rich pur- 
 ple plowland, for the bunched stiffness of the ilex
 
 90 Privilege 
 
 groves whose evergreen was at no time more 
 somber than at this eleventh hour of winter. 
 My desire for Whern became so intolerable that 
 I could no longer sit at home in the evenings, and 
 formed the habit of going to some music-hall, 
 concert, or picture-house. Theaters proper I 
 avoided. They would mean awkward encounters, 
 and, though I was a poor man now, I had the stall- 
 habit, and preferred not to go, rather than to 
 stand for the pit or intrude on the small romances 
 of the upper circle. The darkness and anonymity 
 of the cinema soothed my nervousness. I enjoyed 
 the subdued murmur of talk, the darting flash of 
 the electric torches, the combination of visible and 
 soundless screen-action and invisible but highly 
 audible orchestra, the sudden and fugitive friend- 
 ships made with attractive neighbors. Ever more 
 frequently was I tempted to the entertainments of 
 the class to which I now belonged. One night, 
 out of curiosity, I went to a large and sumptuous 
 picture theater recently opened near Leicester 
 Square. I preferred the simple hall with sloped 
 seats and this ornate misapplication to film plays 
 of the conventional theater structure — circle and 
 boxes and proscenium arch — irritated me by its 
 slavish snobbery. Before the "feature" began
 
 The Passing of Harold 91 
 
 the lights went up and there was much passing in 
 and out. Glancing critically at the frescoed ceiling 
 and at the decorative orgy of gilded knobs and 
 scrolls — then as now the ideal of people who prefer 
 the word "luxury" translated into French — I saw 
 Michael in a box. He was leaning back in his 
 chair so that his face was an attenuated cameo 
 against the darkness of the inner wall. Between 
 him and the screen, and turned towards me as she 
 gazed about the house, was a young woman in a 
 dark red evening dress. She was a stranger to me 
 although her face was vaguely familiar. I noticed 
 her glowing color and the copper lights in her dark 
 hair. Michael spoke to her and she turned to 
 answer him. The lights began to fade and, as one 
 by one the glimmering reflections of the gilded 
 theater sank into blackness, I watched her neck 
 and shoulders harden from warm cream to dusky 
 white. 
 
 In the foyer after the performance I came face 
 to face with Michael. I had forgotten his presence 
 and locked round for his companion. As she came 
 forward — 
 
 "Lady Dawlish," he said, "may I introduce my 
 brother Richard?" 
 
 She was now muffled in a huge sable coat, and
 
 9 2 Privilege 
 
 I saw diamonds sparkling here and there in the 
 fiery shadows of her hair. 
 
 "How did you persuade Michael to anything 
 so frivolous as the movies?" I asked. 
 
 She laughed gayly at my brother, who smiled 
 with evident delight. 
 
 41 1 return the compliment, Dick. I didn't know 
 you ever sank to any place of entertainment. He 
 is a serious young man," he told Lady Dawlish, 
 "and finds relaxation in collating incunabula." 
 
 We had reached the door and I saw a covered 
 car standing at the curb. 
 
 "Come and have some supper?" said Michael. 
 
 "I am sure Lady Dawlish will forgive me," I 
 said, "but in these clothes I can hardly . . ." 
 
 Michael would have gone to Covent Garden in 
 pyjamas, had circumstances made it essential. He 
 was above fashion and would explain that he wore 
 evening dress at night because it was comfortable. 
 His tone suggested that he had invented it. But 
 I was less assured, and Lady Dawlish must have 
 seen it in my eye. 
 
 "Let us go home," she said, "and then Mr. 
 Braden will come with us. Besides the Savoy is 
 so noisy and hot." 
 
 She entered the car and I followed. Michael
 
 The Passing of Harold 93 
 
 gave an instruction to the chauffeur and closed 
 the door after him. As we nosed our way through 
 the midnight mart of Piccadilly, Michael talked 
 with an almost foolish inconsequence. His usual 
 cold precision had vanished into gay excitement; 
 it was like seeing a proud and slender candle 
 guttering into a fantastic lump of wax. I welcomed 
 his garrulity, as it gave me time to collect my 
 thoughts. 
 
 So this was Barbara Dawlish. As soon as I 
 heard her name I realized why I had, so to speak, 
 a black and white knowledge of her face. Sold at 
 seventeen by an avaricious father to old Sir 
 Meredith Dawlish, she had earned her widowing 
 by eight years' unhappiness. Under the will, she 
 enjoyed the Dawlish fortune until she chose to 
 marry a second time. The illustrated papers, at 
 the time of the old man's death, were full of her 
 portrait, of insolent sympathy and sycophant ad- 
 miration. I tried in vain to remember having 
 heard Michael speak of her. Yet he now seemed 
 intimate and in an exalted state of mind that could 
 have only one explanation. The affair was 
 interesting. 
 
 She was certainly very beautiful. When we 
 were in her drawing-room and she had thrown off
 
 94 Privilege 
 
 her cloak I should have been content to sit and 
 watch her slow, rich movements and the reluctant 
 melancholy of her smile. At first sight she had 
 seemed southern in her warm coloring, but I could 
 now see that she had a fair English skin and gray 
 eyes. The dark glow of her came from within, so 
 that her face was a window through which shone 
 steadily the light of her passionate patience. As 
 she talked and laughed I noticed that her hand 
 would every now and again fall listlessly by her 
 side and hang like a wilted flower against the dark 
 red of her gown. 
 
 All the time Michael was devouring her with 
 his eyes. In his absorption he was more than 
 distinguished ; he became extremely handsome. I 
 found myself comparing them and their respective 
 nobilities. Her deep-breasted graciOusness and his 
 lean arrogance. . . . She was at once the mother 
 and the queen, generous in sympathy, imperious 
 in anger. He had the pathos of the lonely despot, 
 pale, unyielding, the fine steel of him tempered by 
 generations of careful breeding to something as 
 supple and as strong as whipcord. 
 
 To my astonishment I heard two o'clock strike. 
 I felt I had known Lady Dawlish and this quiet 
 comfortable room all my life. I rose to go.
 
 The Passing of Harold 95 
 
 ;i Where do you live, Mr. Braden?" 
 
 "In Fitzroy Square." 
 
 "But that is a long way.' 
 
 "Perhaps I shall find a cab. If not, I can walk." 
 
 " Of course you must not walk ! I will drive you 
 home." Picking up her cloak, she left the room. 
 
 "Michael, can't you dissuade Lady Dawlish 
 . . . ? It is really absurd. ... I suppose she 
 saw my foot." 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 "She's an angel," he said, quietly. 
 
 Tradition is against inquisitive probing. I 
 longed to ask how matters stood, but could not. 
 We waited in awkward silence. In a few minutes 
 she came in again, wearing a tight fur cap and a 
 leather overcoat. 
 
 "Where's the car?" asked Michael. 
 
 "At the door," she smiled. "I said I should 
 want it." 
 
 I tried to express gratitude for all this thought- 
 fulness, but nowadays we have lost the secret of 
 graceful speech. 
 
 "Really awfully good . . . rotten bore . . . 
 wish you wouldn't ..." 
 
 "It is partly selfishness," she said, "I shall need 
 to be on good terms with my brother-in-law."
 
 96 Privilege 
 
 ' ' How splendid ! " I cried. ' ' Michael, I am most 
 awfully glad. But you have been very discreet. 
 Is this an arrangement of long standing?" 
 
 "Not very," they replied and looked at each 
 other as only lovers can. 
 
 • •»•••• 
 
 A few days later I rang up Lady Dawlish from 
 the Museum and asked myself to tea. It was an 
 afternoon of clean April sunshine. The pavements 
 were drying rapidly; the sky was a washed blue. 
 As I walked from Down Street I wondered how 
 much she knew of the family troubles. Michael 
 was in the north, and I had not seen him since a 
 quarter to three on that cold, rainy morning when 
 she drove me home. This was frankly a visit of 
 reconnaissance. 
 
 "How nice of you to come J Now tell me all 
 about Michael and what he was like before I knew 
 him, and about your sisters and brothers, and 
 about Whern — oh, and about yourself!" she con- 
 cluded with mock apology. 
 
 "Please tell me first how much you know." 
 
 "The frankness of diplomacy! Well, I know 
 about the row and that you stood by Michael. 
 He told me of you before we met. Where is the 
 rescued maiden?"
 
 The Passing of Harold 97 
 
 "She's with some cousins near Cambridge. She 
 starts at Newnham next term. I'm glad you know 
 all you do. It makes things easier. Michael is 
 the bravest thing alive and the most honorable. 
 But it's no use pretending the situation is satis- 
 factory. Harold may emerge from his lair at any 
 moment and cause trouble. If he sees a chance of 
 doing harm to Michael, he will take it. So I hope 
 that for the moment you will use your great influ- 
 ence for caution. Michael can get what he likes 
 when he wants it. He will lose nothing by waiting 
 a little." 
 
 She nodded and sat for a while looking at the 
 fire, I studied the ardent curve of her cheek and 
 the burnished hair swept low over her broad white 
 temple. 
 
 "You are a public character since that iniquitous 
 will was known," I went on, "and I should like to 
 thank you for caring enough for Michael to lose 
 your money. For he has none now, you know." 
 
 She tossed her head. 
 
 "My husband was not only a brute. He was 
 something of a fool. He left a loophole for econ- 
 omy and I have saved a bit these two years. It is 
 for Michael to use as he pleases." 
 
 "And when is the ceremony?" I asked.
 
 98 Privilege 
 
 1 ' Very soon now, " she replied. ' ' It will be very 
 quiet; almost inaudible." 
 
 "Shall I be asked?" 
 
 "On the whole, I think so." 
 
 I wrote to Michael describing my visit and 
 warning him that I was dangerously infatuated 
 with his fiancSe. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Michael's wedding was a little comical. The 
 handful of guests were not equally informed of our 
 equivocal family relations, so that Barbara's con- 
 nections marveled at the unobtrusive simplicity 
 of the ceremony, while one or two of our friends 
 sought dexterously for confirmation of their belief 
 that Michael was marrying for money. 
 
 The bride's brother, an Anglo-Indian colonel 
 with a reedy voice and a clear, blue eye, incau- 
 tiously opened his mind to me without finding out 
 who I was. 
 
 "Damn queer show!" he said. "Feller in Bra- 
 den's position marryin' like a suburban doctor. 
 Bin a row with the brother, eh? All the same I 
 don't fancy this hole-'n-corner business, A wed- 
 din's a weddin', that's what I say."
 
 The Passing of Harold 99 
 
 I was embarrassed. After all this man was head 
 of the bride's family. I had asked Barbara what 
 he would think, when she had excluded even her 
 brother from enlightenment. "Dear old Jim 
 never thinks," she had replied. "He'll grouse a 
 bit maybe, but he'll do what he has to do and 
 stand by me." I- appreciated this unquestioning 
 loyalty, but regretted my present role of confidant. 
 A freakish idea came to me to tell him that my top 
 hat was borrowed. I sought in vain for a way of 
 escape. It was provided unexpectedly by the 
 twins' mother. Over my shoulder I heard her, 
 like a peroxide cheese, oozing indiscretion. 
 
 "Sodignifai . . . ed! He hasn't a penny, not 
 a penny, my dear! But then of co . . . arse 
 dear Barbara ... a ... " 
 
 I abandoned the brother to his puzzlement. 
 Lady Chaldon must be silenced. 
 
 "Agatha, they tell me you are to get a diploma — 
 for your latest hygienic improprieties. Are you 
 going on the stage?" She twinkled her foolish 
 little eyes through the white mesh of her veil. 
 
 "Stopping me mouth, Richard? He knows his 
 little chatterbox. Won't you tell me — quai . . .te 
 confy — what these two darlin's are goin' to live 
 on?"
 
 ioo Privilege 
 
 "My dear Agatha, how should I know? Where 
 are your preposterous babies?" 
 
 "Edwahdislookin'after'em. Ed — wahd! There 
 he is! Hush! He-ahs the bridegroom. ..." 
 
 Michael shook hands. 
 
 "Kind of you to come, Agatha. May I take 
 Dick away one minute?" 
 
 I followed him upstairs. 
 
 "This has just come," he said, handing me a 
 book. It was a superb copy of the rarest edition 
 of Eikoov ftaffiXixri luxuriously bound. Slipped be- 
 tween the pages was Harold's card. 
 
 "Pretty good — for Harold?" said Michael with 
 his quiet smile. 
 
 IV 
 
 They went to Shropshire for a honeymoon. 
 Alone, I found existence in London intolerable. 
 I was really hard up and began to sell my books. 
 I dared not see our former friends for the expense 
 their manner of life would inevitably cause me. 
 I tried to work, but was restless and unable to 
 concentrate. It seemed that my foot became 
 actually painful, although I knew that the ache 
 was in my heart. Wiltshire and its riot of roses
 
 The Passing of Harold 101 
 
 shimmered alluringly. I could not even buy a 
 holiday for, though I could get my food and clothes 
 on credit, there is no running tick for railway fares. 
 Six weeks of this torment of lonely poverty brought 
 me, I hope, to some realization of the abominable 
 burden of penniless respectability. Champions of 
 the proletariat made me impatient with their 
 clamor of working-class hardship. Fortunate souls 
 who have no profit from clean linen! Passing 
 through the Reading-Room one day at the Mu- 
 seum an absurd impulse of sympathy led me 
 to address a middle-aged man for no other reason 
 than that his coat was green and frayed and his 
 thin boots patched and shapeless. He was peering 
 with weak eyes at some revolting encyclopedia. 
 I had nothing to say and found myself almost 
 involuntarily asking : 
 
 "Can I get any other books for you?" 
 
 The ineptitude of it ! He looked up cringingly. 
 Not having heard, he expected reproof. What 
 did I say? I repeated the remark. Its futility 
 was so patent that his servility became suspicion. 
 I was either mad or feebly officious. 
 
 "I know how to get the books I want," he 
 snapped, and turned his back. 
 
 I began to sleep badly, lying awake and tor-
 
 102 Privilege 
 
 meriting myself with the vision of years of this 
 drab beastliness. Six weeks, with the vital allevia- 
 tion of still courteous tradespeople, had thus 
 embittered me. To what fierce resentment or to 
 what bestial apathy would I have come after six 
 months? 
 
 And then one morning Anthony was shown into 
 my room at the Museum. He was little changed; 
 perhaps a shade more solid; but his pale delicacy 
 had all its wistful charm. He dusted with his 
 handkerchief the chair I offered him, threw the 
 lock of fair hair off his forehead with the old 
 impatient gesture, and regarded me with smil- 
 ing eyes. One arm he crooked over the chair 
 back, the other he flung gracefully outwards 
 supporting the wrist in the loop of a tall ebony 
 stick. 
 
 "I can't tell you how glad I am to see you!" I 
 said. "I was just fed up and you are a positive 
 sensation. Where have you been and have you 
 had a good time?" 
 
 "Dear Richard," he murmured, "your honest 
 face again. . . . Ceylon is so beautiful. And 
 the brown slenderness of girls. Where have I 
 been? Where not? I am old with the sins of 
 ancient empires, and in the dust of vanished
 
 The Passing of Harold 103 
 
 majesties my footprints tell their silent tale. Also 
 I'm damned hard up." 
 
 I laughed. "So you come to me?" 
 
 " . . .to hear what has happened. What is 
 this tiresome quarrel? I hear rumors and more 
 rumors. I go to your rooms and the door is locked 
 and no sign of Roberts. I go to Portman Square 
 and a strange butler hounds me from the door. 
 It's fatiguing and absurd. It makes me look a 
 fool. I am seriously annoyed." 
 
 I summarized the position. He examined his 
 finger-nails and raised his eyebrows once or twice. 
 As I described the decadence of Whern the corners 
 of his mouth twitched a little. The story over, he 
 swung to his feet and yawned. 
 
 "Good Lord! What fusses! I like to think of 
 you hiding in that passage. In an embrasure. 
 Harold is full of fun. So you and Michael are 
 disinherited, and Monica and I are not? Juliette 
 and Justine over again. But, seriously, how 
 childish! I must bring you together again. I 
 must assemble the parts! I must really. I am 
 a wonderful assembler. You will dine with me 
 to-night at Kettner's and to-morrow I go to Whern. 
 At eight o'clock? Excellent. Ask for my cabinet." 
 
 He glided away and the draft of his movement
 
 104 Privilege 
 
 rocked a trail of scent along the frowzy air. I 
 frowned my perplexity at the inkstand- The 
 stimmung was wrong somehow. He was still 
 pathetically young and smooth and beautiful. 
 But the eagerness was gone from his posing. The 
 precocity of the boy had become the affectation 
 of the . . . no, not even of the man. I wondered 
 what sort of people were his friends ; who, indeed, 
 had been his traveling companions. There was 
 a heaviness about the eyes that seemed premature. 
 After all he was barely twenty. And the gold 
 chain-bangle, the suede shoes. . . . Again I 
 wondered in what company the journey had been 
 made. 
 
 Kettner's provided the answer. In the draped 
 and tasseled privacy of the upstairs room I found 
 three men besides Anthony. Two were complete 
 strangers; the third was Walter, the twins' 
 brother. He greeted me with constraint and I 
 was struck with the brilliance of his eyes. Anthony 
 introduced me to Captain Ferner and to Mr. 
 Pryce Arcott. The former was stout and highly 
 colored, with thick Jewish lips and a powerful 
 hairy hand. The latter was sallow and very dark, 
 so dark that one thought instantly of Indian blood. 
 As he took my hand with his long, lithe fingers I
 
 The Passing of Harold 105 
 
 groped in my memory for the reason of the faint 
 familiarity of his name. 
 
 The meal was expensive and elaborately chosen. 
 There was plenty of champagne and talk became 
 suggestive and hilarious. It was soon clear that 
 Ferner and Arcott had been with Anthony abroad. 
 They were continually reminded of some humorous 
 or delightful incident, that necessitated oblique 
 reference and rather forced merriment. Walter 
 began to play the pitiful comedy of white aping 
 black. His attempts to assert himself against the 
 conspiracy of unsavory memory that was the 
 foundation of the others' intimacy became more 
 and more grotesque. I am afraid that, while I 
 was often amused by the bawdy humor of Ferner 
 or Arcott, I felt — and could not disguise — disgust 
 at this boy's crude extremism. I fell silent and 
 watched him. In the brilliant light I could now 
 see that his eyelids were darkened and that the 
 red of his lips was unnaturally ripe. It was a relief 
 to find Anthony innocent, at least, of maquillage. 
 I made an opportunity of drawing my brother 
 aside. 
 
 "Are you going to Whern?" 
 
 "To-morrow afternoon." 
 
 "Where are you staying to-night?"
 
 106 Privilege 
 
 "With Arcott. Flat in Jermyn Street." 
 
 "All right. You'll find me at the Museum in 
 the morning." 
 
 "I'll come if lean." 
 
 Shortly after I took my leave. I had found out 
 enough to make me wish more than ever that 
 Michael was in town. Also I wanted to revive 
 my memory of Pryce Arcott's name and some- 
 where in Fitzroy Square I had a file of notes. . . . 
 Outside soft summer rain was falling. As I went 
 slowly home through the whispering lamplight I 
 faced my share of the blame for our neglect to 
 realize that Anthony was growing up. 
 
 It was the last day of July that I got Harold's 
 letter. He wanted to see me at Whern. Could I 
 go instantly? I sold an etching for half its value, 
 bought a few necessaries and a ticket, and was on 
 Laylham platform two days later. I remember 
 still the intoxication of that motor drive, the soft 
 cushions, the quiet mutter of the engine, and, on 
 each side of the flowery road, the compassionate 
 splendor of summer. I craned my neck to catch 
 a first glimpse of the huge gateway to the park, a 
 plaster fortress with a portcullis of matchboarding 
 and a groined roof as touchingly absurd as ever 
 frowned over the cantings of provincial melodrama.
 
 The Passing of Harold 107 
 
 Then the upward sweep to the crest of the woods, 
 the crackle of twigs under the wheels, the slap of 
 leaves against the painted side, as the car swerved 
 to this edge of the road or to that in its avoidance 
 of ruts or patches of unrolled flint. We topped 
 the ridge and slid silently through gray beech 
 trunks towards the Abbey. The sun diapered the 
 leaf strewn ground; in the clearings bracken 
 thrust upward between ancient thorns and lazy 
 flies droned in the heavy air. At last the traceried 
 cloister was dancing by my side ; and the buttresses 
 of the keep were twitching their moldings from 
 my path. As the car stopped under the fan-vault- 
 ing of the porch, the joy of being home again al- 
 most became anguish. And suddenly I thought to 
 wonder why I had come and what it was all about. 
 
 Harold himself met me at the door. He shook 
 hands without a word and we crossed the octagon 
 hall and the large drawing-room to the new terrace 
 that overlooked the sunny spaces of the arena. 
 Tea was ready with its silver and fine white scones 
 and a great bowl of raspberries. We helped our- 
 selves and then: 
 
 " Dick," Harold began, " I've been a bloody ass. 
 It's over now, I hope, and I want some help to 
 pull the place together."
 
 108 Privilege 
 
 There seemed nothing to say and I went on 
 with my tea. 
 
 "I'm glad Michael is away," he went on. 
 "He'd rub it in and I am not a penitent exactly. 
 But when Anthony arrived and I saw what a 
 smeared innocent he is, I made up my mind. I'd 
 had my fling and I was already tired of it. The 
 kid's appearance decided me. Touching, isn't it, 
 and all that? You'll be uncomfortable because 
 there are only six servants in the place. I've 
 sacked the rest and want you to get new ones for 
 me. Also we had a row with Mallowes. Told 
 me I'd killed his father and they were not out to 
 run an estate for the benefit of the likes of me! 
 Pretty good, what? So there's been no agent this 
 three months and the rents are all to pot. I 
 don't know who's living in what cottage or any 
 damn thing about the property." 
 
 "But, Harold," I interrupted, "I can't stay 
 indefinitely." 
 
 "Rubbish! Why not?" 
 
 I could hardly tell him of the hack work I had 
 undertaken to earn a few pounds, so I replied 
 vaguely that I had "lots of things to do." He 
 brushed me aside. 
 
 "Nothing so important as is needed here. By
 
 The Passing of Harold 109 
 
 the way, in case there are any bills or things, I am 
 paying your arrears of allowance into the bank 
 to-day. Tell me if you want more. And now I 
 want to hear about my sister-in-law. I should 
 have come to town, only somehow — well, I wasn't 
 quite up to facing the club. Is she as fine a woman 
 as her photographs make her? Fancy Michael 
 going in for romance!" 
 
 He talked on, partly to keep his composure, 
 partly, I suspect, to prevent my thanks for or 
 refusal of his financial peace offering. I was senti- 
 mentally embarrassed by his determined indiffer- 
 ence of manner, and by the resentful shame which 
 lay behind it. By nature conciliatory, I was won 
 over instantly by his awkward recantation and 
 wished to express in some way that the past was 
 forgotten. But the words would not come and 
 we sought common refuge in the abrupt flippancy 
 that is English for emotional frankness. 
 
 "Where's the kid?" I asked after a time. 
 
 "I sent him off with the two-seater to try Whern 
 bank. He won't be in till dinner. He's improving 
 already. 1 mean to keep him here — out of mis- 
 chief. He's scared of me and I drill-sergeant him — 
 no use trying sweet reasonableness on that kind 
 of disease."
 
 i io Privilege 
 
 I had spent a hard morning over the estate 
 accounts. The confusion was certainly terrible. 
 Rent-roll, farm management, repairs account, 
 stock renewals — all were mere ragged ends. Even 
 the finances of the Abbey itself had been let slide. 
 There were no household wage lists, no tradesmen's 
 receipts. In the housekeeper's room I found a 
 pile of bills, another in the butler's pantry. 
 Harold's check foils told me nothing. "Self" 
 "Rogers"; "M. H."; Rogers"; "Self"; "Rogers" 
 "Self"; "V."; "D. R."; "Rogers"; "Rogers" 
 "Rogers." It was evident that I must cut the 
 chaos of the last six months and work on. averages 
 from the latest remaining soundness. For four 
 days I had toiled at thus clearing the ground. 
 The Mallowes family had been agents for a cen- 
 tury, from father to son. The old man, who 
 had seen Black Whern into his grave, had died of 
 grief at the shame of Harold's governance. The 
 son, as I had been told, had spoken out to his 
 employer's face and thrown up the job. I decided 
 to appoint no absolute successor. Things had 
 gone too far to admit of another gentleman-agent 
 yet awhile. We must clean our own Augean
 
 The Passing of Harold in 
 
 stables. I would have a confidential clerk as my 
 assistant — nothing more formidable. An adver- 
 tisement in the local paper for such a clerk, for 
 a farm bailiff, and for a housekeeper had produced 
 one likely candidate for the first vacancy and no 
 replies at all for the other two. ' ' Shows what the 
 righteous think of the place," commented Harold, 
 bitterly. He was getting daily more morose and 
 lost no opportunity of self-abasement and re- 
 proach. Anthony joined nobly in my efforts to 
 keep away the shadow of vain regret. The boy 
 was becoming a different person. His skin was 
 clearer, his eyes at once more vivid and more 
 tranquil. He was still freakish in humor and lan- 
 guidly ornate in speech, but the rainbow glitter that 
 in London had filmed his transparency was fading 
 fast. I understood that Harold had dealt somewhat 
 brutally with the lad and, although I disliked the 
 method and could not myself have applied it, I was 
 bound to admit it had the appearance of success. 
 
 On the fifth day after my arrival we met at 
 lunch. "You look stewed, Dick," said Harold. 
 1 ' How is the stock-taking going ? ' ' 
 
 "Stiff work," I replied, "and I feel upside down. 
 I'm going to see a possible sub-agent in Rodbury. 
 Can I have the small car?"
 
 ii2 Privilege 
 
 <<j 
 
 'Of course. We might take a gun and potter 
 about the woods, Anthony?" 
 
 By three o'clock I was on my way to Rodbury, 
 the great railway junction and our nearest im- 
 portant town. It was a drive of fifteen miles, the 
 last three of which, thanks to drays, tramlines, 
 and erratic babies, were slow going. I saw my 
 man, did some odd shopping, and set out for home 
 about half-past five. To my surprise the park 
 gates were shut and raucous horn-business was 
 necessary to attract attention. A woman hurried 
 from the lodge and fumbled with the heavy grille. 
 She begged my pardon for the delay but her 
 husband was away up at the Abbey. There had 
 been an accident. His lordship was hurt. With a 
 queer uneasiness I gave the car her head. The 
 trees fluttered by and every now and then a low- 
 hanging bough, freed from the thrust of the 
 wind-screen, lashed back angrily at my face. An 
 accident ? What sort of an accident was it, that 
 drew the lodge-keepers from their placid duties ? 
 
 The stable yard was empty. I left the car 
 standing and hurried towards the terrace. An- 
 thony must have been watching for me, for he 
 ran across the lawn as soon as I turned the corner. 
 "Thank God, you've come!" His manner, for all
 
 The Passing of Harold 113 
 
 the emphatic words, was listless, and his voice 
 lacked body. Immediately he spoke again. 
 
 "You've heard?" 
 
 How strained he looked and yet how eerie was 
 the indifference of his tone ! 
 
 "Nothing. What has happened?" 
 
 "Harold's been shot!" 
 
 "Good God! How? What do you mean — 
 shot?" 
 
 "I don't know who did it, although I was within 
 fifty yards. He's bad, damned bad." 
 
 "Doctor with him?" 
 
 Anthony nodded and stood looking away across 
 the lawn. His hands worked nervously. 
 
 "Fifty yards," he muttered. "Might as well 
 have been fifty miles. That blasted cliff!" 
 
 I took his arm and moved towards the terrace. 
 There was whisky on one of the tables and I mixed 
 two stiff glasses for him and for myself. Then I 
 sat down. 
 
 "Tell me about it," I asked quietly. 
 For the first of how many times, I wonder, that 
 I shall do so ? " He spoke bitterly and his elegance, 
 ordinarily so self-possessed, quivered with nervous 
 agitation. "We went out after rabbits, as you 
 know, and tried first the sandpits. They were
 
 ii4 Privilege 
 
 swarming and we hung about a while having quite 
 decent fun. Harold had a couple of ferrets with 
 him (he wouldn't take a keeper), but we hardly 
 used them. Then he said there were a lot near 
 Otranto, and we cut diagonally along the woods 
 in that direction. We crossed the grass drive 
 high up and were not a hundred yards from the 
 road, which, as you know, bends inward at that 
 point. I saw someone leaning on the gate. Hardly 
 know why I tell you, because it made no impression 
 at the time and was perfectly natural. It merely 
 struck me afterwards that during the afternoon I 
 saw no other soul." 
 "Saw?" I queried. 
 
 He nodded impatiently and hurried on: 
 "Well, we crossed the drive and made our way 
 through the thick undergrowth that tops the 
 marshy land above the fishponds. It was so thick 
 and the flies such a damned nuisance that I left 
 Harold and dropped to a lower level, getting into 
 clearer ground beyond the worst of the bog. You 
 remember that the ridge which becomes the cliff 
 on which Otranto stands rises steeply from the 
 very thicket I had left and I reckoned I should 
 reach the foot of the cliff as soon as Harold, even 
 with the detour I was making.
 
 The Passing of Harold 115 
 
 1 { And so I should have done ! " he cried with sudden 
 excitement, "if I hadn't stopped for that infernal 
 cigarette! The flies were still troublesome and I 
 sat on a stump with a jolly view of the house and 
 smoked one small cigarette. Not more than two 
 minutes at the outside. I heard Harold forcing 
 his way through the thicket above and threw the 
 cigarette away when he seemed to have got 
 farther ahead than I had counted on. You know 
 the fir plantation below the cliff foot? And how 
 dark it is? Well, I had just plunged into the 
 dusky gloom of the trees, when I heard a shot. 
 Nothing remarkable in that but then there was a 
 strange sound like a heavy stumble, another shot, 
 a noise of splintering stone, and a crashing fall. I 
 raced through the firs and there was Harold full 
 length on the ground and clutching his side with 
 both hands. He was white as chalk and, as I bent 
 over him, said: 'Up there — in the castle. . . . 
 Hope I winged him.' Then he fainted away. 
 
 "Maybe I ought to have stayed by him. But 
 I wanted to smash someone. I sprinted for that 
 cliff and began scrambling. The rock is mere 
 shale and everything I seized came away in my 
 hand. Now you will understand why I said 'saw' 
 just now. While I was hanging on to nothing in
 
 1 16 Privilege 
 
 particular and feeling about for a fresh hold, I 
 distinctly heard feet crossing the floor of the upper 
 room in Otranto — the room that gives onto the 
 cliff top at the other side. I got up the bloody 
 cliff at last, swung myself into the lower room and 
 up the stairs. No one. But footmarks across the 
 sand and litter of the floor, and clear marks on the 
 ground outside the window of someone having 
 passed. I rushed into the wood beyond and 
 listened and looked but there was no sound nor 
 sign. The footprints were lost in the grass and 
 leaves and I had no idea in which direction to look 
 further. So I scrambled down again, did what I 
 could to stop the blood from Harold's wound, and 
 thought best to fetch help. Fortunately I soon 
 met an underkeeper and dispatched him to the 
 house with orders that all gates should be shut and 
 all the men assembled at the Abbey to start a 
 search of the woods and neighborhood. The police 
 were also to be advised. We got the poor chap 
 back, telephoned for a nurse and a doctor, and 
 — well, that's all! The nurse was here very 
 quickly. The doctor came a short while before 
 you did." 
 
 We turned at a step. It was the doctor himself. 
 He shook hands with me and stood unhappily
 
 The Passing of Harold 117 
 
 fidgeting with the wicker top of the small table 
 at his side. 
 
 "I'm afraid, gentlemen, — " he began. "You 
 see, he lost so much blood " 
 
 "Is he dead?" I asked abruptly. 
 
 "Not yet. But he is insensible and very weak. 
 If I might suggest, any relations should be sum- 
 moned ..." 
 
 "Please give your orders," I said. "I will send 
 the necessary messages to — to the necessary peo- 
 ple. Ask for anything you want. Is it too late to 
 operate?" 
 
 "Steed of Rodbury is a good man, but, even if 
 you catch him, he could hardly be here for an 
 hour." 
 
 "Nevermind. We will telephone. Will you do 
 that, please, Anthony? I will wire to Michael and 
 arrange immediate matters with the servants." 
 
 The doctor turned back into the house and we 
 followed, intent on the duties of the moment. 
 Just inside the door Anthony touched my arm. 
 
 "You see!" he whispered hoarsely. "Loss of 
 blood. If I had only stayed! That— cliff!" 
 
 And he clenched his hands nervously and hurried 
 past me towards the telephone. 
 
 I have not the temperament that meets disaster
 
 n8 Privilege 
 
 with chastened dignity. Horrors frighten me, but 
 I remember the struggle I had with the conven- 
 tional impulse to go and see the dying man. Ulti- 
 mately realism won. Harold was insensible; there 
 was nothing to be done that others, better qualified 
 than I, were not already doing; I should only be 
 in the way. Also the paraphernalia of a sick room 
 revolted me, the hushed voices, the hasty erection 
 of a facade of grief. I was too deeply shocked by 
 the catastrophe to allow my fancy any play. 
 Prompt action was the only anodyne. Once again 
 I set out in the two-seater. From Whern Royal 
 I wired an urgent summons to Michael. The post- 
 mistress was all curiosity and agitation. A shoot- 
 ing accident, I told her, and Lord Whern badly 
 hurt. Between Whern Royal and Laylham I met 
 the inspector. He was on his way to the Abbey 
 to conduct a formal questionnaire. I took him 
 into the car and we raced home, his dog cart 
 following as best it might. When we reached the 
 house we were informed that Harold was dead.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 PRIVILEGE 
 
 It is, I daresay, a common characteristic of the 
 modern intellectual that he should sympathize 
 with failure more readily than he admires success. 
 At any rate, I know that my own desultory reading 
 of history has centered for preference round for- 
 lorn causes and their leaders. I have always felt 
 the immense poignancy of the passing of a great 
 family, of the horrible slide into chaos (for the 
 crude beginnings of a new era are inevitably 
 chaotic) of some age that had brought graciousness 
 and beauty to the world. And particularly have 
 I cherished, like a guilty secret, romantic admira- 
 tion for those men or periods who have struggled 
 vainly and at the last moment to save a dying 
 past. In all revolutions there is an eleventh hour 
 before the end, when all the forces for good that 
 still animate the old order gather for one supreme 
 
 119
 
 120 Privilege 
 
 and desperate effort. For every dynasty that has 
 come to supremacy, ruled in glory, decayed and 
 vanished, there has been a Saint Martin's summer, 
 that has fended off with its wan and spurious sun- 
 shine the coming of the final darkness. And just 
 because of their eternal failure, just because of the 
 gallantry with which they fight their hopeless fight 
 and, by their efforts, harden to hatred the contempt 
 or indifference of their raw but victorious enemies, 
 these individuals and shreds of an outworn society 
 move me to a passionate sympathy. That they 
 died to perpetuate tyranny and corruption, that 
 they died to obstruct liberty and progress are, in 
 my emotional view, pedantic trifles. They had 
 fineness and they had gesture and their brave 
 flicker in the very jaws of destiny is the badge of 
 their superb and foolish courage. 
 
 But the picturesque imagination is focussed for 
 distance. The near foreground becomes prosaic, 
 just because it is actual and familiar. Also, I sup- 
 pose, the evils of our own time appeal directly to 
 that same indignation that is ideally roused by the 
 trappings of historical narrative. In other words, 
 the sympathy in theory to a forlorn hope is already 
 pledged in fact to the few desperate reformers. 
 So it came about that I did not realize until after-
 
 Privilege I21 
 
 wards that, in a small way, I myself played a part 
 in the melancholy drama of an eleventh hour 
 revival, and that, in miniature, the passing of 
 Whern was the passing of a dynasty, and so, twice 
 removed, the passing of an age. Even if I had so 
 realized, I believe my humanity would have tricked 
 me of posturing, for I was of the new in ideas while 
 hating its prophets, and of the old in manners 
 while sorrowing for its selfishness. 
 
 Looking back, however, on the few years that 
 form the period of this story, I can now see events 
 only through the romantic haze of my partialities 
 and am tempted to periodize and to establish the 
 logic of their sequence. Black Whern outstayed 
 his time. By the harsh violence of his nature and 
 by the seclusion to which it bound him, he kept 
 alive beyond the turbulent dawn of a new and 
 menacing century a conception of life and society 
 that belonged to the complacent egoism of Victori- 
 an peace. His death left vacant a throne of a type 
 long out of date and, simultaneously, rilled it with 
 one untrained in the old school of dignified benevo- 
 lence and ignorant of the transition doctrine of 
 unassuming comradeship. Harold had a hopeless 
 task and, even if he had realized his problems as 
 problems there was nothing, with his inherited
 
 122 Privilege 
 
 tendencies, that he could have done to solve them. 
 He was born at the end of one epoch and invested 
 with too much power at the beginning of another. 
 Without education in anything but self-indulgence, 
 he faced an existence of a complexity undreamed 
 of by the generation that preceded him. Excep- 
 tional character might have triumphed over these 
 initial disadvantages. But Harold, being what he 
 was, lived his riotous decadence and paid the last 
 penalty for faults not all his own. True to prece- 
 dent, he passed from the scene before the real 
 crisis of the play, for the violence of his death was, 
 so to speak, gratuitous and not an item on the 
 program. Had Michael been the eldest son, Whern 
 and the privilege of Braden might have survived. 
 As it was, and despite the disastrous interlude of 
 his brother's supremacy, Michael chose to fight 
 for the restoration of caste. To me now this fight, 
 with its ultimate inevitable uselessness, seems 
 moving and gallant. But, at the time, my alle- 
 giance was divided (there was a cause of my own 
 for which to fight) and I would seek to excuse 
 this too elaborate digression as small and tardy 
 amends to the brother I could only half-heartedly 
 support. If I sank below half-heartedness and 
 was guilty of actual treachery, there can be no
 
 Privilege 123 
 
 amends. But this at least I struggled to avoid. 
 How Michael, with his dry and fanatical devotion 
 to an idea, would despise my romanticism ! 'You 
 have no convictions except aesthetic ones," he 
 once said to me. "Taste and kindliness make 
 good room fellows, but bad soldiers and worse 
 generals." I comfort myself by thinking that 
 gods are not consulted as to the nature of sacri- 
 ficial offerings. Let these pages of absurd con- 
 fession be a votive gift to the memory of a very 
 honorable man and to a brother more loyal than 
 was he who writes them. 
 
 II 
 
 With Michael's accession the rehabilitation of 
 Whern began in earnest. It was due mainly to his 
 own faultless instinct for gesture that the process 
 was so rapid and that for Braden a second golden 
 age seemed to have dawned. 
 
 I have used the word "accession" more by in- 
 stinct than of design, because no other can ade- 
 quately express the pomp and dignity with which 
 Michael came into his inheritance. He — and his 
 wife with him — hurried to Whern in response to 
 my telegram, but he chose to regard that visit as
 
 124 Privilege 
 
 having been made incognito and to reserve for a 
 later occasion the more ceremonious welcome that 
 he considered to be due. Naturally the period of 
 mourning required immediate delimitation. Mi- 
 chael's first instruction was a full twelvemonth. 
 I greeted the proposal with dubious silence and 
 he took me up sharply. 
 
 "A Whern is dead. That is all that matters." 
 
 Barbara ventured an interruption. 
 
 ' ' There is a heap to do, Michael, dear. Oughtn't 
 you to be free to get to work a little sooner than 
 that? Entertaining, you know — Besides you 
 don't want to underline the last six months, do 
 you?" 
 
 He gazed at her thoughtfully. I knew that his 
 level, scrupulous mind was weighing her argument 
 against his own ritualistic instinct. Then he 
 smiled with affectionate approval. 
 
 "Yes. I think you are right. A year is too 
 long. We will say six months full mourning and 
 decide later on what shall follow. And now I 
 want to out-Barbara Barbara, because I feel it 
 essential there should be some gathering of the 
 tenants. They must get to know us and to under- 
 stand that the Abbey is once more in working 
 order. Will you make arrangements, Dick?
 
 Privilege 125 
 
 Nothing magnificent; the only vital thing is that 
 no one should be omitted." 
 
 "If you will fix the date of your official arrival," 
 I said, "I will do the rest." 
 
 And so it came to pass. On a certain day Lord 
 and Lady Whern came into subdued but ceremo- 
 nial residence. It was announced that the day 
 following the arrival, there would be a luncheon 
 to the Abbey tenants and that park and gardens 
 would be open to all and sundry. The countryside 
 were delighted. Michael had demonstrated, thus 
 at the very outset of his reign, that he had a true 
 sense of what was required. From the moment 
 that his train stopped at the platform he was 
 hailed as symbolic of the good times everyone felt 
 sure were coming. 
 
 The tenants turned out in force and the journey 
 from Laylham to the Abbey was something of a 
 triumph. Barbara played her part to perfection, 
 and many were the cheers that greeted in her at 
 once the long-looked-for mistress of Whern and a 
 very lovely lady. Michael's genius for benevolent 
 landlordism was even more clearly shown at the 
 fete and luncheon on the following day. He made 
 a speech, and, afterwards, as he moved about 
 among the guests with simple words of greeting,
 
 126 Privilege 
 
 I marveled at his skilful blending of friendliness 
 and condescension. Indeed he required no ap- 
 prenticeship. Feudal lordship was in his very 
 bones. 
 
 As September drew on, Barbara began to chafe 
 a little against the restraint of family mourning. 
 
 "We might have such jolly parties," she said to 
 me one morning as we strolled down the long walk 
 of the kitchen garden and appraised the trellised 
 fruit trees, the lines of late peas and runner beans, 
 the winter treasure of flamboyant cabbage and 
 developing cauliflower. 
 
 4 ' Poor dear ! ' ' I said. ' 'Are you bored already ? ' ' 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 "Bored! I'm working harder than ever in my 
 life. Bulbs and planting out and all sorts. No, 
 Dick, it's not boredom. Only I should like to see 
 the place full of people and have dances and so on." 
 
 "It can't be done this autumn. Michael will 
 never allow it. But we might manage a few 
 neighbors and we can always illuminate the garden 
 and play waltzes." 
 
 She clapped her hands and began extravagant 
 schemes for a satisfactory simulation of social 
 merriment. 
 
 Michael consented to the inviting of a small
 
 Privilege 127 
 
 party at short notice, in order perhaps to profit 
 from the unusual beauty of the weather. Also he 
 was very anxious to establish prompt and proper 
 relations with selected houses in the vicinity of 
 the Abbey and was himself too fond of sport not 
 to stifle reluctance to a slight breach of the strict 
 seclusion that he felt to be technically correct. 
 Having gained this, her initial point, Barbara 
 found it easy to arrange a so-called impromptu 
 dance and to prevent her husband from investi- 
 gating too closely the rapidity with which musi- 
 cians were provided. 
 
 Perfect weather allowed the garden illuminations 
 I had, somewhat regrettably, proposed, and a 
 poet's moon hung over the arena of woods and 
 lawns, watching like a gentle eye the return of 
 merriment to Whern. Dancing was, of course, not 
 for me and I slipped away about midnight to 
 smoke a pipe on the stone seat of the upper garden 
 which, at the side of the Abbey and facing south, 
 ran some little way up the hill. From the house 
 came a faint sigh of music, so muted as to have 
 lost all but the sensuous throb that is the very 
 soul of waltz-time. The trees, under the moon- 
 light, were flattened into the sky and their leaves, 
 cut into jagged planes by black shadow-gulfs,
 
 128 Privilege 
 
 were so rigid that one could imagine them smeared 
 to stiffness with quiet, bronze paint, or, like the 
 grass, heavy with elfin snow. The Gothic fan- 
 tasies of the Abbey pile were, in this magic light, 
 fretted miracles. The central tower soared gleam- 
 ing to the velvet sky; against the interior light 
 the tracery of the windows climbed to intricate 
 harmony. 
 
 To my surprise I saw Barbara mounting the 
 garden steps. "Give me a cigarette," she said 
 and seated herself beside me. 
 
 We smoked in silence, then : 
 
 "This is your triumph, Dick," she said, "not 
 
 ours." 
 
 I looked interrogation. 
 
 ' ' I mean that we are here like this and all happy 
 again. It is thanks to your organizing and your 
 energy. I have looked for you everywhere to 
 thank you for a masterpiece." 
 
 "Please, please . . . ! But I am glad you are 
 satisfied. Anything I have done was for you — and 
 Michael, of course." 
 
 She leaned back and gave a little cry as her bare 
 shoulders touched the cold stone. 
 
 "You'll catch cold," I said, "running about with 
 nothing on."
 
 Privilege 129 
 
 1 ' Really ! And I'ma parcel compared to some ! ' ' 
 
 "Let me get you a wrap." 
 
 "No, no, of course not. Stay where you are. 
 I want to ask you to do something for me — for us. 
 I have spoken to Michael and he agrees you are 
 indispensable. Come and live here. Chuck your 
 old Museum and come and look after us. We've 
 kept you three months and nobody has complained. 
 Or would you die of boredom?" 
 
 "Madame commands," I said. "Besides, how 
 lovely it is!" 
 
 And, indeed, at that moment I should have 
 agreed to anything, so beautiful was she and the 
 night and the peace in my heart. She sat with her 
 head tilted slightly upwards, the brooding majesty 
 of her face paled to an ethereal calm under the 
 thoughtful moon. The hair swept low over one 
 temple was dark as a banked fire that smoulders 
 at its core. Her straight nose and the sullen 
 fullness of her mouth were more than ever Bar- 
 bara. And I sat up with a start, for I remembered, 
 unaccountably, that this was Michael's wife. 
 
 "Ought we to go down?" 
 
 She looked at me gravely but I thought her eyes 
 smiled. "Perhaps we ought." 
 
 "Look," I said, "how foolish the Chinese lan- 
 9
 
 i3° Privilege 
 
 terns seem. I wish we had left them out. They 
 are too hot and quarrelsome." 
 
 "And the only darkness is just outside their 
 radius." 
 
 We sat and brooded on our own fatuity. 
 
 "Ought we to go down?" she asked, throwing 
 away her cigarette. 
 
 "Perhaps we ought," I replied solemnly, and 
 followed her with a delectable breathlessness 
 towards the house. 
 
 In this manner, then, did it come about that 
 Whern became once more my home. 
 
 in 
 
 My chronology is at fault. In haste to relieve 
 those muted but glorious beginnings of the new 
 Whern, I have omitted all the tortuous embarrass- 
 ment that accompanied the hunt for Harold's 
 murderer. It was an unsuccessful hunt, as 
 Michael intended that it should be. Up to a point 
 he dissimulated cleverly and his evasions were 
 taken for genuine, if uninformed, attempts to help. 
 But as the days passed I could see bewilderment 
 in the eyes of the police. The situation became a 
 little strained. Then a development was tele-
 
 Privilege 13 1 
 
 graphed. A man was arrested in a common 
 lodging-house in Portsmouth. He was sullen and 
 would give no personal particulars. A local police- 
 man from Whern Royal averred that the prisoner's 
 face was familiar. Possibilities were narrowed 
 down and he was provisionally identified with 
 a certain Joe Wharrock, the sailor son of old 
 Whern tenants. The inspector reported with 
 complacency. At the trial everything would be 
 established. 
 
 "Trial for what?" asked Michael. 
 
 The inspector stared. 
 
 "I ask," went on Michael, "because I see no 
 evidence. Your case will break down. Vague 
 identification by a village constable will hardly 
 form a basis for a murder charge." 
 
 'Well, my lord, I feel satisfied myself that this 
 is the fellow. But enquiries will be prosecuted in 
 the village. To begin with, your lordship's agent 
 can give information regarding this Wharrock and 
 his parents." 
 
 Michael smiled his fatigued but tidy smile. 
 
 "I have no agent yet, Barnard. Mr. Braden 
 here is the only authority on the tenantry." 
 
 "A poor one at that," I added. 
 
 Inspector Barnard glanced with puzzled sus-
 
 132 Privilege 
 
 picion at the two of us. He could not understand 
 this unhelpful attitude. 
 
 "Surely there's someone ..." he began 
 with emphasis. But he checked himself, picked 
 up his cap, and strode to the door. "Well, my 
 lord, I'll be getting along. Let you know any 
 developments to-morrow." 
 
 For some minutes after he had left neither of us 
 spoke. Michael rocked himself gently to and fro 
 on the curb-fender, his shoulders hunched against 
 the mantelpiece, his empty pipe jerking idly from 
 side to side of his sarcastic mouth. 
 
 "Dick," he said at last, "what about these 
 Wharrocks?" 
 
 "As it happens," I replied, "I saw them not 
 long before — er — before all this business. I visited 
 the cottage to examine for repairs. The old man 
 is an amiable weakling, a survival of the Victorian 
 feudalism, too sugary, too courteous. The old 
 lady was defiant and — not exactly rude but — 
 well, terse in her manner. I discovered why." 
 
 Michael looked at me with lazy intentness. I 
 continued : 
 
 "Naturally I inquired about their children and 
 tried to make myself agreeable. The son was 
 expected home from a voyage but there was no
 
 Privilege 133 
 
 certainty when. The daughter had been in service 
 at the Abbey. She seems to be in Plymouth now. " 
 The inflection of my voice gave unconscious 
 emphasis to the last words. Michael kept his 
 shrewd inhuman eyes on my face. He jerked his 
 pipe still more spasmodically and with one foot 
 sketched the pattern outline of the rug. Then he 
 nodded reflectively. 
 
 "I wondered," he said simply. 
 
 I took his quickness with my own. 
 
 "The connection never occurred to me, Mi- 
 chael," I said. "Of course ..." 
 
 "And now you understand my want of fervor 
 in pursuit?" 
 
 "Understand, — yes. But I'm not sure if I 
 agree." 
 
 This was so unimportant that my brother made 
 no acknowledgment of even so tentative a differ- 
 ence of view. "It is just possible," he went on, 
 "that Barnard has fluked onto the right man. 
 Possible, but nothing more. I think I shall go 
 over to Portsmouth. Is there any evidence of the 
 staff here in Harold's day?" 
 
 "None." 
 
 Michael nodded. 
 
 "And did you gather that this girl was — so to
 
 134 Privilege 
 
 speak — get-at-able in Plymouth? I mean — has 
 she an address?" 
 
 "Oh, it's not a visit to an aunt," I said. "Noth- 
 ing of that kind. Plymouth is recognized as — you 
 understand?" 
 
 "Perfectly. The business can be managed. 
 From what you say the sympathies of the mother 
 (and she alone counts) are with the son. Therefore 
 she will, if necessary, deny that he was ever at 
 home. Even if an identification is contrived, 
 there is no shadow of real evidence connecting 
 young Wharrock with the crime. On the whole, 
 matters have turned out well." 
 
 He tilted forward to the perpendicular and 
 stepped off the curb. Then with a yawn: 
 
 "Damned idiots men are!" he said. "Ring up 
 Barnard now and tell him I'll be in Portsmouth 
 to-morrow. He is to do nothing until I say the 
 word. Nothing. Make that clear." 
 
 The case against the Portsmouth vagrant was 
 prosecuted for a while by police enthusiasm. But 
 there was no evidence and the matter was discreetly 
 allowed to drop. Lord Whern visited the prisoner 
 and satisfied himself that the man was a native of 
 Dorsetshire and had been shot at while poaching, 
 and wounded. The suggested identification with
 
 Privilege J 35 
 
 Joe Wharrock was never made public, because it 
 was asserted that the young man was on voyage 
 and had not been in England. Shortly afterwards 
 the Wharrocks left Whern Royal and retired to a 
 cottage on the outskirts of Rodbury. It was 
 understood that his lordship had been generous 
 in the matter of pension, for Wharrock was an old 
 servant of the Bradens, having been woodcutter 
 at Whern for thirty years or more. 
 
 Thinking the matter over afterwards, I was not 
 surprised at Michael's cool disregard of common 
 principles. In psychology he dated from the time 
 when caste was above law and when social duty 
 was coincident with self -advantage. To Barbara, 
 however, the affair was a shock, because her hus- 
 band was really a stranger to her. Perhaps it is 
 for the reason that over this matter the first break 
 in their harmony was noticeable, that I remember 
 it as deserving of record. And yet, oddly enough, 
 she approached the question from still another 
 point of view. 
 
 We were talking some days before the police 
 made their arrest. 
 
 "It should not be difficult to get the fel- 
 low," I said. "Wounded men are not common 
 objects nowadays." I was conventional at bot-
 
 136 Privilege 
 
 torn, and in this, as in most else, prone to 
 platitude. 
 
 "Poor man!" said Barbara. 
 
 "Why poor?" 
 
 "I hate to think of him creeping the country- 
 side, in pain and fright." 
 
 "After all, he murdered Harold." 
 
 " 'm. That's true. But the fact of his killing 
 Harold . . . we do not know his reason. And, 
 in any case, everyone is against him." 
 
 "Your soft heart . . . !" I smiled, but 
 through my complacency struggled contempt for 
 the fat playfulness that made my sentimentality 
 selfish where hers was at least generous. 
 
 She studied me gravely. 
 
 "You are afraid of pity, Dick, as you would not 
 be afraid of danger." 
 
 And then came the evening of Michael's return 
 from Portsmouth. After dinner we pressed him 
 for details. 
 
 "Wrong man," he said laconically. 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 "Chuck it, Michael. This isn't a police-court. 
 Tell us what he said." 
 
 ' ' He was uncomplimentary, ' ' replied my brother. 
 "As a family we displease him."
 
 Privilege J37 
 
 "No wonder," said Barbara, who was now as 
 familiar as I with what had transpired. 
 
 "I did not allow myself," went on Michael 
 coldly, ' ' to approve or disapprove of his opinions. 
 They are unimportant. But I made it clear that 
 I proposed to take no action." 
 
 His wife rose and sat on the arm of his chair. 
 
 "You darling!" she murmured, hooding his 
 head with the smooth beauty of her arm and 
 shoulder. "It was splendid of you." 
 
 Michael glanced at her amusedly. 
 
 "Not splendid, child. Perfectly natural. It 
 wouldn't do, you know. I've an uphill task already 
 and to start with such a scandal ..." 
 
 She drew back quickly. 
 
 "Wouldn't do ... ? Do you mean . . . ? 
 Oh, Michael, you are not trying to deny that you 
 did this out of sympathy ? Are you also so scared 
 of emotion?" 
 
 He replied, with an aggravating sniff: 
 
 "Sympathy? The man is nothing to me." 
 
 "No— but the girl ..." 
 
 "Good heavens, Barbara, you talk like a melo- 
 drama. Girls of that class must look after them- 
 selves. She asked for it, I've no doubt. Leave 
 Harold and his follies alone. The poor devil's
 
 138 Privilege 
 
 dead. We are concerned with the present and 
 future. I cannot have more scandal and I will 
 not allow this place to be the center of a sensational 
 trial. So " 
 
 "So you have lied to save yourself!" she broke 
 in angrily. "Oh, I am ashamed!" 
 
 His glance of cold surprise checked her ab- 
 ruptly. 
 
 "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I was a little 
 raucous. Thank you for the care with which you 
 protect our tranquillity." 
 
 And she went silently from the room. 
 
 Michael let no trace of feeling disturb his com- 
 posure. He passed smoothly to another subject 
 of conversation. But I felt uneasily that this mis- 
 understanding was greater than had yet appeared 
 and I wondered for the first time, as I came to 
 wonder more often and with growing certainty, 
 whether the tragedy of Harold were not really the 
 more serious tragedy of Michael. Dominion had 
 come too soon. A few years of obscurity and Bar- 
 bara would have softened his rigidity by the 
 mere assertion of her wifehood. As things were, 
 she was only his consort, which might not have 
 mattered had not the day gone by when consorts 
 were content to remain so.
 
 Privilege J 39 
 
 IV 
 
 Amid the pallid debris of the dance I walked 
 and wondered. It was only nine o'clock and no 
 one had appeared. Gardeners were tidying up 
 and I saw a barrow half full of fairy lamps, little 
 husks of dingy glass that had last night winked 
 roguishly along the edges of the lawn. The weather 
 was mild and bright, but my eyes felt tired and 
 my skin dry and taut. My pipe was at once 
 tasteless and burning and I cursed the too many 
 cigars and cigarettes of a restless evening of gayety. 
 As I walked I wondered — wondered why Barbara 
 had suggested my staying on at Whern, whether 
 it were wise to do so, whether I wanted to do so — 
 Of course I wanted, of course it was unwise. But 
 if I could be of any use, to consent was natural 
 and proper. And then I wondered who would be 
 the first person to put in an appearance, and, in- 
 consequently, when Michael was going to town. 
 
 On the broad top of the balustrade I sat and 
 bit my pipestem till it cracked. The pale sunlight 
 intensified the alternating black and white of the 
 ivy-covered ruin across the lake. The slope of 
 woods was a background of glowing reds, yellows, 
 and browns. Among the beeches, oaks, birches,
 
 140 Privilege 
 
 and elms were a few evergreens, emphatic charac- 
 ters scrawled in black across gorgeous eastern 
 weave. There was the breathlessness of autumn 
 in the quiet air and, near me on plant and masonry, 
 innumerable webs stretched like jeweled disks. 
 
 "Good morning, Mr. Agent!" 
 
 My heart dipped and slid. I started upright 
 and found myself smiling into her eyes. She was 
 pale, and the droop of her mouth was heavy with 
 fatigue. 
 
 "You look tired," I said. 
 
 "I am tired, Dick; beastly tired. I couldn't 
 sleep till it was too late." 
 
 Callowness never dies, and my impulse was 
 toward the conspiratorial "Nor could I," but self- 
 ridicule, often called self-control, coughed warn- 
 ingly in my mind's ear. Instead : 
 
 " Michael doesn't go to-day, does he?" I asked. 
 
 "No— Monday." 
 
 "For how long?" 
 
 "I suppose he'll be down Sundays, but I don't 
 think for longer than a week-end till Christmas." 
 
 "And what is to happen then?" 
 
 "That's what I wanted to discuss with you. I 
 have a letter from Monica. She must be great 
 
 mn.
 
 Privilege H 1 
 
 1 ' Fun ? " I said . ' ' Let us say ' stimulus . ' Where 
 is she? Has she ever written to you before?" 
 
 She handed me the letter. It was short but 
 intimate in its vivid flippancy. Monica hoped 
 Michael was a satisfactory husband, was sure 
 Barbara would be the making of him, and longed 
 to see her new sister-in-law. In conclusion, she 
 announced her own arrival in London early in 
 December with her fiance, and could they come to 
 Whern for Christmas because they meant to be 
 married in February, and she wished to blush 
 before the altar with the sweet confusion of an 
 English maiden fresh from the dear old home. 
 Not a word about Harold. In a postscript a 
 message to Michael that both she and Putzi 
 wanted to hunt, and would he please do the 
 needful. 
 
 "If Monica wants to come for Christmas she'll 
 come," I said. 
 
 "Excellent. Can't we collect the family and 
 ask them each to invite a friend or two? Would 
 that be unseemly entertainment? Surely not. I 
 want you all to feel this is your home, and that I 
 don't matter." 
 
 "You make all the difference," I said. 
 
 1 ' What a nasty speech ! ' ' Her retort was a shade
 
 142 Privilege 
 
 over-swift. "And when I've just said I don't 
 want to make any!" 
 
 I side-stepped to subjects of general interest. 
 
 ' ' There remains Mary of us. We needn't bother 
 about other relations, but the twins must come. 
 You remember their ludicrous mamma? At the 
 wedding? Like a perambulating meringue?" 
 
 "Tell me about Mary. Why have I never seen 
 her?" 
 
 "Why have not I? She has been Cambridge 
 bound for eight or nine months. She has hardly 
 written to me ; and yet we were very good friends. 
 I am interested to see what has become of her." 
 
 "Then I'll tell Michael about Monica, and, if 
 he agrees, we'll fix up the party." 
 
 Autumn paled to winter and life at Whern 
 became for me a thing compounded of quiet hap- 
 piness, with rare flashes of excitement or twinges 
 of fear. As these usually coincided with my brief 
 periods of absence, I concluded that daily contact 
 with Barbara was forming from our intimacy a 
 solid friendship, at once estimable and pleasant; 
 that accordingly I had done right to stay on at the
 
 Privilege H3 
 
 Abbey and that the more continuously I was there, 
 the more right — and the more upright — I became. 
 Also there was genuinely work to do. Gradually 
 matters fell into order. I had secured a good 
 man for my assistant or sub-agent, and, as things 
 had fallen out, nothing more was yet necessary. 
 Naturally I made a point myself of establishing 
 personal relations with most of the tenantry. 
 Generally once a fortnight I had an opportunity 
 to discuss matters thoroughly with Michael. My 
 chief worry was an area of cottage property in 
 Rodbury. The houses were in a bad state and 
 overcrowded; also, as much of the land lay in a 
 triangle enclosed by railway lines, it tended to be 
 a pocket towards which drained the lowest type 
 of poor. The worst slums in cities are usually 
 to be found in just such oddments of land. Rod- 
 bury was not London nor Leeds, and doubtlc: s 
 Nine Elms, Pentonville, and the alleys off Dews- 
 bury Road could provide more sensational mate- 
 rial than the comparatively small Feetham Street 
 area that was my trouble, but the Whern estate 
 was so little industrial that any problem of low 
 class urban property was a serious one. Although 
 both Michael and I agreed that the cottages should 
 be demolished, we realized that there was no
 
 144 Privilege 
 
 money to spare for so drastic an undertaking. 
 Therefore it was with relief and delight that I 
 opened one morning a letter from a firm of lawyers 
 inquiring, on behalf of the railway company, 
 whether Lord Whern would be inclined to sell 
 this very district. With Michael's authorization 
 I interviewed the solicitors and grasped that the 
 land was of essential importance to the company 
 for a scheme of developing the goods and passenger 
 facilities at Rodbury. Negotiations were pro- 
 longed, but ultimately they paid over a large sum 
 of money, and the triangle of courts and tumble- 
 down tenements passed forever from the possession 
 of the Bradens. The capital thus acquired was 
 invested in shipping and industrial shares, partly 
 in England, but mainly abroad. A time came when 
 this investment made possible for me what would 
 otherwise have been impossible. But of that at 
 its proper time. 
 
 As in my actual existence, so in this posthumous 
 narrative (for it is one Richard Braden that writes 
 of the failure or the triumph of another), the 
 human element crops up constantly and always. 
 I could fill my mind with the duties of my regency ; 
 I could spend long days motoring from village to 
 village, from farm to farm ; but at the back of my
 
 Privilege J 45 
 
 mind were forever the personality of my brother, 
 the personality of his wife, their relations to each 
 other, and my relations to them both. During 
 those weeks of November and December there 
 might have been only the three of us in existence, 
 so intense was my preoccupation with ourselves. 
 Anthony, whom I saw constantly; Mary, who 
 would appear at Christmas after close on a year 
 of silent absence; Monica with her foreign noble- 
 man — were labeled boxes for which the keys were 
 on their way, but not yet arrived. 
 
 I have recorded the scene, at the time of the 
 arrest, when Barbara took for pity what was 
 really Michael's pride. The incident helped me 
 to understand the foundation of their marriage, 
 and to myself I hazarded some such reconstruction 
 as the following. Barbara met Michael during 
 his brief period of exile. He was in that cruelest 
 of positions for the conscious aristocrat, the posi- 
 tion of a martyr to moral principle. Any less 
 bourgeois form of martyrdom would have fed and 
 nourished his dignity, but, for a person of his 
 temperament, the knowledge that his action might 
 be held up for the shallow ridicule of the easy 
 moralists of his class must have been torture. 
 Under these trials he bore himself with quiet 
 
 10
 
 i4 6 Privilege 
 
 determination, emotion seemingly reduced to a 
 scientific formula, anger and embarrassment frozen 
 to punctilious attitude. Barbara Dawlish, her 
 natural warmth and gayety only then venturing 
 timidly from the defensive listlessness to which 
 they had been driven by the old satyr who had 
 bought her girlhood, recognized in Michael what 
 she believed did not exist— a man with appetite 
 only for an idea, a man with brains and with, at 
 the same time, the upright conservatism that only 
 breeding can give. Michael, on the other hand, 
 saw in her primarily a victim of circumstance, an 
 outcast as he was from that upper room to which 
 both by rights belonged, and secondarily a thing 
 of beauty. His pride of isolation could not reject 
 such noble companionship in distress. Probably 
 he welcomed her acquaintance as strengthening 
 the cause of righteousness. Probably, also, he 
 endowed her with a dynastic eminence she did not 
 really possess, a slight enough piece of favoritism 
 for an incipient lover. He frequented her com- 
 pany, and was tempted gradually to an unfolding 
 of his aspirations, to a slow abandonment of the 
 reserve with which he faced the world. She was 
 all sympathy and understanding; or so it seemed. 
 Actually, I suspect, she read into his perplexities
 
 Privilege i47 
 
 and unhappiness something more humane and 
 ideal than the rigid devotion to the conception of 
 nobility that sustained him. He, on his part, took 
 her encouragement for a like worship to his own 
 of quality as against quantity. And before there 
 was time for the reality of their concord to be 
 questioned, he flamed into consciousness of her 
 womanhood and fell in love. I have spoken of the 
 occasion when, at the height of his infatuation, I 
 met him and Barbara at the cinema. I have said 
 that he was so unlike the Michael I knew, that the 
 external sameness was uncanny, cloaking as it did 
 a being I hardly recognized. It was as though a 
 familiar statue had come alive. The symptoms of 
 her affection escaped me. It was the first time I 
 had seen her; she was a woman and mistress of 
 her emotions. But I think my feeling was accurate 
 that her fondness was more admiring than passion- 
 ate. His cold brilliance dazzled, and the woman 
 in her worshiped the unflinching light of his distant 
 courage. 
 
 But when circumstances set Michael on his 
 rightful throne she began to suspect fanaticism, 
 where in adversity she had seen only single-mindcd- 
 ness. His devotion to duty, his methodical 
 integrity, were as complete as ever, but the end
 
 i4 8 Privilege 
 
 to which they were directed puzzled her. At the 
 time, for example, when the sale of the Rodbury 
 tenements was first discussed, she endeavored to 
 follow out the implications of the proposed transfer 
 of ownership. 
 
 "I'm so glad, Micky," she said. "It has been 
 horrible to think we could do nothing to make 
 that place better. I'm all in favor of closing." 
 
 "At any price, child?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know about values! But Dick 
 said something ending in thousands. It sounds 
 heaps." 
 
 "I think we can get more, Barbara," I said. 
 "The company must have the land." 
 
 "And they'll pull all those dreadful slums down." 
 
 Michael nodded. 
 
 "I imagine the whole space will be sheds and 
 sidings. They'll have to bank up a lot of it. 
 They're enlarging the stations too, Dick, aren't 
 they?" 
 
 "Then where will the poor people go?" asked 
 Barbara. 
 
 Her husband shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "But they must go somewhere," she persisted. 
 
 "Really, Barbara, I'm not a housing authority." 
 
 She looked at him with troubled eyes.
 
 Privilege i49 
 
 "No, of course not. But somehow it seems we 
 are a little responsible. They have lived in filth 
 because our predecessors — well — didn't or couldn't 
 bother. And now they are merely to be driven 
 away. ..." 
 
 ' ' I'm afraid, my dear, that is hardly my business. 
 There are other houses in Rodbury " 
 
 "Glenny told me two days ago the place was 
 crowded out, Michael; — that working families 
 were camped on open spaces, and that the com- 
 pany were putting up hundreds of men in an old 
 factory." 
 
 "Well then, they'll have to go somewhere else." 
 He turned to me. "Will you write to Turner 
 about the title deeds? And tell him I won't go 
 below the figure we arranged yesterday? Now, 
 I must write some letters. Send Miss Carrick up 
 to me, Barbara." 
 
 He left the room. 
 
 This tiny incident developed. It happened that 
 Barbara met the Socialist leader on the Rodbury 
 Council at a bazaar the following afternoon. From 
 what she told me afterwards, I gather that he 
 painted a moving picture of housing conditions
 
 150 Privilege 
 
 in the town and expressed a wish that some phil- 
 anthropist would urge and assist the railway 
 company to build a garden city for some part of 
 the huge population that depended on the great 
 junction. Incidentally he inquired whether no- 
 thing was to be done to improve conditions in the 
 Feetham Street district. 
 
 "I couldn't tell him about the possible sale, you 
 see," she complained, "and it hurts me to have to 
 say we are planning no repairs or clearances. He 
 inquired if I'd ever been in person to see what the 
 place was like. So I asked him to take me." 
 
 "When?" I queried, rather startled. 
 
 "We went at once," she replied calmly. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Oh, it's disgusting! No human beings could 
 be expected to keep pigs in such places. Grown-up 
 girls and young men herded in single rooms, in 
 single beds even. No water; no sanitation. I 
 don't want to exaggerate. I've seen worse in 
 Liverpool and South Wales and in London, but 
 this time I felt hideously guilty. Especially 
 
 as 
 
 "Yes?" I prompted her hesitation. 
 
 "Especially as Mr. Verney made a point of 
 telling people who I was. ..."
 
 Privilege 151 
 
 "The devil he did!" I said, and wondered what 
 the fellow had in mind. I knew Verney slightly, 
 a bitter fighter and a genuine, if unscrupulous, 
 extremist. 
 
 "That was not very courteous," 1 added aloud. 
 
 Poor Barbara looked distressed and worried. 
 
 "It seemed to make — to make things harder 
 for me. But I suppose I deserved it. The 
 contrast to this. . . ." And she swept her arm 
 towards the long drawing-room with its shining 
 furniture and pale, exquisite rugs. 
 
 "Then I hope all the more the company will 
 buy," I said.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A HOUSE PARTY 
 
 It is not easy in a narrative of this kind to hold 
 a balance of values. Happenings in retrospect are 
 more definite than in actual experience and indi- 
 cations, noticeable to one who has learnt their 
 later significance, pass imperceptibly at the time 
 of their first faint appearing. Wherefore, if I have 
 given an impression that the tranquillity of Mi- 
 chael's headship was as yet even gently ruffled, I 
 am misleading the reader at the same time as I am 
 paying his due of accuracy. Christmas and its 
 house -party were so complete a success that a new 
 and glorious era seemed indeed to have opened. 
 Whern was in a way to become once again a great 
 Wiltshire house. The honor of Braden was all 
 but reestablished. Michael worked hard to create 
 so soon an impression of solidity and importance. 
 In London politically, in Wiltshire socially, he was 
 
 152
 
 A House Party 153 
 
 winning a rapid way to prominence. Every 
 Sunday that he spent at home was devoted to the 
 work of landlordism, to political correspondence, 
 and to some form of social responsibility. Horse- 
 manship and good shooting stood him in good 
 stead, and he earned the respect of the surrounding 
 landowners more by his style and daring in the 
 hunting-field and by his skill with a gun than by 
 any community of ideas. I daresay they found 
 him personally stiff and aloof ; certainly he regarded 
 them as either gross or flaccid. His only real 
 intimate was Shrivenham, an earl of the old school, 
 who at the age of fifty was still a bachelor, and 
 lived a life of feudal and solitary splendor behind 
 the mediaeval walls of his famous house near 
 Dauntney Abbas. Shrivenham was an acquaint- 
 ance of Michael's boyhood. He would invite the 
 lad to Dauntney for long afternoons, which were 
 spent pacing the lawn or before the log fire in the 
 huge open fireplace of the banqueting-hall. Mi- 
 chael would give no details of his visits to the 
 strange, proud man, who refused dealings with 
 Black Whern, and from whom Harold would have 
 looked for recognition last of the whole population 
 of Debrett. There can be no doubt, however, 
 that Shrivenham 's influence was strong with my
 
 154 Privilege 
 
 brother and wholly on the side of that rigid eti- 
 quette of caste, to which Michael's own nature so 
 strongly inclined. It was common knowledge that 
 Shrivenham had, since his undergraduate days, 
 been haughtily exclusive to the pitch of absurdity. 
 Before he inherited or thought to inherit the title, 
 he had dreamed of nobility and the restoration of 
 its ancient prestige. With the earldom came the 
 opportunity for living his imaginings, and he took 
 that opportunity with zest and magnificence, if, 
 also, with a certain lack of humor. 
 
 To his old mentor and respected senior Michael 
 now returned as more of an equal. He made the 
 renewal of relations between Dauntney and Whern 
 something of a test of the success of his policy of 
 rehabilitation. To spend two days with Barbara 
 at Dauntney was a step in the right direction, 
 but it was not until Shrivenham (in a moment of 
 kindliness which I suspect he later regretted) 
 promised to spend Christmas at Whern, that 
 Michael felt he had triumphed. Certainly the 
 name made a startling heading to the very homely 
 list of the other guests. But Michael maintained 
 that Shrivenham had only consented, because the 
 invitation was to a family gathering. I think he 
 regarded this star visitor as a collector regards a
 
 A House Party 155 
 
 rare edition or a priceless vase, for there were few 
 houses in England that the lonely man had ever 
 been known to visit. 
 
 "It's rather awful!" said Barbara. "I almost 
 wish he wasn't coming. We shall have to behave 
 so well." 
 
 We were having breakfast. 
 
 "The Pope himself wouldn't impress Monica," 
 I remarked from the sideboard, where I was busy 
 with the coffee pot. 
 
 "Incidentally, don't forget that he is very High 
 Church." Michael's warning was comically seri- 
 ous, as though we were children likely to be 
 tempted to awkward questions by a visitor with 
 a glass eye. 
 
 "You must address the family, Micky," said 
 his wife, "and see that they understand." 
 
 Her tone was of a gentle solemnity, and Michael 
 seemed wholly unsuspicious, but as I came to my 
 place I glanced at her amusedly, for I heard the 
 irony behind the wifeliness. 
 
 "Who exactly are coming?" asked Michael. 
 
 "Monica, her Hungarian, and her friends the 
 Easterhams; Mary and some friend from Cam- 
 bridge; Jim, I hope; Agatha Chaldon and her 
 husband and kids — er — us three, of course, and
 
 156 Privilege 
 
 Anthony — and Lord Shrivenham. Are you asking 
 a selection of political pundits?" Barbara smiled 
 at her husband. 
 
 Michael was genial and took no exception to a 
 familiarity that would, at a less favorable moment, 
 have provoked chilliness or even reproof. 
 
 "Not this time, I think," he replied. "They 
 can wait. Well, everyone seems provided for 
 except poor brother Richard. Who is he in- 
 viting?" 
 
 "I have no friends," I said simply, and I confess 
 that the look of sympathy from Barbara was not 
 unhoped for. 
 
 ' ' Rubbish, ' ' said Michael briskly. ' ' What about 
 that little woman in Chelsea — I forget the name 
 
 How calamitous is the roguishness of the serious- 
 minded ! On his normal occasions Michael lacked 
 resiliency and on matters of intimate principle was 
 ignorant of compromise, but he never fumbled. 
 And now, in a sudden access of levity, he was 
 guilty of this clumsy tactlessness. He had re- 
 covered his poise at the last moment, in time to 
 feign forgetfulness of a name, but too late to 
 acquit him of a seemingly wanton cruelty. For a 
 second I stared at him speechless, too much
 
 A House Party 157 
 
 amazed at the brutal resurrection of a dead sorrow 
 to reply. Then, as it entered my head: 
 
 "Oh, you mean that poor little cripple, Alice 
 Macgregor? She has left London and gone to her 
 folks in Scotland. I hope she is happy at last." 
 
 Michael was as near blushing as his calm pallor 
 would admit ; I could see that he was marveling at 
 his own indiscretion. He made a pitiful pretense 
 of gratification at my news. 
 
 "I am glad. I have often thought of her and 
 how she must miss you." 
 
 There was silence. Why did Barbara say 
 nothing? I dared not look at her, fearing every 
 second that she would press, in her kindly curiosity, 
 for more detail of this imaginary and , so far as I could 
 judge, painfully mawkish Samaritanism of my un- 
 certain past. Michael spoke again, with nervous 
 off-handedness. 
 
 "We shall only be fifteen, then. They'll come 
 on the Wednesday, I suppose? Christmas is 
 Friday, I think. The horses will be ready enough. 
 You'll see the small course is in some sort of order, 
 Dick? Barbara will arrange the evenings. How 
 splendid to be able to leave these details in such 
 able hands!" 
 
 His complacency was as little convincing to my
 
 158 Privilege 
 
 ear as had been his interest in that infernal 
 cripple. It was a relief when Barbara rose sud- 
 denly and announced that she heard someone in 
 the greenhouse and wished to send an order to 
 the kitchen garden. 
 
 When she had disappeared, Michael came be- 
 hind my chair and laid a hand on my shoulder. 
 
 "Dick," he said, "I just cannot conceive what 
 possessed me ! It was as though someone else had 
 begun the sentence. I apologize. Forgive me." 
 
 "That's all right," I muttered and bent over 
 my marmalade. "But you startled me. I had al- 
 most forgotten it. " Then in a sudden revengeful mo- 
 ment - "Her name was Ursula," I said, "Ursula 
 Clavering." 
 
 He withdrew his hand sharply and walked to 
 the door. 
 
 "I have already apologized," he observed coldly. 
 
 When she returned Barbara found me alone, 
 staring absently at the table-cloth. She stood at 
 the French window a moment and I felt that her 
 compassionate eyes were watching me. I looked 
 up and forced a smile. 
 
 "Hullo," I said. "Have you made sure of to- 
 night's vegetables?" 
 
 "Poor Dick," she replied softly.
 
 A House Party 159 
 
 She became a symbol of comfort, as she stood 
 against the light, her arm raised to the heavy 
 curtain, the slight curve of her rounded body a 
 faint question-mark. In the face of this gentle 
 plea for confidence, my reserve broke down. 
 
 "I should like to tell you," I said, "I insist on 
 telling you, Barbara, — all about it." 
 
 "Better not, Dick. . . . Please. . . . Un- 
 less it helps. ..." 
 
 Once again the breath of encouragement, once 
 again the far call to confession. 
 
 "It more than helps. I should have done so 
 before if I had not — forgotten about it." 
 
 'You shall tell me to-night, Dick," she said. 
 "Not now. To-night." 
 
 It was Monday morning and I remembered that 
 Michael left for town immediately after lunch. 
 
 II 
 
 'This is the story," I said casually, "whether 
 you care to hear it or not." 
 
 Barbara tilted her feet on to the sofa and reached 
 down for a cigarette. The gesture caught my 
 attention. It was unfamiliar to me as coming from 
 Barbara, but yet I recognized it and with a sudden
 
 160 Privilege 
 
 twinge of discomfort. The long slope of the bare 
 arm, the fingers like flickering ghosts groping along 
 the dark floor, I had seen them often before. Often 
 and often. Many times from just such a deep 
 chair as this, had I watched, with dreamy fascina- 
 tion, the uncanny vitality of pale gliding fingers, 
 the motionless column of a tense white arm. 
 
 "What's the matter?' asked Barbara. "Go 
 ahead." 
 
 I apologized. 
 
 "It was only your reaching down like that and 
 feeling about for the cigarettes. It reminded me 
 . . . Now for the story. The business began at 
 the Chelsea Arts. I was just down from Oxford, 
 very intense both in my frivolity and earnestness, 
 rather hypnotized by the glamor of studios and 
 the pseudo-bohemianism which our caste is apt to 
 affect. I had gone to Covent Garden with a party 
 of eight or nine. I almost forget now who they 
 were; anyway it is of no consequence. Of course 
 I was as useless a dancer as I am now, but I 
 wandered about in a remarkable turban, prided 
 myself on knowing lots of people and generally 
 had a vapid and entertaining time. Then about 
 three o'clock I ran into an actor I knew who was 
 standing with a girl and looking about him in a
 
 A House Party 161 
 
 worried way. He hailed me effusively and, after 
 a few words of triviality, asked his partner whether 
 she would excuse him for a few moments. He had 
 promised to give an important message to a fellow 
 actor, had forgotten it, and now felt a sudden fear 
 lest the man might be departing. 
 
 '"This is Mrs. Clavering, Braden,' he said. 
 'Your well-known charm of manner — all that 
 kind of thing ' 
 
 "And with a bow he left her to my care. She was 
 small and dark with a face powdered dead white, 
 brilliant lips, and eyes like purple crocuses in 
 snow. 
 
 " 'Are you the Mr. Braden whose name I see in 
 Notes and Queries? ' 
 
 ' ' I am sure I blushed with pleasure. And was she 
 related to Clavering the sculptor? 
 ' 'I have the privilege to be his wife.' 
 
 '"Is he here to-night?' 
 
 '"Oh no! He despises such frivolities.' 
 
 "I had enough perception to utter no conven- 
 tional compliment of her husband's work. It would 
 have been insincere at best, for Clavering was a 
 maker of daintiness and allegory and his popularity 
 was of the kind that demands continual repetition 
 of one somewhat tenuous achievement. Apart 
 ii
 
 1 62 Privilege 
 
 from all that, however, I had an instinct that the 
 subject would fail to grip. 
 
 "We drifted to a seat and talked ostensibly of 
 books and pictures and furniture and music but 
 actually of other people. She was very gay and 
 a mistress of that spiced comment that is always 
 indiscretion and often malice. The time slipped 
 away. I wondered idly where my party had got to. 
 Suddenly she said : 
 
 " 'You have passionate eyes, Braden. I suspect 
 you are a secret poet.' 
 
 "The use of my surname flattered me even more 
 than the actual tenor of her words. 
 
 '"It sounds a disreputable and evil thing,' I 
 said lightly. 
 
 " 'I didn't mean quite that,' she laughed. And 
 then, after a pause, 'Though if I had done, I 
 disagree.' 
 
 "The remark had so clearly ulterior implication, 
 that I made no reply, but docketed the speaker 
 in my mind (as doubtless she intended I should) 
 under the heading 'Genuine Bohemian.'" 
 
 Barbara smiled slightly at this point, and I 
 caught her up. 
 
 "Don't laugh at me! I've admitted all the 
 callowness and provinciality."
 
 A House Party 163 
 
 "I'm not laughing at you, Dick! It was only a 
 smile of affection for your vanished youth." 
 
 This jarred me slightly, so I resumed my story. 
 
 '"What is the time?' was Mrs. Clavering's next 
 question. 
 
 "It was after four. 
 
 '"Let's go home,' she said. 
 
 "We left the theater together and walked west- 
 wards through the cold clear darkness. At a 
 coffee stall we had a hot drink. I asked her where 
 she lived. Chelsea. I was in rooms in Westminster 
 at that time — as you know, the parental roof was 
 not quarrel-proof — and, with unnecessary pom- 
 posity, suggested I should see her home 'because 
 it was on my way.' We found a taxi. She pulled 
 me towards her. 
 
 '"It's cold,' she said with a pretty shudder. 
 'Come and sit right up to me.' 
 
 "We traveled to Chelsea in very close company, 
 but she made no further remark or gesture that 
 was in any way forthcoming. As we pulled up 
 at her door she laid a hand on my arm. 
 "Come to tea to-morrow, Braden?' 
 
 '"I should love to.' 
 
 "She jumped out, shut the door, and then poked 
 her absurd little head in at the open window.
 
 1 64 Privilege 
 
 "'Good-night,' she said. 
 
 '"Good-night, Mrs. Clavering.' 
 
 '"Oh, la la!' she exclaimed. 'Not like that, 
 please! The name is Ursula.' 
 
 "'Good-night — Ursula,' I replied with what was 
 doubtless charming gaucherie.' r 
 
 This time Barbara laughed outright. I queried 
 the joke with raised eyebrows. 
 
 "You are so perfect, Dick! The candor of your 
 detachment ! ' ' 
 
 "But—" I began. 
 
 "Oh, it's splendid; most accurate. But I didn't 
 think many men analyzed their effect on women 
 so thoroughly." 
 
 Once again I felt slightly ruffled, and once again 
 hastened to proceed. 
 
 "Well, I went to tea. By daylight she was 
 more alluring because less considered. With 
 fancy dress she sloughed off the powder, and the 
 sallow languor of her skin had the gentleness of grass 
 from which snow has melted suddenly ; her crocus 
 eyes were less violet than against the mask of 
 make-up, but in their greater softness more caress- 
 ing. She greeted me gravely. It was a desultory 
 visit. Conversation jogged through a slumbrous 
 countryside. Such sense of adventure as may have
 
 A House Party 165 
 
 possessed me faded into drowsy comfort. Claver- 
 ing came in just as I was leaving. He was terribly 
 the artist — Vandyke beard, double bow-tie, even 
 a velvet coat. He pressed my hand absently, ran 
 his long fingers over his wife's hair, took a maca- 
 roon from the plate, and, munching it, drifted from 
 the room again. . . . 
 
 "To this day I cannot understand why anything 
 more ever happened. I was not bored, but I left 
 the house with that feeling that something looked 
 forward to had proved a failure and that the 
 future was without landmarks. Nevertheless I 
 was there again three days later, this time for 
 lunch. 
 
 "So it went on. You must understand that in 
 appearance and in fact this acquaintanceship was 
 perfectly normal. There were usually other people 
 there; I was merely one of a crowd of friends. 
 Similarly when, as happened with growing fre- 
 quency, I asked her out, it was to meet my friends 
 (I had quite a lot in those days !) and my relations. 
 Monica and Michael got to know her well. You 
 remember how the whole question was revived 
 this morning? Michael came to regard Ursula as 
 a special fancy of mine. Only that, as they say, 
 and nothing more.
 
 166 Privilege 
 
 "What a rotten story this is! It just drivels on. 
 as my friendship with Ursula driveled on, for 
 months." 
 
 "Until — ?" queried Barbara. 
 
 "Exactly. Until " 
 
 She smiled encouragingly. 
 
 "There again!" I said impatiently. "Until 
 nothing — nothing that I can tell, so to speak. It 
 just happened. One day, I suppose, the romantic 
 conceit of youth whispered that Ursula's friendship 
 might be something more. I began to wonder why 
 she saw me so often. And, naturally, having once 
 begun to imagine that she was 'asking for it' I 
 came to regard it as incumbent on my virility to 
 deliver the goods. So I slithered into love-making 
 down the rope of my vanity. She feigned resent- 
 ment. I was very persevering and masculine. 
 She began to weaken. It was all wonderfully 
 according to convention " 
 
 "Dick!" interrupted Barbara, "don't be cyni- 
 cal. You know it was lovely at the time." 
 
 I stared at her. And I realized that she needed 
 only this touch of hedonism to be perfect. For a 
 moment I had a vision of a sunlit glade, a riot of 
 autumn leaves, and heard, just out of sight, the 
 low laughter of pagan girlhood. Her high color
 
 A House Party 167 
 
 and the firm splendor of her throat. . . . Then 
 the urgent faun in pursuit — and my eye caught 
 the clumsy patent leather of my cripple's shoe. 
 A hoof indeed! Instantly I was a drawing-room 
 lover, an ugly thing of intrigue and starched linen. 
 The wild beauty of the forest of love shrank to a 
 furtive daub, with lamp-posts feebly tricked out 
 as trees and, over the entrance of a pasteboard 
 glade, a rain-blotched signboard promising dubious 
 hospitality. 
 
 ' ' Lovely ? " I said thoughtfully. "Is fake passion 
 ever lovely?" 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 "Good heavens! As if — Never mind; get on 
 with the story." 
 
 I determined to risk a throw. 
 
 "You talk like a worshiper of Astarte." 
 
 "Did they talk much?" 
 
 I gripped the arms of my chair in dangerous 
 excitement. And then once again she reached 
 for a cigarette. It was as though a lantern slide 
 had been interposed between us, for I saw Ursula 
 and not Barbara, and the sparse mockery of past 
 failure blotted out the opulent promise of a new 
 delirium. The tension relaxed. 
 
 "Matches," I said and threw the box into her
 
 1 68 Privilege 
 
 lap. She lit her cigarette and lay back on the 
 cushions. 
 
 "Do get on," she said dully. 
 
 The story had become an indescribable ennui. 
 I felt so tired that even speech required deliberate 
 effort. There had been an emotional miscarriage; 
 the climax had come before its time and unnatur- 
 ally. Properly managed this tale of Ursula should 
 have gently led up to — what ? At least to an effect 
 of some kind. Its only purpose was to react on the 
 relationship between Barbara and me. Of course 
 we both realized the force of fictional stimulus. 
 That was the idea of the whole thing. And now — 
 Best to get it over quickly. Wherefore, feeling 
 shamefaced but, I hope, not looking it, I resumed : 
 
 "Having assumed the part of lover, I became 
 fairly competent. Clavering was abroad. We 
 wandered into the studio after dinner and the 
 moon, shining through the glass roof, threw a 
 strange thin light over the pale lumps of statuary. 
 It was like being under water, and the graceful 
 nudity of the familiar Clavering nymphs looked 
 as nearly actual as was possible to anything per- 
 taining to them. I felt a stirring of desire. 
 
 " ' He must have charming models,' I said. 
 
 '"For example?'
 
 A House Party 169 
 
 "She was standing full in the moonlight. Her 
 white dress blended into the pallor of her neck and 
 arms. It seemed to dissolve first into mist, then 
 into transparency. She became one of the throng 
 of them, as faintly alluring in the soft greenish 
 light. Only her dark hair and the velvet shadows 
 of her eyes gave her the touch of humanity that 
 made her nudity a challenge and not mere 
 passivity " 
 
 I heard my own voice and the studied rhythm of 
 the words. Embarrassed and doubly weary I 
 stopped short. 
 
 "Charming, Dick," said Barbara lazily. "I 
 can picture it entirely. And you took her in your 
 arms. Row of dots across the page. 'At dawn he 
 left her, left her lying there with her dark hair 
 straying wantonly over the pillow, — That's the 
 way it goes; admit it." 
 
 "Please!" I said. "You are right to puncture 
 an inflated style, but I don't enjoy telling this, you 
 know." 
 
 She glanced at me and melted to divine sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 "Poor Dick!" Crossing to my side and sitting 
 on the arm of my chair. ' ' I am a brute. I've been 
 a brute all the evening. Don't tell me any more."
 
 17° Privilege 
 
 "I must finish," I said quietly. The high seri- 
 ousness of the morning was upon us once again. 
 My love for Barbara was once again an inspiration 
 and not, as it had so lately been, a fever. She 
 went quietly back to her sofa. 
 
 ' ' I really loved Ursula after that night. Before 
 I had been a little conscious of my own daring 
 and, at the same time, a little afraid of her, but 
 now she became the very reason for existence. 
 We were everywhere together. Even Michael 
 twitted me on my devotion and, as you can im- 
 agine, he was the last of my circle to do the heavily 
 humorous. One evening I asked her to come 
 away with me. Clavering was due back in Eng- 
 land and the very thought of him made me sick 
 with jealousy. She refused. I implored her. She 
 demanded respite for thought. 'What about 
 money?' she asked. It was to my then infatua- 
 tion a delicious touch of the practical. I enlarged 
 on my prospects. 'But why can't we go on as 
 we are?' I told her I loved her too much and 
 all that. All the old protestations, you know, but 
 they were true enough then. 
 
 "The next day I rang her up to say I would be 
 round by nine o'clock. She had to go out; was 
 horribly sorry, but couldn't avoid it. The day
 
 A House Party 171 
 
 became a wilderness. In the evening, restless and 
 miserable, I walked along the river to squeeze a 
 drop of comfort from melancholy gazing at her 
 house. And then a taxi drove up, stopped at the 
 door, and disgorged a passenger. Crossing the 
 road quickly I was able to recognize him as he 
 passed inside. It was a young novelist, a friend 
 of Monica's, to whom I had introduced Ursula a 
 week before. At first I was too trustful of her to 
 suspect deceit. I recrossed the road and leant 
 over the river parapet, watching the lights and 
 the faint shadows on the blue darkness, and, half 
 unconsciously, going over in my mind what had 
 just occurred. Suddenly a wild idea flamed across 
 my brain. Furious with anxiety, I went straight 
 to her door and rang the bell. 
 
 " 'Mrs. Clavering is not at home, sir.' 
 "As I turned away, believing but still perplexed, 
 something fluttered to the pavement at my feet. 
 It was a ribbon of crimson velvet, and, as I held it 
 in my hand, I heard Ursula's voice float mockingly 
 along the darkness above my head, 'Fly away, 
 ki-ite!' 
 
 "I have that ribbon still. She used to wear it 
 in her hair and I knew only too well how the hair 
 slipped over her white shoulders once the ribbon
 
 i7 2 Privilege 
 
 was removed. It was a bad night that followed. 
 I was too young to endure with suitable noncha- 
 lance. Also I loved her. The next day was the 
 last before Clavering's return. There was a dinner 
 party at Ursula's and I was to go, as usual, an hour 
 earlier than the others. I went. She received me 
 with her customary affection and expressed alarm 
 at my coldness. I blurted out my anger and my 
 misery. I must have been pitiably absurd. At 
 the end I went on my knees to her and begged 
 for her love. She said very little; merely that I 
 must have mistaken the voice, that she had not 
 been at home the night before, that the velvet 
 ribbon was either my imagination or had fallen 
 from the window of another house. 
 
 ' 'The guests arrived slowly. Michael was among 
 them. Last of all appeared the young novelist. 
 You can imagine what that dinner was like for me. 
 I could give you every detail of the table decora- 
 tion, the menu, the women's clothes. There was 
 ice pudding with almonds stuck all over it. And 
 cheese straws in rings. I thought the guests 
 would never go, but I was determined to outstay 
 them all. By twelve o'clock only I and the novel- 
 ist remained. Ursula yawned. The novelist 
 looked at his watch. The clock ticked dispassion-
 
 A House Party 173 
 
 ately from the corner. Suddenly Ursula held up a 
 finger. 'Hush,' she said. Steps were audible in 
 the hall. She turned to me. 
 
 " 'Good-night, Braden,' she said. 'Here is my 
 husband.' 
 
 "I was too angry to reply. She shrugged her 
 shoulders and, when Clavering came into the room, 
 she walked straight to him and took him by the arm. 
 
 " 'Jim,' she said, 'I cannot get rid of Richard 
 Braden. He has been annoying me for weeks, so 
 to-night I told him you were still abroad — just to 
 see what would happen. Will you please help him 
 downstairs? He has a club-foot, so do not hurt 
 him. It is not as though he was all of a man.' 
 
 "She turned her back on me and went straight 
 over to where the novelist was sitting. I heard 
 him snigger and her say, conversationally : 
 
 ' ' 'I am sorry my husband is so late. It was good 
 of you to wait so long to see him.' 
 
 "That is all. I have not seen either of them 
 since." 
 
 "But Clavering? What did he do?" 
 
 "Oh, he was all to pieces. Hadn't got a kick 
 in him. He just followed me downstairs twittering 
 nervously. Poor devil, I daresay he felt he ought 
 to apologize to me for the unpleasantness."
 
 174 Privilege 
 
 "Then how did Michael know?" 
 
 "You would hardly expect the novelist to hold 
 his tongue? The clubs knew all there was to 
 know and rather more by lunch-time the next 
 day." 
 
 "Oh, Dick, how awful for you!" 
 
 "It did me good. It's hard work living things 
 down. Anyway you know now what really hap- 
 pened, and that is what matters." 
 
 "Thank you," she said simply. 
 
 in 
 
 Mary was the first of the party to arrive. She 
 wrote Michael a postcard announcing herself for 
 a day nearly a week before Christmas. In a post- 
 script she added, "Sloane comes Wednesday." 
 Michael being away, his secretary gave the card 
 to Barbara, as affecting household arrangements. 
 "No train mentioned," observed Barbara, when 
 I stopped on my way across the hall to inquire 
 what perplexity was wrinkling her placid fore- 
 head. "No shred of a detail. And what is 
 Sloane?" 
 
 I read over her shoulder. The message was 
 written with evident affectation of untidiness.
 
 A House Party 175 
 
 The script slanted heavily upwards and occupied 
 only the extreme top corner of the postcard. 
 
 "I'll look out some possible trains," I said. 
 "Don't you bother. As for Sloane — time will 
 show. Some advanced girl graduate, I expect." 
 
 I looked out trains and decided that one reaching 
 Laylham about four o'clock would appeal to a 
 reasonable traveler from Cambridge. At about 
 half -past three, just as the car was preparing to 
 leave, Mary walked into the yard and so through 
 the back door. Here she was confronted by one 
 of the footmen, who asked her business. Her reply 
 was laconic and unsatisfactory, and the man sent 
 a boy to tell the butler to tell me that a young 
 person was inquiring for Mr. Braden. Unsus- 
 pecting, I gave instructions for the visitor to be 
 shown to the housekeeper's room. I then returned 
 to my letters. A few seconds later voices and 
 footsteps in the hall outside my door spoke of 
 dispute and urgency. I opened the door and saw 
 a small figure in a shabby brown blanket coat and 
 small velour hat standing unemotionally in front 
 of the portly butler, who was gesticulating — re- 
 spectably but unmistakably gesticulating — in the 
 direction of the servants' quarters. The stranger 
 turned and saw me.
 
 17 6 Privilege 
 
 "Good heavens, Mary," I cried. "Where have 
 you dropped from? All right, Levitt; it's Miss 
 Braden." 
 
 Levitt retired with dignity. Mary gave me a faint 
 and whimsical smile and a faint but chilly hand. 
 
 "Good afternoon, Dick. It's a long time since 
 I was here." 
 
 "How did you get up?" 
 
 "I walked from Plaughton." 
 
 "Plaughton? But there's no railway." 
 
 "I got a lift there from Rodbury." 
 
 "Luggage?" 
 
 "It's in Rodbury somewhere. Verney said he 
 would leave it at the Co-op. offices. There's only 
 a suitcase and a hamper of books." 
 
 I was riled. 
 
 "Upon rny word, Mary, you are fairly casual. 
 How do you imagine it is to come all that distance 
 here? And who the hell is Verney? And what in 
 the name of heaven took you to Rodbury at all?" 
 
 Again she smiled with gentle abstraction. 
 
 "I seem to have upset your arrangements. Is 
 her ladyship using all the cars?" 
 
 The sneer made me sufficiently angry to realize 
 that I was so and to set a guard on my tongue. 
 
 "Well, never mind. I'll see what can be done.
 
 A House Party 177 
 
 And we must find Barbara. I think she's in the 
 park practicing approach shots. We didn't expect 
 you till tea-time. How are you? And why have 
 you never written to me?" 
 
 "I'm quite well," she answered. "I'm sorry if 
 you were expecting letters. I have been very busy. ' ' 
 
 She showed a complete lack of curiosity as to 
 Whern and the new regime. I remembered that 
 she had made no sign of any kind at the time of 
 Harold's death. Rather tediously, I myself sup- 
 plied the gaps in her behavior. It was convention- 
 al of me and, I see now, must have provoked her 
 considerably. 
 
 "We are very busy too," I began. "The place 
 is getting straight at last. Michael works like a 
 Trojan, and Barbara — well, you'll meet her in a 
 moment and judge for yourself. After tea you 
 must come round the house and see the alterations. 
 You are to have your old room. The organization 
 had gone to pieces. Poor old Harold " 
 
 "Why poor?" she broke in. "He was a black- 
 guard." 
 
 I looked at her levelly. 
 
 "So that explains it," I said quietly. "It was 
 strange hearing nothing from you, when the family 
 was in trouble." 
 
 IS
 
 178 Privilege 
 
 "Drivel!" she retorted. "That's pure rnaw- 
 kishness. You know well enough he deserved 
 anything he got. But you were always a senti- 
 mentalist." 
 
 We were crossing the park and I was glad that 
 the sight of Barbara, brandishing a golf club from 
 the edge of our very improvised links, made 
 comment from me unnecessary. Mary was evi- 
 dently difficult. I waved my cap to Barbara and 
 felt suddenly foolish, as though I were a silly old 
 man surprised by a supercilious daughter playing 
 bears with village children. Embarrassment drove 
 me to the fatuity of shouting. 
 
 ' ' Hullo ! " I cried. ' ' Here's Mary come early ! " 
 
 Barbara hurried towards us. She wore a short 
 tweed skirt, and her beautiful ankles, her strong 
 brown shoes, and her general air of cleanness and 
 strength, restored, as with a click, my balance and 
 my self-respect. She bent impulsively to kiss her 
 sister-in-law, holding her by both hands. Mary 
 turned an impassive cheek, released herself hur- 
 riedly, and once more smiled that beastly smile. 
 
 "Dick is angry with me," she said, "because 
 I've lost my luggage." 
 
 This was grotesquely inaccurate, but at the same 
 time precluded explanation on my part. I held
 
 A House Party 179 
 
 fast to my newly won control. Barbara gave me a 
 humorous glance and took matters in hand. 
 
 "I've dropped my mashie somewhere. There 
 it is. One second." She ran back towards the 
 golf course, picked up her club, and rejoined 
 us. The pocket of her sports coat bulged with 
 balls. 
 
 "Let's come and see about tea. Have you seen 
 your room ? It's your old one. And we are putting 
 your friend next door for company. There is a 
 connecting door." 
 
 Mary threw back her head and laughed aloud. 
 It was an unpleasant laugh, as of one who un- 
 masks hypocrisy and seeks to shame the hy- 
 pocrite by mockery. The laughter faded suddenly 
 and, when she spoke, it was in her usual flat 
 voice. 
 
 "That's rather rich," she said. "But we're not 
 like that, thank you. House tradition dies hard, 
 I see. I must tell Sloane. He'll be faintly 
 amused." 
 
 "He — ," began Barbara. Then clearly she real- 
 ized the insult of Mary's other words. She bit 
 her lip and I saw her somber eyes flame. But 
 courtesy conquered, and she echoed politely her 
 visitor's laughter.
 
 180 Privilege 
 
 "What a stupid mistake! You see you gave us 
 no indication. We thought your friend was a girl. 
 I am so sorry." 
 
 We had reached the edge of the sunk fence and 
 skirted the ditch towards the plank that gave 
 access to the lawn. Barbara looked back at the 
 massive browns and grays and blacks of the 
 December woods. 
 
 "You don't know how much I love this place 
 already," she said. "I have told Dick and must 
 tell all of you, so that you will know the intruder 
 is at least conscious of her good fortune." 
 
 I watched her, and with the devout wonder of an 
 astronomer gazing at a discovered star. She was 
 at once profound and lyrical, warmly intimate, and 
 immeasurably distant. The love of the familiar 
 overbore adoration. She became the symbol of 
 our Wiltshire countryside, of the very woods them- 
 selves, as once she had seemed a symbol of comfort. 
 The embodiments blended, and I felt steal over me 
 the soothing power of her imperial tenderness. 
 Then, suddenly and brutally, the male in me 
 awoke. I wanted her. The dark hair straying 
 from under her leather hat ; the dusky warmth of 
 her proud cheeks; the strong, smooth column of 
 her neck; all the taut slimness of her rich young
 
 A House Party 181 
 
 body called to my desire and called again. She 
 was imperial, but she was vincible. . . . 
 
 A sensation of adjacent emptiness chilled me to 
 reason. I looked for Mary and saw that she had 
 crossed the plank and was walking towards the 
 house. I was angry at her rudeness in thus ignor- 
 ing her sister-in-law, until I realized that I, in the 
 imaginings of a few seconds, had dishonored 
 Michael's wife. Shivering as one fresh from a bout 
 of fever, I turned away and left her standing there. 
 
 IV 
 
 In a long racing car of glittering aluminium 
 Monica and her Hungarian swept upon Whern. 
 Putzi had become something of a prophetic legend. 
 Anthony pretended to expect a bronzed desperado 
 with fierce mustaches and the costume of an opera 
 brigand. Mary explained too often that the 
 Magyar aristocrat was a tyrannous survival and 
 that this future brother-in-law was certainly arro- 
 gant, dissolute, and half-witted. It was therefore 
 either a relief or a disappointment to find that the 
 leather parcel who had driven Monica wa c , when 
 unpacked, a slender young man with a slight, black 
 mustache and expensive London clothes. He
 
 1 82 Privilege 
 
 spoke English fluently, and only in his wild, dark 
 eyes and in the curve of his finely chiseled nostril 
 was there a hint of his romantic ancestry. Monica 
 was vivid as ever and more beautiful. But she 
 seemed older and her verbal stridency was muted. 
 Perhaps Putzi, for all his knowledge of English, 
 found much of her slang unintelligible, so that she 
 was constrained to grammatic convention and, 
 like a bird in a cage, drooped a little in the matter 
 of song. It became evident, however, that the 
 real reason of her mellowness was love. She was 
 infatuated, and an elaborate assumption of impe- 
 rious aloofness towards her fiance only emphasized 
 the fact. On first acquaintance one would have 
 said that Count Koloszvary suffered the extrava- 
 gant indifference of his mistress with the humorous 
 gratitude proper to an English gentleman. With 
 greater familiarity, however, one realized not only 
 that Monica's off -handedness was the provocative 
 bluff of the girl in love, but that Koloszvary, be- 
 hind his submissive courtesy, bided his time. Also 
 it struck me how completely he put her from his 
 mind when not in her company and when engaged 
 in some absorbing occupation or discussion. It is 
 not difficult to feel the abstraction in the mind of 
 another man, and such abstraction is usually
 
 A House Party 183 
 
 noticeable in the English lover, whose lady is else- 
 where. Not so with Putzi. He had a time for 
 women and a time for other things. I suppose it 
 was his tradition. So we witnessed the paradox 
 of a young woman, heedless and selfish in her 
 fiance s presence, distraite and gentle when he was 
 not there, and a young man who showed quiet 
 courtesy to her waywardness but, in her absence, 
 forgot her utterly. By the end of their visit I was 
 not sure if I liked Putzi altogether ; and this vague 
 feeling was quite apart from my hatred of his 
 cruelty, which he showed unmistakably out shoot- 
 ing and in a glimpse I had of his treatment of his 
 servant. I was far from accepting Mary's cliche 
 denunciation. Besides he was clearly very intelli- 
 gent. But we are accustomed to a kindly indo- 
 lence that cloaks slow but fair-minded energy, and 
 there is unfamiliarity in a strenuous intelligence 
 that cloaks indolent despotism. 
 
 It was amusing to notice the clash between 
 Michael's theory of aristocracy and that of his 
 Hungarian guest. The former had, I suspect, 
 cherished great expectations. In this nobleman 
 from a feudal land he thought to find a kindred 
 soul. The example of an unspoilt past should 
 inspire his own fight for privilege. But the
 
 1 84 Privilege 
 
 conceptions were so different as almost to be 
 opposed. 
 
 "You are more fortunate than we," said Mi- 
 chael after dinner. "At least you are given credit 
 for tradition. Here we are judged as parasites, 
 who must justify our existence. And yet I am 
 convinced that my tenants are happier and more 
 prosperous than peasant farmers." 
 
 Putzi showed his gleaming teeth. 
 
 ' ' Our people are savage, ' ' he said. ' ' They know 
 nothing." 
 
 "But you are educating them?" 
 
 "Indeed not. Why?" 
 
 " Why! To show them there are other interests, 
 wider thoughts than drink and struggling squalor." 
 
 1 ' If they believed that they would work less, and 
 my revenues would fail." 
 
 Michael then inquired as to methods of agri- 
 culture. What had always been, still was. But 
 the return could be increased and the labor les- 
 sened. Again why? Putzi was clearly a little 
 bored. He could give no figures of his estate popu- 
 lation. He knew nothing of their way of life. 
 Social Democrats there were in the large towns, 
 pestilential fellows who made the workers dis- 
 contented that they might themselves have luxury.
 
 A House Party 185 
 
 But he was so seldom even in Budapest that their 
 excesses did not worry him. Michael endeavored 
 to discover what proportion of his guest's land 
 was under wheat or barley or maize, the extent 
 of the vineyards, the numbers of livestock. 
 
 "I am so sorry!" laughed Putzi. "I will tele- 
 graph to my bailiff. If you are interested . . . " 
 
 And his voice trailed off into faint contempt for 
 the preoccupations of this English lord. On the 
 Riviera and in Paris, in Vienna, Wiesbaden, and 
 Petersburg he had met a few and heard tell of 
 many English noblemen. Obscurely again he had 
 always resented a little their curt frivolity. And 
 now that he was to marry a girl from this very 
 class of model aristocrats, he found her brother 
 half politician, half farmer. 
 
 I have ventured to interpret Putzi's thoughts, 
 because he took little trouble to conceal their 
 drift. At the same time he was impressed with 
 Michael and, despite himself, dominated by Bar- 
 bara. He spoke of her to me once with wistful 
 admiration. 
 
 "Our women are not like that," he said. "She 
 is so er — normal. Is that the right word?" 
 
 And I assured him that it would do excellently. 
 
 Mary, after one encounter, avoided the tyrant.
 
 1 86 Privilege 
 
 In a day or two I had recovered from the shock 
 of her dogmatic dreariness. I realized that her 
 novelty was not, as in Monica's case, an overlay 
 of some fresh experience. She had developed along 
 the lines destined for her and it was prejudice to 
 mistake for perversity what was only normal evo- 
 lution. To the reflecting eye it was possible to 
 recognize in the shape of the chrysalis we used. to 
 know, the moth that had emerged from it. I do 
 not say that this view was generally accepted. 
 Barbara, for example, worried for some while over 
 her sister-in-law's brusque intransigeance ; but then, 
 of course, she had no criterion for understand- 
 ing. Michael would not stoop either to condone 
 or to condemn. His impatient egotism diagnosed 
 Mary's complaint as " Cambridge swelled head," 
 and it was manifestly useless to draw the pos- 
 sible parallel between his own riper but none 
 the less assertive fanaticism and that of his sister. 
 Anthony found Mary funny and enjoyed nagging 
 her. When she came down in a hat covered with 
 small feathers and brooding like a sitting hen on 
 the very top of her unbecoming coiffure, he clucked 
 loudly and scratched for grain. 
 
 The arrival of Sloane was a natural pretext for 
 more persecution. He was a lean, bent young
 
 A House Party 187 
 
 man with a pale, gloomy face. Apparently quite 
 unembarrassed by his presence in this house of 
 strangers, he would talk to Mary at meals in a 
 loud, dry voice on subjects that were evidently 
 perennial. Their conversations were formless, 
 like installments of a serial. I noticed that the 
 habit of prefacing remarks with silences of varying 
 length was not confined to intercourse with stran- 
 gers. Anthony and Monica gave an imitation of 
 the method one afternoon. The text was based 
 on a novel by a young Cambridge genius, which 
 happened to be among the week's batch from 
 Smith's. It was a love scene. 
 
 Anthony: I suppose you know I find you stim- 
 ulating. 
 
 Monica: Yes. (Silence.) 
 
 Anthony: Stimulus is — . (Silence.) 
 
 Monica: Yes? 
 
 Anthony: Why, after all, should I bother you 
 with my troubles? 
 
 Monica: I am interested. Troubles are so 
 
 Anthony: Yes? (Silence.) 
 
 Monica: If you could understand how I hate 
 my mother! 
 
 Anthony: She is doomed. (Silence.) 
 
 Monica: I must think.
 
 1 88 Privilege 
 
 Anthony: You are rich, I hope? 
 
 Monica: Not rich, no. Not rich. But I have 
 something. 
 
 Anthony: I have only my flaming heart and 
 the cold precision of my brain. 
 
 Monica: More brain ; O Lord, more brain. 
 
 Anthony: That's been said before. . . . 
 
 Monica: Repetition is nature's impressionism. 
 
 Anthony: Two and two make four. 
 
 Monica: Need they? 
 
 Anthony: It depends. Besides it rhymes; I'm 
 talking blank verse mathematics. {Silence.) 
 
 Monica: You are in need of money? 
 
 Anthony: Yes. {Silence.) 
 
 By this time the caste and the audience (Barbara 
 and I) were losing our gravity. The door opened 
 and Sloane's peering face showed itself. He stared 
 foggily at the four of us. 
 
 "Are you looking for Mary?" asked Barbara 
 kindly. 
 
 "No," he replied and continued to gaze about 
 the room. There was one of the famous silences. 
 Then: 
 
 "I am looking for my boots," he said. Another 
 period of silent inspection. ' ' But they do not seem 
 to be in here."
 
 A House Party 189 
 
 The door closed. We broke down entirely and 
 the play ended. 
 
 For all its heterogenity, the party enjoyed itself. 
 Indeed the clash of personalities set up a discord 
 that was more heartening than repellent. It was 
 good hunting weather; the food was excellent. 
 Barbara had a talent for self-effacing hospitality. 
 She was like an electric radiator, that heats with- 
 out show or noise. Even Mary and Sloane melted 
 to her warmth. Indeed, after a scene with Mi- 
 chael over church-going, Mary became almost kit- 
 tenish, and her dancing in the parody pantomime 
 we extemporized on New Year's Eve put her fellow 
 chorus girls to shame. We tried to persuade 
 Michael to play Mephistopheles, but he took ref- 
 uge behind the duties of host which kept him at 
 Shrivenham's side. I think Putzi was rather 
 shocked at Monica's "Aladdin," but he was plied 
 with Pommery before the show and became too 
 intent on managing his own legs to trouble unduly 
 about hers. Dolly Easterham played principal 
 girl with such verve that Shrivenham applauded 
 loudly and drank her health with special emphasis 
 as the new year ticked into being. She was an
 
 190 Privilege 
 
 intriguing little soul, pink and powdered, with fair, 
 fluffy hair. Her method was babyish candor and 
 she did it well, although others before her have 
 discovered what point is given by innocence to 
 worldly wisdom. She played Monica a trick that 
 caused an hour of comical tension. Finding a lay- 
 figure in a large attic once used as a studio, she 
 dressed it in Putzi's dressing-gown, and put it in 
 Monica's room. Then she rang the bell in her 
 own room and sent the maid to borrow some 
 powder from Miss Braden's dressing-table. This 
 happened about ten o'clock and dancing was due 
 to start in half an hour. Unluckily, as the girl 
 was retreating in embarrassment from a seemingly 
 occupied bedroom, Monica herself came along the 
 corridor. So the fat was in the fire. Putzi talked 
 of shooting Easterham through the head at five 
 o'clock next morning. Doubtless it was the least 
 he could do, for Monica was furious and cursed 
 Dolly publicly for a filthy little meddler! Poor 
 old Easterham was very engaging. 
 
 "Damn it, Whern," he grumbled. "I can't go 
 gadding about the park at five o'clock! It's not 
 light! And I never get up till eight-thirty. 
 Never." 
 
 I took Monica aside.
 
 A House Party 191 
 
 "You must calm Putzi," I said. "He'll start a 
 massacre for two pence." 
 
 She had not understood that her fiance a threat 
 had gone abroad. Dignity was never so strong a 
 point with her as humor, and she forgot her own 
 grievance in the delight of the new situation. 
 
 "And he is really challenging Charlie? How 
 perfect! What a paladin! I shall tire my hair 
 and give him a love-knot and watch the tourney 
 from a turret window." 
 
 "It will be dark," I objected. 
 
 "Then they must alter the time. Just after 
 breakfast is comfortable." 
 
 Charlie Easterham lumbered towards us. 
 
 "Look here, Monica, for God's sake tell Kolosz- 
 vary to chuck it. I'm beastly sorry Dolly an- 
 noyed you but, upon my word, to go creepin' 
 about in the long grass like a comic brigand with 
 a pop gun . . . !" 
 
 Monica assumed an air of injured haughtiness. 
 
 "My honor, Charles ..." she said. 
 'Damn your honor! — No! — I'm beastly sorry. 
 Clumsy of me. I mean — I quite understand. 
 But really — Braden — " he turned to me, "do say 
 somethin'. It's . . . it's absurd! We don't do 
 these things. Jolly old middle ages and all that,
 
 192 Privilege 
 
 of course, but . . . Look here, will it do if 1 
 give Dolly a good leatherin' with a slipper?" 
 
 He looked from one to the other of us with sud- 
 den hope. Monica jumped at a new extrava- 
 gance. "Agreed!" she cried. "But I must be 
 there." 
 
 Poor Charles stared in dismay. This was worse 
 than ever. 
 
 "Must you now?" he asked feebly. 
 
 I laughed so uncontrollably that Monica's mouth 
 began to twitch. Easterham was scratching his 
 head and staring at the floor. Dolly floated into 
 the room. 
 
 "Monica darling," she cooed. "I'm so miser- 
 able! Oh, there is Charlie after all. I heard he was 
 dead. That terrible fierce man of yours shot him. 
 Charlie — do you know me?" She wound her arms 
 round her husband's short square body and hid 
 her face on his shoulder. He jerked himself free. 
 
 "Don't be a fool," he said gruffly. "One's 
 enough, and you've made me look a fairly big one." 
 
 She stood with her hands clasped demurely be- 
 fore her, questioning us with her great baby eyes. 
 I laughed more than ever and Monica finally 
 
 gave way. 
 
 "You idiotic angel," she cried, and took Dolly
 
 A House Party 193 
 
 in her arms. "They shan't shoot your stupid, 
 
 great husband. There, there ..." 
 
 Putzi, when informed of the reconciliation, 
 
 shrugged his shoulders unconcernedly. 
 
 "Very well," he said. 
 13
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE TENTH COMMANDMENT 
 
 The Christmas weather remained soft and 
 purple brown. Along the forest drives the brown 
 leaves lay damply, and between one field and an- 
 other the little trees spread their knotted and 
 purple fingers against a brooding sky. The hunt- 
 ing continued excellent and I came to know once 
 more as an event of normal life that delicious 
 jumble of tea and muffins and whisky, taken all 
 mud-spattered as we were, in a long room quietly 
 lit with, at the far end, flames laughing and leap- 
 ing, the echoes of their merriment sounding from 
 every polished surface of the quiet luxurious fur- 
 niture. Not for long had I been barred from this 
 life of strenuous idleness, but my exile had not been 
 so short that I failed to recognize good fortune 
 now it had come my way. I tried my moralizing 
 on Monica one afternoon, as we jogged home side 
 
 194
 
 The Tenth Commandment 195 
 
 by side from a six-mile point and a kill far down 
 the valley to the east. 
 
 "I wonder whether this is the kind of life you'll 
 have in Hungary. Somehow one pictures it as 
 more savage, less scrupulously planned." 
 
 "Haven't the foggiest," replied Monica briefly. 
 Then, after a short silence, "Do you like Putzi, 
 Dick?" 
 
 "Of course," I said. 
 
 "What a kindly old donkey you are!" she 
 laughed. "Why of course?" 
 
 I reflected. Why, indeed? 
 
 "I don't know," I said frankly. "Anyway I do." 
 
 "Are you scared of him?" 
 
 "Not in the least. Ought I to be?" 
 
 "Idiot. No — but it is your saying that about 
 sport out there. ... I'm fascinated by him, 
 as I daresay you've noticed." 
 
 She flashed an impudent glance from under the 
 rim of her regulation hat. It was so like Monica 
 to forestall criticism in this way that I was quite 
 ready for her. 
 
 "I have," I said. "It reminds me of the bow 
 of Ulysses." 
 
 "I never bend, Dick," said Monica. "I break." 
 
 I laughed.
 
 196 Privilege 
 
 "Wait and see," I replied. "This wedding is 
 quite near now. What about religion?" 
 
 "Putzi's arranging it. I'm turning into some- 
 thing very decorative and unbosoming. My con- 
 fessional will be hot stuff, won't it? A long one 
 with a slice of lemon, as Harold would have said." 
 She raced off down this sudden avenue of side- 
 argument. "Tell me about Harold. I've been 
 meaning to ask you, but kept forgetting. And 
 you're the only one who'll tell me. Michael would 
 be annoyed, and then the ice would melt and spoil 
 his profile. Tony's too young. Mary— I almost 
 said too old! What has come over the child? 
 She's " 
 
 "Please! We were about to discuss Harold. 
 Which is it to be?" 
 
 "Sorry! Harold, of course. What exactly 
 happened?" 
 
 I told her. When I had finished she laughed; 
 laughed quite a lot. 
 
 ' ' Monica ! you ought to be shocked and grieved !" 
 
 "I am, Dickie. Inside I'm all blush. I keep 
 it off the bits that show because of the color my 
 hair is. All the same you'll admit there's a drollery 
 in trying to run an Agapemone in a kind of ecclesi- 
 astical bird cage. Like the girl who wore open-
 
 The Tenth Commandment 197 
 
 work stockings and felt cold in patterns. Besides, 
 the poor old chap 'reformed,' didn't he? — at the 
 end?" 
 
 'You're rather a dear, Monica. I wish you'd 
 been here. Somehow I felt sorry for Harold, but 
 as no one else did I supposed it was moral weakness 
 on my part, or worse, and choked it down. Also 
 he pulled Anthony through. The boy was in bad 
 company and getting a little revolting. Harold 
 took him in hand, like a recalcitrant puppy, and 
 figuratively thrashed him into usefulness. He now 
 talks of soldiering." 
 
 "Yes, he told me the other night he was off to 
 Oxford. We seem to be pulling our relations to 
 pieces. Next, please. What about Mrs. Michael?" 
 
 "Well," I said smoothly, "what about her?" 
 
 She laid her hand on my wrist (our mounts were 
 walking now, slowly and close together) and, 
 throwing back her head, looked at me under 
 drooping lids. I felt a sudden uneasiness. 
 
 "What about her?" I repeated, as Monica did 
 not speak. 
 
 "I wish I weren't going abroad in February," 
 she replied. 
 
 The inconsequence was mere whimsicality. I 
 guessed the connecting link and she knew that I
 
 i9 8 Privilege 
 
 guessed it. We had too often talked shorthand not 
 to recognize the significance of abbreviated argu- 
 ment. Nevertheless, her ultimate meaning was 
 ambiguous. I decided to fence. 
 
 "Don't worry," I said. 
 
 She removed her hand from my arm and, with a 
 vague gesture, made as if to brush aside my 
 implication. 
 
 "It isn't that," she muttered. "Besides," and 
 her voice took on a note of mockery, "I may 
 regret as a spectator manquee. I was an amateur 
 of — that sort of thing — once. . . . " She fell 
 suddenly silent and for a while we went forward 
 without speaking. Looking at her I saw she was 
 brooding heavily, gazing into the gathering dusk 
 with absent gravity. 
 
 ' ' It isn't that, ' ' she repeated, ' 'although I suppose 
 it ought to be. It's Mary." 
 
 "Mary?" 
 
 "Yes. I can't tell you why, Dick. Perhaps it's 
 all rubbish. Only do take care. Promise me." 
 
 ' ' How — take care ? ' ' 
 
 "Just like that. And — when does she go back 
 to Cambridge?" 
 
 "Not for some little while, I believe. But 
 really, Monica, be at least logical. What earth-
 
 The Tenth Commandment 199 
 
 ly connection has Mary with — well, with the 
 other?" 
 
 "She hates her, that is all. I'm cold. Let's 
 get on." 
 
 And she urged her tired horse to a last canter, 
 over the crest of the woods and down towards 
 Whern. As I thudded by her side, I outlived the 
 first impulse of regret that our conversation was 
 ended. Perhaps, on the whole, enough had been 
 said. 
 
 At any rate, and, naturally, I began to pay 
 attention to the mutual demeanor of Mary and 
 her sister-in-law. I found that the former's delib- 
 erate aggressiveness had given place to a surface 
 amiability that, from close range, carried no con- 
 viction of depth. Monica had taught me to look 
 closely and I convinced myself that, to a point, 
 she was right in her suspicion of hostility. But 
 clearly the matter was not a simple case of jealous 
 hatred. There was something more fundamental 
 in what was, I began to see, a reciprocal antagon- 
 ism. Assuming Barbara's dislike of Mary was the 
 normal resentment of one who knows herself dis- 
 liked, I concentrated on Mary and watched devel- 
 opments closely. They were in the main logical. 
 Although at first Mary's provocative angularity
 
 200 Privilege 
 
 was certainly half shyness, there was in it an ele- 
 ment of cold roguery that enjoyed the discomfort 
 it could not but share. There was something of 
 the twentieth century Pierrot in Mary, a scien- 
 tific, Wellsian Pierrot whose waywardness was ad- 
 justed by calculation, whose erratic selfishness had 
 a basis of obscure but pitiless philosophy. Bar- 
 bara's first reaction was disappointing. She was 
 conciliatory, forbearingly courteous. This dis- 
 pelled her antagonist's gaucherie, while intensifying 
 the will to wound. Extremists are always better 
 friends with each other than with moderates and 
 had Barbara at the outset resented Mary as an 
 insolent declassee, the latter would have been 
 greatly flattered and would have respected and 
 almost liked her sister-in-law for conforming to a 
 preconceived notion of her type. As it was she 
 was driven to further goading, and further yet in her 
 desire to produce at least some fragment of result. 
 A headache helped. Mary spent the day in 
 Rodbury (she commandeered a car both ways), 
 and, as I gathered afterwards, in the company of 
 her political friends. She tackled Barbara before 
 dinner, at an hour when several of us were hanging 
 about the library fire, loath to go up to dress, and 
 yet restless with appetite and over-smoking.
 
 The Tenth Commandment 201 
 
 "I hear you are going to build a garden city, 
 Barbara." 
 
 "What on earth do you mean?" asked Barbara, 
 who was tired and inclined to neuralgia. 
 
 "What I say, Lady Bountiful. Verney tells me 
 you are to house the ejected from those slums of 
 yours in a model village on the estate." 
 
 "I never heard such rubbish. I'm not going to 
 do anything of the sort." 
 
 "So Michael put his noble foot on the scheme?" 
 Mary could sneer with the best of them. 
 
 "You are discussing my feet, Mary?" said a 
 voice. Michael, noiseless as ever, loomed from the 
 shadows of the hall. He resembled a lithe, pale 
 cat in this great, carpeted house, as he moved 
 smoothly and rapidly from place to place. 
 
 "I was merely congratulating Barbara on an 
 intended philanthropy. And now she denies it. 
 I thought perhaps you did not approve." 
 
 Michael glanced at his wife who neither moved 
 nor spoke. Then, characteristically, he quietly 
 changed the subject. 
 
 ' ' Lot of trees down in Far Side Wood with the 
 gale." 
 
 As the conversation ran smoothly from the eddy 
 of embarrassment over the shallows of local hap-
 
 202 Privilege 
 
 pening, I saw behind the mask of Mary's stubborn 
 quietude a smolder of anger. Her first attempt to 
 embroil her brother with his wife had failed. A 
 few minutes later there was a move to dress. I 
 mounted the stairs at Mary's side. 
 
 1 ' You asked for it, " I said unnecessarily. ' ' But 
 why unlearn lessons that you know by breeding? 
 As if Michael would rise under any circumstances 
 at all with others there." 
 
 "Mind your own business Richard," she said 
 crossly. "I don't know what you mean." 
 
 I chuckled. 
 
 "Merely that you are rather an ass, dear child." 
 
 And at the stairhead I turned towards my room. 
 
 I paid for my interference. And Barbara. 
 Relations between her and Mary continued 
 strained. Neither said anything, but it was clear 
 that the temperaments clashed badly. Michael 
 made no reference whatever to the little scene I 
 have just described. One by one the guests de- 
 parted. There came a day when only he, Anthony, 
 Barbara, Mary, and I remained. Why Mary 
 stayed, God knows. Revenge perhaps; but more 
 probably simply from an instinctive cussedness or 
 doggedness. Anyway it led to trouble.
 
 The Tenth Commandment 203 
 
 At this time the fever that ran in me for what 
 was forbidden fruit raged and cooled with dis- 
 turbing suddenness. For days I would be normal; 
 then the desire would seize me and I could not 
 speak or even be near to her without my very 
 being changing with uncanny completeness into 
 that of a stranger. By sheer will I kept my eyes 
 away from her until such time as I could decently 
 withdraw and conquer the devil in solitude. One 
 such seizure occurred during a bridge game on the 
 night before Michael and Barbara were due to 
 leave for town. She was my partner against 
 Michael and Anthony. Mary was in the library 
 working for her tripos. I began to play with 
 hysterical stupidity. 
 
 "But you took me up, Dick!" cried Barbara 
 plaintively, when I passed Anthony's knave on a 
 second round. 
 
 The cards swam before my eyes. Her voice was 
 loud with divine music. I felt that the stretch of 
 green table was the grassy edge of the world 
 beyond which were magic seas and, rising from 
 them, this goddess clothed in passionate humanity. 
 
 "Awfully sorry," I muttered. ;, I mistook the 
 ace. Thought it was a diamond." 
 
 The rubber ended with calamity. Being the
 
 204 Privilege 
 
 last of the series debts were settled. I pushed 
 Michael his winnings and rose unsteadily. 
 
 "Feel queerish," I said. "Must be the port." 
 
 On a couch in a curtained recess of the octagon 
 I tried to envisage the climax of this series of love 
 agues. There could only be one outcome and that 
 was impossible. I must go away. I must find a 
 reason for leaving Whern, return to rooms and 
 solitary bibliography in London. The prospect 
 was unbearable; I must go abroad. With my head 
 on my hands I forced a staggering brain along the 
 road of prevision. Unheard, the curtains parted 
 and she stood by my side. 
 
 "Dick, dear, are you ill?" 
 
 Miraculously my brain cleared. I felt restored 
 and calm. The quiet flippancy of my manner 
 startled her. 
 
 "Cured again. I knew it was the port. Sit 
 down, Barbara; I want to talk to you." 
 
 "Why this odd spot? We might be sitting out 
 and making love to each other." 
 
 "It's a good place for that. I never thought of 
 it. But for the moment, matters of less import. 
 You go to town to-morrow?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "For how long?"
 
 The Tenth Commandment 205 
 
 "A month, I should think. Michael has folks 
 to work off, and I want some clothes. Also there 
 are dances and other orgies. And Monica's 
 wedding. I don't think I shall come here again 
 till after that." 
 
 "When you do," I said casually, "I shall be 
 gone." 
 
 "Gone!" 
 
 "Yes. I'm going to Spain or Italy or — or — 
 somewhere." 
 
 A strange giddiness rocked me to this an ti -climax 
 of indecision. My control lurched, and I felt as 
 though I stood on a snow-slope that was stirring 
 uneasily for an avalanche. With an effort of will 
 I leapt, as it were, to an emergent rock. 
 
 "Even agents have holidays," I said cheerfully. 
 
 "You are tired of Whern? No wonder. It's 
 been a heavy autumn and dull for you. But when 
 are you off?" 
 
 In that moment I took a sudden decision. 
 
 "Look here, Barbara; let's get to facts. The 
 truth is I am — I am — What shall I say? I am 
 wanting more of you than I ought. . . . " 
 
 "Of me?" She looked at me steadily. Then, 
 quietly — ' ' I understand . ' ' 
 
 Still gazing into my eyes, she played absently
 
 206 Privilege 
 
 with her bracelet. The silence became material, 
 a silence of draped velvet. The curtains of the 
 alcove multipled and curved in nightmare folds 
 over our heads. More and more folds of stifling 
 crimson velvet, drooping lower and lower. 
 Through the heaviness of suffocation her eyes, like 
 windows to distant sunlight, contracted, dilated, 
 contracted once again. 
 
 "Listen," she said suddenly, and in the cool 
 breeze of her voice the fog of oppression swayed 
 and dispersed. "You are going away, because you 
 are afraid — not of your own self-control, not of 
 your own happiness — but of my honor. You im- 
 agine things, and then the fit passes and you feel 
 I have been smirched. Is that right?" 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 "It has not occurred to you — at least so I 
 believe — to wonder how much I know or feel or — 
 or — share of this obsession. . . . That is you. 
 You and Michael and Anthony and all of you. 
 You are so critical of yourselves; so humble at 
 heart, so proud externally. . . . " 
 
 I made to speak. She silenced me with a quick 
 movement. 
 
 "Let me go on. I am trying to get into words 
 my experience of these months among you all."
 
 The Tenth Commandment 207 
 
 She paused to collect the threads of her argument. 
 1 ' So critical — too critical — of yourselves. It makes 
 you egotistical, and the world says you are arro- 
 gant. Remember that I am more or less plebeian 
 in comparison. I can see you — you pedigree 
 people — from the outside. And because I love all 
 that you stand for, all that you really are, it 
 grieves me to see you betrayed by your own fine- 
 ness. Can you not be less searchingly upright? 
 You could save all this quiet beauty, from what 
 is inevitable destruction, if you were to assert 
 yourselves a little. . . . " 
 
 I moved impatiently. Social prophecy always 
 bored me and at this moment — She smiled and 
 bent forward, her elbows on her knees. Her round 
 forearm and the strong perfection of her hands 
 lay forward over the dark carpet. Fascinated I 
 watched their whiteness, until they seemed to fade 
 to transparency and through a creamy film to 
 show the deep red of the rug below. 
 
 "I am wandering. Forgive me. You and me. 
 Bluntly, you are fancying that you love me. 
 You " 
 
 "No!" I interrupted. "Be fair. There is no 
 fancy. I am falling into love with you and, be- 
 cause I am as selfish as you say, I am running
 
 208 Privilege 
 
 away for my own sake. The strain is — oh — 
 rotten. . . ." 
 
 "I did not mean to challenge your conviction, 
 my dear. Only that 'love' is so composite a thing, 
 And I doubt if you have all the elements." 
 
 Probably she saw in my eyes how this affected 
 cynicism wounded me, for her tone suddenly 
 altered. She leant towards me and laid her hand 
 on my arm. 
 
 "Dick! Forgive me, dear. I am serious. What 
 I mean is that, for some, desire is all, but for you, 
 and for those of your quality, it is only a little 
 part. Do not betray your tradition. I have 
 enough of my own to value that of others, even 
 though it be finer and longer. Besides — I have 
 had my experience. . . . " With a quick gesture 
 she swept the low hair from her forehead and stood 
 up. ' ' Do you imagine, Dick," she went on, looking 
 down at me, "do you imagine that I value the honor 
 of this, or this, or this" — with fluttering hands 
 she touched her neck, breast, and arms — "above 
 Michael's happiness or yours ? And now you see 
 in them your contentment. But only in them. If 
 I were ugly or crippled. . . . No, don't pro- 
 test ! Without this body, I should be meaningless. 
 A 'decent sort,' perhaps. It's not good enough,
 
 The Tenth Commandment 209 
 
 Dick. I am here to serve Whern — but there are 
 limits. . . . " 
 
 Her voice broke and she turned quickly away. 
 With hands tightly clasped she stood silent. I 
 shook off the lethargy that held me to my seat. 
 
 "Barbara!" I grasped her shoulder and turned 
 her roughly in my direction. "What are you say- 
 ing ? What have I done to all of us ? Forget that 
 anything has been said. I will go and it will pass 
 with me and be forgotten. Or let Michael shoot 
 me. In the good old days he would have me shot. 
 Let us go and tell him so that he may see the kind 
 of brother he has housed. And the reading of me 
 is so hideously true. . . ." 
 
 So great was the turmoil of my shame that I 
 did not immediately realize she was now closely 
 facing me or that her hands were on my shoulders. 
 Then I saw that her eyes were full of tears, and 
 from the peak of self -hatred I swooped to a sudden 
 smooth excitement. Her voice had a new thrill 
 when she said softly. 
 
 "Don't you see, Dick? It is Michael. He is so 
 pitiful; so pitifully alone. And then " 
 
 "No more, dearest — please!" 
 
 Her face was now close to mine. Her breath 
 became the very air in my nostrils.
 
 210 Privilege 
 
 "Only this," she whispered. "That it is not 
 enough to be desired — by you" 
 
 With the first touch of her lips on mine reality 
 faded behind closed lids. It seemed that a full 
 minute passed. Then, simultaneously, she started 
 away, a slight noise splintered heaven as a stone 
 splinters glass, and I opened my eyes on the figure 
 of Mary framed in the parted curtains and looking 
 at us with silent triumph. 
 
 I like to think that we behaved with dignity, 
 even in that moment of shameful disaster. A 
 cynic would say that dignity is the only solution 
 of the insoluble, and certainly there was no remedy, 
 no possible explanation. All the same we kept 
 our heads. 
 
 "Come and sit down, Mary," I said quietly. 
 "We might as well put you aufait with the earlier 
 part of our conversation." 
 
 She said nothing; merely passed through the 
 curtains, which fell to behind her, and seated her- 
 self stiffly. Barbara, who had drawn back against 
 the wall at the first sight of the intruder, slipped 
 into one corner of the settee as Mary approached, 
 and was now motionless. I remained standing. 
 
 "I was telling Barbara," I began, "that "
 
 The Tenth Commanament 211 
 
 "Dick," she interrupted coldly, "I prefer there 
 should be no further explanation." 
 
 "I agree it is unnecessary," said Mary sharply. 
 
 "Unnecessary to whom, please, Mary?" asked 
 Barbara. 
 
 "To me, at this moment. Later to — whomso- 
 ever I may tell." 
 
 Barbara smiled bitterly. 
 
 "Delightful! Let us make a list." 
 
 "Again unnecessary. I have the details in my 
 head." 
 
 Rising to her feet, Barbara turned to me. 
 
 "We are detaining your sister, Dick, and risk- 
 ing absurdity. You will forgive my leaving 
 you?" 
 
 And she was through the curtains and vanished 
 before I had time to move or speak. I heard her 
 footsteps clacking coldly across the marble floor 
 of the hall. Then I turned to Mary. 
 
 ' ' Well ? What do you expect will happen now ?" 
 
 Mary, to my surprise, stood up and faced me 
 squarely. Her attitude was not unlike that of 
 Barbara five minutes ago. Inwardly I chuckled 
 at the humor of externals. The thing became fan- 
 tastic, for she put her hand on my shoulder. But 
 after that there was no cause for chuckling, for,
 
 212 Privilege 
 
 bowing her head against my coat, she burst into 
 tears. 
 
 "Oh, Dick!" she sobbed. "That it should be 
 you. What am I to do ? What am I to do? Dick, 
 Dick ! Forgive me ! ' ' 
 
 At once astounded and embarrassed, I could 
 only stroke her shoulder with clumsy tenderness. 
 For a moment she clung to me, trembling with 
 silent grief. Then, raising her head and looking 
 at me unashamedly through her tears, she chal- 
 lenged me: 
 
 "Dick! If I say nothing — nothing, mind you — 
 will you leave Whern at once and for good?" 
 
 I suppose my sympathies were dulled with the 
 emotions of the last few minutes. Cruelly and 
 foolishly, I ignored Mary as Mary, and replied to 
 a girl of my own world who had hinted at the 
 possibility of betrayal. 
 
 "I do not pay blackmail," I replied, and turned 
 to leave her. But as I drew the curtain aside 
 Barbara walked firmly into the alcove and faced 
 the two of us. 
 
 "Still here, Mary? When does your round of 
 information begin? It will save you trouble to 
 omit my husband. He knows already. I have 
 just told him."
 
 The Tenth Commandment 213 
 
 "Barbara!" 
 
 She smiled at me with a possessive triumph 
 that was disconcerting. She had the recklessness 
 of a conspirator revealed, and her defiance to Mary 
 was patently contrasted with tenderness to me. 
 My hypermoderation shrank from the conse- 
 quences of my own folly, and I blamed myself 
 bitterly for having rejected what I now recognized 
 for generosity in Mary. I had spurned her moral- 
 ity as prudery; now, faced with the converse, 
 with an apparent exultation in wrongdoing, I was 
 equally repelled. 
 
 Mary received Barbara's announcement with 
 outward calm. 
 
 "In that case," she said, "the affair is ended. 
 I am glad that I am relieved of any direct inter- 
 position." 
 
 And she left us. 
 
 "You told Michael?'' I broke out. "And what 
 did he say?" 
 
 As I spoke, I saw that her defiance was broken. 
 Like a sumptuous flower that has begun to wilt, 
 she drooped against the wall. Her fine strong 
 hands were pressed in anguish to her forehead. 
 But there was no hint of tears. When she spoke 
 it was in a voice dry and tired.
 
 214 Privilege 
 
 "That is the tragedy, Dick. He said nothing. 
 At first he laughed and said you were always a 
 man of taste. But I implored him to be serious. 
 It was true, I told him, true, true! And he sat 
 and looked at me with a sort of wounded aston- 
 ishment — like an animal — suddenly lashed by a 
 kind owner — and then — then leant wearily on his 
 hand and — I felt as though he had gone out of 
 the room." 
 
 "God forgive me," I whispered. 
 
 For a few seconds we stood silently appalled at 
 the disaster we had so fortuitously provoked. I 
 pulled myself together. 
 
 "Sweetheart," I said, "Mary offered her silence 
 in exchange for my departure. I refused, because 
 I am rather proud of loving you and dizzily ex- 
 cited at your loving me. But I must clear out. 
 When you come back from town I shall be gone — 
 for that foreign holiday we discussed a while ago ! ' ' 
 
 She looked at me, her somber eyes dark with 
 perplexity. 
 
 ' ' Leave me ? Dick, no ! I cannot be left ! What 
 do you want of me? Take it! Take it and spoil 
 it, but do not put it aside " 
 
 "But Michael—?" I began. 
 
 She clasped and unclasped her tortured hands.
 
 The Tenth Commandment 215 
 
 <( - 
 
 'Poor Michael! How cruel a choice to kill or 
 to die oneself!" Then with a sudden gesture of 
 despairing determination: "I will stay — if he 
 wants me. You shall go — if you want to. . . ." 
 
 My resolution wavered. 
 
 1 ' Want to ? It will be the end of seeing and 
 feeling." 
 
 "Michael — " She in her turn murmured the 
 name and checked the tide of selfishness. 
 
 I clenched my fists in the effort of self-control. 
 Waywardly a tag of verse fluttered against the 
 window of memory. "Thou hast conquered, O 
 pale Galilean!" Honor and misery against hap- 
 piness, golden happiness, and — shame. Shame? 
 In the world's eyes, perhaps ; love admits no social 
 vetoes. "Pale Galilean." How it suited Michael! 
 At the last, breeding with its innate love of gesture, 
 its involuntary distrust of selfishness, conquered 
 desire. 
 
 "I will go and see him," I said. 
 
 When I entered the library, Michael was in 
 his favorite attitude against the mantelpiece, 
 shoulders hunched, hands in trouser pockets. He
 
 216 Privilege 
 
 looked up but said nothing, nor did the set melan- 
 choly of his face alter in any way. I began at 
 once. 
 
 "I have not come to defy nor to apologize. I 
 suppose I am a blackguard, but that you are 
 probably aware of already. I hope to-morrow's 
 move to town will proceed as usual. When you 
 return here I shall be gone. All will be in order. 
 Do you approve ? ' ' 
 
 He had withdrawn one hand from its pocket 
 and was playing with his watch-chain. His head 
 drooped, and I could see only the sparse fair hair, 
 scrupulously parted, and the pale crescent of his 
 foreshortened brow. 
 
 "It is all very difficult," he said quietly, so 
 quietly that one would suppose he were merely 
 continuing an interrupted discussion. "I do not 
 see my way. I have failed her somehow. And 
 yet I love her, Dick — sometimes to my own shame. 
 But I have failed her, and she, naturally, turns 
 elsewhere. Ideally I ought to say to you, "Take 
 her." It would break my heart, but I could do it — 
 and should do it but for — Is it cowardly, Dick? 
 I have worked so hard to remove the stain from 
 Whern, and another scandal now . . . All for 
 nothing. I cannot sacrifice my work." Then
 
 The Tenth Commandment 217 
 
 with a spurt of anger, ' ' I will not sacrifice my work. 
 There must be no scandal." 
 
 "Of course not," I broke in. "And for that 
 reason alone I must go." 
 
 But once more the attenuated violence of an 
 ancient race failed and broke. Anger left him, and, 
 with the fatal ease of the over-complex, he was con- 
 sidering once again the point of view of the enemy. 
 
 "But it would be wanton cruelty to crush her 
 happiness. She has had so little. At first a satyr, 
 then — a stick." He smiled with such bitterness 
 of misery that, for all its treachery, my heart 
 ached for him. "A stick," he repeated. "That 
 is what she thinks. She is so warm and generous. 
 She would make a great sinner, Dick. And yet 
 connivance ... It is not easy to bring 
 oneself . . ." 
 
 ' ' Michael ! For God's sake ! " 
 
 This trifling with detachment filled me with 
 horror. Again one half of me reacted from the 
 undeserved opportunities presented to the other 
 half. Michael could have found no better way of 
 killing my guilty passion than by this cool attitude of 
 acceptance. He raised a hand at my interruption. 
 
 "One moment. I am clear only on one thing. 
 There must be no scandal. Personally, I do not
 
 218 Privilege 
 
 count. A man who cannot hold his wife deserves 
 to lose her. But as head of the family I can order 
 its goings. Will it not be scandalous if you leave 
 home? If I press you to stay, you will say the 
 temptation is too great. Yield to it then. I have 
 every confidence in your discretion." 
 
 In growing astonishment and discomfort I had 
 stepped backwards to the door. Was he doing 
 this as a refinement of cruelty ? But there was no 
 gleam either of triumph or malice in his quietly 
 puzzled eyes. 
 
 "On the whole, I am sure that is the best plan. 
 I shall not like it, no man could. But perhaps it 
 is my duty to Whern — and to Barbara. . . . " 
 
 Turning quickly against the mantel he buried 
 his head in his arms. The door once closed between 
 us, I paused uncertainly on the edge of the gleam- 
 ing floor of the hall. It was getting late. The 
 house was very still. A wish to see Barbara took 
 me fiercely by the throat. She was no longer in 
 the alcove. The drawing-room was in darkness. 
 Half unconsciously I walked upstairs and down 
 the western gallery. At her door I stood a moment, 
 then knocked. 
 
 "Come in!" 
 
 She was in a low chair by the fire. Her hair
 
 The Tenth Commandment 219 
 
 swirled like a moorland stream over her shoulders ; 
 she wore a long yellow dressing-gown, and her feet 
 were bare. 
 
 "Come in, Dick," she said. "I was expecting 
 you. What happened ? ' ' 
 
 Crossing the room I stood against the fireplace 
 looking down on her. She raised her arms behind 
 her head and lay back in the chair. 
 
 "What happened?" she repeated. 
 
 The beauty of her thawed the chill of uncer- 
 tainty that had closed round my heart. For a 
 moment I grasped eagerly at the implication of 
 Michael's fantastic offer. But as I began to speak, 
 there crept over me again a faint disgust. 
 
 ' ' He blames himself, ' ' I said hurriedly. ' ' Wishes 
 for your happiness. But insists there should be 
 no scandal and that my going would cause one." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "So he proposes — at least I understood . . . 
 It is not credible. . . . " 
 
 'To let things take their course, I suppose? 
 That is like Michael." 
 
 Her voice had become suddenly luscious. There 
 is no other word. As she spoke she stretched 
 lazily, and the dressing-gown fell open. A low 
 white bodice showed the dark cream of her throat
 
 220 Privilege 
 
 and the shadowy division of her breasts. With 
 head tilted back she watched me with drooping 
 lids. "How modern it all is!" she murmured. 
 And then, ' ' Come to me, Richard. . . 
 
 I felt my whole body tremble. Gazing at her 
 loveliness I felt a thirst that only her kisses could 
 assuage. I longed to bury my face in her bosom, 
 to kiss her shoulder and throat and lips, to close 
 with kisses those smouldering eyes. But I could 
 not move. The next instant the old faint disgust 
 dried my mouth and sent a shiver down my spine. 
 
 "It is all spoilt," I said, "all spoilt now." 
 
 She literally sprang from her chair. 
 
 * ' Spoilt ! " she cried. "Am I fat or ugly ? What 
 is spoilt?" 
 
 Her anger filled me with humility. 
 
 "Darling," I whispered, "you are the loveliest 
 thing that ever was and I am always and cease- 
 lessly your lover. But I cannot take you like this 
 — on lease." 
 
 "You are afraid," she said contemptuously. 
 "Or else you have such conceit that only the for- 
 bidden is desirable." 
 
 I stood with bowed head. Perhaps she was right ; 
 perhaps my love was vanity and its desire only 
 self -flattery. Nevertheless I knew it was not so.
 
 The Tenth Commandment 221 
 
 "You are right to be angry. I seem to have 
 insulted you. But I have not, Barbara. Love 
 must not be hideous and furtive." 
 
 ' ' Then it is cowardice. You have been described 
 before, I believe, as 'not all of a man.' Why do 
 you not take me away, if you will not rent me 
 from your brother?" 
 
 Her cruel misuse of my own metaphor and of 
 the borrowed taunt hurt me savagely. I wrenched 
 my mind to a new angle. 
 
 "I will take you," I said. "We will go to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "No, thank you," she answered. "I am quite 
 comfortable here." 
 
 With elaborate indifference she sat down again 
 and took a cigarette from the box at her side. As 
 I did not move, she threw a careless glance in my 
 direction. 
 
 "Good-night. I am hardly dressed for visitors. 
 And after all this is my bedroom." 
 
 So everything is finished, I thought miserably, 
 and stumbled to my own room. But why matters 
 had fallen out so twistedly and where was my 
 fault and where hers, not hours of sleeplessness 
 and pondering could determine.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE END OF CARNIVAL 
 
 I had been three weeks in the low white hotel 
 beside the idle sea. The sun had blazed indiffer- 
 ently from languid dawn to passionate, brooding 
 dusk. It was all very lovely with the hateful, 
 empty loveliness of southern exile, and I believed 
 I longed as much for London sleet and the gleam 
 of the Circus lights on mud and hurrying revelers 
 as for the more personal elements of the life that 
 I had left. Then Barbara wrote: 
 
 Dick dear, I was just somebody else. Forget it 
 all and come back. The whole business is over and 
 done with. Michael is asking for you. 
 
 With the opening of a door of release, the glitter 
 of my surroundings became doubly tawdry, and 
 I realized how I hated blue water and blinding, 
 dusty roads and the vivid coloring of fabulous 
 
 222
 
 The End of Carnival 223 
 
 flowers. For my last evening I sought amusement 
 among the other guests, courted instead of fled 
 their company, reckless of indiscretion or discour- 
 tesy or habitual reserve. The poisonous little 
 woman with bulging eyes and a skin like parsley 
 soup tried me on freedom and the nobler life. 
 
 "Youth," she said, "is nature's master. Until 
 youth defies age and cramping beliefs and strikes 
 off across the world towards an untrameled de- 
 stiny there can be no beauty and no love." 
 
 "You people talk," I replied, "as though all 
 youth were golden and beautiful and all age cruel 
 and horrible. But I know many young men and 
 women both fanatical and plain and many old 
 ones both tolerant and gracious." 
 
 "Bodily beauty is nothing," she retorted. 
 
 "Could I agree, I should be consoled. Perhaps 
 I am degenerate or unready for the gospel, but 
 give me the pretty girl every time." 
 
 She left me. I suppose the conviction that a 
 radiant soul can transpire an ill-thriven body and 
 a mean or empty face is as comforting as any other. 
 It seems to be cherished usually by the ill-favored, 
 
 The next moment I heard a voice: 
 
 "Is it not Mr. Braden?" 
 
 The face was dimly familiar; the long thrawn
 
 224 Privilege 
 
 body more so; the feet in old brown sand-shoes 
 most of all. 
 
 "Of course!" I said. "Mr. Moffat! Why did 
 you never come to see me?" 
 
 "I did," he replied. "But not for a long while. 
 I had other things to do. When I chanced a call 
 you had left the address you gave me." 
 
 "Come and sit down," I said. I ordered drinks 
 and explained my disappearance from Fitzroy 
 Square. "And what are you doing?" 
 
 He shot me a suspicious glance and I saw that 
 an idle question had been taken for curiosity. 
 Perversely I now wished for the answer. To en- 
 courage him I set an example. 
 
 "I am here," I said, "as an exile. There was 
 trouble in England and someone had to go. So 
 I went." 
 
 He gleamed with interest. 
 
 "Was it—?" he muttered. 
 
 "It was," I replied solemnly, wholly innocent 
 either of his meaning or of my own. 
 
 "I have just come from Zurich," he went on, 
 "and go to Naples after a few days. There is 
 business in Marseilles. . . . The tide is rising." 
 
 "Capital," I said brightly. "Capital!" 
 
 He was fingering his glass nervously, and I could
 
 The End of Carnival 225 
 
 see the long fingers stained with nicotine whiten 
 and grow dark again as he tightened and relaxed 
 his grip on the smooth surface. 
 
 "You were going to tell me — " I began, — "or 
 rather you would perhaps have told me, had I 
 been still at my rooms when you called — what 
 you and your friends are going to do about — well, 
 about us." 
 
 "About you?" 
 
 1 ' Yes, — all my lot. My sister's lot. " 
 
 He sneered. 
 
 "I was too busy over trifles in those days." 
 
 "And now?" 
 
 "I am not a simpleton, Mr. Braden. You were 
 fair to me that night in London and I respect your 
 intelligence, but I am not merciful." 
 
 The evident belief that I was currying favor 
 with the future tickled me. 
 
 1 ' Why did you speak to me just now ? ' ' 
 
 "Who knows? I have nothing against you. 
 Perhaps I was anxious to see how you had pro- 
 gressed." 
 
 "I am the merest neophyte," I said humbly. 
 "But it is not bad to have had to leave England." 
 
 Once again that gleam of involuntary interest. 
 
 "Tell me what happened." 
 
 IS
 
 226 Privilege 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 "I am not a simpleton, Mr. Moffat." 
 
 He smiled unpleasantly and drained his glass. 
 
 "Another?" he queried. 
 
 "If you choose to pay for it," I said, "I shall 
 be delighted. The coming of equality will at least 
 do away with treating." 
 
 He did not speak again until the replenished 
 glasses were at hand. Then he peered solemnly 
 into my eyes. 
 
 "Seriously . . ."he began. 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 "This is not chatter. I know. There is going 
 to be trouble for you and your sort." 
 
 "It won't be the first," I replied. 
 
 "No — but it will be the last!" His ferocity 
 startled me into something like curiosity. As once 
 before, I wanted to learn more of this strange, 
 angry man. 
 
 "What is your grudge against Society? " I asked. 
 
 He seemed genuinely surprised, and it was a dif- 
 ferent being that answered in bland astonishment. 
 
 "Grudge? I have no grudge — no personal 
 grudge." 
 
 And I realized that I was talking to a genuine 
 and fanatical idealist, a type that did not exist
 
 The End of Carnival 227 
 
 in my experience, and a type, therefore, that I 
 considered did not exist at all. Characteristically 
 — for I have a mundane and practical mind — my 
 interest faded before the possibility of rhetorical 
 theory. Moffat was suddenly an illimitable bore. 
 A terror seized me that he would start on Marx. 
 I decided to liquidate. 
 
 "As we are on different sides," I said emphat- 
 ically, ' ' I shall not wish you luck. I merely warn 
 you that trumpets these days are not enough to 
 down the walls of Jericho." 
 
 "If the walls are obstinate, Mr. Braden, there 
 are other weapons." 
 
 I got up. 
 
 "All right. So long as you are prepared. Are 
 you a Christian?" 
 
 He snorted. 
 
 "I am not," he replied angrily. 
 
 "Then I will not quote Scripture to you. You 
 might think I had invented it. But there are 
 points about humility and gentleness . . . " 
 
 : ' Why do you close your ears ! " he cried. ' ' Have 
 the poor been treated with gentleness ? Have the 
 rich showed humility? Was your sister humble 
 and kind that night in London? And you talk 
 to me of Christ!"
 
 228 Privilege 
 
 For a moment I stood looking down at him, 
 at his black, untidy hair, and the dark, lined face 
 with its flashing eyes. As I looked I felt, as keenly 
 as one of my cool and critical mind can ever feel, 
 the lure of righteous anger. He was right ; morally 
 and philosophically he was right. My aloofness 
 was a meaner, more diluted, emotionalism, a pro- 
 tective wall between cold truth and the romantic 
 fancies of a sheltered intellect. And yet . . . 
 
 "I understand," I said slowly. "And I sympa- 
 thize. But if it comes to blows we shall be on 
 different sides." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Inevitably. Even if you wished it we should 
 shut you out. You belong to the other lot and 
 always must. But I am a little sorry." 
 
 "Don't be that," I said. "Only victors can 
 afford regrets, and you have not won yet. Good- 
 night." 
 
 "Good-night," he replied. "Make hay while 
 the sun shines." 
 
 II 
 
 Moffat's parting words recurred amusingly to 
 my mind as the boat train, two days later, groped
 
 The End of Carnival 229 
 
 through a foggy drizzle to Charing Cross. Some 
 weedy Italianate women with pince-nez and super- 
 fluous veils were my neighbors in the Pullman. •» 
 
 "Ugh! And to think that only on Wednesday 
 we were barsking in that larvely sunshine!" 
 
 "What a climate!" 
 
 They exchanged miseries for so long and with 
 such penetrating gusto that I rashly intervened. 
 
 ' ' I once knew a man who preferred London and 
 slush to any place or any weather." 
 
 "Warse he a mudguard maker?" asked one of 
 the women, — which disposed of me for the time 
 being, and deservedly, for forgetting how often a 
 dry skin means a dry humor. 
 
 I taxied to the address in Cadogan Square from 
 which Barbara had written, and found a comfort- 
 able house full of good English lacquer. Levitt 
 received me cordially. Her ladyship was out, but 
 Miss Monica was in the boudoir. She was; and 
 wearing a light wrap over next to nothing. Clothes 
 of every kind strewed the sofas and chairs. 
 
 "Lord, Dick!" she cried. "How you do force 
 your way in ! I'm as naked as Eve. Go away." 
 
 "Don't mind me," I said. "I've just come from 
 the south on purpose to get you a wedding present. 
 What about a Jaeger sleeping-suit?"
 
 230 Privilege 
 
 "Would that knock Buda?" 
 
 1 ' It would. Also very handy in case of sudden 
 callers. Where's Hunyadi?" 
 
 "Dick, you are awful. Poor Putzschen. He's 
 playing bridge somewhere, I believe. I stayed in 
 to — well, you see . . . Incidentally, if you are 
 set on a wedding present, there's an adorable 
 clock at Welsenheimer's." 
 
 "Good," I said. "That's settled. Now what's 
 the news?" 
 
 She stretched revealingly, and I felt a mild 
 vanity at the possession of so beautiful a sister. 
 
 "News? Barbara seems to have had a tiff with 
 the chief and made it up again. They're as chirpy 
 as anything now. And he's to be an Under-Secre- 
 tary when the Tories come in." 
 
 "Are they going to? " I asked, mindful of Moffat. 
 
 "God knows. In Hungary we never let them 
 go out. It's so much simpler." 
 
 "'We' already?" 
 
 She threw a cushion at me, and then, glancing 
 at the watch on her wrist, rang the bell. 
 
 ' ' Valerie, I have to be at the Berkeley in an hour. 
 Why didn't you say it was so late? I'll wear the 
 gold and blue, and I want a bath. Clear off all 
 this rubbish. So long, Richie. I'm going to
 
 The End of Carnival 231 
 
 Covent Garden with the Lambournes. Blow in 
 during the interval if you're down town." 
 
 Alone, I smoked cigarettes and one after another 
 picked up the books that lay about on the tables. 
 The air in the room was warm, and faintly scented 
 with flowers and femininity ; behind the curtains of 
 the window London breathed deliciously. Every- 
 thing was muted and luxurious, but not London 
 nor this discreet opulence could compensate for 
 the want of familiar things. I wanted Whern and 
 the people I knew, and — more than anything — 
 Barbara. But there was no Barbara here; the 
 very room was wrongly keyed. Once more I 
 wandered aimlessly from place to place. I read 
 the evening paper and strewed it on the floor. I 
 played half a waltz on the piano. Suddenly a 
 telephone whirred. I found the instrument in a 
 distant recess, and at the first sound of the voice 
 became again content and purposeful. 
 
 "Yes, it is really me." 
 
 "Oh, about an hour ago. When will you be 
 back?" 
 
 "Naturally, if you are." 
 
 "Sorry, I forgot."
 
 232 Privilege 
 
 • • • 
 
 "Monica was here; she's dining out for the 
 opera." 
 
 • * • 
 
 "And you refused? Why?" 
 
 "Now, who is forgetting?" 
 
 "Splendid. Don't be long." 
 Ringing off I went to dress for dinner. 
 
 We were alone, she and I, with the pleasant 
 formality of other folks' possessions handled by 
 our own servants. 
 
 "You are looking well," I said politely. 
 
 1 ' I am ; very well. How does London seem after 
 the Midi?" 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 "For heaven's sake! One of us will say things 
 are seasonable in a minute." 
 
 She smiled with tranquil indifference. How 
 quietly friendly it all was ! Dinner moved imper- 
 ceptibly to its close. 
 
 "You are not inquisitive, Dick. All kinds of 
 adventures might have befallen us in your absence, 
 and you never ask." 
 
 "Monica said there was no news, except that
 
 The End of Carnival 233 
 
 Michael would be a Cabinet Minister in five hund- 
 red years." 
 
 "Poor darling! He's more likely to be cockshy 
 for Jacobins. This Rodbury affair ..." 
 
 I looked interrogation. 
 
 "The strike." 
 
 "What strike?" 
 
 "Bless the innocent! He knows nothing. 
 Hadn't you heard of the railway row? All about 
 those slum houses?" 
 
 I listened to her disjointed and somewhat vague 
 account of the trouble at Rodbury. Although no 
 demolition was planned for several months, a 
 curious agitation had been started for provision 
 to be made for the future. Matters had come to 
 an actual strike. The yards had now been out 
 three days, and there had been speeches against 
 Michael worded with significant violence. Indeed, 
 the strike was in essence anti-Whern. The com- 
 pany were clearly disinclined to any step likely 
 to transfer the enmity of their employees to them- 
 selves. In response to demands for house ac- 
 commodation they returned conciliatory optimism 
 coupled with a discreet reference to obstructive 
 landowners. An unusual state of affairs was 
 evolving; one in which the parties technically at
 
 234 Privilege 
 
 war were slowly drawing together against a third 
 antagonist, ostensibly unconcerned in the matter, 
 but with increasing frequency dragged in by in- 
 ference or by name. 
 
 "Has Michael done anything?" I asked. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "He's horribly busy, and, besides, what could 
 he do? It's not his business. He sold the land 
 and the company bought it." 
 
 "Terrible affair," I commented lightly, and put 
 the matter from my mind, being uninterested in 
 social problems except in so far as they affected 
 myself. 
 
 Upstairs over coffee we became more personal. 
 
 "What made you write?" I asked. 
 
 If I counted on embarrassment or tenderness, 
 or even reproof, I was disappointed. Barbara 
 remained pleasantly suave. 
 
 "I've wanted your company, my dear. Also the 
 wedding is next week." 
 
 "Nonsense," I retorted crossly. "Don't put 
 me off. I want to know what you've said to 
 Michael." 
 
 She gave a slight shrug, and her hands gestured 
 wild impatience. 
 
 "Why not leave things alone? Surely this
 
 The End of Carnival 235 
 
 passion for wound-probing ... I said the 
 whole business was over. So it is. Let's leave it 
 at that." 
 
 I stared at her in perplexity. She could ma- 
 nipulate the inner lighting of her face with dis- 
 quieting adroitness. The facade was familiar; the 
 broad, white forehead, the strong, straight eye- 
 brows, the firmly generous lips. But there was no 
 welcome in the eyes, and the full graciousness of 
 her was now only admirable where before it had 
 the lure of intimate prodigality. I felt the sore- 
 ness of injured dignity, and all the more keenly 
 because I had betrayed my own case by returning 
 home at all. Clearly I was unlucky in love; 
 women played with the idea of me and then — 
 Cripples cannot be choosers. 
 
 "I thought of looking in at Covent Garden," 
 I said. ' ' Will you come ? ' ' 
 
 She shook her head and looked at me whimsi- 
 cally. A smile was hovering behind the grave 
 curtain of her eyes. I lost a fragment of my 
 temper. 
 
 "At least spare me your mockery! Surely I am 
 ridiculous enough to amuse in retrospect. Save 
 the joke for my absence." 
 
 I am afraid I shut the door with unnecessary noise.
 
 236 Privilege 
 
 Five minutes later, as I crossed the hall to go 
 out, a key rattled in the latch of the outer door 
 and Michael came in. He looked tired and even 
 paler than usual. When he saw me his face 
 kindled to pleased surprise. 
 
 "It's Dick!" he cried. "When did you arrive? 
 Is Barbara in?" 
 
 I followed him to his study. He mixed himself 
 a drink and lay back in a long chair with a sigh 
 of weariness. 
 
 "You look done up," I said, and the comment 
 was not mere formalism. 
 
 "I'm worried about this business at Rodbury. 
 They've camped in those fields near Leggatt's 
 farm and the old man is furious. I suppose I must 
 go down." 
 
 "What to do?" 
 
 "Turn them out, of course." 
 
 ' ' But really, Michael— ! What is Glenny for? " 
 
 "Glenny is in a blue funk. He wired to me this 
 evening for instructions. Pack of rotters they 
 seem to be down there. It's very awkward. I've 
 got a deputation to-morrow morning, and there's 
 an important debate to-morrow night." 
 
 "I'll go," I said on a sudden impulse. "After 
 all, it's my job. I never should have left my post. "
 
 The End of Carnival 237 
 
 He glanced up at me. 
 
 "Will you? That would be splendid. I shall 
 be most grateful. I'll come on Friday if it's 
 essential. But use your own judgment. You 
 have a free hand." 
 
 "Then, in case I don't see you to-morrow morn- 
 ing — farewell," I said moving to the door. "I 
 expect I'll be in late. The Lambournes and 
 Monica will be supping somewhere." 
 
 "Good-night," he replied. 
 
 in 
 
 I have always enjoyed luxury in theater-going. 
 On that first evening after exile the soft darkness 
 of the Lambourne's box held in its secret folds 
 the essence of opulent and gracious London which, 
 in my torrid solitude abroad, I had so restlessly 
 desired. The second act was in progress, and, as 
 I pushed open the door, I saw against the hot glow 
 of the still invisible stage, Monica's head with its 
 turban and plume, and the faint mistiness of Delia 
 Lambourne's flaxen curls. A glimmer of shirt 
 front to my left betrayed Lambourne himself, 
 stocky, a little bored. I leant against the wall 
 and allowed the music to run like caressing water
 
 238 Privilege 
 
 over my relaxed contentment. I was glad of my 
 host's taciturnity, of my hostess's genuine love of 
 music. Impersonality and silence, high above the 
 breathing trough of a crowded house — these to 
 my home-longing meant perfect satiety. 
 
 The interval brought an unexpected message. 
 "Lady Whern has telephoned that she will join 
 Lady Lambourne at supper. If not at the Savoy, 
 would Lady Lambourne send word." 
 
 "How nice!" said Delia in her friendly way. 
 "Dear Barbara. She knew we wanted her so 
 much. No, it's quite all right " (to the attendant). 
 "There's no message, thank you." 
 
 At the Savoy we found Barbara and Kolosz- 
 vary drinking soda-water. Delia fluttered for- 
 ward. 
 
 "Dear things. How sweet of you to come! 
 What on earth is that dangerous bottle?" 
 
 "We were so hungry," pouted Barbara, "and 
 the young man found me a wretched substitute 
 for Monica. So we thought a little dissipation 
 . . . Did you have a good show?" 
 
 Supper progressed uneventfully. Then Monica 
 yawned. 
 
 "The child is sleepy," said Delia. "Count 
 Koloszvary must take her home. Good-night,
 
 The End of Carnival 239 
 
 darling. How lovely you look m that dress! I 
 wish I had your shoulders." 
 
 Inevitably Monica's shoulders became a subject 
 of inspection (to which, incidentally, she readily 
 lent herself), and I noticed a faint gleam in Putzi's 
 eyes. "What a low lot men are," I thought, 
 because I understood the gleam and sympathized 
 with it and hated myself for doing so. 
 
 The fiances disappeared. We sat a while longer 
 and then drifted towards the door. As she got 
 into the car, Barbara said: 
 
 1 ' Dick, tell him to drive towards Richmond and 
 then back. I want to talk to you." 
 
 I obeyed, and, getting in beside her, waited for 
 enlightenment. 
 
 "You saw Michael to-night?" she began. 
 
 "I did." 
 
 "What about these squatters?" 
 
 "I'm going down to-morrow." 
 
 "To do what?" 
 
 "Well," with a laugh, "that's the trouble. What 
 shall I do? Have you any suggestions?" 
 
 She did not reply at once but sat staring away 
 from me out of the window of the car. Against 
 the sliding background of dark houses and pale, 
 hurrying faces, I saw her frown in perplexity.
 
 240 Privilege 
 
 "I suppose I'd better tell you," she said at last. 
 "Do you remember at Whern last Christmas, Mary 
 trying to start a row with me about my promises 
 to Verney ? Michael treated the affair as he treats 
 every fragment of bad breeding — he just brushed it 
 aside and it was never mentioned again. But there 
 was something in what Mary said. I did pro- 
 mise things and — and this outbreak is the result." 
 
 "Goon," I said. 
 
 She turned to me quickly and laid her hand on 
 my knee. 
 
 "Dick, don't you be stern with me! You said 
 that like Michael. Mayn't I finish?" 
 
 "Dear child, haven't I begged you to do so?" 
 
 "You're being horrid, Dick. I wish I'd never 
 begun. And I counted on your help. That's why 
 I came to the Savoy. To talk to you." 
 
 This inconsequence annoyed me. Barbara was 
 not an eighteen-year-old, to play the wayward 
 feminine. 
 
 "Oh, for God's sake get on," I said crossly. 
 
 For answer she took the speaking tube and bade 
 the chauffeur drive home after all. In despair I 
 sat back into my corner and cursed the moods of 
 women. She spoke only as we were mounting the 
 house-steps. "
 
 The End of Carnival 241 
 
 "You're going by train, I suppose?" 
 "Yes. Ten-thirty, I think. I'll telephone 
 Glenny to meet me." 
 
 IV 
 
 The agent was on Laylham platform as the 
 train stopped. He greeted me politely and we 
 walked together towards the roadway. 
 
 "I had not understood," he began a little awk- 
 wardly, "that Lady Whern would also be coming 
 to-day. It confused matters a little. When I got 
 your message " 
 
 I interrupted him. 
 
 "What time did Lady Whern arrive?" 
 
 "She came on tne early train. Of course there 
 was no conveyance here. I did not know. . . . 
 I am very sorry there should have been a muddle." 
 
 I said nothing and moved towards the station 
 exit once again. Glenny edged along by my side, 
 seemingly reluctant to leave the platform. 
 
 "Lady Whern asked me to tell you she would 
 be here directly, and would you wait for her." 
 
 "Will you wait as well?" 
 
 "If you will excuse me, Mr. Braden, I ought to 
 
 get off. Lady Whern told mc I should lose no 
 16
 
 242 Privilege 
 
 time in seeing Mr. Vemey's committee, and I 
 understand they are meeting in Rodbury in an 
 hour." 
 
 "All right," I said. "Don't wait on my ac- 
 count. I'll go over and talk to Mrs. Purcell at the 
 
 • »> 
 inn. 
 
 We shook hands and separated. I made no 
 attempt to forecast what had happened. There 
 would be explanation and to spare when Barbara 
 arrived. In the meantime Mrs. Purcell was an 
 old friend and a cheery soul, and a glass of her 
 excellent ale would help towards a desirable 
 placidity of mind. 
 
 It was nearly half an hour later that a car 
 swished past the window and jerked to a stand- 
 still at the station entrance. Barbara was 
 driving. She jumped out and hurried into the 
 booking-office. I watched from the inn parlor and 
 continued my conversation with the landlady. 
 Naturally it concerned the strike and her sympa- 
 thies were with Michael. As she poured forth her 
 scorn of the good-for-nothings who were driving old 
 Farmer Leggatt to madness, I kept my eye on the 
 station door. Barbara emerged and hurried 
 towards the inn. The next minute she was on the 
 threshold of the parlor.
 
 The End of Carnival 243 
 
 <<i 
 
 'Come on, Dick. There's no time to lose. Why 
 didn't you show yourself before? (Good morning, 
 Mrs. Purcell. . . . Yes, very nice, but rather 
 cold.) You must have seen me." 
 
 "I saw you," I said. "And a very nice sight it 
 
 was." 
 
 She frowned impatiently and tapped with her 
 foot on the floor. "Are you coming?" 
 
 Leisurely I paid for my beer and took leave of 
 Mrs. Purcell. 
 
 "Where are we going?" I asked mildly. 
 
 "Rodbury — to see Verney." 
 
 "What a pleasure! I gather Glenny is there 
 already. May I be told the position? It makes 
 things easier, and I should like to look as small a 
 fool as possible in the circumstances." 
 
 She laughed and patted my arm. 
 
 "Poor old thing," she said caressingly. "I 
 treated you rather meanly. But you wouldn't 
 listen last night " 
 
 "Really, Barbara!" I broke in, "you are im- 
 possible ! For heaven's sake stop telling me about 
 last night! I don't pretend to know what I did 
 wrong, but I apologize and withdraw and climb 
 down. Is that sufficient?" 
 
 "Tut, tut, Richard. I was trying for a rise.
 
 244 Privilege 
 
 Jump in! Quick! Now that we're off, let's be 
 serious. I had to give you the slip and get here 
 first. I've settled it all." 
 
 I maintained a sceptical silence. 
 
 "Settled it, Richard. Do you hear?" 
 
 "Danegeld?" I queried. 
 
 "Partly. But that's not where you come in. 
 As I tried to tell you yesterday, I had given myself 
 away to Verney. Something had to be done. The 
 present houses come down in September, and these 
 wretched folk must be provided for. I see Leg- 
 gatt's objection to the present arrangement, and 
 they will be off his land by to-morrow. I am going 
 to make over that open space near Plaughton to 
 the Rodbury Committee, and you have got to 
 back me up." 
 
 I was speechless with astonishment at this out- 
 pouring of emotional amateurism. At the same 
 time, I realized that behind the positive abbrevia- 
 tion of her manner, she concealed doubts and 
 anxieties. For a few moments I watched the 
 hedge-tops switch-back beside the car and en- 
 deavored to collect my faculties. 
 
 "I'm not sure if I understand, yet," I said at 
 last. "Correct me if I am wrong, but I imagine 
 the position to be this: Some while ago you
 
 The End of Carnival 245 
 
 promised Verney to embark on a housing scheme. 
 He holds you to your promise " 
 
 "One moment " 
 
 "Don't interrupt. Let me finish. Verney in- 
 sists on your doing what you undertook to do. 
 Probably this demonstration is to force your hand. 
 It has forced it. You are now buying off the de- 
 monstrators with (I assume) your own money and 
 (you yourself admit) Michael's land. A few 
 questions. When did you first make promises to 
 Verney — before the sale?" 
 
 "Yes — some time before. When I first saw the 
 condition those awful houses were in." She spoke 
 now in a subdued voice, and her manner was as 
 docile as it had previously been flippantly aggressive. 
 
 "It was you then, after all, that told him of 
 the projected sale?" 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "And you renewed your promises?" 
 
 "Not exactly. He hinted at them and, like a 
 fool, I let his hints pass unchallenged." 
 
 "Now he organizes this business, and" — here I 
 looked at her pointedly "lets you know indi- 
 rectly that the remedy lies in your hands? " 
 
 Again she nodded. In that instant I had a 
 flash of understanding.
 
 246 Privilege 
 
 "And that is why you wrote for me?" 
 
 "Dick," she murmured, "it was not only 
 that ..." 
 
 The diplomacy of that insinuation was unnec- 
 essary. Already I had told myself that her cold- 
 ness and indifference of the day before were mere 
 acting. She had sent for me to help her, and not 
 because all that had passed had, as she made out, 
 passed utterly. A gradual excitement took pos- 
 session of my mind. It was an effort to keep 
 attention on the matter of the moment. 
 
 "Finally," I said, "you talk of 'making over 
 land' to Verney's committee. That means no- 
 thing. You cannot 'make over' someone else's land. 
 Besides, this precious committee aren't builders." 
 
 "I only meant that I should like houses built 
 there," she said humbly. 
 
 "By whom?" 
 
 "Anyone you like, Dick dear. I thought the 
 committee would have some say in the matter. ' ' 
 
 "And who pays?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 The car hummed on its way. It was a fine day 
 but cold, and I shivered a little, as we rushed along 
 the country road with its untidy grass borders and 
 damp drifts of rotting leaves.
 
 The End of Carnival 247 
 
 "You have got us into a nice corner, Barbara," 
 I said at last. 
 
 "But wasn't I right? Isn't it up to us to do 
 something? Surely you can advise Michael that 
 this arrangement is the best plan ? He only wants 
 to be let alone. And that land was all gorse and 
 rushes and sandpits. There's water and a high- 
 road. It's useless to us. ..." 
 
 "I don't like it. It means lying to him." 
 
 She leant against me, and I saw the downy hair 
 curling behind her ears. The heady scent of her 
 rocked in my nostrils, and once more I was in the 
 tall arched alcove off the great hall at Whern, 
 with its groined roof and heavily drooping cur- 
 tains. I saw her hands stretched forward to 
 the wheel as on that evening they had drooped 
 over her knees and drank color from the crimson 
 rug. 
 
 "Please, Dick," she whispered. 
 
 A devil prompted me to try a turn of the screw. 
 
 "You said the whole business was over. . . . 
 Leave it at that. Why this passion for wound- 
 probing? . . ." 
 
 I threw all I knew of caressing irony into this 
 quotation of her very words. But she turned on 
 me eyes so large with sorrowful humility, so soft
 
 248 Privilege 
 
 with tenderness, that I forgot everything except 
 how much I loved her. 
 
 "Forgive me," I muttered. "You know I can- 
 not refuse you anything." 
 
 The slow unfurling of her smile was ecstasy to 
 see. She laid her left hand on mine and pressed 
 it lightly. 
 
 "Nor I," she said. 
 
 To call our conspiracy a second treachery to 
 Michael is to use too big a word. The merest 
 disingenuity sufficed, for an honorable man is 
 sickeningly easy to deceive. Nevertheless I am 
 for some reason more unwilling to dwell on 
 this trifling incident than on the greater fault 
 that went before it. I see myself confronting 
 Michael, outwardly nonchalant, at heart a thing 
 of patches. The spiritual covering of convention 
 and breeding was rent by a passion that shamed 
 as it tore. I have my happiness now and, to keep 
 it, would commit worse crimes than ever com- 
 passed its achievement, but even the attainment 
 of desire cannot ennoble the means employed. If 
 the affair of the Rodbury tenants had passed over 
 less glibly, if what threatened a real significance 
 had not petered out into a triviality doubly
 
 The End of Carnival 249 
 
 marked by lapse of time, I might find purpose in 
 my falsity and skill in my lying. As it is, the 
 thing ended with a calm simplicity, and the emo- 
 tions of that motor-drive have the absurdity of 
 anticlimax. 
 
 Michael received my report with cold attention. 
 I took care to stress the suspicious nature of the 
 outbreak. "It is a prophetic strike," I said, "for 
 something that is wanted six months hence." I 
 then proceeded to outline the risks of ignoring the 
 movement and the credit to be gained by a timely 
 gesture on the lines to which, poor man, he was 
 already committed. 
 
 When I had finished, "Am I expected to spend 
 money on this scheme?" he asked. 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 "And to whom will rents be paid?" 
 
 "To you and Barbara." 
 
 "In fact, it is profitable." He pondered in si- 
 lence. "I don't like climbing down. They will 
 say I was beaten." 
 
 "Surely they will praise your constructive 
 philanthropy." 
 
 "It is hardly philanthropy as I understand 
 it," he retorted brusquely. "I am asked to 
 allow someone else to build houses on my waste
 
 250 Privilege 
 
 land and then begged to receive payment in the form 
 of rent. No, no, Dick. It's not sense. There's 
 something behind it. Where's the catch?" 
 
 "You are too inquisitive," I said. "As a matter 
 of fact the building money comes from Barbara. 
 But it's a secret." 
 
 To my relief he laughed. 
 
 ' Trying a little flutter on her own ! Good luck 
 to her, but she must have the rents — and the col- 
 lecting of them. In that case, let her take the 
 land and welcome. Why didn't she ask me?" 
 
 "Don't you see, Michael, she was not your re- 
 presentative; I was. Things might have been 
 arrangeable another way and then this would not 
 have arisen. As it fell out, I concluded there was 
 only this solution possible and I told her my 
 opinion. She offered to finance the building, on 
 condition that I tackled you. That's all about it." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Go ahead, then. So long as I'm not bothered. 
 And many thanks for going down there." 
 
 To the same bathos I attribute the uneventful 
 history of the months that followed. A fruit,
 
 The End of Carnival 251 
 
 luscious when unattainable, drooped to my hand, 
 and maybe my will to pluck was palsied with 
 sudden scruple or the prize, once within reach, 
 lost its lure. And yet neither the one nor the 
 other. To talk of scruple at that eleventh hour 
 was hypocrisy; to pretend coolness, clumsy false- 
 hood. Wherefore I am driven to trace the tem- 
 porary check in the current of my love to the 
 flatness of the Rodbury crisis which leveled other 
 things beside itself, and, among them, the pitch of 
 the slope down which flowed Barbara's life and 
 mine. 
 
 Monica was duly married and the illustrated 
 Press broke into a fanfare of photographs, blather, 
 and snobbery. She was "brilliant" and "beauti- 
 ful" and "piquante" and "mondaine." Kol- 
 oszvary was "gallant" and "handsome" and 
 "wealthy" and of incredible racial antiquity. 
 Those of us who could not avoid the honor, were 
 interviewed and snapshotted, and presented to the 
 world as mentally deficient and physically absurd. 
 The only alleviation of an always tedious and 
 sometimes intolerable experience was the mis- 
 fortune that overtook poor Mary, who, grasping 
 too eagerly at the opportunity of airing her un- 
 usual views, unloaded onto a reporter of a mam-
 
 25 2 Privilege 
 
 moth paper such vitriolic opinions of the society 
 that allowed him to exist at all that he, anxious 
 to avenge himself and to please his proprietors, 
 published over Mary's name the photograph of 
 an under-dressed lady of Hebraic origin and headed 
 his interview "Noblesse Oblige: Views of the 
 Aristo of To-morrow." 
 
 The ceremony over we retired to Whern, until 
 the calls of the season took Michael and Barbara 
 to London once again. It is enough to say that 
 we drifted into the usual idle round of automatic 
 gayety, as the last carnival of the old world ran 
 its luxurious and heedless way.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 TREACHERY 
 
 To convert a purely personal chronicle into a 
 commentary on England in war-time is within 
 neither my intention nor my capacity. Many 
 there are who give to their intimates and to them- 
 selves that insignificance in daily happenings that 
 is proportionate and proper. I, to my shame, am 
 different. Maybe because the Bradens have for 
 long enough been persons of importance in their 
 little world, it is instinctive in me to regard events 
 in the light of my own experience and of the ex- 
 perience of my family. The calamity of August, 
 191 4, and the years of anxiety, misery, anger, and 
 pride that followed it, tested our very beings as 
 they tested those of millions. We met the test 
 in our several and different ways and the harmony 
 and discord of these encounters are my story 
 because they were for me the story of the war. 
 
 253
 
 254 Privilege 
 
 I am not afraid of the charge of superiority. The 
 critical faculty makes the onlooker; and the on- 
 looker, to whom are afterwards the triumphs of 
 victory, may at least claim the satisfaction of his 
 vantage-point during the struggle. How I 
 acquitted myself when, far on during the torment 
 of war, I was dragged from my place of observa- 
 tion and called upon to make a strange and ironic 
 choice, others shall judge; if they will, that is— for 
 the choice is made and there is no going back. 
 For my part there are facts to be recorded and 
 the final scenes in the tragi-comedy of Whern. 
 
 My first memory is of the great south terrace 
 after dinner on the evening when, without hope 
 of reprieve, we knew that the old world had been 
 condemned to death. Over the wooded hills and 
 out of the bland passivity of summer heat some- 
 thing foul but grandiose had been wafted into our 
 paradise. To a few it was stimulus and there were 
 fevered faces and fevered brains among the party 
 that strolled and sat in the luminous twilight of 
 the August evening. The majority were gravely 
 pale. Among the prophecies, laments, and exul- 
 tations that fluttered along the silver dusk were 
 two silences — those of Michael and of Barbara. 
 He listened, immobile and expressionless, to the
 
 Treachery 255 
 
 blustering optimism of General Lawlor, to the 
 graceful timidity of Mercia Gledhowe, to Mary's 
 angry clamor of proletarian veto. Barbara was 
 differently aloof. An afternoon of hard-played 
 tennis brought her to dinner radiant with exercise. 
 Now, in the rosy fatigue of her perfect healthi- 
 ness, she let no public happening disturb her 
 serenity. I heard Agatha persecuting her aloof- 
 ness. 
 
 "Really, Barbara, you shock me! Lying there 
 as bold as brass and all these dreadful things going 
 on and Heaven alone knows what coming! But 
 then you were always so strong-minded. I'm a 
 woman and not ashamed of it, whatever Richard 
 may think. Yes, I see you" — turning to me — "and 
 the 'foolish little Agatha' look in your nasty eyes! 
 Perhaps you can stir Barbara to some sort of 
 interest in history!" 
 
 Barbara stretched in her long chair and gurgled 
 happily : 
 
 "What am I to do, Agatha darling? I'm so 
 comfy, and my head is too thick for politics. I 
 can't stop their old war, if I wanted to. Why fuss 
 before one need ? ' ' 
 
 Agatha threw out her hands. 
 
 "Fuss! Hearken to her! Fuss indeed! I al-
 
 256 Privilege 
 
 ways think it a woman's proudest mission to dance 
 before the conquering hero — though, to tell the 
 truth, I'm not so slim as I was, and the prospect 
 is a shade intimidating — but we must all do what 
 in us lies. Mustn't we, Richard?" 
 
 She shot the words at me as an afterthought, and 
 I had a horrid vision of the idiotic, good-natured 
 little woman spitted absurdly on a hostile bayonet. 
 For a moment I felt that it would be like Agatha 
 to meet a violent end, meet it trustfully and 
 merrily. But the next instant I told myself that 
 the fading of that perpetual babyhood was 
 unthinkable. 
 
 "We must, indeed, Agatha," I replied solemnly. 
 "And your duty and mine is clearly to rouse 
 Barbara to a sense of her responsibility. To-mor- 
 row after breakfast we will teach her to knit a 
 tummy -band. Then you can go and rub up your 
 eurhythmies, and I'll buy a trumpet." 
 
 "Dick is flippant," said Barbara lazily. "Is he 
 over-moved or not moved at all?" 
 
 "Guess," I replied, but she shook her head 
 drowsily and gazed with tranquil eyes into the 
 glimmering distance. 
 
 The next memory is Monica's return. A little
 
 Treachery 257 
 
 tired about the eyes, but cool and fair and elegant, 
 she metaphorically strolled into London a fortnight 
 after war had been declared with the easy assur- 
 ance of one accustomed to the foreign travel of a 
 previous existence. "My dear! We'd given you 
 up. ' ' — ' ' Was it very awful ? ' ' — ' ' How wonderful to 
 get through!" 
 
 She had walked unannounced into the drawing- 
 room at Cadogan Square, and the exclamations of 
 assembled relatives sang like bullets past her head. 
 I was not present, but Barbara told me afterwards 
 that the languid disgust on Monica's face was 
 that of a greyhound attacked by moths. "She 
 brushed us out of her eyes, Dick, and asked for 
 tea." Of course there was attitude in the com- 
 posure, and after dinner we were given a few 
 details of what must have been a sensational jour- 
 ney from the Black Forest to Rotterdam. 
 
 "Surely Switzerland would have been nearer?" 
 asked Michael. 
 
 "Dear innocent! Don't you realize I am an 
 Hungarian ? The Germans did their best for me — 
 the French would have been impossible. It's only 
 thanks to that old lamb at The Hague that I got 
 into England at all. The Entente is so dreadfully 
 warlike."
 
 258 Privilege 
 
 Michael looked grave. He had forgotten his 
 sister was an alien. She divined his thoughts. 
 
 "Do look at poor Micky ! He thinks I'll disgrace 
 him. Don't worry, dear brother; I'm not going to 
 live here, and I'll be fearfully discreet. If I knew 
 any German secrets I'd tell you them and perhaps 
 they'd make you a field marshal. But I don't." 
 
 "And the husband?" I asked with a little 
 diffidence. 
 
 "Fighting like a tiger, I expect," said Monica 
 calmly. "I asked him not to fight England, but 
 he seemed to think it might be unavoidable. So 
 violent, all these battles. One never knows. 
 Well, well, I must get a house and do the cloistered 
 wife. Frightfully mediaeval we are in Hungary. 
 Tapestry and serfs and Lord knows what. I am 
 surprised Putz didn't lock me up and keep the 
 key like those people in Hewlett's books or the De- 
 cameron. . . . Think of it with the modern out- 
 line ! . . . Do you like my dress, Barbara ? Got 
 it in Berlin coming through. Viennese. . . ." 
 
 And then nothing for months, until from the 
 dull unhappiness of increasing strain stand out 
 the few vivid days of Anthony's first leave. The 
 routine of war work was settling into its stride.
 
 Treachery 259 
 
 Michael, in red tabs, worked early and late in 
 secret magnificence for the General Staff; Barbara 
 had committees and more committees; she had 
 grown sullen and heavy-eyed, and I guessed at 
 a rising resentment against this tyranny of fate 
 under which our generation was blindly struggling. 
 Mary, whom we seldom saw, had plunged into 
 pacificism, and emerged at long intervals, menacing 
 and dogmatic, from obscure haunts of internation- 
 alist intrigue. I myself did the odd jobs that war 
 leaves over for intelligent cripples who can afford 
 to take honorary work; there are plenty. We 
 slaved, all of us, to make thought impossible. 
 Social gayety became a speciality of the parvenu; 
 and it was something of an effort properly to 
 satisfy Anthony's desire for entertainment. For 
 its poignancy and not for its detail, I remember 
 that week of merry-making; indeed I find it hard 
 to say what actually occurred. The days flickered 
 by and into the darkness from which he had come 
 Anthony vanished once more. At the door of the 
 Pullman he fumbled in the pocket of his tunic. 
 
 'I say, old man, if — it's all my eye, of course, 
 and I'll be as right as rain — but if anything hap- 
 pens, just give this to Vi Stretton and tell her I'd 
 be awfully grateful if she'd just freeze on to it.
 
 260 Privilege 
 
 Beastly sorry to bore you with it. Sure you don't 
 mind? Thanks awfully. Cheerio." 
 
 Even now I recall the heartache of that moment 
 and the brave contrast between laughing mouth 
 and sad violet eyes when two days later I met the 
 girl herself. I say "even now," because nothing 
 did happen to Anthony, and if he and Vi ever meet 
 in these days it is as mere acquaintances. There 
 were similar romances on most of Anthony's 
 leaves, but of no one do I retain any memory, so 
 erratic is my emotionalism and so out of tune with 
 the monstrous realities of war. 
 
 After this the dun monotony of war time lies 
 for long enough unbroken and without landmark 
 in my memory. Indeed, I recall nothing during 
 the two years that followed that first winter and 
 spring of shadows — nothing, that is, with signifi- 
 cant bearing on the fate of our family. With the 
 end of the two years came Michael's dinner-party 
 from which sprang such bitter consequence. 
 
 II 
 
 It is necessary to explain that Monica, at the 
 argent advice of her friends and in deference to
 
 Treachery 261 
 
 Michael's implied rather than spoken wish, had 
 held to her decision not to live in London and had 
 gone to Ireland on a protracted visit. Towards 
 the end of 191 6, however, her never exemplary- 
 patience gave out. One morning at my office a 
 familiar voice on the telephone summoned me to 
 lunch at the Savoy. Monica forestalled criticism. 
 
 "It's no earthly use, Richard. I will not stop 
 in that dismal hole any longer. I'll call myself 
 what you like, but henceforward it is London for 
 little Isolde and nowhere else." 
 
 I attempted remonstrance, but she waved me 
 aside and began to chatter with her old brilliant 
 flippancy. 
 
 "How's Tony?" 
 
 "He's got a staff job," I said. "Liaison with 
 the French of some kind." 
 
 "Does he know any French now? He didn't." 
 
 "Not much," I admitted, "but probably it 
 doesn't matter." 
 
 "All the same — chirpy little liaison it must be; 
 a series of units blanches. Like St. What's-her- 
 name and the thingummy." 
 
 To follow Monica into history or mythology was 
 always rash. I changed the subject. Lunch 
 flickered to an end.
 
 262 Privilege 
 
 "Now, you're coming along to agents to impress 
 them with my respectability." 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders and took the afternoon 
 to help her house-hunt. 
 
 Once established in a pleasant flat near Victoria, 
 Monica "Braden" was not long in remaking her 
 old mark on the London that formerly had known 
 her well. Under the seasonable guise of war 
 charities, canteen concerts, officers' club celebra- 
 tions, she resumed with all her old vigor the life 
 of excitement and shrill gayety that she loved. 
 Of course, the key was lower; but the melody was 
 restless as ever, restless and penetrating. Gradu- 
 ally it began to attract unfavorable notice. There 
 was a court-martial case that teased newspaper 
 curiosity and a reference to the "irresponsibility 
 of selfish women" lodged itself like irritant grit 
 in the cogwheels of the Yellow Press. They 
 screeched noisily. Allusions became frequent. 
 Then, in some idiot revue, the song success had a 
 refrain beginning : "Moni-caa from Mona-coe! . . . 
 People detected an inference more deliberate than 
 was originally intended, but the librettist, in a 
 catchpenny moment, added a verse which out- 
 gossiped gossip. It happened that Michael, after 
 a semi-official dinner, was taken by several brother
 
 Treachery 263 
 
 officers to the last hour of this very show. They 
 entered the theater as the song was in progress 
 and the proudest Braden of them all had the 
 cruel mortification of hearing what was only too 
 palpably an insult to his sister, screamed in rag- 
 time by a strident female whose private connection 
 with the aristocracy was a commonplace (to 
 within a fiver of the actual amount) in every Lon- 
 don club. Charlie Easterham was with him and, 
 noticing his disgusted stupor, had the wit to warn 
 me by telephone immediately the performance 
 ended. 
 
 "He's taken it damned hard, Braden," said the 
 kindly fellow over the line. ' ' Give an eye to him 
 when he gets in. Why the hell was I such a fool 
 as to forget the song was in that show? Always 
 was a silly ass. Remember I said nothing. Good- 
 bye." 
 
 Michael was dead pale when he came home. I 
 heard his key and hurried to intercept him. It 
 had been a half -hour of quick thinking. I remem- 
 bered Monica's words: "I never bend, Dick; I 
 break." And Michael's, on the occasion of that 
 fantastic interview in the study at Whern: "I 
 have worked so hard to remove the stain from 
 Whern, and another scandal now ... As head
 
 264 Privilege 
 
 of the family I can order its goings." Well then, 
 he should have the chance. I would forestall his 
 criticism with my own. 
 
 "Come and talk a bit, Michael," I said. "I 
 never see you nowadays and I have something to 
 say. You look dead beat. Do you good to have 
 a change of subject." 
 
 The hypocrisy succeeded. He followed me 
 quietly to the study. 
 
 "It's Monica I'm bothered about," I began, and 
 ignored the flickering glance that reached me from 
 under his tired, drooping lids. "She's playing the 
 fool because she feels on the loose, and perhaps a 
 little because she thinks the ice is a bit thin. You 
 see? One increases speed. It's not fair on her or 
 on us. It's unfair to you most of all. Would it 
 not be possible to bring her in more, to give her 
 the support of the family rein downhill, and — er — 
 the check of the family bit on the level? She's in 
 a difficult position, and is the last person to use 
 caution or to know when there is danger!" 
 
 He compressed his lips and brooded at the floor. 
 Then, with one of his rapid looks. 
 
 "You've heard it too, perhaps?" 
 
 "Heard it? What? Gossip, you mean?" 
 
 He shrugged wearily, and, to my joy, decided
 
 Treachery 265 
 
 I was too uninstructed to deserve enlighten- 
 ment. 
 
 "Oh, nothing. It doesn't matter. This plan of 
 yours, however . . . What do you actually 
 suggest?" 
 
 I thought a minute or two. 
 
 "Well — as a start — could you do a little enter- 
 taining and — and have her there. Besides," 
 warming to my speech, "you are overworking. 
 Barbara is worried. It would be so much better 
 to be at home more regularly for dinner, to see 
 people . . . " 
 
 He smiled his contemptuous smile. 
 
 "As you like, brother. I'll give it a trial, anyway. 
 A piece of paper — Thank you. We will make 
 out a few lists of dinner guests." 
 
 And that was the origin of the dinner-party. 
 That the idea was mine is perhaps my most tragic 
 memory. And I meant so well. The party was 
 not a large one, but it represented the inner ring 
 of administration. Naturally talk was all of the 
 war and of the political crisis. With the exception 
 of Monica, the women were well known to each 
 other and to the men present, as of the world 
 that regards its very dreams as confidential. As for 
 Monica, she was accepted as Whern's sister, and
 
 266 Privilege 
 
 her recent notoriety had not reached the ears of 
 those people who, being newspaper copy in them- 
 selves, never read the lighter Press at all. Conse- 
 quently with the withdrawal of the servants, there 
 was, little check on conversation. Policy — naval, 
 military, and political — was freely discussed. As 
 stimulus and for the interest of its talk the evening 
 was an undeniable success. 
 
 Not a fortnight later came the catastrophe. A 
 man I know well — an official high up in the Postal 
 Censorship — telephoned me to go and see him. 
 In his high, light room near Lincoln's Inn Fields 
 I found him pacing with anxious urgency the 
 spotted carpet supplied to civil servants of a 
 certain eminence. 
 
 "Braden," he broke out as soon as the door was 
 shut, "something rotten has happened; something 
 I'd give any money to know nothing of at all. 
 Read that." 
 
 He handed me a buff file. It contained two 
 sheets of minute paper covered with various com- 
 ments, and — I nearly dropped the file on the floor 
 in my astonishment — eight sides of Monica's lilac 
 note paper filled with her unmistakable hand- 
 writing. My friend continued to pace the floor. 
 I read the letter; I read the minutes. Then I
 
 Treachery 267 
 
 placed the file on the table and stood with the 
 awful feeling that the bottom had just fallen out 
 of the world. For the letter, which was written 
 in German, began "Allerliebstes Putzschen," and 
 detailed with vivid accuracy the conversation of 
 that fatal party. The envelope, tagged with the 
 other papers in the file, bore an English stamp with 
 a London postmark, and was addressed to a Fraii- 
 lein Loosli in Aargau. But it was a detail of one 
 of the minutes (in themselves they were all purely 
 official commentary on this terrible enclosure) that 
 completed my despair, for there I read the signa- 
 ture of the examiner who had opened the letter, 
 and that examiner was Moffat. 
 
 One gleam of hope remained. The signature 
 was an illegible scrawl that only my intimacy 
 could interpret as "Nishka," the writer's pet name 
 of the moment. There was no address on the 
 paper. Maybe identification could be baulked. 
 But then my presence in the matter was unex- 
 plained. Why was I sent for? Just possibly as 
 Michael's brother; just conceivably as an un- 
 official channel to the man at whose house the 
 indiscretion had come into being, for there were 
 indications in the letter. . . . 
 
 Merrick was now staring out of the window, and
 
 268 Privilege 
 
 I challenged his unhappy back for guidance in my 
 dilemma. As I watched him, hope faded. Clearly 
 a personal connection had been traced; he would 
 not stand thus miserably embarrassed in the 
 presence of a colleague; I was here as his friend 
 and as brother to one guilty of 
 
 "Is there anything further?" I asked. 
 
 He turned abruptly, and his eyes were heavy 
 with distress. 
 
 "Yes," he said slowly. "I'm sorrier than I can 
 say, Braden. There is this private note from the 
 head of the subsection." 
 
 From the buff envelope I drew two sheets of 
 official paper. 
 
 Mr. Merrick, 
 
 Examiner 791 has requested me to bring to your 
 personal notice the enclosed minute prepared by him 
 and dealing with E/4623/25. I have nothing to add. 
 
 H. WlNTHROP, D.A.C. 
 
 The first glimpse of the second sheet all but 
 upset once more my hardly regained control, for 
 I recognized Moffat's writing. I read as follows: 
 
 Mr. Winthrop, 
 
 With reference to E/4623/25 addressed to Fraulein 
 Loosli, Aargau, I happened through private knowledge
 
 Treachery 269 
 
 to possess a clue to the writer. I have made inquiries 
 and suggest that official investigation be directed 
 towards No. — , Ashley Gardens. The flat is let 
 furnished to a lady whose husband is fighting with 
 the Hungarian Army. Her real name is the Countess 
 Koloszvary, although she is at present using her 
 maiden name, and is well known in Society as the 
 Hon. Monica Braden. May I ask you to bring this 
 information personally to the notice of Mr. Merrick? 
 For obvious reasons I am not attaching it to the other 
 papers. 
 
 B. Moffat (Examiner 791) 
 
 Perhaps the thought of the man's triumphant 
 smile as he wrote these lines braced me to meet 
 calamity. I felt a sudden pity for Merrick in his 
 cruel quandary, but of personal embarrassment 
 or confusion no atom remained. 
 
 "Well, Merrick," — he started, and I suppose 
 my tone was almost brisk — "and what next?" 
 
 " Is it true ? " he asked hoarsely. ' ' Is what that 
 fellow writes possible?" 
 
 My pity increased. The poor man was stricken 
 to the heart while I, whom the matter concerned 
 so nearly, was coldly practical. 
 
 "It's perfectly true," I replied gently. "The 
 writing is unmistakable. Also I recognize the 
 source from which the information came. It was
 
 2 7° Privilege 
 
 splendid of you to let me see this; I am — we shall 
 all be — most grateful." Then, after a moments' 
 pause: "I suppose the file — and this minute — go 
 forward to-day?" 
 
 "They must," he muttered. "If I could lose 
 them, I would. If the whole place were burnt in 
 the night, I'd be silly with joy. But they must go 
 on; nothing is lost here. I have kept them two 
 days. I can keep them till to-morrow, but not 
 longer. It is up to you to see that nothing gets out." 
 
 I nodded slowly and doubtfully. 
 
 "I must try," I said, and took up my hat. 
 "Good-bye, Merrick. Once more, thank you a 
 thousand times. I suppose war is meant for the 
 mortification of the individual. I'll let you know 
 what happens our end. Perhaps you could ? " 
 
 ' ' Of course, ' ' he said gruffly . ' ' Good-bye. ' ' 
 
 In the street I stood and pondered my next 
 move. Influence in favor of secrecy could be 
 exerted without difficulty; I was not afraid of 
 galling publicity from the side of the high officials. 
 Michael was too good a colleague not to deserve 
 every consideration. But there were dangerous 
 complications. Moffatt for instance ... I 
 had not forgotten his bitterness. Was he the man
 
 Treachery 271 
 
 to lose an opportunity for revenge? He had had 
 ample provocation, and in such moods the Official 
 Secrets Act was mere formalism. Also, there were 
 methods of evasion that involved no breach of 
 faith. And then Monica herself. Why, in God's 
 name, had she committed this sudden folly? Or 
 was it not so sudden ? I caught my breath. What 
 proof was there that she had not done this before ? 
 With a sudden grimness, I determined she should 
 at least not do it again. Calling a taxi, I drove to 
 Ashley Gardens. 
 
 It was nearly one o'clock and Monica was dress- 
 ing to go out to lunch. In response to my urgent 
 message she came into the drawing-room with her 
 hat in one hand, her sunshade and gloves in the 
 other. 
 
 "You seem in great fuss, Dick," she remarked 
 amiably. "I've got to go out in a second. What's 
 up?" 
 
 In the taxi I had rehearsed a dozen ways of 
 broaching the subject. Now that the moment 
 had arrived I forgot them all. She was so cool 
 and serene and beautiful, that the whole story 
 seemed melodrama, and I myself an actor con- 
 demned to play a sensational part in the crude 
 daylight of normal existence. Momentarily dumb,
 
 iT* Privilege 
 
 I stood and regarded her vacantly. She frowned 
 with impatient perplexity, but must have guessed 
 that I was not merely fooling, for her voice, when 
 she spoke, had a forced note in its levity. 
 
 "Well? For heaven's sake, man, don't glare at 
 me like that! 'Mr. Braden must see you, miss.' 
 Here I am. Is this merely the search for the pic- 
 turesque? Am I a peepshow, or is it a bet?" 
 
 With an effort I decided on the line to follow. 
 
 "It is this," I said gravely. "There is going to 
 be trouble, and you'll be in it to the neck. I have 
 come to warn you not to be! Do you understand? 
 The only chance for you and for all of us is to tell 
 the truth. In return for the warning I should 
 like to ask one question " 
 
 Her bewilderment was certainly genuine. 
 
 "The man's mad!" she said. "My dear Rich- 
 ard, what in God's name are you talking about?" 
 
 "I have just read a letter from you to your 
 husband, and I was in the Postal Censor's office 
 when I read it. 'Fraulein Loosli!' Upon my 
 word, Monica, I couldn't believe you capable of 
 such idiocy. Haven't you realized " 
 
 The change in her face silenced me. The eyes 
 glowed with a curious bitter flame; the mouth 
 tightened, as Michael's so often did, into a thin,
 
 Treachery 2 73 
 
 straight line. Slowly the color faded from her 
 cheeks. Then, with a little wriggle of her shoul- 
 ders, she threw back her head. 
 
 "I should worry!" she said defiantly. Turning 
 away, she threw her hat on to the sofa and walked 
 nervously towards her open bureau. From the 
 pigeon holes I could see protruding sheets of that 
 accursed lilac notepaper. She spoke again and 
 her back was turned towards me. 
 
 "Postal Censorship? How curious. 'Some- 
 body blundered,' as the poet says. You may well 
 think me mad. Never mind, others will think 
 worse of me than that. Let them; I don't care." 
 After a moment she resumed. "So I must tell the 
 truth? Evidently. Most of it, in any case. 
 Thank you for the tip. You had a question to ask. 
 What is it?" 
 
 "It is more or less answered," I replied. "I 
 will not trouble you with it." 
 
 Like a sudden wave the full possibilities of the 
 catastrophe broke over me. 
 
 "How you could!" I broke out. "Do you real- 
 ize what this will mean to Michael ? We shall all 
 be branded, but he — well, it may kill him. His 
 bitterest enemy could not wish him a more cruel 
 misfortune!" 
 
 18
 
 274 Privilege 
 
 "Curse me, Dick; call me every evil name. 
 There will be many to support you before long. 
 Perhaps I am a little disappointed; perhaps I 
 expect from you something nearer understanding. 
 As for Michael, it is hard on him. I admit that. 
 But times are hard, and — well, I am not in love 
 with Michael, you see. Do you understand now ? 
 —just a little?" 
 
 She faced me quickly and her cheeks were ivory 
 pale. She was suddenly older, and there was a 
 strange pity in my heart for her loneliness and for 
 the gentle passion of her last words. 
 
 "Perhaps — a little," I said softly, and hurried 
 away. 
 
 ill 
 
 Barbara heard me through in silence. Then: 
 
 "WhoisthisMoffatt?" 
 
 I told her what I knew, and added: 
 He has justification, you see. She treated him 
 badly when she was up, and " 
 
 "Now he kicks her when she's down! Very 
 pretty." 
 
 "Hardly, Barbara. Be reasonable. She was 
 not down until he contrived it." 
 
 "Zut! They'd have traced her without his
 
 Treachery 275 
 
 sneaking little help! Spare me your casuistry, 
 Dick. The man's a swine, and you know it!" 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders. Continued argument 
 was useless. 
 
 "Have it your own way. Our job is to decide 
 what to do next. There is Michael. ..." 
 
 "There is also Monica," replied Barbara tartly. 
 "She must leave town at once. I'll take her to 
 Whern. It's shut up and she can stay there in a 
 wilderness of dust-sheets with old Mrs. Marlowe. 
 No one will be an atom the wiser. Thank heaven 
 I resisted the snobbery of this hospital business! 
 The house can be useful instead of merely a monu- 
 ment to our patriotism." 
 
 She spoke so bitterly that I looked at her in 
 surprise. 
 
 'You take treachery calmly, Barbara." 
 
 Perhaps there was a tinge of the sneer in my 
 voice. She turned on me with passion. 
 
 ' ' Damn your cliches ! Treachery! She has stood 
 up for herself and her man, and I admire her for it." 
 
 "Even if, incidentally, she kills your man?" 
 
 With a little catch of the breath she stared at 
 me in savage silence. I felt obscurely that she 
 might hit me in the face, but the next moment 
 she bowed her head and walked slowly away.
 
 276 Privilege 
 
 "I might retort cruelly, Dick," she said slowly, 
 "but we must not quarrel again at this point. 
 They need help — both of them. I am sorry I 
 was rude. Do you agree that she should go to 
 Whern?" 
 
 "I agree that she must leave town, but whether 
 Whern is the best . . . Michael would be 
 bound to know. . . 
 
 "True. Well, I will take her there at once, and 
 she can leave in a day or two if necessary. By the 
 way, you did not tell me how the letter came into 
 the post?" 
 
 "I can only guess at present. The Swiss 'bag' 
 is the most likely explanation. She is intimate with 
 one of the attaches at the Legation. A careless 
 mistake — the letters wrongly sorted — it might 
 easily happen." 
 
 Barbara nodded sadly. 
 
 "Poor, poor child!" she whispered. "And poor 
 all of us . . . !" 
 
 ' ' Let us at least be thankful we are spared pub- 
 licity," I said. "There are compensations in social 
 influence — if you have it." 
 
 "You are certain nothing can get out?" 
 
 I could not meet the searching query in her 
 eyes.
 
 Treachery 277 
 
 "No," I admitted reluctantly. "I am not 
 certain. But with any luck . . 
 
 IV 
 
 Unfortunately even luck failed us. Reviewing 
 past events from this vantage-point of my obscure 
 but at least stable present, I see that chance had 
 set steadily against us from the date of the Rod- 
 bury strike. Possibly the highest point of our 
 eleventh-hour recovery predated even that episode; 
 certainly from then onward our history as a dy- 
 nasty is the history of an ebbing tide, each wavelet 
 seeking frantically to overstep its predecessor, now 
 and again with success, but in the main with a 
 failure that became momentarily more evident. 
 
 Glancing through the last night's debate in 
 The Times on the morning following my conver- 
 sations just recorded, my eye fell on a start- 
 ling caption: Countess Koloszvary. With a 
 sudden sinking of the heart I read the brief 
 paragraph. One of the ' ' patriotic Socialist ' ' mem- 
 bers had asked the Home Secretary whether, in 
 view of the strict measures in force against alien 
 enemies in Great Britain, he was aware that the 
 wife of an Hungarian nobleman was living in
 
 278 Privilege 
 
 London, using her maiden name, and allowed to 
 go about unhindered, and whether, if the Countess 
 Koloszvary were favored with this liberty, similar 
 indulgence might not be extended to humbler folk 
 in a like position who had not the advantage of 
 her aristocratic connections. The Home Secretary 
 in reply reminded the Hon. member that the lady 
 was an Englishwoman and that the authorities 
 were fully alive to her position with regard to her 
 husband's nationality. The Hon. member de- 
 manded why, in that case, she should feel it ad- 
 visable to use her maiden name. "I expect," 
 said the Home Secretary with his usual amiability, 
 "that she finds the spelling easier for shopping 
 purposes." (Laughter.) 
 
 The incident was trivial enough. A mere coin- 
 cidence perhaps. But I was disturbed and during 
 the day was haunted by the possible appearance 
 of further Parliamentary trouble. 
 
 It was not long in coming. The very next 
 morning when, drawn by a strange and terrifying 
 curiosity, I turned to the report of the Commons 
 debate I fell immediately on a question to the 
 Home Secretary (addressed this time by an ob- 
 scure member of the small Radical Pacifist group) 
 to some such effect as the following: "Was it a
 
 Treachery 279 
 
 fact that the Countess Koloszvary was a sister of 
 Viscount Whern, and if so, did the Government 
 feel it in accordance with their warlike principles 
 that a responsible War Office official should be 
 connected by marriage with an enemy alien?" 
 The Home Secretary replied to the first part of 
 the question in the affirmative; the latter point, 
 however, he was sorry to confess, escaped him 
 entirely. "The purpose of the question was to 
 discover whether the views of the Government 
 were so far modified as to entitle them to the 
 support of members hitherto opposed to their 
 policy," explained the inquirer. "I hope not," 
 replied the Rt. Hon. gentleman. (Laughter.) 
 
 But that was not all. Half a column further 
 down a bellicose Slavophil asked for a positive 
 assurance that the Government were not intrigu- 
 ing for a separate peace with Austria-Hungary. 
 Not only was there a suggestion of some such 
 intrigue in this happening and in that, but the 
 recently admitted fact that an officer in the confi- 
 dence of the Army Council was brother-in-law to 
 a Magyar aristocrat seemed to make it possible 
 for Ministers to be in personal and unofficial touch 
 with an enemy as bitter and as shamelessly mili- 
 tarist as the Prussians themselves.
 
 280 Privilege 
 
 I did not trouble to read the answer. There 
 was no further doubt in my mind that these ques- 
 tions were inspired. The third one was particu- 
 larly unconvincing. The member was a practiced 
 Parliamentarian, and his reference to the Army 
 Council was too naive to be anything but a sham. 
 
 It was one of the worst mornings I ever spent. 
 Not only was I now positive that Moffatt and his 
 friends had taken this means of evading a breach 
 of the Secrets Act and were engineering a Parlia- 
 mentary agitation against Monica, but I suspected 
 that by now Michael would, in all likelihood, have 
 been officially advised of the fatal letter. Every 
 ring on the telephone meant panic. By three 
 o'clock I was incapable of further nervous reaction, 
 and it was with a helpless calm that I saw the 
 door open and Michael walk into the room. He 
 came straight to the table and sat on the corner 
 with an odd jauntiness. 
 
 "I'm finished, Dick," he said. "I suppose you 
 know all about this letter business?" 
 
 His smile had the wry falsity of despair. I was 
 frightened for his mental balance. And why 
 should he assume that I knew what had been until 
 now hidden from himself? Did he suspect com- 
 plicity ? With the shameful foolishness of a small
 
 Treachery 2Sl 
 
 boy detected in a blundering duplicity I mumbled 
 an affirmative. 
 
 He continued to swing his leg, and his lips 
 seemed to congeal into a grin of rage. I roused 
 myself to break the spell. 
 
 "I know," I said, "because Merrick told me 
 confidentially before he sent the matter further. 
 I have been thinking and hoping ... It was 
 useless to tell you. Besides I was hardly free to 
 speak. But as for being 'finished' . . ." 
 
 "It's true of course?" he queried sharply. 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 "I saw the letter." 
 
 "And Monica?" 
 
 "And Monica." 
 
 There was silence. Suddenly he sprang off the 
 table and began walking quickly up and down the 
 room. I felt the tension relax; was the Michael 
 that I knew coming to life again? Not yet. He 
 began to mutter half to himself, half aloud. 
 
 "I hope she's satisfied! I hope she's satisfied 
 now! The family is done for — shamed — utterly 
 finished. And to think of the end coming through 
 treachery ! ' ' 
 
 He swung round on me and cried out in anguish : 
 'What have I done, Dick, to deserve this? I
 
 282 Privilege 
 
 tried and tried. . . . And the spying was done 
 at my very table " 
 
 This time the fit had spent itself. The next 
 minute he had recovered his usual melancholy 
 austerity, and, with it, the hesitations of his sensi- 
 tive and complex nature. 
 
 "I have to consider what to do — personally, I 
 mean. So far they oppose my going to France; 
 to me that seemed the way out. Would it be 
 running away, Dick? I find it hard to know; — 
 and I am tired. I cannot make up my mind as I 
 used to. Perhaps I should ignore the whole 
 affair? . . . She must pay for her crime, but 
 why should I suffer? And Barbara? And all of 
 us?" 
 
 "Let us talk it over this evening," I said. "I 
 will think about it, and you will know more defi- 
 nitely what is the War Office view." 
 
 He seemed relieved at the respite. 
 
 "All right. I will go back and see the General 
 now. Expect me for dinner." 
 
 Left alone I rang up Barbara, but Levitt told 
 me she had gone to Whern in the car "with Miss 
 Monica." I hung up, wondering whether the 
 journey has been made at the best or at the worst 
 possible moment.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE PASSING OF MICHAEL 
 
 "She held her head high and smiled that bril- 
 liant smile. . . 
 
 Is it all genuine admiration that I now feel, or 
 is self so tremendous that I salute in her gambler's 
 throw my chance of heaven? There was little 
 enough promise of heaven at the time. Weeks of 
 bitter recrimination, of slander and foulness — and 
 the last tragedy. From the catastrophe I profited 
 and the rest went under. But, indeed, I am not so 
 selfish. Monica showed herself unflinching and a 
 woman. Is that no cause for admiration? For 
 the rest — I would wish it otherwise if I could. 
 We are the involuntary heirs of yesterday. 
 
 At dinner no sign of Barbara. Michael seemed 
 peevishly interrogatory, but his questioning was of 
 glance not of word. He spoke little at table, and 
 
 283
 
 284 Privilege 
 
 even in the library afterwards I was compelled 
 myself to raise the subject that was foreground 
 and background of our thoughts 
 
 "You saw the General?" 
 
 "Merely to resign." 
 
 I stared. 
 
 "Resign what?" 
 
 "Everything." 
 
 "But, Michael — surely until we know what is 
 to happen ?" 
 
 He sat staring at the empty grate, and an un- 
 lighted cigar twitched nervously between his teeth. 
 Suddenly : 
 
 "Why is Barbara away? Where is she?" 
 
 "She has taken Monica to Whern." 
 
 There was no escape. Blunt candor was the 
 only policy. 
 
 "To Whern?" An evil smile flickered in his 
 eyes. "That is charming. It only needed that 
 to prove my complicity. I am blessed with loyal 
 women, Richard." 
 
 I flared out at the cruel injustice. 
 
 " It is abominable to say such things ! Barbara 
 has done this out of pity. You wouldn't have 
 Monica alone in London . . . ?" 
 
 "Your warmth does you credit," he sneered.
 
 The Passing of Michael 285 
 
 "To anyone less well acquainted with the natural 
 bias ..." 
 
 For a moment I hung over him trembling with 
 rage. He looked me coolly in the face and the 
 contempt in his gaze shriveled my indignation, 
 for it had no roots in honor and withered, as it had 
 sprung up, in an instant of time. I was at the 
 door when he called me back. 
 
 "We can quarrel later, brother," he said levelly. 
 "I am going to telephone to Whern. Come and 
 sit down." 
 
 During the minutes of waiting for the trunk call 
 to be connected, we sat in resentful silence. I 
 was afraid now; not afraid of Michael, but for 
 him and for all of us. He was savage with self- 
 pity, and I felt unable to gauge the extremities to 
 which a desperate man of his temperament might 
 be driven by anger and by shame. 
 
 A car turned the corner of the square, darkened 
 for a moment the dusk of the uncurtained window, 
 and stopped just out of sight. Simultaneously the 
 telephone rang. Michael took up the receiver and 
 was confirming his number to the operator when 
 my quick ear heard the rattle of a latchkey in the 
 lock. In a moment I was out of the room and 
 hastening across the hall to meet Barbara.
 
 286 Privilege 
 
 "Be very careful!" I urged in a low voice. 
 "He's not himself, and provocation might be 
 dangerous." 
 
 She looked at me in somber silence, nodded, and 
 turned to go upstairs. I reached the study in time 
 to hear the end of Michael's conversation. 
 
 "... has left? When?" 
 
 • • • 
 
 "Then is— Here, Dick!" (to me). "Why did 
 you go out?" 
 
 "Barbara," I said simply. 
 
 He turned once more to the telephone. 
 
 "Hullo! Hullo! Are you there? . . . Damn, 
 they've gone. . . . Is she coming down ? " 
 
 "I imagine so," I replied, and stood in uncom- 
 fortable suspense gazing without eyes at the rows 
 of bookshelves that lined the wall. Michael had 
 not moved from his chair. I had my back to the 
 room, but could feel the tenseness of his attitude. 
 How read the portents? Was he crouched to 
 spring or collecting endurance to bear further 
 blows? There had been a note of appeal even in 
 his fiercest anger of a minute back ; it was as though 
 he shrank from brutality, turned in despairing 
 rage, and shrank again. I knew that his reflective 
 delicacy of mind might well betray him at the
 
 The Passing of Michael 287 
 
 crisis of his fury. At the same time he was of the 
 finest tempering ; there was no inch of weakness in 
 the resilient length of him. He would not give 
 way; equally, I felt sure, he would not — could not 
 dominate, by mere violence of emotion. 
 
 And still Barbara tarried. I heard Michael 
 move impatiently. With an effort I turned and 
 walked toward where he sat. 
 
 "She is changing, I expect," I said vaguely. 
 
 He looked at me with an odd wildness. 
 
 "Changing? Why again? Is she not changed 
 enough?" 
 
 My position was rather pitiable. Rightly he did 
 not trust me, and yet I was hoping to bring him 
 once more to normal acceptance of a tragic fact. 
 There seemed nothing to say. In one secret 
 moment I cursed the fate that ever brought Bar- 
 bara across our path. But the next I was in the 
 grip of a greater shame, for a man may deny his 
 parents and live, but he that denies his woman is 
 no man at all. 
 
 Without a preliminary sound the door opened 
 and Barbara came in. She wore black, and her 
 hair was braided low over her ears. Going straight 
 to Michael she knelt beside him and bowed her 
 head over his hand.
 
 288 Privilege 
 
 "Forgive me, Michael dear. It was not done 
 without much thought. She could not stay where 
 she was — alone — with the storm brewing. I had 
 to act at once. She shall leave Whern if you wish 
 it ; and I am here to be punished as and when you 
 desire." 
 
 He stared at her proud head bent low by his 
 side. The lines about his mouth relaxed a little. 
 It was a princely opportunity for graciousness, and 
 his every tendency urged him to embrace it. If 
 transmission of will exists, I did my humble share 
 in bringing him to a decision. After a brief 
 struggle, his sense of gesture conquered. He laid 
 his other hand on her glittering hair. 
 
 "Get up, please, child. Let us talk quietly." 
 
 She rose and, without a glance at me, seated 
 herself on a plain upright chair a little in front of 
 her husband. Michael paused an instant and 
 then, to my intense relief, got up and moved to 
 the mantelpiece. When I saw him once more with 
 hunched shoulders, his hands in his trouser pock- 
 ets, his feet on the curb, I began to believe the 
 situation was indeed saved. He began to speak, 
 but quietly and with his usual wistful diffidence. 
 
 "Whern is not easy. . . . You see that, 
 Barbara? It is not easy. For every reason some-
 
 The Passing of Michael 289 
 
 where else would be better. . . . But I do not 
 know what will happen. She may have to leave 
 the country . . . even if nothing gets out. If 
 it does . . . What is her feeling? Perhaps I 
 should go and see her. . . ." 
 
 Barbara and I exchanged a quick look. There 
 was danger in this. 
 
 "Would it not be best to see first the course of 
 events?" 
 
 "Maybe," replied Michael, "if that were pos- 
 sible. But I have burnt my boats. I have no 
 entree now." 
 
 "I have," I said. 
 
 He looked at me doubtfully. 
 
 "We cannot push ourselves into things just yet. 
 It would make matters worse. On the other hand, 
 we can decide our own policy and that depends 
 on . . . — "he could not bring himself to mention 
 Monica by name — " on . . . how we all feel 
 about it. I think I must go to Whern." 
 
 Barbara interposed. 
 
 "May I suggest? Let me get her to Jim's place 
 
 in Wales. Then come and see her there. As you 
 
 say, Whern is difficult. No one knows she is there 
 
 except Mrs. Marlowe. The house is shut up. But 
 
 if you go down ..." 
 19
 
 290 Privilege 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "I agree. But it must not be left long. When 
 can you arrange the move to Wales?" 
 
 "Three days," said Barbara. 
 
 "All right. Expect me Monday." 
 
 We had won what in seeming was a victory. 
 Next morning Michael remained hidden in his 
 study. Occasionally I heard the telephone clink 
 faintly in the basement. At lunch he swallowed 
 some fish and a glass of wine. 
 
 "I shall be out all the afternoon," he said. 
 
 As he crossed the square his narrow shoulders 
 were bowed and tired. The very strangeness of 
 his mufti gave poignancy to his look of age and 
 shame. 
 
 "Now for Monica," said Barbara. "She must 
 leave Whern to-morrow early. Plas Rhidden is 
 warned." 
 
 "I will go," I said. "You are needed here to 
 keep Michael sane. He looked so old just now." 
 
 Going to his room to fetch a pipe left there the 
 night before, I found the hearthrug strewn with 
 newspaper. Sheet after sheet was there, lying at 
 random, crumpled hastily. Michael must have 
 ordered in every journal published. In the same 
 instant that I realized the cause came curiosity as
 
 The Passing of Michael 291 
 
 to the result. Feverishly I scanned the pages. 
 Nothing. And then, when rising from my knees 
 to leave the room, my eye caught in a distant 
 corner a tumbled whiteness. With a strange sink- 
 ing I retrieved the paper from the spot to which, 
 evidently, it had been thrown. Hardly breathing, 
 I read and read. Was this also Moffat? I was not 
 far from tears when I thought of Michael, in lonely 
 humiliation reading this ranting beastliness, and 
 then coming to lunch without a tremor, without a 
 word. His shoulders, as he crossed the square, 
 had been with reason bowed. I felt a sudden ache 
 of terror. Shoulders bend, but hearts break. Then 
 the heedless cruelty of the article forced itself on 
 me again and drove fear for Michael from my 
 mind. In its place flamed a wild anger against an 
 epoch that made possible the victory of such ill- 
 bred cant over the spirit of gentility. The inso- 
 lence, the hypocrisy, the muddy, hateful prejudice 
 that thus easily found public hearing! 
 
 The article was super-patriotism. After a vile 
 garnishing of Monica's indiscretion, it proceeded 
 to a sketch of Michael and his official responsi- 
 bilities. 
 
 "His lordship is a man of discrimination," it 
 concluded. "He is young and, to the best of our
 
 292 Privilege 
 
 knowledge, in good health. The majority of his 
 generation, those to whom chance has not given 
 so freely of social prominence, of riches, and of 
 cosmopolitan connections, have elected to meet the 
 enemy face to face. For what are doubtless ex- 
 cellent reasons, Lord Whern prefers the security 
 of Whitehall and the more subtle personal contact 
 with the Central Powers that relationship and 
 feminine intuition alone can achieve." 
 
 Scrupulously I burnt that leprous thing until 
 nothing but charred ash remained. There was an 
 uncanny sense of the victim's character behind 
 such shameless provocation, for Michael was of 
 the kind that hide their wounds and bleed to 
 death in secret, rather than admit a scratch. 
 
 I was to drive myself to Whern Royal, sleep 
 at the inn, and, the next morning, take Monica 
 from the Abbey into Wales. Something must be 
 said to Barbara of the libel I had just destroyed. 
 Then I would start. 
 
 She was in her boudoir writing letters. 
 
 "I think I shall go," I said. "Something bad 
 has happened. Michael has been dragging the 
 gutter Press for garbage and found a filthy screed 
 that calls him a coward and a traitor. It was in 
 his room and I burnt it. You will need all your
 
 The Passing of Michael 293 
 
 pluck to-night, when he returns. Keep him with 
 you — by any means." 
 
 She stared at me in somber silence. Then: 
 
 "He thought me beautiful once," she said. 
 
 I groped towards her line of reasoning. Gradu- 
 ally my mind closed round the ultimate implica- 
 tion. A jealousy, as presumptuous as it was 
 unwelcome, throbbed through the grave pity of 
 the moment. I choked it to false quiescence. 
 
 "By any means," I repeated dully. "Only 
 keep him — and hold him." 
 
 She smiled through misty eyes. 
 
 "Good-bye, Dick," she said softly. "I have 
 telephoned Monica that you are coming." 
 
 And her head bent once more over her bureau. 
 
 II 
 
 The wind had changed and the dusk was loud 
 with a rising gale, as I ran the car into the inn 
 yard of Whern Royal. Clouds raced up from the 
 west; the huge elms in the churchyard sang and 
 creaked against a lowering sky. I went early to 
 bed and lay for a while, savoring the homely re- 
 moteness of the low room under the eaves, with its 
 sloping floor and sweet odor of country cleanliness.
 
 294 Privilege 
 
 Far away in London Michael was facing the ruins 
 of his life. And Barbara? I dropped into sleep, 
 and dreams came to the pursuance of my thoughts. 
 I was in her room at Whern, — but this time invisibly 
 — a spectator not a protagonist. Michael was 
 standing, as I had stood, against the towering 
 chimney breast, his head drooped, and his sad eyes 
 fixed on a smoldering fire. So vivid was the 
 scene that I heard once again the very ticking of 
 the clock that had, on that evening of our madness, 
 marked the passing of the minutes. Barbara was 
 nowhere to be seen. Then silently the curtains 
 parted, that divided her bed-chamber from the 
 boudoir-sitting-room in which Michael waited 
 alone. She crossed the floor silently. Her feet 
 were bare ; her hair, like a rich mantilla, flowed over 
 her shoulders. He raised his head and stared. 
 With a slow, wide gesture she spread out her arms ; 
 the loose wrapper fell open, and she stood before 
 him — and me 
 
 "What is it? Who's there?" 
 
 The knocking brought me to fuddled wakeful- 
 ness. Sleep and its visions clung round my eyes. 
 My mind reeled towards sanity. There was the 
 click of a lifted latch, a shaft of light struck across' 
 the ceiling, widened to a tremulous fan. The door
 
 The Passing of Michael 295 
 
 opened wide, and there before me, carrying an 
 unsteady candle, was Monica. 
 
 Fully awake, I sat up in bed and stared at her. 
 She closed the door, set down the candle, and came 
 quickly to the bedside. 
 
 "Come at once! Quickly! I am frightened. 
 It's not a nice feeling. Get up and dress!" 
 
 The note of irony did more even than her pallor 
 and the fantastic suddenness of her appearance to 
 steady my faculties. 
 
 "Wait downstairs. I'll be ready in two 
 minutes." 
 
 As I forced on my clothes, I became aware for 
 the first time that rain was falling. The wind 
 wailed in the chimney and the storm lashed the 
 window-panes and pattered briskly through an 
 open lattice on to the oilcloth. Curiosity struggled 
 with fear. What had happened? And the next 
 moment — was it possible ? 
 
 Together we passed out into the darkness. 
 Monica carried an electric torch. Through the 
 driving rain we hurried towards the gate of the 
 park. On either hand was turbulent blackness; 
 before us shone the circle of white light, and 
 through it the raindrops glistened and danced 
 as they splashed on the stones and gravel of the
 
 296 Privilege 
 
 roadway. Without waiting for questions Monica 
 began to speak, and her words, muffled by the 
 noise of the wind, came to me as fragments of 
 some legendary tale. 
 
 " . . . Barbara telephoned that you were com- 
 ing ... to shake off the oppression of the house, 
 . . . struck across the park, up through the woods, 
 and along Wherntop. It was fine then, and the 
 country was — oh, was English. I never realized 
 before how native I am — really. Having time 
 to think — I suppose that's what does it . . . 
 round by Gallows Bottom, and so in by the 
 gate above Nicholas. It was seven when I reached 
 the house. In the hall was Michael " 
 
 It was not really unexpected, but some auto- 
 matic sense of what is startling prompted an 
 exclamation. 
 
 "Yes," Monica went on. "He sat there on one 
 of those ghastly throne things that no one ever 
 sat on before and looked so old, so old. . . . He 
 just fixed his eyes on me and said nothing. Like 
 an excited fool, I challenged him — jauntily, I 
 daresay; I am a bad penitent. Or was. I feel all 
 out for sackcloth now. He answered me with a 
 horrid quietness. 'I have come home, sister.' 
 That was all. For a moment I had no ideas. What
 
 The Passing of Michael 297 
 
 a rotten feeling it is — that sense of paralysis of 
 mind. I did not know what to say or do. But 
 habit got me going again, and I told him I was 
 leaving next day and hoped he would forgive the 
 brief trespass. More jauntiness. He echoed my 
 words indifferently: 'Going? To-morrow? It 
 does not matter. Nothing matters to Whern.' I 
 felt suddenly nervous. 'Why have you come?' I 
 asked. But he only repeated : ' I have come home, 
 sister. Surely there is nothing so very odd in 
 coming home ? ' Then he got up and walked past 
 me to the open door. 'I shall stroll out and see 
 the woods again. They are very lovely in fine 
 weather. And trees know nothing, can imagine 
 nothing.' I watched him cross the terrace and dis- 
 appear behind the copse below the sunk fence. Then 
 I went in and sat down to my boiled egg. Marlowe 
 said nothing of Michael. Evidently she had not 
 seen him. After supper I went to my room " 
 
 "Which are you using?" I asked. 
 
 "The one Mary had long ago — right at the top 
 of the central block." 
 
 "And Mrs. Marlowe?" 
 
 "Oh, she sleeps at her cottage." 
 
 "Monica! Do you mean to say you are all 
 alone in the Abbey?"
 
 298 Privilege 
 
 "I am. It's pretty ghastly, but then I'm done 
 for, and isolation seems appropriate. I have always 
 had a sense of staging." 
 
 We were now in the woods and the rain fell 
 less heavily. The trunks gleamed against the 
 black undergrowth, as the fringe of the torch's 
 light touched them and passed them by. I 
 shivered, less from cold than at the thought of the 
 gaunt and empty house to which we were bound. 
 Monica proceeded: 
 
 By that time the clouds were driving up, and' 
 when I tried sitting at the window, I found it 
 cold. I wondered whether Michael had come in — 
 or would come in. I wondered what I ought to do. 
 Frankly I was scared of him, and — well, the cul- 
 prit cannot suddenly come the maternal over the 
 judge. I tried to imagine I heard your car; it 
 was a comfort to think of you at the inn. But the 
 wind was getting louder. At nine-thirty I went to 
 bed. For the first time the noises of the house 
 worried me. I thought of those miles of corridor, 
 of the stairs and stairs, of the lumps of furniture 
 under their coverings. Of course all the time I 
 was listening — listening for Michael. The rain be- 
 gan. 'He will get wet,' I thought. Only that. 
 Just that he would get wet. It never occurred to
 
 The Passing of Michael 299 
 
 me that he might be with you at Royal or in some 
 other inn or anywhere but out in the drenching 
 woods. ... And then, about eleven, I heard 
 something. A door closing. I was sure of it. 
 Somewhere far down in the house a door had 
 closed. I was by now properly nervy. Nothing 
 could have got me out of that room. I crouched 
 down in bed and tried to shut my ears with the 
 clothes. But in a little while I pulled myself 
 together and began to listen again. This time the 
 noises of wind and rattling doors and of the rain 
 on the sill were delicious familiarities. No alien 
 
 sound at all. I settled for sleep. And then " 
 
 She stopped. In the moment of silence we 
 cleared the edge of the trees and were on the grass 
 flat of the arena. The sky was thinning out and 
 faint light patches among the clouds told of a 
 moon shining above the level of wind and storm. 
 
 " — and then it happened. I just bolted, Dick. 
 Into my clothes and down those horrible stairs 
 and over the park and through the woods, hardly 
 seeing or feeling till I got to Royal and the inn 
 and you. All to pieces I was." 
 
 "But what— ?" I began. 
 
 She laughed nervously. 
 
 "That's the idiocy. I'm not even sure. But I
 
 3o° Privilege 
 
 believe I heard — at the time I could have sworn 
 it — I believe I heard — a shot. . . ." 
 
 We were passing the ruin. Its irregular bulk 
 loomed over us. I touched the rough masonry 
 with my hand and imagined that my nerves 
 rallied a little by virtue of the rugged endurance 
 of this ancient keep. Monica had heard a shot. 
 Had she in truth? Of course she had. I had 
 known it all along ; had known it from the moment 
 of her rousing me from sleep. And then to the 
 extreme of scepticism. Imagination, pure and 
 simple. She was avowedly wrought up ; any sud- 
 den noise would suggest tragedy. We skirted the 
 ponds, mounted the opposing slope, crossed the 
 sunk fence, the lawn, the lower terrace. Then I 
 stopped. 
 
 "Monica," I said, "we must do this alone. Can 
 you stick it?" 
 
 She tossed her head. 
 
 "I'm all right now, Richard, thank you, and I 
 am up against plenty of bigger things than — than 
 an empty house." 
 
 "Sorry," I replied. 
 
 We crossed the flags and turned the corner of 
 the south front. Another minute and we were 
 under the vaulting of the porch.
 
 The Passing of Michael 301 
 
 Out of consideration for my own unsteady- 
 nerves, as much as from ardor of action, I passed 
 straight to the front door, and was groping for the 
 light switch, when Monica caught me by the arm. 
 
 "No use," she said. "The light's off." 
 
 ' ' Off ? " I felt stupidly indignant at what seemed 
 deliberate incompetence. 
 
 "After all, if there's no one to work the engine, 
 there can't be any light, can there?" 
 
 Her mocking tone revived my common sense. 
 Of course ; the house had been shut up for months. 
 The eeriness of the place began to creep over me. 
 I had so counted on light. 
 
 "Give me the torch," I said. 
 
 We paused in the great hall. The columns rose 
 into immeasurable gloom. The beam of light was 
 a futile whisker twitched about an inky void. 
 When we started to walk towards the broad flight 
 of steps that rose from the hall to the octagon 
 beneath the great tower, our footsteps echoed 
 harshly against the naked walls. The curtains 
 were down from the octagon ; the sofas and chairs 
 piled under dust-sheets. The alcove in which 
 Barbara and I had sat that momentous evening 
 yawned emptily to the right. 
 
 "Where are you going?" whispered Monica.
 
 302 Privilege 
 
 "To the north tower," I answered. 
 
 Up the main staircase, round the gallery landing 
 with its little balconies overhanging the gulf be- 
 low, along the corridor from which opened Bar- 
 bara's rooms, we passed in tense procession. At 
 the end was a swing door. It gave on to the spiral 
 staircase of the northern tower and, beyond, on to 
 a small landing with three doors. This was 
 Michael's domain. It consisted of his bedroom, 
 his bathroom, and a turret room, in which he kept 
 boots and fishing tackle, some odd books and 
 papers, his private safe, and such miscellaneous 
 objects as could find no proper place even in an 
 existence so carefully ordered as was his. Outside 
 this door I stood and listened. The wind sighed 
 up and down the spiral stair; Monica moved 
 slightly, and the rustle of her wet mackintosh set 
 faint echoes whispering above our heads. I took 
 a final hold on my quivering nerves and turned 
 the handle of the door. It yielded. The torch 
 threw a greedy light about the tiny room. Michael 
 was not there. 
 
 ill 
 
 Dawn found us huddled in weary wakefulness 
 on the window-seat of Monica's bedroom. The
 
 The Passing of Michael 303 
 
 storm had passed, and a desultory wind ruffled the 
 ivy that clustered about the mullions and over 
 the outer sill. Daylight was bringing a pale vigor 
 to a sky of flaccid and struggling clouds. 
 
 "Barbara should arrive soon," I said. 
 
 Monica yawned. 
 
 "Suppose so. Do I look very ghastly? A giddy 
 night on the body- snatching lay takes the curl out 
 of the ewige Weibliche. As for you! ..." 
 
 I was too tired to resent her flippancy ; too tired 
 even not to resent it. The snapping of our mutual 
 suspense over the bareness of that empty turret 
 room had done more than shatter the nervous 
 self-possession that supported temporary reserve. 
 It had set free the illimitable fatigue and irritation 
 of months of anxiety. With Monica the reaction 
 had been to hysterical levity. With me to resent- 
 ment. Fiercely, I had disbelieved her whole ac- 
 count of the day's happening; for a few minutes 
 I had disbelieved even that Michael had been 
 seen at Whern. In the long corridor opposite 
 Barbara's door I had accused her of deliberate 
 fabrication. 
 
 "Is the whole thing your conception of a joke?" 
 I had asked bitterly. 
 
 For reply she had pirouetted on her toes and
 
 304 Privilege 
 
 jazzed a few provocative steps. In the instant of 
 silence between her challenge and an angry ac- 
 ceptance of it, the telephone had sounded. We 
 were caught up in that breathless moment by the 
 shrill whirr of its distant call. 
 
 "Michael!" cried Monica and flew to the stairs. 
 
 I had followed her, incredulous in my fury of 
 the very sound I had so clearly heard. When I 
 reached the library (as the room in which Monica 
 had been taking her simple meals, it was to some 
 degree habitable) she was already at the receiver, 
 and I had known at once that it was not Michael 
 at the other end and who it was. 
 
 "... Yes. . . . Yes. . . . No, I 
 went to fetch him. . . . Not since about 
 seven. . . . Yes. . . . Nothing. Just 
 sitting in the hall. ... I don't know. . . . 
 Oh, I can't explain on this machine. Can you 
 come? . . . All right. Do you want to speak 
 to Dick? . . . Good-bye." 
 
 "She'll be here in about three hours," Monica 
 had said. "What, in the meantime?" 
 
 A listlessness had come over me. But terror 
 had gone from the dark, deserted house, and it 
 needed only a conquest of apathy to insist on a
 
 The Passing of Michael 305 
 
 continuance of the search. Mechanically and 
 methodically we had investigated every corner of 
 the building. About four o'clock exhaustion came 
 into its kingdom, and under its leaden but sleep- 
 less tyranny we sat out the time until the coming 
 of daylight and Barbara. 
 
 Between Monica's aggressive frivolity and the 
 screech of Barbara's wheels on the drive I recall 
 neither movement nor idea that broke the torpor 
 of our waiting. The sky cleared, the sun rose, and 
 a cruel beauty spread slowly over the indifferent 
 woods. At the first distant sound of the engine 
 I struggled stiffly to my feet. 
 
 "Here she comes!" 
 
 She must have made a record course from the 
 park gate. I could hear the car leave the high- 
 road, there was a brief period of gluttonous 
 throbbing, and it seemed the next moment that 
 the sound shot clear of the trees and was scoring 
 an angry mark across the stillness of the arena. 
 
 We met her in the great hall. She wore the 
 leather coat and tight fur cap which were among 
 my earliest memories. 
 
 "I want some coffee," she said. "While it is 
 heating, tell me what has happened." 
 
 20
 
 3°6 Privilege 
 
 She heard us out in silence. Then: 
 
 "There is little story at my end. He went out 
 after lunch — as you know, Dick — and never came 
 back. I did not begin to worry until dinner-time, 
 but half -past eight and no sign of him. ... It 
 was awkward. Inquiries at the War Office . . . 
 after what has happened ... I couldn't tele- 
 phone, could I? I asked several likely friends, 
 but none had seen him. Then suddenly I thought 
 of Whern. I rang you about ten ; again at eleven- 
 thirty ; again about one. No answer. It was a last 
 despairing try that fetched you down." 
 
 "Even if I had heard," said Monica, "I should 
 not have dared . . . " 
 
 Barbara waved an impatient hand. 
 
 "Of course not. Anyway, it is unimportant. 
 We must find him. Dick shall fetch his car and 
 we'll divide the country." 
 
 "The woods first," came suddenly from Monica. 
 <C I was frightened of the woods last night." 
 
 In the presence of her sister-in-law Monica had 
 become wistful and pleading. Barbara was in 
 command, and for my part there seemed no love- 
 lier cure for a tired spirit than to watch her and 
 to obey. 
 
 " Perhaps the woods now . . . ?" I suggested.
 
 The Passing of Michael 3°7 
 
 Monica passed her hand across her eyes. 
 
 "Come on," she said, and stood up. The next 
 moment she swerved and stumbled heavily. We 
 caught her as she fell and placed her in a deep 
 chair. For a moment she lay there with closed 
 lids, then with a convulsive movement flung her 
 head forward on to her knees and burst into a 
 terrible sobbing. Barbara knelt by her side and 
 took her in compassionate arms. 
 
 "Poor child," she murmured, "poor reckless 
 child." 
 
 I turned away and stood at the window watching 
 the bland sunshine on the meaningless beauty of 
 Whern. As I watched, a man broke from the 
 trees on the far rim of the arena and began running 
 towards the house. Some instinct prompted me 
 to go and meet him. Slipping on to the terrace 
 I hurried to the sunk fence. Beneath it and out 
 of sight of the library windows, I awaited the 
 coming of the messenger. That he was a messenger 
 and pertinent to the subject of the moment I had 
 no doubt ; when, as he approached and I recognized 
 one of the few keepers passed over by the war, I 
 could almost have taken the tidings out of his 
 mouth. . . . 
 
 So Otranto had staged another tragedy. That
 
 308 Privilege 
 
 those trumpery battlements should have crowned 
 the death scenes of two successive lords of Whern 
 was revolting in its absurdity. Harold had fallen 
 at the foot of its ludicrous twenty feet of crag; 
 Michael in its gimcrack guardroom had scattered 
 his brains and, with them, the garnered dignity, 
 the fine, wry maturity of an ancient family. 
 
 "They have found him," I said. 
 
 The two women were standing when I came 
 once more to the library window, Monica red-eyed 
 and drooping, Barbara clothed in the sullen majes- 
 ty that seemed to fall about her at moments of 
 intensity. 
 
 "Found him?" she echoed dully. Then with a 
 short cry of anguish she ran towards me. 
 
 "He is dead, Richard? Where is he? Take me 
 to him " 
 
 "They are bringing him here." 
 
 Monica burst into tears again, and the sound of 
 her weeping restored the self-control that for a 
 moment her sister-in-law appeared to have lost. 
 
 "Dick," she said quietly, "Monica is going at 
 once. To Wales. And then to Ireland. She must 
 go. It is a last chance. For a little while minds 
 will be full of — this other thing. She must get 
 to Ireland."
 
 The Passing of Michael 309 
 
 "Go at once?" I questioned. "By car?" 
 "Of course. Driving herself. Will you fetch 
 the two-seater from Royal? Go now. I will 
 attend to the . . 
 
 Her voice trailed off at the edge of an ugly word. 
 Monica, once more composed, gestured me to go. 
 As I left the house it occurred to me that I was 
 master now, master of Whern Abbey, and sole 
 heir to its strange, calamitous memories.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE PASSING OF WHERN 
 
 It is not that I failed, during the weeks of tor- 
 ture and publicity that followed Michael's suicide, 
 to realize that there was no longer disloyalty in 
 my love for Barbara. Indeed, the wonder of that 
 tragic hazard glowed beyond the horizon of my 
 every waking thought. But they were grim days, 
 when lawyers and newspapers and all the tedium 
 of probate and inheritance cluttered the foreground 
 of existence, when gravity was needed and calcu- 
 lating common sense, when the world, hungry for 
 sensation, whimpered on the very brink of the 
 dead man's grave. 
 
 I hope that we played our part with seemliness. 
 Barbara in her weeds ruled for a brief space the 
 heady kingdom of popular sympathy. Deliber- 
 ately I avoided her company, understanding well 
 that a collateral successor with a withered foot 
 
 310
 
 The Passing of Whern 3 11 
 
 was of interest only in his relation to the beautiful 
 widow, a perspective in which, under the keen eye 
 of a nation of scandalmongers, I had no wish to 
 place either myself or her. Anthony, back from 
 France, attended the funeral, hung about town 
 for a few days, and returned to the front. He asked 
 no questions, feeling, no doubt — as did so many of 
 the young men caught in the turbulent coils of 
 war — that future developments were at best trivial 
 things beside a scabrous present, at worst the 
 concern of others than himself. Mary did some- 
 thing to atone for her earlier discourtesies. With 
 an assiduity, as pathetic as it was clumsy, she 
 put herself at Barbara's service. Michael's death 
 was to her symbolic of social catastrophe. She 
 remembered him as more than a brother; as, rather, 
 a fine antagonist; and, for all her bitterness 
 towards his creed, there was enough of inherited 
 sympathy in her blood to bring her at once and 
 abjectly to do his memory honor. If ever there 
 comes upon England the terror of which she and 
 her companions used so glibly to speak, I am more 
 sure that Mary will be sacrificed than of the God 
 at whose altar she will die. 
 
 At last there came a day when it appeared that 
 the worst was over, when there seemed once more
 
 3 12 Privilege 
 
 a prospect that our lives might become our own 
 again, when between our misfortunes and the 
 pitiless curiosity of a million strangers a film of 
 forgetfulness began to form. On the evening of 
 that day I found myself alone with Barbara. She 
 had taken a tiny house on Campden Hill and there 
 I sought her out, because there were many things 
 to be said and some that could wait no longer. As 
 I walked through the gardens I felt again the old 
 excitement. For the first time since the tragedy 
 I was an individual and not a personage in a 
 case; for the first time I could think of her as a 
 woman and not as my brother's widow. I daresay 
 that my enthusiasm bred over-confidence, and 
 that I brought into her fragile and miniature 
 drawing-room an assertiveness that checked what- 
 ever tendency there may have been on her part 
 to a revival of the delirium that once held us both 
 in such sweet fever. Certainly there was unmis- 
 takable warning in the level gentleness of her 
 greeting. 
 
 "I am glad to see you, Dick. There is a heap 
 to say. It is hard to believe we have met almost 
 daily during this time. Such crowds . . . And 
 everyone else's business . 
 
 I settled myself on the sofa. 
 
 ir
 
 The Passing of Whern 313 
 
 "There is certainly something very important 
 that / want to say," I began, but was checked 
 by the comical dismay that threw her face mock- 
 ingly askew. 
 
 "Dick!" she gasped, "you are not really " 
 
 I laughed, as much with pleasure at my own 
 rapid sense of her meaning as with appreciation 
 of its humor. 
 
 "No. Not just now. Something easier, but 
 rather large. It's about Whern." 
 
 "Whern? The house, you mean?" 
 
 "The house and — all of it. Do you want 
 it?" 
 
 "Dick, you're not going to sell it?" 
 
 "Not if you want it." 
 
 She stared at me broodingly. Her great, sad 
 eyes were never more beautiful. Slowly she 
 drooped her lids and I saw a rising color spread 
 over her cheeks. 
 
 "You said you were going to talk of something 
 else," she whispered. 
 
 ' ' Barbara darling ! " I leant forward to take her 
 hand. "Truly, truly I didn't mean that. I know 
 this Whern business is connected — my whole life 
 is connected — with — the other thing. But there 
 is a practical side. After all we must live. Not
 
 3H Privilege 
 
 only us, but Anthony and Mary — and Monica. 
 If you want Whern, it is yours, and, when you are 
 sweet enough to ask me, I will come as a visitor. 
 But if not — well, I prefer the cash." 
 
 "Who will buy?" she asked in a low voice. 
 
 "Answer my question. Do you want it?" 
 
 She raised her eyes and I saw that they were 
 full of tears. Slowly she shook her head. 
 
 "I couldn't, Dick. How I long to want it! 
 But I couldn't live there. Not now. Not with 
 all of you coming and going, and yet nothing as it 
 used to be — except the ghosts. I have no right 
 there. I came and — failed. Oh, Dick, how piti- 
 fully I have failed!" 
 
 "Barbara! Please!" 
 
 Passively she let her proud head rest in the 
 hollow of my shoulder. In a few moments she 
 was calm again. Wiping her eyes, she squeezed 
 my hand and sat upright again. 
 
 "Thank you, Dick. I'm sorry. This sale of 
 Whern. Is it essential? Surely you could let 
 it?" 
 
 "I daresay. And the sale is not, in the sense 
 you mean, essential. The investment after the 
 Rodbury sale is doing nicely. But the income is 
 about half what it was. To keep up Whern,
 
 The Passing of Whern 3 J 5 
 
 even as non-resident landlord (for I couldn't get 
 a rent to matter these days), would mean selling 
 most of the outlying property. Lopping it off. 
 Whern would be a monstrosity with no hinter- 
 land. So both common sense and my instinct 
 is to cut loose. We are not a cheap family, you 
 know. And Monica has just written me that she 
 needs money, even in Ireland. Obviously she 
 does. Therefore I must raise some. How better 
 than by selling something no one of us can bear 
 or afford to keep? The entail has expired. Also 
 my sense of dramatic melancholy is a strong 
 one. Whern as an expression of Braden is over. 
 Braden itself is over " 
 
 She moved impatiently. 
 
 ' ' Don't ! It isn't true ! It shan't be true. Good 
 heavens, Dick, what a wretched thing is a woman 
 that cannot even give a child!" 
 
 It was a dangerous moment, but I fought down 
 the insurgent longing. 
 
 "Sweetheart," I said gently," let me be sane — 
 at present. I mean that Braden as a gesture of 
 nobility is, for its own sake, better a fragment of 
 the past. We cannot go on mouthing a dead 
 creed. The family will persist, and, perhaps, be 
 finer stuff than ever, but splendid shells are for
 
 1 6 Privilege 
 
 other snails than formerly. Surely I am right? 
 Better be forgotten than absurd." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "Special pleading, I think. But I understand 
 what you do not say. All the same it seems a 
 terrible thing to do. And who will buy?" 
 
 "That I cannot tell you," I said. "But he may 
 exist. We have our profiteers, and Whern pre- 
 sents incredible opportunities of embellishment." 
 
 ' ' Where will you live ? ' ' 
 
 "The problem is not for to-day. In any case 
 my home worries me less than my name. I can 
 buy a flat, but I cannot sell a title." 
 
 "Sell it? Dick, you are horrible." 
 
 ' ' It does not feel mine. I used to thank heaven 
 I was safe from it. Now it has dropped upon me 
 and I hate it. I shall try disuse. It may rust 
 away. Under any reasonable law it would remain 
 with you, and then " 
 
 She put her hand over my mouth. 
 
 "You will either contradict yourself or break 
 your promise in a moment! Better hush while 
 there is time. Go and find a possible customer; 
 then we will make a last decision. Though why," 
 she added quickly, "I say 'we,' I don't know. 
 It's not my house or my business!"
 
 The Passing of Whern 317 
 
 11 
 
 When first I had conceived the idea of selling 
 Whern, I had remembered, with an odd irrele- 
 vance, the Midland magnate who had once lent 
 Michael his flat in Queen Anne's Gate. It was 
 the good fortune of this person to manufacture 
 some commodity (the nature of which I forget) 
 valuable to his countrymen in their struggle for 
 existence. Whatever the commodity was, he made 
 a great deal of it, and then a great deal more. 
 Money became almost an embarrassment to him, 
 until, in the spring of 191 7, it was suggested that 
 the Government could make good use of some 
 portion of the surplus and give a very decorative 
 receipt. The proposal was a grateful one and the 
 transaction speedily completed, so that the man 
 to whom I now determined to offer Whern Abbey 
 was no less a personage than William George 
 Creevy, first Baron Cleckheaton. 
 
 My solicitor was amused. He almost hinted 
 that I must have my little joke. I assured him 
 that I was neither passing a quip nor seeking 
 advice; I was giving an instruction. Whern was 
 for sale, and its charms were to be displayed before 
 the preposterous Creevy.
 
 3i 8 Privilege 
 
 "But, Lord Whern ! " the poor man expostulated, 
 "it has been in your family for centuries! Allow 
 an older man the liberty of protesting against so 
 rash a decision. To let the house would be bad 
 enough. To sell it . . . !" 
 
 "Possibly I may change my mind, if there are 
 no takers," I replied. "In the meantime, thank 
 you for hating the job, but it must be done. Please 
 find some personal means of approach to this 
 millionaire and see that the possibility is suggested 
 to him. I'll do the rest." 
 
 Late in September I could call on Barbara for 
 the final conversation. Creevy showed inclina- 
 tions. He was a good fellow in his way and I got 
 to like his square-toed consciousness of deserved 
 success. It was not difficult for me to renew the 
 acquaintance, on the strength of his former service 
 to my brother. It was still easier, when he on 
 the strength of a mysterious rumor clumsily groped 
 towards a confirmation from me that I might be 
 persuaded to part with Whern, to feign surprise, 
 then disinclination, then grudging neutrality. A 
 few more meetings and I had promised to think 
 the matter over thoroughly and let him know 
 within a week. 
 
 "I want to get settled, you see," he said frankly,
 
 The Passing of Whern 3*9 
 
 "and there are other possibilities. But I went 
 down to Whern when first I heard of your — not 
 wantmg to live there, and I liked it, liked it im- 
 mensely. So did Lady Cleckheaton." 
 
 " He is really a nice old thing," I said to Barbara. 
 "And he never once sympathized with me, which 
 was genuine tact." 
 
 "What a sentimental, kindly thing you are, 
 Dick!" she laughed. "I doubt if anyone exists 
 more ready to put a brave face on beastliness." 
 
 "Then I may proceed?" I asked. 
 
 She paused before answering. 
 
 "Let us go down to-morrow — just we two. 
 Then I'll answer. If it's too lovely, I may accept 
 your gift after all and the 'nice old thing' can go 
 and whistle for his Whern." 
 
 We started before eight o'clock. The carefully 
 tended roads of the residential suburbs were still 
 resonant with milk-carts and only dotted by the 
 very earliest season-ticket holders hurrying to 
 their trains. Autumn sunlight, in all its wistful 
 serenity, lay caressingly on trees brilliant with 
 reds and yellows. As I sat silent at the wheel, 
 intense consciousness of my companion faded 
 somewhat into the waning splendor of the country-
 
 320 Privilege 
 
 side. I pictured the Whern towards which we were 
 hastening; the proud melancholy of the terraced 
 woodland; the lovable absurdity of the Gothic 
 Abbey, divine in its very incongruity as it sprawled 
 there in the heart of September England. My 
 ancestors seemed to rise from the road before me, 
 swaying out from under the wheels of the car, and, 
 as they melted on this side or on that into golden 
 hedgerow or between misty tree-trunks, casting 
 looks of dumb reproach at the last frivolous Lord 
 of Whern, who was ready in literal truth to sell 
 his birthright for a mess of pottage. My resolution 
 wavered. Why should I do this heartless, unim- 
 aginative thing? And my prophetic sentiments 
 of a few weeks ago seemed pompous folly, such 
 as a man might use to cloak weakness or greed 
 or selfish treachery. There was discomfort in the 
 idea that I was trifling with a betrayal of my 
 family. What, after all, was the stature of com- 
 mon sense against that of tradition? Did I owe 
 less to the centuries that gave me life and quality 
 of mind than to the passing distresses of my own 
 abnormal lifetime? I saw my proposed transac- 
 tion with Creevy from another and evil angle. I 
 dared to throw Whern as a sop to the Cerberus of 
 social revolution. And to what end ? Not to pre-
 
 The Passing of Whern 321 
 
 vent revolution; not to guide it along wiser paths; 
 merely to spare myself and my handful of relations 
 a possible discomfort. In one wanton hour I 
 would undo all and more than all for which Michael 
 had given his life. Across my growing abstraction 
 floated sullenly the wraith of Michael as I had 
 last seen him, wrapped in a linen sheet on the 
 huge oak table of the great hall at Whern, his 
 dead limbs rigid in their shroud, his face a shat- 
 tered cavity. I turned cold With horror. My 
 hands must have gri oped the wheel with a sudden 
 senseless violence, f >r Barbara ^ave a smothered 
 cry, and I woke wit i a start to reality. The car 
 was swerving straigl t across the road towards the 
 flimsy railing of an abandoned quarry. I got her 
 round by an inch 01 two and, when the crisis was 
 past, pulled up, for I found myself trembling and 
 weak as after fever. 
 
 "I thought you were doing for both of us," said 
 Barbara calmly. ' ' Were you asleep ? ' ' 
 
 "Not asleep exactly," I replied, "but dreaming 
 bad dreams." 
 
 We started on our way once more, and I was 
 careful to risk no repetition of disturbing fancies 
 I found it possible to consider the arguments for 
 and against the sale of Whern in a proper spirit 
 
 ai
 
 3 2 2 Privilege 
 
 of detachment. The latter I summarized to 
 Barbara. 
 
 ' ' Is this devil's advocacy ? ' ' she asked. ' ' Or have 
 you changed your mind?" 
 
 ' ' I iiave changed my mind (if ever it was in need 
 of change, which I doubt), but I have not changed 
 my heart." 
 
 She looked at me suspiciously. 
 
 "Don't explain," she said shortly. 
 
 I smiled and made no reply. The car purred 
 on its way. 
 
 in 
 
 Whern was as beautiful as I had ever seen it. 
 There is poignant pleasure nowadays in the 
 thought that my last glimpse of home was of 
 mellow and gracious calm. We sat in the wan, 
 cool sunshine on a fallen block of masonry between 
 the ruin and the lake, eating our sandwiches and 
 watching the sumptuous colors of the autumn 
 woods rising behind the pale crenellations of the 
 Abbey front. At last : 
 
 "How can you bear to lose it?" whispered 
 Barbara. 
 
 For a moment longer I let the loveliness of
 
 The Passing of Whern 323 
 
 Whern and the love I felt for it lull in their arms 
 my now irrevocable resolution. Grotesquely I 
 was reminded of the last few minutes in bed on a 
 cold and busy morning. Then I thrust from me 
 the caress and indolence of romance. On the way 
 down I had yielded to its lure, had been ready to 
 surrender the actual to the ideal, to have the effect 
 for the sake of the cause. But no sooner had the 
 strange trance been dispelled, than I saw that the 
 nobility and loyalty which had called so urgently 
 to my recently ascendant self were but specious 
 rhetoric. More clearly than ever before I knew 
 now not only what I meant to do, but which way 
 duty lay. 
 
 "You remember," I began, "the arguments 
 against a sale of Whern with which I bored you 
 this morning? You accused me of arguing against 
 conviction. I wasn't doing that exactly. Indeed, 
 during the period of vagueness which nearly 
 finished us both, I reached the point of admitting 
 their ultimate validity. In short I changed my 
 mind. Then I came to and began to think on 
 the other side. The results were feeble — cash and 
 freedom from anxiety and a new kind of inverted 
 snobbery — the snobbery of unobtrusiveness. 
 Understand? So, my mind stayed changed. My
 
 324 Privilege 
 
 brain is more than opposed to any alienation from 
 Whern ; it insists on my living here, on my playing 
 out the comedy of the landed aristocrat until the 
 curtain is rung down forcibly by the hostility of a 
 new order. Would you approve of that? Do you 
 support my brain?" 
 
 "Against ?" 
 
 "Precisely. Against what? And it sounds so 
 damned priggish to say 'heart.' Let me say in- 
 stead 'against every desire and instinct that I 
 possess.'" 
 
 Suddenly she turned and laid two hands on my 
 shoulders. Looking me straight in the eyes — 
 
 "You mean me?" she said. 
 
 "I do," I replied, and kissed her full and eager 
 lips. 
 
 She did not move; merely drew back an inch 
 or two and spoke into my very face. 
 
 "Dick, you are a darling and a gentleman. I 
 am only a useless creature who has tried to help 
 and failed. Now is another chance. Listen to me 
 and I will tell you what shall be done." 
 
 Perhaps it was an impulse to secure freedom 
 cf judgment that prompted me. I took her hands, 
 pressed them to my lips, and, rising, stood in 
 front of her. She pouted a little.
 
 The Passing of Whern 325 
 
 "Mayn't I touch you?" 
 
 " It isn't that. You know it isn't. Go on with 
 your instructions." 
 
 "Not until you sit down." Then pleadingly: 
 "Please, Dick, be merciful. I won't hang round 
 your neck." 
 
 I paid the expected tribute of a smile to her out- 
 ward flippancy ; to the deeper impulse that glowed 
 in her wide eyes I gave obedience. She resumed: 
 
 "Once upon a time you asked me to run away 
 with you. You were willing to face divorce and 
 scandal. Now you are preparing to make a similar 
 request for quite opposite reasons. A widow is 
 as marriageable as any virgin. Only in my case 
 there are difficulties. Therefore you mean to 
 emigrate — to wherever those difficulties do not 
 exist. Therefore you want to cut loose. Therefore 
 you want to sell Whern." 
 
 I was embarrassed and amazed at her perception. 
 
 "Please go on," I said, a little breathlessly. 
 
 "All that this means," she continued (and the 
 crispness of her voice became a level gentleness 
 that spoke of rising emotion), "is that you regard 
 me and Whern as alternatives. And you want me 
 most. Well, dear Richard, it is not loving a man 
 to be an alternative to his real existence. Here is
 
 326 Privilege 
 
 Whern and here am I. Put me somewhere incon- 
 spicuous and keep us both " 
 
 "Barbara!" Self -contempt overwhelmed me. 
 I was abased before her splendid generosity, as 
 one evening long ago, I had been abased before 
 my brother. The next instant I felt nervous fury 
 at the condescension of fate. Was I so wretched a 
 thing that even human pride took pity on me ? 
 
 "When you insult yourself, — " I began angrily. 
 
 But rage lasted no longer than self -scorn. I was 
 aware suddenly of the immense surrender that 
 her love made possible to her. 
 
 "Sweetheart, what is to be said? Thank you? 
 Hardly. But you are great enough to understand 
 what I am not great enough to say. But at least 
 I am not so small as to endure another word." 
 I took her arm and spoke close to her glowing 
 cheek: "Never again shall you even think such a 
 thing. As for Whern, the problem is solved. Let 
 us go. We shall never come here any more." 
 
 I rose and walked quickly across the grass 
 towards the car. As I cranked up, I saw that she 
 had risen also and was approaching listlessly and 
 with bowed head. 
 
 For a long time she did not speak. The car 
 with its load of dead ideals crept Londonwards.
 
 The Passing of Whern 327 
 
 In full reaction from the fervor of devotion into 
 which I had been thrown by Barbara's last and 
 noblest altruism, I brooded miserably over the 
 passing of Whern. A chapter was over, a chapter 
 of folly and arrogance and sin, but at the same 
 time one of courage and dignity. The heedless, 
 chaotic world would reel on its way, and the wreck 
 of Braden pass unnoticed by all save the handful 
 of survivors struggling on spars and in small 
 boats to an alien shore. It was a pretty record — 
 the final stage of the Braden peerage. "Harold, 
 fourth Viscount Whern, was shot in his own 
 demesne by the brother of a girl he had seduced. 
 . . . Michael, fifth Viscount Whern, killed him- 
 self in despair after a few years' struggle against 
 the faults of an elder (and a younger) brother. 
 . . . Richard, sixth Viscount Whern, guilty in 
 all but actual fact of an intrigue with his brother's 
 wife, sold the ancestral house, and fled the country, 
 because he dared not face the future, and because 
 to him passion was more than honor. . . ." 
 Bitterly I framed in some such words as these the 
 concluding sentences of the history of Braden 
 that a painstaking bookmaker of a century hence 
 could surely compile. Then Barbara spoke, and 
 I got ready to continue playing my futile part.
 
 328 Privilege 
 
 "What are you going to do, Richard? Tell me 
 as exactly as you can." 
 
 Her voice was perfectly calm, but lifeless and 
 so indifferent that I glanced nervously towards 
 her. She was sitting back and down into the seat, 
 as though broken with extreme weariness. Her 
 eyes were heavy and sad, and her sullen mouth 
 drooped in fatigue. When I replied, it was with 
 a mechanical aloofness suited to her mood. 
 
 "I shall hand over to the lawyers the entire 
 business of the sale. They will have instructions 
 for the disposal of the money if the transaction is 
 completed. If it is not — so much the worse, but 
 I refuse to spoil your life or my own by useless 
 waiting. Almost at once I shall go abroad. It 
 will be necessary for me to turn into some incredi- 
 ble form of dago. In due course I shall send you 
 word and you will join me. It is quite simple." 
 
 "Am I to be Viscountess Whern, new and pirated 
 edition?" she asked. 
 
 I winced at the misery of her sarcasm. 
 
 "No, child," I replied softly. "You will be 
 Mrs. Richard Braden." 
 
 For a little while she was silent. Then whim- 
 sically : 
 
 "Poor Anthony!"
 
 The Passing of Whern 329 
 
 "Keep your pity for your son, sweetheart, 
 although even on him it may be wasted. He could 
 fight to revive the cursed thing if he cares to. 
 Whether he will succeed no one can say. Few 
 things are more difficult to kill than an un- 
 wanted title, or to revive than an extinct one." 
 
 We threaded a raucous way through the drays 
 and tram-cars of the western suburbs. At her 
 door Barbara got out. She turned on the pave- 
 ment and leant a moment on the car side. Her 
 eyes were raised piteously to mine. 
 
 "Richard," she whispered, "please, please. 
 ... I do so wish it!" 
 
 "I forbade you so much as to imagine that 
 dreadful thing again," I said roughly. "Oblige 
 me by putting it out of your head." 
 
 And I leant forward to start the engine. 
 
 "It's terrible!" she began, "I cannot bear 
 
 >> 
 
 At a quick glance from me she drew herself 
 together and stepped back from the car. 
 
 "Good-bye, Richard," she said quietly. "I 
 shall be ready when you wish it." 
 
 As I glided from the curb I looked back. She 
 was still standing by the railing of her tiny house, 
 proud and beautiful, but the face that topped the
 
 330 Privilege 
 
 furs coiled about her shoulders was set with suffer- 
 ing, and in the eyes was desperate pleading. I 
 wrenched my head away and drove rapidly east- 
 ward. In that evil moment it seemed that I 
 might never see her again; that I had that day 
 set eyes for the last time both on my inheritance 
 and on the woman for whose sake I had aban- 
 doned it.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 LOVE IN WINTERTIME 
 
 I left London in November and arrived without 
 incident in Florence. The choice of refuge had 
 proved sadly limited, but I was grateful, at once 
 for the possibility of Italy, and for the abnormal 
 circumstance that allowed me to go there in that 
 last winter of Europe's torment. I only stayed 
 long enough in the city to set on foot the legal 
 processes necessary to my happiness. Then I re- 
 tired to Lucca and, in a charming house against 
 the northern ramparts, settled into obscurity to 
 serve my years for Rachel. But I was hardly 
 installed when the disaster of Caparetto hurled 
 into my solitude the piteous flood of homeless and 
 orphans from the tortured north. Lucca became 
 a turmoil. With a dull rage against this infusion 
 of war and its senselessness into my secret pur- 
 gatory, I did what lay in my power to help suffer- 
 
 331
 
 33 2 Privilege 
 
 ing innocence. Probably I was always a war-hater, 
 but contact with Mary and her theories had in 
 England set me in opposition to those who pro- 
 claimed, in security and without elegance, their 
 unpopular beliefs. Now, in the surge of Lucca 
 and its misery, I went to the other extreme and 
 even wrote to Mary a long letter of recanta- 
 tion. It was never posted — I had too bitter 
 a respect for the Censorship — but it reflected a 
 mood. With the passing of time and the slow 
 return of my solitude to its wistful beauty, 
 the one indignation showed itself as transitory 
 as the other, and I came to a truer sense of 
 the tragedy of our time. I understood that what 
 the old England died to save, but lost, was what 
 Michael died to save, but came too late even to 
 possess, beyond the narrow borders of his own 
 idealism. 
 
 Letters passed between me and Barbara with 
 moderate regularity. Hers brought me news of 
 home doings and, more precious, those words that 
 come hardly to the English even when they love. 
 These latter are so manifestly my own that I 
 make no apology for their suppression ; the former, 
 justifiable enough as part of this record of family, 
 I prefer, now at its eleventh hour, to leave untold.
 
 Love in Wintertime 333 
 
 There is precedent for such omission, and that 
 my conception of autobiography is capricious my 
 treatment of war narrative has already but too 
 clearly shown. 
 
 Wearily the time passed. She grew impatient. 
 The vivid Italian spring merged into heat un- 
 bearable. I sought such relief as conditions of 
 my residence allowed. She wrote imploringly; 
 life was intolerable; would I, for mere prudery, 
 condemn her to more months of suffering? 
 The cruelty hurt, but not so keenly as my pity 
 for her loneliness. Into my reply went all the 
 tenderness, all the passion that I had for her. 
 By the sanctity of our love I begged her to 
 endure. Her answer, delayed many weeks, was 
 of a few words only, but words of such hu- 
 mility and gentleness that they were as a 
 faint, suppliant gesture of her hand. Only in 
 silence could my heart be hardened. I wrote no 
 more. 
 
 At last, unbelievably, came release. My term 
 was served. She must start on her journey. She 
 had started and was coming to marry me. I set 
 out to meet her in Milan. It was in a cold and 
 snow-bound city that, with slow delight, I staged 
 the first scene of my real life.
 
 334 Privilege 
 
 ii 
 
 Outside the barrier I mingled with the aimless 
 miscellany which seems at all hours to throng a 
 great station. A faint copper-colored mist hovered 
 in the shadowy vaulting of the roof, around the 
 pendant arc-lights, across the high tier of lighted 
 windows that overlooked the spaces of the station. 
 Far to the left an engine hissed; a hand-truck 
 clattered towards the luggage hall. Stragglers in 
 black coats, with black portfolios clutched in black 
 gloves, trickled through the gate of one of the out- 
 going suburban platforms. The bland face of the 
 huge clock registered half -past ten. The place 
 seemed to be turning and muttering in its sleep, 
 so unreal were the noises and activity. It was 
 cold in the station. I shivered and began to walk. 
 Groups of soldiers in gray-green slouched past the 
 window of my abstraction. The copper-colored 
 mist surged, thickened, and dispersed again. They 
 were like the noises of the sea — the far, far noises 
 of this echoing place. The hands of the clock 
 moved idly forward. A quarter to eleven. I 
 collided with a woman carrying a large basket. 
 Interchange of courtesies. Through the door of 
 the consigne I saw shelves like the shelves of a
 
 Love in Wintertime 335 
 
 catacomb. They were laden with absurd lug- 
 gage — rugs in straps; queer, shiny valises; crude, 
 sharp-cornered yellow trunks. To my freakish 
 mood these seemed the bodies of the spirits that 
 thronged this eerie cave. I had the idea that 
 to-morrow they would have been fetched away 
 and be walking about Milan like ordinary re- 
 spectable men and women. Like me — and Bar- 
 bara. Barbara was coming. A sudden vision of 
 her, as I had seen her last, lit my foolish brain 
 like a searchlight. The patient dignity of her 
 attitude, the suffering in her eyes . . . All that 
 was over now. Triumph surged through me and 
 the phantoms of my brooding dissolved into the 
 mist that curled above my head. To-morrow she 
 would belong to me. We would drive away to- 
 gether, just she and I, to our flat, to our marriage- 
 bed. Italy — war-worn and distraught, but forever 
 the land of lovers — would croon her age-long 
 epithalamy. 
 
 A bell clanged. The sluggish officials quickened 
 to eagerness. I moved towards the barrier. From 
 the darkness beyond the station roof emerged a 
 black bulk crowned with steam. The steam bil- 
 lowed and swelled until it seemed a tidal wave 
 bearing down upon me. From the heart of it
 
 33 6 Privilege 
 
 glared a single eye. Passengers dropped pain- 
 fully from the train, as though squeezed out of a 
 tube. The vanguard of bag-laden porters reached 
 the barrier. Figures, strange figures, drifted past 
 me; they ignored me so utterly and were them- 
 selves to me so trivial that I felt gifted with 
 invisibility. More figures slowly passing, more 
 strange figures. 
 
 Then I saw her, waved to her, ran to meet her, 
 felt her hands in mine. But from the wave-crest of 
 my emotion the devil of ridicule raised his head. 
 The love I had for her, the love I longed to speak 
 aloud, choked me. What was I after all, but 
 Richard Braden meeting his brother's widow at 
 a railway station? I bent over her hands. 
 "I hope you have had a good journey?" 
 "I got a smut in my eye," she said. 
 
 in 
 
 The car stole through the white streets, its noise 
 muted by the blanket of silence that lay upon the 
 city. If we spoke, our remarks had best have 
 remained unsaid, so impertinent were they to the 
 splendor of the hour. This atmosphere of balked 
 emotion brooded and brooded over me. A sleep- 
 less night, the tedious mechanism of marriage
 
 Love in Wintertime 337 
 
 should have broken this miserable reserve. But 
 I was as speechless, as frozen, as when I had left 
 her at her hotel the night before, as when I had 
 called for her that very afternoon, as when to- 
 gether we had emerged from the meager ceremony 
 that had been so hardly won; as when, in foolish 
 flight from our own gaucherie, we had dined amid 
 the gilt and glitter of a huge restaurant and en- 
 dured the vaporings of stage romance. At the 
 flat supper was awaiting us. I sat and looked at 
 her. Where her hair swept back over her ears, it 
 shone like polished copper ; the triangles of brilliant 
 light, one on each side of the broad white parting, 
 held my vision to the exclusion of all else. Her 
 head hovered against the darkness like a giant 
 moth with burnished wings. The constraint was 
 terrible. The room with its somber privacy was 
 alive with passion; only we two were dead. The 
 candles flickered and the whiteness of her throat 
 quivered from darkness to light, from light to 
 darkness again. The shadows crept closer. I felt 
 her slipping from me. The candles would flicker 
 out and leave only emptiness. Already she was 
 curling upwards with the smoke of her cigarette, 
 curling upwards and fading into mist. In agony 
 I cried out:
 
 33$ Privilege 
 
 "Barbara!" 
 
 She did not move. Her head still drooped over 
 her plate, her hand still lay relaxed upon the 
 cloth. I realized I had made no sound. Was she 
 suffering this same misery? 
 
 Suddenly she raised her head and looked at me. 
 Her eyes were dark with longing. 
 
 "Dick," she whispered. 
 
 With what seemed an effort of physical strength 
 I rose, ran to her, and, dropping on my knees, 
 put my arms about her. I felt her hand caress my 
 hair. Her touch snapped the chain of idiot 
 speechlessness. 
 
 "Oh, my dear, to think that it has come!" 
 
 "It was bound to come, darling." 
 
 " I love you, I love you . . . Child, there is no 
 end now . . . always and always." 
 
 "I am ready, sweetheart." 
 
 "We played the game, Barbara." 
 
 "God bless you, Dick." 
 
 We rose and stood trembling, each leaning a 
 little towards the other. 
 
 "I cannot even carry you to bed, princess. See 
 what a pitiful creature!" 
 
 She smiled through tears. 
 
 "You have not kissed me yet — properly."
 
 Love in Wintertime 339 
 
 I took her dear shoulders in my hands and held 
 her at arm's length. 
 
 "Dearest heart, I starve for you, but ..." 
 
 "I understand," she said, and slipped from the 
 room. 
 
 I blew out the candles and went to the window. 
 The clocks of the city were striking midnight and 
 I exulted that the new day should find Barbara 
 here in my house and myself thus complete. The 
 trees far below threw a film of white between me 
 and the trodden slush of the pavement. Across the 
 shoulder of an intervening block I saw the pin- 
 nacles of the Cathedral. The violet glare of hidden 
 street lamps threw its pretentious bulk askew, and 
 it looked like a white-haired giant, bound and 
 helpless, tilted against the sky in the center of a 
 funeral pyre. I saw in it a symbol of my dead life, 
 monstrous and too ornate, abandoned to the flames 
 of a new and splendid happiness. 
 
 A door clicked behind me. On the threshold of 
 her room, silhouetted against its brilliance, stood 
 Barbara. She wore a dark wrap, and her hair 
 hung loose about her shoulders. 
 
 THE END
 
 ERIK DORN 
 
 BY 
 
 BEN HECHT 
 
 H. L. MENCKEN says: 
 
 "Disorderly, iconoclastic and novel in form, 
 'Dorn' is one of the most stimulating and orig- 
 inal stories I have encountered in many days. 
 It would be hard to exceed the brilliancy of 
 some of its episodes. It has upon me the 
 effect of a gaudy and fantastic panorama, in 
 which the movement is almost acrobatic and 
 the color is that of a Kaleidoscope." 
 
 BURTON RASCOE says: 
 
 "Ben Hecht, among all the young men of the 
 post-war generation of American Novelists, 
 has, it seems to me, the most opulent equip- 
 ment in the matter of intelligence, experience 
 and imaginative power. The verbal patterns, 
 the pungently evocative word combinations, 
 the strange richness of metaphor of 'Erik 
 Dorn,' if for no other reason, cause it to stand 
 out as a distinct new model in mechanics of 
 expression." 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 New York London
 
 The Comedienne 
 
 by 
 Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont 
 
 HE COMEDIENNE;' the 
 first novel to be translated into 
 English from the pen of this 
 distinguished Polish author, who has 
 been called the second Sienkiewicz, is 
 the tale of a Polish girl who rebels 
 against her drab existence in a remote 
 hamlet, and joins a company of provin- 
 cial players. Against the colorful 
 background of this theatrical life her 
 tragic story is woven. 
 
 The provincial players of Poland are 
 sometimes colloquially called "Come- 
 dians." The word, however, does not 
 characterize a comedy actor only, for 
 the provincials play every conceivable 
 role. And such a "Comedienne" was 
 Janina. 
 
 The character and development of 
 this strange young Slavic woman, and 
 the settings and personalities of her 
 environment, are described with graphic 
 strength by Wladyslaw Reymont.
 
 r 
 
 CONQUEST 
 
 BY 
 
 GERALD O'DONOVAN 
 
 An absorbing novel of present-day Ire- 
 land — the country that has been illustrat- 
 ed, condemned, and defended in a myriad 
 of stories, but never explained. Never 
 has the complexity of her feud with Eng- 
 land been stated more fairly than in 
 Conquest. Here is the same lack of 
 compromise in workmanship that dis- 
 tinguished the author's Father Ralph a few 
 seasons ago. 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON
 
 REVOLUTION 
 
 A STORY OF THE NEAR 
 FUTURE IN ENGLAND 
 
 BY 
 J. D. BERESFORD 
 
 An intensely moving story, perhaps prophetic 
 — certainly it seems so, with its vivid sweeping 
 power and its overmastering sense of inevitability. 
 This is in no way a picture of the past; it is the 
 story of a great general strike which paralyzes 
 the industry, yes, the whole life, of the nation, 
 and of counter-revolution reestablishing the old 
 but by then disintegrated and disabled order of 
 things. Such may be the situation in sections 
 of Russia to-day, but Mr. Beresford's book brings 
 it much nearer home. 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 NEW YORK LONDON 
 
 J
 
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