baltazar and quong ho were finishing lunch when godfrey, flushed and excited, burst in with his news. an enthusiastically sympathetic parent failed to detect an unusual note, almost one of vainglory, in the boy’s speech and manner. he vaunted his success, proclaimed his entry on a brilliant career. he talked wildly. this to be a war to end war? a maudlin visionary’s dream. we might crush the hun this time and have a sort of peace—a rotten politician’s peace, but the hun would apply himself to the intensive cultivation of hate, and in twenty years at the latest would have another go at frightfulness. and that’s where the modern scientific soldier would come in. that was his career. he saw it all before him. and baltazar, led away by the boy’s bright promise, clapped both his hands on his shoulders in a powerful grip, and cried:
“i’m proud of you! my god, i’m proud of you! you and i will make our name famous again, as it was in the days of admiral de coligny. we’ll do things. we’ll make this rocking old europe hum.” he laughed, and fire leaped into his eyes. “it’s good to be alive these days!”
“it is. it’s glorious!” replied godfrey.
quong ho, smiling, urbane, approached with outstretched hand.
“i hope i may be allowed to offer you my sincere congratulations,” said he. “although i do not see eye to eye with you in your prognostication of a recrudescence of warfare after the pacification of this present upheaval, yet——”
but godfrey slapped him on the back, interrupting his eloquence.
“that’s all right, you dear old image. when you get your fellowship, i’ll say the same to you.”
he cut a hunk from a cake on the table and poured out a whisky and soda.
“my dear boy,” cried baltazar, darting to the bell, “haven’t you lunched? you must have a proper meal.”
godfrey restrained him. no. he hadn’t time. he must leave london that afternoon, for a day or two, and the next two or three hours would be a mad rush. a shade of disappointment passed over baltazar’s face.
“i was hoping we might have a little dinner to-night to celebrate your appointment—just ourselves, with marcelle—and lady edna, if she could come.”
a smile flickered round godfrey’s lips.
“dreadfully sorry, sir,” said he. “i’m not my own master. anyhow, i know lady edna’s engaged. but my last night—yes, if you will. i’d love it.”
as soon as he had bolted food and drink, he rushed out. he must throw some things into a bag, said he. presently he returned and took hurried leave. baltazar gripped him by the hand and god-blessed him. at the door godfrey nodded to quong ho.
“just a word, old chap.”
quong ho followed him into the hall.
baltazar went to the open dining-room window, and presently saw godfrey clamber into his little two-seater. he waved a hand.
“good luck!”
“see you on friday, sir.”
the car drove off. quong ho returned to the dining-room.
“i think, sir,” said he, “that we have just parted from a happy young man.”
“if a man’s not happy when he gets his heart’s desire at twenty-one,” said baltazar, “he had better apply for transference to another planet. i threw mine away,” he added in a tone of reminiscence. “wilfully. i ought to have been senior wrangler. but i was a fool. i was always taking false steps. that’s the wonderful thing about godfrey, quong ho, as doubtless you’ve noticed—he always takes the right steps. a marvellously well-balanced mind.” he smiled in a meditative way, thanking heaven for sparing godfrey those storms of temperament in which he had so often suffered shipwreck. a steady chap, disciplined, not to be turned out of his course. “well, well,” said he, “now from refreshment to labour. come upstairs and let us get on with the work.”
it was the long vacation, and quong ho, tireless and devoted, was replacing baltazar’s secretary absent on a much-needed holiday. a busy afternoon lay before them. that evening the week’s number of the new universe must go to press; the final proofs be passed, modifying footnotes added to bring statements and arguments up to the hour’s date, so swift were the kaleidoscopic variations in the confused world-condition; and baltazar’s own editional summary, the dynamo of the powerful periodical, had to be finished.
they sat in baltazar’s library, at the orderly piled writing-table, very much as they had sat, a year ago, in the scholarly room at spendale farm. but now no longer as master and humorously treated pupil. the years of training had borne excellent fruit, and quong ho proved himself to be an invaluable colleague; so much so that baltazar, at times, cursed the university of cambridge for depriving him, for the greater part of the year, of one of the most subtle brains in the kingdom. quong ho could point unerringly to a fallacy in an argument; he seemed to be infallible on questions of fact in war politics; and such a meticulously accurate proof-corrector had never been born. in such a light at least did his rara avis appear to baltazar. they worked in silence. baltazar furiously inditing his article, quong ho, pen in hand, intent on the proofs. the open window admitted the london sounds of the warm summer afternoon. presently baltazar rose and cast off coat and waistcoat, and with a sigh of relief at the coolness of shirt-sleeves, sat down again.
“why don’t you do the same?”
quong ho, impeccably attired in a dark suit and a high stiff collar, replied that he did not feel the heat.
“i believe it would hurt you not to be prim and precise,” said baltazar. “i wonder what would happen if you really ever let yourself go?”
quong ho smiled blandly. “i have been taught, sir, that self-discipline is the foundation of all virtue.”
baltazar laughed. “you’re young. stick to it. i’ve had as much as is good for me at my time of life. i’m going to end my days, thank god, in delightful lack of restraint. i’m going to let myself go, my friend, over this new job, like a runaway horse. at last i’ve bullied them into giving me a free hand. it’s a change from a year ago, isn’t it?”
“i agree that the change has been most beneficent,” said quong ho.
“yes, by jove!” cried baltazar. “then we were just a couple of grubby bookworms doing nothing for ourselves or our fellow-creatures. now—here you are dealing with thoughts that shake the world; and i—by jove!—one of the leading men in england. i should like to see the bomb that would knock us out this time.”
he hitched up his shirt-cuffs and plunged again into his article. he had scarcely written a sentence, when the door opened and marcelle appeared on the threshold. he pushed back his chair and rose, and advanced to her with both hands outstretched.
“hello! hello! what has blown you in at this time of day?”
she looked up at him as she took his hand, and he saw there was trouble in her eyes.
“i know i’m disturbing you, but i can’t help it,” she said quickly. “i must speak to you.”
“perhaps you would like to speak with mr. baltazar in private,” said quong ho.
“indeed i should, mr. ho. please forgive me.”
quong ho bowed and retired. baltazar drew a chair for her. “now what’s wrong, my dear?”
“godfrey.”
“my god!” he cried. “not an accident? he’s not hurt?”
“oh no, no! nothing of that sort.” she smiled in wan reassurance.
baltazar breathed relief. “i believe if anything happened to him now, it would break me,” he said.
“he came round to see me an hour or so ago.”
“after he left here. to tell you of his appointment. aren’t you glad?”
“of course i am. but i should be more glad if that had been all.”
“what’s up?” he asked, frowning. “tell me straight.”
“ought i to tell you?” she asked rather piteously. “it’s betraying his confidence shamefully. i know i’m to blame. i ought never to have given him my promise. but i can’t see him go and ruin everything without making some sacrifice.”
“my dearest marcelle, you’re talking in riddles. for heaven’s sake give me the word of the enigma.”
“it’s lady edna donnithorpe.”
“well. what about her?”
“i wish he had never set eyes on the woman,” she cried passionately.
“if he’s in love with her, he’ll have to get over it,” said baltazar. “france will cure him. and, as i told you the other evening, the lady’s perfectly callous. so my dear, go along and don’t worry.”
“you don’t seem to understand me, john dear,” she said urgently. “the woman is in love with him. it has been going on for months. he has told me all about it. she gets up and goes out driving with him in the car at eight o’clock in the morning.”
“silly woman!” growled baltazar.
“silly or not, she wouldn’t do it if she didn’t care for him. not lady edna donnithorpe. they meet whenever they can. he comes to me and pours out everything. i ought to have told you. but i couldn’t break my word. they’re lovers——”
“lovers? what do you mean?” he asked, bending his heavy brows.
“not yet. not in that sense, i’m sure. but they soon will be.” she looked at him anxiously. “i know i’m going to forfeit godfrey’s affection, and perhaps your respect—but i can’t do otherwise.” she paused, then burst out desperately: “she’s going to run away with him this afternoon.”
“the devil she is!” cried baltazar. he strode about the room and threw up his hands. “oh, the damned young fool!” he wheeled round on marcelle. “why on earth didn’t you stop it?”
she pleaded helplessness. how could she? naturally she had used every argument, moral and worldly. as it was, he had dashed off in a fume, calling her unsympathetic and narrow-minded, regretting that he had ever given her his confidence. he had promised long ago to let her know everything. now that he had kept his word she turned against him. she had been powerless.
“he’s old enough to look after his own morals,” said baltazar, “and i’m not the silly hypocrite to hold up my hands in horror. but to go and run away with the most notorious society woman in london and play the devil with his career is another matter. oh, the damned young fool!—that rat edgar donnithorpe will get on to it at once. he’s just the man to stick at nothing.—a filthy divorce case.—the boy’ll have to resign, if he doesn’t get chucked—then marry the woman five years older than himself. where’s the happiness going to be?”
he resumed his striding about the room, in his impetuous way, and marcelle followed him timidly with her eyes. “oh, damnation!” said he. he had just been lecturing quong ho on godfrey’s steadiness and balance. why, he himself had never done such a scatter-brained thing.
“where are the precious pair going?”
a remote week-end cottage, she said, belonging to a complaisant friend of lady edna’s. five miles from station, post office or shop. a lonely eden in the wilderness. whether it was north, east, south or west of london she did not know. an old woman in charge would look after them.
“i suppose they’re well on their way by now,” said he.
“i don’t know. possibly not. he said he had to rush about town to order his kit. besides,” she added hopelessly, “what does it matter when they start?”
baltazar cursed in futile freedom.
“there’s nothing i wouldn’t give for it not to have happened,” he exclaimed. “i suppose i was a fool. you warned me. and it was i who, like an ass, encouraged them. i could kick myself!”
“it’s like you, john, dear, not to blame me,” she said humbly.
“of course i don’t blame you. you thought it boyish folly. . . . what’s the good of talking about it?”
they did talk, however, in a helpless way.
“they had no intention of doing anything desperate,” she said, “until this morning. if he had remained in london, they might have gone on indefinitely. the prospect of endless months in france set the whole thing ablaze. . . . when i put the moral side before him, he retorted with a tu quoque.”
“what did he mean?”
“that i was ready, at his age, to run away with a married man.”
“were you?” he asked.
“i suppose so,” she replied with a weary little smile.
“that was an entirely different affair.”
“not from the moral point of view.”
“oh, damn morals,” said he.
she laughed in spite of her distress. it was so characteristic of the man. if anything got in his way, he just damned it, and regarded it as non-existent.
he moved restlessly about; then, catching sight of his discarded coat and waistcoat, plunged savagely into them, as though he were going in pursuit of the erring pair.
“what are you going to do?” she asked.
“i don’t know,” he said, abandoning half-way the furious buttoning of his waistcoat. “that’s the devil of it, there’s nothing to be done.”
at that moment quong ho discreetly appeared at the door.
“will you have particular need of my services for the next hour?”
“yes, of course i shall. look there!” baltazar flung a hand towards the paper-strewn table. “we go to press this evening.”
quong ho consulted his watch. “i am sorry then, for i don’t know how i shall proceed. i promised captain godfrey to take his bag to the railway station at five o’clock.”
smiles wreathed baltazar’s face of annoyance, and he exchanged a quick glance with marcelle. “what railway station?”
“waterloo.”
“i thought he had taken his kit with him in the car.”
“he explained, sir, when he called me into the hall before he left, that he couldn’t garage the car at waterloo station.”
“i see,” said baltazar.
“therefore i am to seek it in his bedroom and convey it by taxi to waterloo.”
baltazar nodded approvingly, and the humorous light appeared in his eyes which quong ho could never interpret.
“it’s very lucky you’ve told me, quong ho. i want particularly to say a word or two to godfrey before he leaves london. i’ll take his bag. you get on with the work. perhaps you’ll send somebody out for a taxi.”
“i’ll fetch one myself,” said quong ho, and bowing as usual politely to marcelle, left the room.
baltazar clutched her arms with both hands and lifted her from her seat and, laughing exultantly, kissed her a hearty, unintelligible kiss—the first for twenty years—leaving her utterly bewildered.
“the lord has delivered them into my hands!” he cried. “the stars in their courses fight for the house of baltazar.”
“what in the world are you going to do?” she asked.
“play hell,” said he.
ten minutes afterwards baltazar was speeding eastwards, grimly smiling. by skilful contrivance he had despatched the helpful quong ho upstairs to marcelle at the last moment, and had pitched godfrey’s kit into the dining-room and had driven off without it. if the infatuated youth would not listen to reason or the lady to the plainest of speech, he should go off to his love in a cottage unromantically destitute of toothbrush and pyjamas. ridicule kills. the boy would hate him for the moment; but would assuredly live to bless him. once in france, he would have no time for folly. the imperious man’s thoughts flew fast. the lady herself should cure the boy. he would see to that. if he couldn’t break an edna donnithorpe, bring her to heel, he was not john baltazar. in his jealousy for the boy’s honourable career he swept the woman’s possible emotions into the limbo of inconsiderable things. what kind of a woman was she, anyhow, to have married a rat like donnithorpe? he read her in rough intolerance. just a freak of thwarted sex. that was it. if nothing was discovered, she would return to her normal life and, sizing up the episode in her cold intellectual way, would discover that the game was not worth the candles supplied by the old woman in the remote cottage, and would send godfrey packing to any kind of byronic despair. if the intrigue came out and there was a divorce and subsequent marriage, there would be the devil to pay.
the taxi clattered through the gloomy archway approaches at waterloo and drew up at the end of the long line of cabs at the entrance to the station. the summer exodus from london was just beginning, and the outside platform was a-bustle with porters, trucks, passengers and luggage. baltazar, after paying his fare, lingered for a moment at the great door of the booking hall, and then entered and passed through it into the hurrying station. a queue stood at the suburban ticket office. he scanned it, but no godfrey. he walked the length of the platform entrances, through the crowds of passengers and their dumps of luggage and knots of soldiers, some about to entrain, sitting on the ground with their packs around them, others, newly arrived on leave: australians with their soft hats, wiry cockneys still encased in the clay of the trenches, officers of all grades and of all arms. presently at the central bookstall, turning away, his arms full of periodicals, godfrey came into view. baltazar approached smiling. his son’s face darkened. “i didn’t expect to see you here, sir.”
“if you want to study the ways of a country, there’s nothing like its great railway stations. they’re a favourite haunt of mine.”
“it’s rather stuffy under this glass roof, don’t you think?” said godfrey.
“i don’t mind it, my boy,” replied baltazar cheerfully. “but it’s lucky i hit upon waterloo. i shall be able to see you off. by the way, where are you going?”
“somewhere southampton way, sir,” said godfrey stiffly.
“lot of light literature,” remarked baltazar, motioning to the periodicals.
“quite a debauch,” said godfrey.
baltazar’s quick eyes picked out the board by the southampton platform.
“your train, i see, goes at 5.45. you’re a bit early.”
“yes, sir. it’s such a long time till the train starts that i couldn’t think of asking you to wait.”
“that doesn’t matter a bit, my dear boy. time is no object.”
“i’m very sorry to be rude, sir—but as a matter of fact i have an appointment,” said godfrey desperately. “an important appointment.”
“oh!” said baltazar.
“and, if you don’t mind, i must wait outside the station. quong ho is bringing my suit-case. i shouldn’t like to miss him.”
he made a step forward, but an ironic glitter in his father’s searching eyes arrested the movement.
“quong ho isn’t bringing your suit-case. i’ve come instead.”
godfrey drew himself up haughtily. “i don’t understand. have you been kind enough to bring my luggage?”
“no,” replied baltazar calmly. “it’s on the floor of the dining-room.”
“your interference with my arrangements, sir, is unwarrantable,” said the boy, pale with anger.
“possibly. unless we adopt the jesuitical principle of the end justifying the means.”
“and what is the end, might i ask?”
“to prevent you from making an infernal fool of yourself.”
the young man regarded him inimically. baltazar felt a throb of pride in his attitude. a lad of spirit.
“i suppose marcelle came straight to you with my confidence. in giving it to her i made a fool of myself, i admit. as for what i propose to do, i fail to see that it’s any concern of yours.”
baltazar’s heart yearned over the boy. he said in a softened tone: “it is ruin to your career and a mess up of your whole life. and your future means so much to me that i’d sacrifice anything—honour, decency, even your affection which i thought i had gained—to see you off at any rate to france with a clean sheet.”
but godfrey in cold wrath did not heed the pleading note. he had been betrayed and tricked. only his soldier’s training kept him outwardly calm. to the casual glances of the preoccupied crowd passing by them nothing in the demeanour of either man gave occasion for special interest. they stood, too, in a little islet of space apart from the general stream of traffic. baltazar went on with his parable. he had not the heart to hint his projected gibe at the unromantic lack of tooth-brushes. things ran too deep.
“i admit none of your arguments,” said godfrey at last. “besides, i am my own master. i owe you a debt for many kindnesses; your affection—i don’t undervalue it. but there things end. after all, we met a year ago as strangers. i’ve run my life as i chose, and i mean to run it as i choose. i expect lady edna to arrive at any minute. in common delicacy i must ask you to let me go my own ways.”
“all right, go,” said baltazar. “but i’ll go with you.”
godfrey’s eyes flamed.
“you wouldn’t dare!”
“my dear fellow,” said baltazar, “i don’t think there’s a damned thing in the world that i wouldn’t dare. haven’t you found that out?”
so they stood there for a while longer, talking in their islet beneath the glass roof of the busy station, and the boy’s heart was filled with anger and wild hatred of the thick-shouldered, smiling man, with the powerful face and infernal dancing eyes.
then suddenly baltazar strode away at a great pace, and godfrey, turning, saw that he was cutting off lady edna, who had entered, preceded by a porter wheeling her luggage. before he had time to overtake him, baltazar was already taking off his hat to an amazed lady and had imperiously checked the porter.
“lady edna,” said he, “i’m here to prevent godfrey and yourself from committing the insanity of your lives.”
she said, mistress of herself, “i don’t understand you, mr. baltazar. you seem to be taking an outrageous liberty. i am going to stay at the house of a friend who has asked godfrey to be my fellow-guest.”
before baltazar could reply, godfrey came hurrying up with his slight limp and plunged into angry explanations. she looked at the clock.
“if you telephone home now,” she said coolly, “a servant will have ample time to bring your things.”
“by god, yes!” said godfrey, angrily depositing the sheaf of periodicals on her luggage.
“have you got the tickets?”
“of course.”
he marched away across the station.
“porter——” said lady edna.
but no porter was there, for, unperceived by either of the lovers, baltazar had slipped five shillings into the man’s hand and told him to come back later.
“there’s heaps of time,” said baltazar. “now, my dearest lady, what is the good of make-believe? cards on the table. you’re going to make a bolt with godfrey and throw your cap over the windmills. there’s a nice little cottage in a wood—in the depths of the new forest, i presume, lent you by a friend who is represented by one solitary old woman.”
“how do you know that?” she asked, her soft eyes hardening in their characteristic way. “godfrey has surely not been such a——“—she paused for a word—“well—such an imbecile as to tell you?”
“godfrey has told me nothing. you may be certain of that. his fury against me is sufficiently obvious.”
“then how do you know?”
“that’s my affair,” smiled baltazar. “lady edna,” said he, “don’t you think that my coming the heavy father like this puts you into rather an absurd position?”
she replied, white-lipped: “i’ll never forgive you till i’m dead!”
“i’ve naturally counted on the consequences of your resentment,” said baltazar.
“what do you propose to do?”
“if you persist, to thrust upon you the displeasure of my company, without luggage—just like godfrey.”
“you——” she began indignantly. and then suddenly: “oh, my god!” and clutched him by the arm.
he followed her stare across the station, and there, in the archway of the booking hall, peering from right to left in his rat-like way, stood edgar donnithorpe.
