"How masterful you are, Montagu!" she said. "I declare, I am quite afraid of you."

Again Montagu purred. In the course of a long and stormy acquaintance, extending over twenty or more years, this was the first indication that he had ever received that Jean Leslie regarded him with aught else than a blend of amus.e.m.e.nt and compa.s.sion. A less vain and self-centred man might have felt a little suspicious of such sudden and oppressive adulation, but he did not. Montagu was one of those persons who like flattery laid on with a trowel.

"I am sorry if I alarmed you," he said graciously; "but I feel very strongly upon the subject. I haven't forgotten the trouble I had in getting rid of that bargee, Whatsisname--that chauffeur-fellow! Curse it! What was he called?--I have it--Meldrum! I foresaw trouble, of course, from the day upon which my daughter persisted in dragging his mangled remains into my best bedroom, instead of sending them to the workhouse. During his convalescence I had to be perpetually on guard.

The fellow followed her about like an infernal dog. Once, when I had occasion to reprove my daughter--my own daughter!--for some fault, he showed his teeth and nearly flew at my throat! Oh, I had to be pretty firm, I can tell you! However, I got him out of the house at last, and I am glad to say that he has not shown his face here for some months."

"I like a man to be master in his own house," said Miss Leslie approvingly. "I fear my friend Adolphus Prince has not your strength of character, Montagu. I wonder if I should be happy with him," she added musingly.

"He sounds to me," remarked the courteous Montagu, "a confirmed and irreclaimable nincomp.o.o.p. Has he a weak chest?"

"Yes. I wonder how you knew."

"Any money?"

"I believe not."

"Then why marry him?"

"Well," said Jean Leslie slowly, "I think I might be able to help him a little. A lonely man is a very helpless creature. Not a man like you, Montagu, but an ordinary man. Such a man lives, we will say, in chambers or a flat. He may even have a comfortable house; but he lives alone for all that. He is at the mercy of servants; when he is in doubt about anything, he has no one to consult; when he has done a good piece of work, he has no one to show it to; when he is out of heart, he has no one to encourage him. If he wants company, he has to go out and look for it, instead of finding it ready to hand by his own fireside. Altogether, if he has not your great spirit and resources, Montagu, he is a very miserable man."

The worst of the artistic temperament is that it is intensely susceptible to the emotion of the moment. Describe joy, and it becomes hilarious; describe sorrow, and it becomes tearful; describe fear, and it becomes panic-stricken. Montagu Falconer positively shuddered.

"Yes," he said quakingly, "that is true--very true. And more than that.

It is not the weak man who suffers--or suffers most. The strong have their moments of dejection, too, Jean. You would hardly believe it, but even I--"

Miss Leslie, like a naughty little girl who is determined to make her small brother's flesh creep before he retires to bed, continued remorselessly:--

"And what has he to look forward to? Nothing! Nothing but old age, with its increasing feebleness, and helplessness, and friendlessness. That is all!"

She looked across at the shaking figure in the armchair, and suddenly there was real pity and kindness in her eyes.

"I should like to be able to save a man from that, Montagu," she remarked gently.

Montagu nodded his head. For once he had nothing to say.

"That is why," continued Jean Leslie in the same even tone, "I am thinking of marrying Adolphus Prince. I am no longer a girl. I should understand his moods, which are many: I could manage his house, and I would not be likely"--she smiled modestly--"to go losing my heart to some younger man after a year or two. And of course, when I saw that my husband wanted to be left to himself and not bothered,--as all husbands have a right to expect,--I should have my painting to occupy me."

"I will say the same for you, Jean," said Montagu Falconer almost effusively; "you always had an appreciation of Art. But come, now! What of this fellow? Is he a philistine--a bourgeois--a chromolithographer?"

"I am afraid poor Adolphus has little knowledge of Art--Art as you and I know it," replied Miss Leslie regretfully. "But he is a good creature in other respects."

Montagu Falconer began to walk excitedly about the room.

"There you are!" he said. "There you are! Isn't that a woman all over?

Here are you, Jean, with your splendid talents and comparative youth, with a strongly developed sense of what is right and beautiful, prepared to throw yourself away upon a half-pay, knock-kneed, blear-eyed militiaman, who probably wears Jaeger boots and furnishes his rooms with stuffed parrots and linoleum. The idea is unthinkable--impossible! You cannot do it!"

"Then you forbid me to marry him?" said Miss Leslie timidly.

"Certainly I do," replied Montagu, noting to himself with intense gratification that a man has only to be thoroughly firm with a woman to win her complete submission. "You don't _care_ for the creature, I suppose?"

"Not very deeply," confessed Miss Leslie. "He is just a friend--a very old friend."

She sighed, rose from her seat, and held out her hand.

"Good-bye, Montagu," she said, "and thank you! I must be going now. It was good of you to have such a long talk."

"I say, don't go yet," said Montagu. "I mean--" He hesitated. He hardly knew what he did mean.

"I think I really must," replied Miss Leslie.

Montagu accompanied her silently to the door.

"You are going to take my advice, I trust?" he remarked as they stood upon the steps.

Jean Leslie pondered.

"I suppose so," she said slowly. "A man's logic and common sense are so invincible. Still, I owe you a grudge, all the same, for having deprived me of my one romance. I am not likely to have another, you see!

Good-bye, Montagu, and thank you!"

She gave her counsellor a shy but grateful glance, and departed down the street--a well-dressed, well-carried, and well-bred figure.

Next morning Montagu Falconer, after a disturbed and introspective night, came down to breakfast at ten o'clock, and dismally surveyed t.i.te Street through the dining-room window. There was a piercing east wind, which penetrated through every nook and cranny. Peggy had breakfasted an hour ago.

Montagu rang the bell for his coffee, and shivered. He was feeling stiff in the joints this morning: could it be rheumatism? He would like to consult some one about this. But of course there was no one to consult.

His daughter, naturally, was not at her post: she was downstairs ordering dinner, or something of that kind. Besides, it could not be rheumatism: rheumatism was an old man's complaint. Old man! Old men suggested thoughts of Adolphus Prince. He had some one to consult about _his_ troubles: he could take them to Jean. Montagu consigned Adolphus to perdition. Who was Adolphus Prince, to monopolise--

Next moment Montagu, seized with a sudden idea, was at the telephone.

"Number, please?" said a haughty voice.

"I want seven-six-seven-one Chelsea, and I'm in a devil of a hurry," he replied frantically; "so put me on as quick--"

"Br-r-r-r-r-! Ch'k! Number engaged," announced the instrument dispa.s.sionately.

Montagu hung up the receiver, and swore. He was quite panic-stricken by this time. So Adolphus Prince rang her up at ten o'clock in the morning, did he? He would show the old dotard who was the better man!

Five minutes later he had secured his call, and was inviting Miss Leslie to lunch with him at the Ritz.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE SECOND BEST

"WHERE shall we go to-night?" enquired the insatiable Dumps.