Hughie's apartment was L-shaped, and the feast was spread in the smaller arm, out of the way of draughts and doorways. Consequently any one entering the room would fail to see the luncheon table unless he turned to his left and walked round a corner.

Hughie was helping the plover's eggs,--it is to be feared that Miss Gaymer received a Benjamin's portion of the same,--when Mr. Goble suddenly appeared at his elbow and whispered in his ear,--

"Him again!"

Muttering an apology, Hughie left the table and walked round the corner to the other arm of the room. Lance Gaymer had just entered. His face was flushed and his eyes glittered, and Hughie's half-uttered invitation to him to come in and have some lunch died away upon his lips.

"Hallo, Lance!" he said lamely.

Mr. Gaymer replied, in the deliberate and portentously solemn tones of a man who is three parts drunk,--

"I understand you have got a party on here."

"Yes," said Hughie, endeavouring to edge his visitor through the doorway.

"What I want to say," continued Mr. Gaymer in rising tones, "is that I accuse you of embezzling my sister's property, and I'm going to make things d.a.m.ned hot for you. Yes--_you_! Go and tell that to your luncheon-party round the corner!" he concluded with a snort.

"And--glug--glug-glug!"

By this time he had been judiciously backed into the pa.s.sage, almost out of ear-shot of those in the room. Simultaneously Mr. Goble's large hand closed upon his mouth from behind, and having thus acquired a good purchase, turned its owner deftly round and conducted him downstairs.

Death-like silence reigned at the luncheon-table. Hughie wondered how much they had heard. Not that it mattered greatly, for Master Lance's accusations, making allowances for alcoholic directness, partook very largely of the nature of those already levelled at Hughie by more conventional deputations.

Before returning to his seat, Hughie crossed to the window and looked down into the street.

Mr. Lance Gaymer was being a.s.sisted into a waiting hansom by the kindly hands of Mr. Guy Haliburton.

Hughie, having seen all he expected to see, returned with faltering steps to his duties as a host.

It was a delicate moment, calling for the exercise of much tact. Even Mildred Leroy hesitated. Joan had flushed red, whether with shame, or anger, or sympathy, it was hard to say. Mr. D'Arcy regarded her curiously.

But heavy-footed husbands sometimes rush in, with success, where the most wary and diplomatic wives fear to tread. Jack Leroy cleared his throat.

"Now, Hughie, my son," he observed, "when you've _quite_ done interviewin' all your pals on the door-mat, perhaps you'll give your guests a chance. With so many old friends collected round your table like this, we want to drink your health, young-fellow-my-lad! Fill up your gla.s.s, Miss Harbord! No heel-taps, Milly!"

There was an irrelevant _bonhomie_ about this whole speech which struck exactly the right note. Mrs. Leroy glanced gratefully at her husband, and lifted her gla.s.s. The others did the same. But it was Joan who spoke first.

"Hughie!" she cried, with glowing eyes.

"Hughie!" cried every one. "Good health!"

In the times of our prosperity our friends are always critical, frequently unjust, generally a nuisance, and sometimes utterly detestable. But there is no blinking the fact that they are a very present help in trouble.

Hughie suddenly felt himself unable to speak. He bowed his head dumbly, and made a furious onslaught upon a plover's egg.

CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH CHARITY SUFFERETH LONG, AND JOAN MISSES HER CUE

Hughie spent the next few months chiefly in wondering.

He wondered what Mr. Haliburton's game might be. What was he doing behind Lance Gaymer? That the latter might consider himself justified in poking his nose into his only sister's affairs was understandable enough--but why drag in Haliburton? Was that picturesque ruffian a genuine friend of Lance's, enlisted in a brotherly endeavour to readjust Jimmy Marrable's exceedingly unsymmetrical disposition of his property, or was he merely a member of that far-reaching and conspicuously able fraternity (known in sporting circles as "The Nuts"), to whom all mankind is fair game, and whose one article of faith is a trite proverb on the subject of a fool and his money, pursuing his ordinary avocation of "making a bit"? In other words, was Lance Gaymer pulling Haliburton, or was Haliburton pushing Lance Gaymer?

Hughie also wondered about a good many other things, notably--

(_a_) Joan.

(_b_) More Joan; coupled with dim speculations as to how it was all going to end.

(_c_) More Joan still; together with a growing desire to go off again to the ends of the earth and lose himself.

But for the present life followed an uneventful course. Since Lance's display of fireworks at Hughie's luncheon-party, Hughie's friends had studiously avoided the mention of the word money in their late host's presence; and Master Lance himself, evidently realizing that, however excellent his intentions or pure his motives, he had made an unmitigated a.s.s of himself, avoided Hughie's society entirely.

Of Joan Hughie saw little until the beginning of October, when he arrived at Manors to shoot pheasants.

He was greeted, almost with tears of affection, by John Alexander Goble, who had been retained by Jack Leroy as butler when Hughie relinquished his services; and found the house packed with young men and maidens, the billiard-room strewn with many-hued garments, and the atmosphere charged with the electricity of some great enterprise in the making.

"Theatricals!" explained Mrs. Leroy resignedly, as she handed him his tea. "Tableaux, rather. At least, it is a sort of variety entertainment," she concluded desperately, "in the Parish Hall. In aid of some charity or other, but that doesn't matter."

"Joey's latest, I suppose?"

"Yes; the child is wild about it. What, sweet one?" (This to the infant Hildegard, in an att.i.tude of supplication at her side.) "Cake? certainly not! You are going out to tea at the Rectory in half an hour. Do you remember what happened the last time you had two teas?"

Stodger reflected, and remembered; but pleaded, in extenuation,--

"But I did it _all_ at the Rectory, mummy."

"She was sick," explained her sister, turning politely to Hughie.

"Twice!" corroborated Stodger, not without pride.

"Yes; in a decent basin provided by the parish," continued Duckles hazily. She had recently begun to attend church, and her reading during the sermon had opened to her a new and fertile field for quotation.

"Tell me more about the tableaux, Jack," said Hughie hastily, as Mrs.

Leroy accelerated her ritualistic progeny's departure upstairs.

"They're spendin' lashings of money on them. Won't make a farthing profit, I don't suppose; but the show should be all right. They're getting a 'pro.' down to stage-manage 'em."

"My word, they are going it! Hallo, Joey!"

Miss Gaymer's entrance brought theatrical conversation up to fever heat; and for the rest of the meal, and indeed for the next few days, Hughie lived and breathed in a world composed of rickety scenery, refractory pulleys, and hot size, inhabited by people who were always talking, usually cross, and most intermittent in their feeding-times.

One afternoon Joan took him down to the Hall, ostensibly as a companion, in reality to shift some large flats of scenery, too wide for feminine arms to span.

Captain Leroy had already offered himself in that capacity, but his services had been brutally declined, on the ground that the scenery was not concave.