"The programmes are being printed to-day. We are going to have the tableaux in the first half," Joan rattled on, as they walked through the plantations. "Well-known pictures, you know. Some of them are perfectly lovely. I am in three," she added, rather navely.

Hughie asked for details.

"Well, the first one is to be The Mirror of Venus--a lot of girls looking into a pool."

"Are you in that?"

"Not much! _That_ is for all the riff-raff who have crowded in without being invited--the Mellishes, and the Crumfords, and the Joblings. (You know the lot!) There's another tableau for their men: _such_ horrors, my dear! But that disposes of them for Part One: they don't have to appear again until the waxworks. Then there's a perfectly sweet one--The Gambler's Wife."

"Who is she to be?"

"Sylvia Tarrant. She sits under a tree in an old garden, looking sad,"

gabbled Joan without pausing, "while her husband gambles with some other men on the lawn behind. You'll cry! I come after that--Two Strings to her Bow. A girl walking arm-in-arm with two men. She looks quite pleased with herself: the men have both got camelious hump."

"Who are they?"

"It's not quite settled yet. I told them they could fight it out among themselves. I expect it will be Binks and Cherub, though. But they must decide soon, because time is getting on, and Mr. Haliburton says--"

"Who?"

"Mr. Haliburton."

"Haliburton?" said Hughie, stopping short.

"Yes. Didn't you know? He is stage-managing us. He came down this morning."

"Is he staying in the house?" was Hughie's next question.

"No: we couldn't get him in. He's putting up at The Bull, in the village," said Joan. "I wish we could have found room for him," she added, with intention. She knew that most men neither loved Mr.

Haliburton nor approved of their girl friends becoming intimate with him; and this alone was quite sufficient to predispose her in that misjudged hero's favour.

In her heart of hearts Miss Gaymer was just a little _eprise_ with Mr.

Haliburton, and, as becomes one who is above such things, just a little ashamed of the fact. She had found something rather compelling in his dark eyes and silky ways, but, being anything but a susceptible young person, rather resented her own weakness. Still, the fact remained. She had seen a good deal of Mr. Haliburton in London--how, she could hardly explain, though possibly Mr. Haliburton could have done so--and had listened, not altogether unmoved, to tales of a patrimony renounced for Art's sake, of an ancestral home barred by a hot-headed but lovable "old pater"; and to various reflections, half-humorous, half-pathetic, on the subject of what might have been if this world were only a juster place.

Joan, who did not know that Mr. Haliburton's ancestral home had been situated over a tobacconist's shop somewhere between the back of Oxford Street and Soho Square, and that his "old pater" had but lately retired from the post of head waiter at a theatrical restaurant in Maiden Lane, in order to devote his undivided attention to the more perfect colouring of an already carnelian proboscis, felt distinctly sorry for her romantic friend. When a young girl begins to feel sorry for a man, the position is full of possibilities; and when heavy-handed and purblind authority steps in and forbids the banns, so to speak, the possibilities become probabilities, and, in extreme cases, certainties.

Joan glanced obliquely at Hughie. That impa.s.sive young man was advancing with measured strides, frowning ferociously. She continued, not altogether displeased:--

"The next tableau is Flora Macdonald's Farewell--very Scotch. A man in a kilt stands in the centre--"

She babbled on, but Hughie's attention wandered.

Haliburton again! He did not like the idea. Consequently it was not altogether surprising if, when Joan paused to enquire whether he regarded Queen Elizabeth or a suffragette as the most suitable vehicle for one of Mrs. Jarley's most cherished "wheezes," Hughie should have replied:--

"Joan, how did that chap come here? Was he engaged by you, or did he offer himself?"

"He offered himself--very kindly!" said Joan stiffly.

"I suppose he is being paid?"

"Yes, of course--a guinea or two. It's his profession," said Joan impatiently. "Do you object?"

The occasion called for considerable tact, and poor heavy-handed Hughie sighed in antic.i.p.ation. Joan heard him.

"What _is_ the trouble?" she asked, more amused than angry. "Out with it, old Conscientiousness?"

"Joey," said Hughie, "I don't like the idea of your taking up with that chap."

On the whole, it could not have been put worse.

"It seems to me," said Miss Gaymer scornfully, "that it's not women who are spiteful, but men. I wonder why every male I know is so down on poor Mr. Haliburton. Silly children like Binks and Cherub I can understand, but _you_, Hughie--you ought to be above that sort of thing. What's the matter with the man, that you all abuse him so? Tell me!"

Hughie's reply to this tirade was lame and unconvincing. The modern maiden is so amazingly worldly-wise on various matters on the subject of which she can have had no other informant than her own intuitions, that she is apt to scout the suggestion that there are certain phases of life of which happily she as yet knows nothing; and any attempt to hint the same to her is scornfully greeted as a piece of masculine superiority.

Consequently Joey thought she knew all about Mr. Haliburton; wherein she was manifestly wrong, but not altogether to be blamed; for when your knowledge of human nature, so far as it goes, is well-nigh perfect, it is difficult for you to believe that it does not go all the way.

It was a most unsatisfactory conversation. All Hughie did was to reiterate his opinion of Mr. Haliburton without being able (or willing) to furnish any fresh facts in support of it; and the only apparent result was to prejudice Joan rather more violently in Haliburton's favour than before, and to make Hughie feel like a backbiter and a busybody. It was a relief when Joan abruptly changed the conversation, and said:--

"Hughie, have you seen anything of Lance lately?"

No, Hughie had not. "Why?"

"I'm bothered about him," said Joan, descending from her high horse and slipping into what may be called her confidential mood. "He used to write to me pretty regularly, even after he married that freak, and we were always fond of one another, even though we quarrelled sometimes.

But he seems to have dropped out of things altogether lately. Do you know what he is doing?"

"Can't say, I'm sure," said Hughie.

"Could you find out for me?"

"Of course I will," said Hughie, quite forgetting the present awkwardness of his relations with Lance in the light of the joyous fact that Lance's sister had just asked him to do her a service. "I'll go and look him up. He may be ill, or short of cash. But can't you get news of him from--from--"

He stopped suddenly. He had been about to ask a question which had just struck him as rather ungenerous.

"You mean from Mr. Haliburton?" said Joan, with her usual directness. "I did ask him, but he says he has seen nothing of Lance for quite a long time; so I'm afraid I must bother you, Hughie. I don't like to, because I know you won't want to go out of your way on his account, after--"

"Never mind that!" said Hughie hastily. "I'll go and look him up."

Joan turned to him gratefully.

"You're a good sort, Hughie," she said. "I don't know what I should do without you."

Hughie glowed foolishly. Her words did not mean anything, of course; still, they warmed him for the time being. He never thought of making capital out of Joan's impulsive outbursts of affection. He regarded them as a sort of consolation prize--nothing more. He had never attempted to make love to her since his first rebuff. The memory of that undignified squabble still made him tingle, and in any case it would never have occurred to him to renew the attack. Man-like, he had taken for granted the rather large proposition that a woman invariably means what she says. To pester Joan with further attentions, especially in his exceptional position, savoured to him of meanness.

For all that, the girl and he seemed of late to have adjusted their relations with one another. Joan never played with him now, encouraging him one moment and flouting him the next, as in the case of most of her faithful band. Her att.i.tude was that of a good comrade. She was content to sit silent in his company, which is a sound test of friendship; she brought to him her little troubles, and occasionally ministered to his; and in every way she showed him that she liked and trusted him. A vainer or cleverer man would have taken heart of grace at these signs. Hughie did not. He was Joan's guardian, and as such ent.i.tled to her confidence; also her very good friend, and as such ent.i.tled to her affection. That was all. It was rotten luck, of course, that she was not sufficiently fond of him to marry him, but then rotten luck is a thing one must be prepared for in this world. He would get accustomed to the situation in time: meanwhile there must be no more castles in the air.

"I'll tell you what," he continued presently. "I shall be in town on Wednesday. I'll go and look Lance up then."

"But, Hughie," cried Joan in dismay, "Wednesday is the day of the entertainment. You _must_ come to that. What is your engagement, if it's not indiscreet to inquire?"

"Dentist," said Hughie lugubriously.