"Ye-es, I suppose I am," answered Arthur. "And I must tell no one?"

"Absolutely no one."

Despite his credulous nature, Arthur Agar was singularly suspicious on this occasion.

"Are these Jem's own instructions?" he asked.

"His own instructions," replied Seymour Michael callously.

Arthur paused in deep reflection. It was evident, he argued to himself, that Jem could not have cared for Dora, or he would never have left her in ignorance of the truth. If, therefore, during Jem's absence, he could win Dora for himself, he could not in any way be accused of wronging his step-brother. And we all know that a conscience which argues with itself is lost.

"To make things easier for us both," pursued Seymour Michael, "I propose that this interview remain a strict secret between ourselves, and for that purpose I have suppressed my own name. It is a fairly well-known name. I may mention that in guarantee of good faith. As, however, you do not know me, it will be easier for you to suppress the fact that we have ever met."

Arthur almost laughed at these last words. It seemed as if he had known this man all his life--as if his whole existence had merely been a period of waiting until he should come.

"And my mother must not know?" he said. He kept harking back to this question with a singular persistence. There are a few men and many women for whom a secret is a responsibility to be transferred to the first-comer without hesitation. One half of the world takes pleasure in divulging a secret--for the other half it is positive pain to keep one.

Seymour Michael never dreamt that the secret might be in unsafe hands. To a secretive man like himself the incapacity to keep a counsel never suggested itself. There is no doubt that where we all err is in persistently judging others by ourselves. Arthur Agar was keenly aware of his own incompetence in many things--he was one of those promising undergraduates who hire a man to water six small plants in a window-box.

Incompetence was by him reduced to a science. There were so many things which he could not do, that he was forced to find occupations for a very extensive leisure, and these were usually of the petty accomplishment order, which are graceful in young girls and very disgraceful in young men.

Now the doctrine of incompetence is a very dangerous one. Already in the criminal courts we are beginning to hear of men and women who do not feel competent to keep the law. There were many laws of social procedure and a few of schoolboy honour which Arthur Agar felt to be beyond him, and he considered that in making confession he was acquiring a right to absolution.

He did not tell General Michael that he was not good at keeping secrets, chiefly because that gentleman was not of the trivial confession type; but he made a mental reservation.

Seymour Michael had risen and was walking backwards and forwards slowly between the window and the door. He seemed quite at home in the small room, and his manner of taking three strides and then wheeling round suggested the habit of living in tents.

"What you must say is that you have received your brother's effects," he said. "If they ask from whence--from the War Office. I am the War Office to all intents and purposes. The affair is almost forgotten. All the details have been published--the usual newspaper details, with Fleet Street local colouring. You should have no difficulty."

"No," answered Arthur meekly, but with another mental reservation.

"There are, of course, certain legal formalities in progress," went on the General, "relative to the estate. Those must be allowed to go on. We may trust the lawyers to go slowly. And afterwards they can amuse themselves by undoing what they have done. That is their trade. Half of them make a living by undoing what the others have done. You are ..."

Seymour Michael so far forgot himself as to pause and make a mental calculation. Arthur saw him do it and never thought of being surprised.

It seemed quite natural that this man should possess data upon which to base mental calculations.

"... not twenty-one yet?" Michael finished the sentence.

"No."

"So that, you see, they cannot make over the estate to you before the time your brother comes or--should--come--back."

Arthur understood the emphasis perfectly this time. He was getting on.

"There are," continued Michael, who was eminently methodical, "a few military formalities, which have had my attention. In fact, I think that everything has been attended to. In case you should require any information, or perhaps advice, write to C 74, Smith's Library, Vigo Street. That is the address on that envelope."

Arthur rose too. The thought that his visitor might be about to depart thrilled through him with the warmth of relieved suspense.

"For your own information," said Michael, looking straight into the wavering, colourless eyes, "I may tell you that in my opinion--the opinion of an expert--this expedition is exceedingly hazardous. We--we must be prepared for the worst."

Arthur Agar turned away. He had felt the deep eyes probing his very soul--looking right through him. A sickening sense of weakness was at his heart. He felt that in the presence of this man he did not belong to himself.

"You mean," he muttered awkwardly, "that Jem will never come back?"

"I think it most probable. And then--when we have to abandon all hope, I mean--we shall be glad that we kept this thing to ourselves."

Seymour Michael held out his hand, and pressed the boy's weak fingers in a careless grip. Then he turned, and with a short "Good-bye" left him.

Arthur stood looking at the closed door with the frightened eyes of a woman. He looked round at the familiar objects of his room--the futile little gimcracks with which he had surrounded an existence worthy of such environments--the invitation cards on the draped mantelpiece, the little gla.s.s vases of fantastic shape with a single bloom of stephanotis, the hundred and one fantasies of a finicking generation wherein Art sappeth Manhood. And his eyes were suddenly opened to a new world of things which he could not do. He gazed--not without a vague shame--into a perspective of incompetencies.

In the _laissez-aller_ of the unreflective he had a.s.sumed that life would be a continuance of small pleasures and refined enjoyments, little dinners and pleasant converse, Dora and a comfortable home, mutual mild delight in flowers and table decoration. Into this a.s.sumption Seymour Michael had suddenly stepped--strong, restless, and mysterious--and Arthur became uneasily conscious of possibilities. There might be something in his own life, there might even be something within himself, over which he could have no control. There was something within himself--something connected with the man who had gone, leaving unrest behind him, as he left it wherever he pa.s.sed. What was this? whither would it lead?

Arthur Agar rang the bell, and kept the "gyp" in the room on some trivial pretext. He was afraid of solitude.

CHAPTER XVII

TWO MOTIVES

Making vain pretence Of gladness, with an awful sense Of one mute shadow watching all.

"Pooh! the girl is happy enough!"

Mr. Glynde jerked his newspaper up and read an advertis.e.m.e.nt of steamships about to depart to the West Coast of Africa. His wife--engaged in cutting out a scarlet flannel garment of diminutive proportions (an operation which she made a point of performing on the study table)--gave two gentle snips and ceased her occupation.

She looked at the back of her husband's head, where the hair was getting a little thin, and said nothing. No one argued with the Reverend Thomas Glynde.

"The girl is happy enough," he repeated, seeking contradiction. There are times when an autocrat would very much like to be argued with.

"She is always lively and gay," he continued defiantly.

"Too gay," Mrs. Glynde whispered to the scissors, with a flash of the only wisdom which Heaven gives away, and it is not given to all mothers.

The winter had closed over Stagholme, the isolating, distance-making winter of English country life, wherein each house is thrown upon its own resource, and the peaceful are at rest because their neighbours cannot get at them.

Dora was out. She was out a good deal now; exceedingly busy in good works of a different type from those affected by Sister Cecilia. The winter air seemed to invigorate her, and she tramped miles with a can of soup or an infant's flannel wrapper. And always when she came in she was gay, as her father described it. She gave amusing descriptions of her visits among the cottagers, retailed little quaint conceits such as drop from rustic lips declared unto them by their fathers from the old time before them, and in it all she displayed a keen insight into human nature. At times she was brilliant; which her father noticed with grave approval, ignorant or heedless of the fact that brilliancy means friction. Happy people are not brilliant.

She suddenly developed a taste for politics, and read the newspaper with a keen interest. Several half-forgotten duties were revived, and their performance became a matter of principle.

Mr. Glynde did not notice these subtle changes. Old men are generally selfish, more so, if possible, than young ones, and Mr. Glynde was eminently so. He only saw other people in relationship to himself. He looked at them through himself.

Mrs. Glynde had taken the opportunity of a "cutting out" to mention that she thought a change would do Dora good. During the three months that had elapsed since the announcement of Jem's death, Stagholme had necessarily been a somewhat dull abode. The winter had not come on well, but in fits and starts, with trying winds and much rain. She said these things while she cut into her roll of red flannel--the scissors seemed to give her courage.

The Rector of Stagholme had awful visions of a furnished house at Brighton or a crammed hotel on the Riviera.

"Where do you want to go to?" he inquired, with a gruffness which meant less than it conveyed.