Would I be so kind as to break it as soon as ever I wished? Meanwhile he would be making further inquires into my affairs.

Perhaps because Sir W. P. was a business man, he was less persuasive with his pen than with his tongue. I thought he was merely humouring me, fell into a violent rage, and tore up not only his letter, but--noodle that I was--the Harris Order too--into the tiniest pieces, and heaped them up, like a souffle, on my tray. Mr Anon's I locked up in my old money-box, with the nightgown and the Miss Austen. Both letters wore like acid into my mind. From that day on--except for a few half-stifled or excited hours--they were never out of remembrance.

Even the most valuable and expensive pet may become a vexation if it is continually showing ill-temper and fractiousness. Mrs Monnerie merely puckered her lips or shrugged her shoulders at my outbursts of vanity and insolence. But drops of water will wear away a stone. From being Court Favourite I gradually sank to being Court Fool. In sheer ennui and desperation I waggled my bells and brandished my bladder. A cat may look at a Queen, but it should, I am sure, make faces only at her Ladies-in-waiting.

f.a.n.n.y inherited yet another sinecure; and it was not envy on my side that helped her to shine in it, though I had my fits of jealousy. She was determined to please; and when f.a.n.n.y made up her mind, circ.u.mstances seemed just to fawn at her feet. Life became a continuous game of chess, the moves of which at times kept me awake and brooding in a far from wholesome fashion in my bed. p.a.w.n of p.a.w.ns, and one at the point of being sacrificed, I could only squint at the board. Indeed, I deliberately shut my eyes to my own insignificance, strutted about, sulked, sharpened my tongue like a serpent, and became a perfect pest to myself when alone. Yet I knew in my heart that those whom I hoped to wound merely laughed at me behind my back, that I was once more proving to the world that the smaller one is the greater is one's vanity.

In the midst of this nightmare, by a curious coincidence rose like a Jack-in-the-box from out of my past the queerest of phantoms--and proved himself real.

I was sullenly stewing in my thoughts in the library one morning over a book which to this day I never weary of reading; Gilbert White's _Natural History of Selborne_. It was the nearest I could get to the country. The whim took me to try and become a little better acquainted with "William Markwick, Esq., F.L.S.," who had himself seen the _sphinx stellatarum_ inserting its proboscis into the nectary of a flower while "keeping constantly on the wing." There seemed to be something in common, just then, between myself and the _Sphinx_.

I pressed my wainscot bell. After an unusual delay in a drastically regulated household, the door behind me gently opened. I began simpering directions over my shoulder in the Percy way with servants--and presently realized that all was not quite as it should be. I turned to look, and saw thrust in at the doorway an apparently bodiless, protuberant head, with black, b.u.t.tony eyes on either side a long, long nose. Then the remainder of this figure squeezed reluctantly in. It was Adam Waggett.

Guy Fawkes himself, caught lantern in hand among his powder barrels, must have looked like Adam Waggett at this moment. For a while I could only return his stare from the midst of a vortex of memories. When at last I found my tongue and inquired peremptorily how he came there, and what he was doing in the house, he broke into a long, gurgling, strangulated guffaw of laughter. I was already in a sour temper--in spite of the sweetness of Selborne. As a boy he had been my acute aversion; and here he was a grown man and as doltish and ludicrous as when he had roared at me in the moonlight from outside the kitchen window at Stonecote. His stupidity and disrespect made me almost inarticulate with rage.

Maybe the foolish creature, feeling as strange as a cat in a new house, was only expressing his joy and affection at sight of a familiar face.

But I had no time to consider motives. In a fever of apprehension that his noise might be overheard, my one thought now was to bring him to his senses. I shook my fists at him! and stamped my foot on the Turkey carpet--as if in snow. He watched me in a stupefaction of admiration, but at length his face solemnified, and he realized that my angry gestures were not intended for his amus.e.m.e.nt.

His mouth stood open, he shook his head, and, unless my eyes deceived me, set back his immense ears.

"Beg pardon, miss, I'm sure," he stuttered, "it was the sc-hock, and you inside the book there, and the old times like; and even though they was telling me that there was such a--such a young lady in the house.... But I won't utter a word, miss, not me. Only," he stared round at the closed door and lowered his voice to an even huskier whisper, "except to tell you that Pollie's doing very nicely, and whenever I sees her--well, miss, that thunderstorm and the old cow!"

At this his features gathered together for another outburst, which I succeeded in stifling only by warning him that so long as he remained at Mrs Monnerie's he must completely forget the old cow and the thunderstorm, and never address me in company, or even glance in my direction if we happened to be together in the same room.

"Mrs Monnerie would be extremely angry, Adam, to hear you laughing in the library; and I am anxious that you should be a credit to Lyndsey in your new situation."

"But you rang, miss--at least the library did," he replied, now thoroughly contrite, "and Mr Marvell said, 'You go along, there, Waggett, second door right, first staircase,' so I come."

"Yes," I said, "but it was a mistake. A mistake, you understand. Now go away; and remember!"

A few minutes afterwards, Marvell himself discreetly entered the room; merely, as it would appear, to adjust the angles of a copy of the _Spectator_ that lay on the table.

"It's very close this morning," I remarked, with as much dignity as I could muster.

"It is indeed, miss," said Marvell, stooping sedately to examine my bell-push. He rose and brushed his fingers.

"They say, miss, the electricity gets into the wires, when thunder's in the air. A wonderful invention, but not, as I am told, entirely independent of changes in the weather. I hope, miss, you haven't been disturbed...."

When Susan, even paler and quieter than usual, presently looked into the library, she found its occupant still on the floor and brooding over the browns and greys, the roses and ochres, of a complete congregation of _Sphingidae_. She stooped over me, sprawling in so ungainly a fashion across my book.

"Moths, this morning? What a very learned person you will become." Her voice was a little flat, yet tender; but I was still in the sulks, and made no answer.

"I suppose," she began again, as if listlessly, and straying over to the window, "I suppose it is very pleasant for you, seeing so much of your friend, Miss Bowater?"

Caution whispered a warning, and I tried to wriggle out of an answer by remarking that f.a.n.n.y's mother was the kindest woman in the whole world.

"Where is she now?"

"In Buenos Ayres."

"Really? How curious family traits are. The very moment I saw Miss Bowater I was quite certain that she was intended for an adventurous life; and didn't you say that her father was an officer in the merchant service? What is he like?"

"Mr Bowater? He died--out there, only a week or two ago."

"How very, very sad," breathed Susan. "And for Miss Bowater. I never even guessed from her manner that she was in trouble of that kind. And that, I suppose, shows a sort of courage. You were perfectly right; she is lovely and clever. The face a little hard, don't you think, but _very_ clever. She seems to be prepared for what Aunt Alice is going to say long before she says it. And I, you know, sometimes don't notice even the sting till--till the buzzing is over." She paused. "And you were able to make a real friend of her?"

Susan had not the patience to wait until I could sort out an answer to this question. "I don't want to be intrusive," she went on hurriedly, "to--to ask horrid questions; but is it true, you dear thing, that you may some day be leaving us?"

"Leaving you?" I echoed, my thoughts crouching together like chicks under a hen.

The reply came softly and reluctantly in that great cistern of air.

"Why, I understood--to be married."

I leant heavily on my hands, seeing not the plumes and colours of the Sphinxes that swam up at me from the page, but, as if in a mist between them and me, the softly smiling face of f.a.n.n.y. At last I managed to overcome the slight physical sickness that had swept over me. "Susan"; I said, "if a friend betrayed the very soul out of your body, what would you do? where would you go?"

"Betray! I, my dear?" and she broke into a confused explanation.

It was a remark of Percy's she had been referring to, a silly, trivial remark, not, she was sure, intended maliciously. Why, every one teased every one. Didn't she know it? And especially about the things that were most personal, "and, well, sacred." It was nothing. Just that; and she should not have repeated it.

"Tell me exactly, please," said I.

"Well, Aunt Alice was talking of marriage; and Miss Bowater smiled. And Aunt Alice--you know her mocking way--asked how, at her age--Miss Bowater's--she had learned to look at the same time both charming and cynical. 'Don't forget, my dear,' they were her very words, 'that the cynicism wears the longer.' But Miss Bowater laughed, and changed the subject by asking if she could do anything for your headache. It was the afternoon, you remember, when you were lying down. That was all."

"And Mr Maudlen?"

The fair cheek reddened. "Oh, Percy made a joke--about you. Just one of his usual horrid jokes. My dear"--she came and knelt down beside me and laid her gentle hand on my shoulder; "don't look so--so awful. It's only how things go."

I drew the hand down. It smelled as fresh and sweet as jessamine.

"Don't bother about me, Susan," I said coldly. "Just leave me to my moths. I could show you scorpions and hornets ten times more dangerous than a mere Death's Head. You don't suppose I care? Why, as you say, even G.o.d has His little joke with some of us. I'm quite used to it."

"Don't, don't," she implored me. "You are over-tired, you poor little thing. You go on reading and reading. Why, your teeth are chattering."

A faint brazen reverberation from out of the distance increased in intensity and died away. It was Adam performing on the gong. Susan had tried to be kind to me, to treat me as if I were a normal fellow-being.

I pressed the cool fingers to my lips.

"There, Susan," I said, with cheerful mockery, "except for my father and mother, I do believe you are the first life-size or any-size person I have ever kissed. A midget's grat.i.tude!"

Ever so slightly the fingers constricted beneath my touch. No doubt there was a sensation of the spidery in my embrace.

Chapter Forty-One