All very disconcerting. All, fortunately, very unusual.

My eyes were leaden with slumber, but I forced myself to decipher the following message, which had been telegraphed to West Kensington Lane:

Wedding must be postponed.--CLOYSTER.

"I've had no hand in this," I cried; "but," I added enthusiastically, "it serves Eva jolly well right."

CHAPTER 22

A CHAT WITH JAMES _(Julian Eversleigh's narrative continued)_

Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell seemed somehow to drift away after that.

Apparently I went to sleep again, and she didn't wait.

When I woke, it was getting on for two o'clock. I breakfasted, with that magnificent telegram propped up against the teapot; had a bath, dressed, and shortly before five was well on my way to Walpole Street.

The more I thought over the thing, the more it puzzled me. Why had James done this? Why should he wish to treat Eva in this manner? I was delighted that he had done so, but why had he? A very unexpected person, James.

James was lying back in his shabby old armchair, smoking a pipe. There was tea on the table. The room seemed more dishevelled than ever. It would have been difficult to say which presented the sorrier spectacle, the room or its owner.

He looked up as I came in, and nodded listlessly. I poured myself out a cup of tea, and took a m.u.f.fin. Both were cold and clammy. I went to the bell.

"What are you doing?" asked James.

"Only going to ring for some more tea," I said.

"No, don't do that. I'll go down and ask for it. You don't mind using my cup, do you?"

He went out of the room, and reappeared with a jug of hot water.

"You see," he explained, "if Mrs. Blankley brings in another cup she'll charge for two teas instead of one."

"It didn't occur to me," I said. "Sorry."

"It sounds mean," mumbled James.

"Not at all," I said. "You're quite right not to plunge into reckless extravagance."

James blushed slightly--a feat of which I was surprised to see that he was capable.

"The fact is----" he began.

I interrupted him.

"Never mind about that," I said. "What I want to know is--what's the meaning of this?" And I shoved the bilious-hued telegraph form under his nose, just as Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell had shoved it under mine.

"It means that I'm done," he said.

"I don't understand."

"I'll explain. I have postponed my marriage for the same reason that I refused you a clean cup--because I cannot afford luxuries."

"It may be my dulness; but, still, I don't follow you. What exactly are you driving at?"

"I'm done for. I'm on the rocks. I'm a pauper."

"A what?"

"A pauper."

I laughed. The man was splendid. There was no other word for it.

"And shall I tell you something else that you are?" I said. "You are a low, sneaking liar. You are playing it low down on Eva."

He laughed this time. It irritated me unspeakably.

"Don't try to work off the hollow, mirthless laugh dodge on me," I said, "because it won't do. You're a blackguard, and you know it."

"I tell you I'm done for. I've barely a penny in the world."

"Rot!" I said. "Don't try that on me. You've let Eva down plop, and I'm jolly glad; but all the same you're a skunk. Nothing can alter that.

Why don't you marry the girl?"

"I can't," he said. "It would be too dishonourable."

"Dishonourable?"

"Yes. I haven't got enough money. I couldn't ask her to share my poverty with me. I love her too dearly."

I was nearly sick. The beast spoke in a sort of hushed, soft-music voice as if he were the self-sacrificing hero in a melodrama. The stained-gla.s.s expression on his face made me feel homicidal.

"Oh, drop it," I said. "Poverty! Good Lord! Isn't two thousand a year enough to start on?"

"But I haven't got two thousand a year."

"Oh, I don't pretend to give the figures to a shilling."

"You don't understand. All I have to live on is my holiday work at the _Orb_."

"What!"

"Oh, yes; and I'm doing some lyrics for Briggs for the second edition of _The Belle of Wells_. That'll keep me going for a bit, but it's absolutely out of the question to think of marrying anyone. If I can keep my own head above water till the next vacancy occurs at the _Orb_ I shall be lucky."

"You're mad."