'And so I would, if he would ask me.'

Well, Mr. Tom thought he knew something of the ways of womankind, from having been brought up among so many; but this fairly took his breath away. He stared at her. He laid down his cue.

'Well, I'm smashed,' he said at length. And then he added slowly, 'I'm glad I've got nothing to do with you women. I believe you'd roast any fellow alive, and then cut him into bits for fourpence-half-penny. It isn't more than three months since you were crying your eyes out about that fellow Hanbury----'

'You were as anxious as any one he should be sent away,' retorted Madge. 'It appears I can't please every one. Perhaps, on the whole, it would be as well to continue the game, for I only want three to be out.'

Tom gave up. He continued the game, and played so savagely and so well that poor Madge never got her three. And he did not recur to that subject except to say the last thing at night, as the girls were leaving--

'Look here, Madge, that fellow Hanbury had better take care.'

'I suppose he can look after himself,' said Madge. 'I have nothing to do with him. Only you can't expect me not to be sorry for him. And how am I to send him away when I dare not speak to him? And do you think the streets of Brighton belong to me?'

Tom again gave up, but was more convinced than ever that women were strange creatures, who could not be straightforward even when they tried. From that and similar generalisations, however, he invariably excepted Nan. Nan did not belong to womankind as considered as a section of the human race. Nan was Nan.

The next afternoon Captain King called to say good-bye. He found the girls very busy over Christmas cards. Madge was painting little studies of flowers for exceptionally favoured people, and she invited him to look over these.

'They are very pretty,' he said. 'I hope the people who are fortunate enough to get them will value them. I mean they are not like ordinary Christmas cards.'

'Oh, if you like them,' said Madge, modestly, 'you might take one for yourself.'

'May I?' he said, regarding her, 'and may I choose the one?'

'Oh yes, certainly,' she answered,

'I know the one I should like to take,' he said, still regarding her.

'This one.'

It was a little bit of forget-me-not, very nicely painted--from memory.

He showed it to her.

'May I take this one with me?' he said.

'Yes,' she answered, in a very low voice, and with her eyes cast down.

After that there was a brief silence, only broken by the sound of Miss Edith's pen, that young lady being at the other side of the table addressing envelopes.

Captain Frank went back to Wiltshire, greatly treasuring that bit of cardboard, and making it the basis of many audacious guesses at the future. Nan came home from Lewes for Christmas; and Madge was particularly affectionate towards her.

'What pretty flowers you have!' Nan said, just after she had arrived--the first time, indeed, she went into the dining-room.

'Yes,' Madge answered, 'Captain King sent me flowers once or twice, and some of them have kept very well. But I wish they wouldn't wire them.'

Nan turned away quickly towards the window, and said nothing.

Then Tom went down to Wiltshire, and was most warmly received at Kingscourt. Also pretty Mary Coventry, who was still staying in the house, was kind to this handsome, conceited boy; and he was rather smitten; but he kept a tight hold on himself.

'No,' he said to himself, 'I'm not going to marry any woman; I know too much about them.'

He had a royal time of it altogether; but most of all he enjoyed the quieter days, when he and Frank King went shooting rabbits on the heath. It was sharp, brisk work in the cold weather, better than standing in wet ploughed fields outside woods and waiting until both toes and fingers got benumbed. There was no formality in this business, and no ladies turning up at lunch, and no heart-breaking when one missed. Frank King was excessively kind to him. Not caring very much for shooting himself, he was content to become Mr. Tom's henchman; and they got on very well together. Further, in the smoking-room at night these two were thrown on each other's conversation--for old Mr.

King did not smoke--and it was remarkable how interesting Captain King found his friend's talk. It was mostly about Madge and her sisters; and Frank King listened eagerly, and always would have Mr. Tom have another cigarette, while he was busy drawing imaginative pictures, and convincing himself more and more that Madge was no other than Nan, and that life had begun again for him, with all sorts of beautiful possibilities in it. For he could not be blind to the marked favour that the young lady had shown him; and he had long ceased to have any fear of the shadowy Hanbury who was skulking somewhere unregarded in the background.

At length one night Captain Frank, in a burst of confidence, told Mr.

Tom all about it, and asked him to say honestly what he thought the chances were. Would Lady Beresford have any objection? Would Miss Margaret consider he had not known her sufficiently long or intimately?

What was Mr. Tom's own opinion?

Mr. Tom flushed uneasily.

'I--well, you see--I keep out of that kind of thing as a rule. Women have such confounded queer ways. You're sure to put your foot into it if you intermeddle. These girls are always worrying people about their sweethearts--all but Nan. I wish to goodness they were all married; my life is made a burden to me amongst them.'

'But what do you think, Beresford? Haven't you any opinion? What would you do in a similar case?'

'I?' said Mr. Tom, with a laugh, 'I suppose I should ask the girl; and if she didn't like to say yes, she could do the other thing.'

'But--do you think there would be a chance?'

'Write and see,' said Mr. Tom, with another laugh; further than that he would not interfere.

Frank King considered for a time; and at last boldly determined to act on this advice. He sat up late that night, concocting a skilful, cautious, appealing letter; and as he re-wrote it carefully, all by himself, in the silence, it seemed to him almost as if he were beseeching Nan to reconsider the verdict she had given at Bellagio more than three years before. Life would begin all over again if only she would say yes. Sometimes he found himself thinking of that ball in Spring Gardens; and of her startled shyness, and of her winning confidence, and anxious wish to please; until he recollected that it was Madge to whom he was writing, and that Madge had never been to the ball at all.

This fateful missive was left to be despatched the first thing in the morning; and at the very least there must needs be two or three days'

interval. But it cannot be said that he pa.s.sed this time in terrible anxiety. He was secretly hopeful; so much so that he had begged Mr.

Tom, who ought to have gone back before this time, to wait another day or so. His private reason was that he hoped to accompany Madge's brother to Brighton.

All the same, the crisis of a man's life cannot approach without causing some mental disturbance, even in the most hopeful. Long before the Kingscourt family had a.s.sembled round the breakfast-table, Frank King had ridden over, on these two or three cold mornings, to the postal town, which was nearly two miles off, so that he should not have to wait for the arrival of the bag. And at last came a letter with the Brighton postmark. He glanced at the handwriting, and thought it was Madge's. That was enough. He put it in his pocket without opening it; went out and got on his horse; and went well outside the little town into the quietude of the lanes before putting his hand into his pocket again and taking the letter out.

No, he was not very apprehensive about the result, or he could not have carried the letter thus far unopened. But all the same the contents surprised him. He had expected, at the worst, some mild refusal on the ground of haste; and, at the best, an evasive hint that he might come to Brighton and talk to Lady Beresford. But all the writing on this sheet of paper consisted of two words, '_From Madge;_' and what accompanied them was a bit of forget-me-not--not painted, this time, but a bit of the real flower. It was a pretty notion. It confessed much, without saying much. There was a sort of maiden reticence about it, and yet kindness, and hope. What Frank King did not know was this--that it was Nan Beresford who had suggested that answer to his letter.

He never knew how he got home that morning. He was all in a tempest of eagerness and delight; he scarcely lived in to-day--it was next day.

It was the future that seemed to be around him. He burst into his friend's bed-room before the breakfast gong had sounded.

'Beresford, I'll go with you whenever you like now. Whenever you like.

I'm going to Brighton with you, I mean.'

'Oh, that's it, is it?' said Mr. Tom, without looking up--he was tying his shoes.

'I've heard from your sister, you know----'

'I thought so. It's all right then, is it?'

'I hope so. I'm very glad it's settled. And you know I don't want to turn you out of the house; but you've been very kind, waiting a day or two longer; and I _should_ like to get to Brighton at once.'

'I'll start in five minutes if you like,' said Mr. Tom, coolly, having finished with his shoes. 'And I suppose I ought to congratulate you.

Well, I do. She's a very good sort of a girl. Only----'

He hesitated. It was inauspicious.

'What do you mean?' said Captain Frank.