'You know you were. Oh, I'm not thinking only about your views on the stage! It was everything. Whatever I did you were there to disapprove like a--like a--like an aunt,' she concluded triumphantly. 'You were too good for anything. If only you would, just once, have done something wrong. I think I'd have--But you couldn't. You're simply perfect.'

A man will remain cool and composed under many charges. Hint that his tastes are criminal, and he will shrug his shoulders. But accuse him of goodness, and you rouse the lion.

Mr Ferguson's brow darkened.

'As a matter of fact,' he said, haughtily, 'I was to have had supper with a chorus-girl this very night.'

'How very appalling!' said she, languidly.

She sipped her cocoa.

'I suppose you consider that very terrible?' she said.

'For a beginner.'

She crumbled her cake. Suddenly she looked up.

'Who is she?' she demanded, fiercely.

'I beg your pardon?' he said, coming out of a pleasant reverie.

'Who is this girl?'

'She--er--her name--her name is Marie--Marie Templeton.'

She seemed to think for a moment.

'That dear old lady?' she said.' I know her quite well.'

'What!'

'"Mother" we used to call her. Have you met her son?'

'Her son?'

'A rather nice-looking man. He plays heavy parts on tour. He's married and has two of the sweetest children. Their grandmother is devoted to them. Hasn't she ever mentioned them to you?'

She poured herself out another cup of cocoa. Conversation again languished.

'I suppose you're very fond of her?' she said at length.

'I'm devoted to her.' He paused. 'Dear little thing!' he added.

She rose and moved to the door. There was a nasty gleam in her eyes.

'You aren't going?' he said.

'I shall be back in a moment. I'm just going to bring your poor little office-boy up here. He must be missing you.'

He sprang up, but she had gone. Leaning over the banisters, he heard a door open below, then a short conversation, and finally footsteps climbing the stairs.

It was pitch dark on the landing. He stepped aside, and they pa.s.sed without seeing him. Master Bean was discoursing easily on cocoa, the processes whereby it was manufactured, and the remarkable distances which natives of Mexico had covered with it as their only food. The door opened, flooding the landing with light, and Mr Ferguson, stepping from ambush, began to descend the stairs.

The girl came to the banisters.

'Mr Ferguson!'

He stopped.

'Did you want me?' he asked.

'Are you going back to your office?'

'I am. I hope you will enjoy Bean's society. He has a fund of useful information on all subjects.'

He went on. After a while she returned to the room and closed the door.

Mr Ferguson went into his office and sat down.

There was once a person of the name of Simeon Stylites, who took up a position on top of a pillar and stayed there, having no other engagements, for thirty years. Mr Ferguson, who had read Tennyson's poem on the subject, had until tonight looked upon this as a pretty good thing. Reading the lines:

...thrice ten years, Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs, In hunger and in thirsts, fevers and colds, In coughs, aches, st.i.tches, ulcerous throes, and cramps,...

Patient on this tall pillar I have borne.

Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow,

he had gathered roughly, as it were, that Simeon had not been comfortable. He had pitied him. But now, sitting in his office-chair, he began to wonder what the man had made such a fuss about. He suspected him of having had a touch of the white feather in him. It was not as if he had not had food. He talked about 'hungers and thirsts', but he must have had something to eat, or he could not have stayed the course. Very likely, if the truth were known, there was somebody below who pa.s.sed him up regular supplies of cake and cocoa.

He began to look on Simeon as an overrated amateur.

Sleep refused to come to him. It got as far as his feet, but no farther. He rose and stamped to restore the circulation.

It was at this point that he definitely condemned Simeon Stylites as a sybaritic fraud.

If this were one of those realistic Zolaesque stories I would describe the crick in the back that--but let us hurry on.

It was about six hours later--he had no watch, but the numbers of aches, st.i.tches, not to mention cramps, that he had experienced could not possibly have been condensed into a shorter period--that his manly spirit snapped. Let us not judge him too harshly. The girl upstairs had broken his heart, ruined his life, and practically compared him to Roland Bean, and his pride should have built up an impa.s.sable wall between them, but--she had cake and cocoa. In similar circ.u.mstances King Arthur would have grovelled before Guinevere.

He rushed to the door and tore it open. There was a startled exclamation from the darkness outside.

'I hope I didn't disturb you,' said a meek voice.

Mr Ferguson did not answer. His twitching nostrils were drinking in a familiar aroma.

'Were you asleep? May I come in? I've brought you some cake and cocoa.'

He took the rich gifts from her in silence. There are moments in a man's life too sacred for words. The wonder of the thing had struck him dumb. An instant before and he had had but a desperate hope of winning these priceless things from her at the cost of all his dignity and self-respect. He had been prepared to secure them through a shower of biting taunts, a blizzard of razor-like 'I told you so's'. Yet here he was, draining the cup, and still able to hold his head up, look the world in the face, and call himself a man.