Rachel followed with some oddments. Behold those two away together in the seclusion of the kitchen; and Mrs. Maldon and Julian alone in the parlour!

"Very fine!" muttered Julian, fingering the magnificent case of pipes.

Now that there were fewer spectators, his tongue was looser, and he could relent.

"I'm so glad you like it," Mrs. Maldon responded eagerly.

The world was brighter to her, and she accepted Julian's amiability as Heaven's reward for her renewal of courage.

IV

"Auntie-" began Louis, with a certain formality.

"Yes?"

Mrs. Maldon had turned her chair a little towards the fire. The two visitants to the kitchen had reappeared. Rachel with a sickle-shaped tool was sedulously brushing the crumbs from the damask into a silver tray. Louis had taken the poker to mend the fire.

He said, nonchalantly--

"If you'd care for me to stay the night here instead of Julian, I will."

"Well--" Mrs. Maldon was unprepared for this apparently quite natural and kindly suggestion. It perturbed, even frightened her by its implications. Had it been planned in the kitchen between those two?

She wanted to accept it; and yet another instinct in her prompted her to decline it absolutely and at once. She saw Rachel flushing as the girl industriously continued her task without looking up. To Mrs.

Maldon it seemed that those two, under the impulsion of Fate, were rushing towards each other at a speed far greater than she had suspected.

Julian stirred on his chair, under the sharp irritation caused by Louis' proposal. He despised Louis as a boy of no ambition--a b.u.t.terfly being who had got no farther than the adolescent will-to-live, the desire for self-indulgence, whereas he, Julian, was profoundly conscious of the will-to-dominate, the hunger for influence and power. And also he was jealous of Louis on various counts.

Louis had come to the Five Towns years after Julian, and had almost immediately cut a figure therein; Julian had never cut a figure.

Julian had been the sole resident great-nephew of a benevolent aunt, and Louis had arrived and usurped at least half the advantages of the relationship, if not more; Louis lived several miles nearer to his aunt. Julian it was who, through his acquaintance with Rachel's father and her masterful sinister brother, had brought her into touch with Mrs. Maldon. Rachel was Julian's creation, so far as his aunt was concerned. Julian had no dislike for Rachel; he had even been thinking of her favourably. But Louis had, as it were, appropriated her ...

From the steely conning-tower of his brows Julian had caught their private glances at the table. And Louis was now carrying trays for her, and hobn.o.bbing with her in the kitchen! Lastly, because Julian could not pa.s.s the night in the house, Louis, the interloper, had the effrontery to offer to fill his place--on some preposterous excuse about burglars! And the fellow was so polite and so persuasive, with his finicking eloquence. By virtue of a strange faculty not uncommon in human nature Julian loathed Louis' good manners and appearance--and acutely envied them.

He burst out with scarcely controlled savagery--

"A lot of good you'd be with burglars!"

The women were outraged by his really shocking rudeness. Rachel bit her lip and began to fold up the cloth. Mrs. Maldon's head slightly trembled. Louis alone maintained a perfect equanimity. It was as if he were invulnerable.

"You never know!" he smiled amiably, and shrugged his shoulders. Then he finished his operation on the fire.

"I'm sure it's very kind and thoughtful of you, Louis," said Mrs.

Maldon, driven to acceptance by Julian's monstrous behaviour.

"Moreover," Louis urbanely continued, smoothing down his trousers with a long perpendicular caress as he usually did after any bending--"moreover, there's always my revolver."

He gave a short laugh.

"Revolver!" exclaimed Mrs. Maldon, intimidated by the mere name. Then she smiled, in an effort to rea.s.sure herself. "Louis, you are a tease.

You really shouldn't tease me."

"I'm not," said Louis, with that careful air of false blank casualness which he would invariably employ for his more breath-taking announcements. "I always carry a loaded revolver."

The fearful word "loaded" sank into the heart of the old woman, and thrilled her. It was a fact that for some weeks past Louis had been carrying a revolver. At intervals the craze for firearms seizes the fashionable youth of a provincial town, like the craze for marbles at school, and then dies away. In the present instance it had been originated by the misadventure of a dandy with an out-of-work artisan on the fringe of Hanbridge. Nothing could be more correct than for a man of spirit and fashion thus to arm himself in order to cow the lower orders and so cope with the threatened social revolution.

"You _don't_, Louis!" Mrs. Maldon deprecated.

"I'll show you," said Louis, feeling in his hip pocket.

"_Please_!" protested Mrs. Maldon, and Rachel covered her face with her hands and drew back from Louis' sinister gesture. "Please don't _show_ it to us!" Mrs. Maiden's tone was one of imploring entreaty. For an instant she was just like a sentimentalist who resents and is afraid of hearing the truth. She obscurely thought that if she resolutely refused to see the revolver it would somehow cease to exist. With a loaded revolver in the house the situation seemed more dangerous and more complicated than ever. There was something absolutely terrifying in the conjuncture of a loaded revolver and a secret h.o.a.rd of bank-notes.

"All right! All right!" Louis relented.

Julian cut across the scene with a gruff and final--

"I must clear out of this!"

He rose.

"Must you?" said his aunt.

She did not unduly urge him to delay, for the strain of family life was exhausting her.

"I must catch the 9.48," said Julian, looking at the clock and at his watch.

Herein was yet another example of the morbid reticence which so pained Mrs. Maldon. He must have long before determined to catch the 9.48; yet he had said nothing about it till the last moment! He had said nothing even about South Africa until the news was forced from him. It had been arranged that he should come direct to Bursley station from his commercial journey in Yorkshire and Derbyshire, pa.s.s the night at his aunt's house, which was conveniently near the station, and proceed refreshed to business on the morrow. A neat arrangement, well suiting the fact of his birthday! And now he had broken it in silence, without a warning, with the baldest possible explanation! His aunt, despite her real interest in him, could never extract from him a clear account of his doings and his movements. And this South African excursion was the last and worst ill.u.s.tration of his wilful cruel harshness to her.

Nevertheless, the extreme and unimaginable remoteness of South Africa seemed to demand a special high formality in bidding him adieu, and she rendered it. If he would not permit her to superintend his packing (he had never even let her come to his rooms!), she could at least superintend the putting on of his overcoat. And she did. And instead of quitting him as usual at the door of the parlour, she insisted on going to the front door and opening it herself. She was on her mettle.

She was majestic and magnificent. By refusing to see his ill-breeding she actually did terminate its existence. She stood at the open front door with the three young ones about her, and by the force of her ideal the front door became the portal of an emba.s.sy and Julian's departure a ceremony of state. He had to shake hands all round. She raised her cheek, and he had to kiss. She said, "G.o.d bless you!" and he had to say, "Thank you."

As he was descending the outer steps, the pipe-case clipped under his arm, Louis threw at him--

"I say, old man!"

"What?" He turned round with sharp defiance beneath the light of the street-lamp.

"How are you going to get to London to-morrow morning in time for the boat-train at Waterloo, if you're staying at Knype to-night."

Louis travelled little, but it was his foible to be learned in boat-trains and "connections."

"A friend o' mine's motoring me to Stafford at five to-morrow morning, if you want to know. I shall catch the Scotch express. Anything else?"

"Oh!" muttered Louis, checked.

Julian clanked the gate and vanished up the street, Mrs. Maldon waving.

"What friend? What motor?" reflected Mrs. Maldon sadly. "He is incorrigible with his secretiveness."

"Mrs. Maldon," said Rachel anxiously, "you look pale. Is it being in this draught?" She shut the door.

Mrs. Maldon sighed and moved away. She hesitated at the parlour door and then said--