"Good-night. Thanks again. And I hope we shall meet soon," he said cheerily.

Alec gave him a brief "Good-night" and a particularly formal military salute.

CHAPTER IX

DOCTOR MARY'S ULTIMATUM

Even Captain Alec was not superior to the foibles which beset humanity.

If it had been his conception of duty which impelled him to take a high line with Beaumaroy, there was now in his feelings, although he did not realize the fact, an alloy of less precious metal. He had demanded an ordeal, a test--that he should see Mr. Saffron and judge for himself. The test had been accepted; he had been worsted in it. His suspicions were not laid to rest--far from it; but they were left unjustified and unconfirmed. He had nothing to go upon, nothing to show. He had been baffled, and, moreover, bantered and almost openly ridiculed. In fact, Beaumaroy had been too many for him, the subtle rogue!

This conception of the case colored his looks and pointed his words when Tower Cottage and its occupants were referred to, and most markedly when he spoke of them to Cynthia Walford; for in talking to her he naturally allowed himself greater freedom than he did with others; talking to her had become like talking to himself, so completely did she give him back what he bestowed on her, and re-echo to his mind its own voice. Such perfect sympathy induces a free outpouring of inner thoughts, and reinforces the opinions of which it so unreservedly approves.

Cynthia did more than elicit and reinforce Captain Alec's opinion; she also disseminated it--at Old Place, at the Irechesters', at Doctor Mary's, through all the little circle in which she was now a constant and a favorite figure. In the light of her experience of men, so limited and so sharply contrasted, she made a simple cla.s.sification of them; they were Cransters or Alecs; and each cla.s.s acted after its kind. Plainly Beaumaroy was not an Alec; therefore he was Cranster, and Cranster-like actions were to be expected from him, of such special description as his circ.u.mstances and temptations might dictate.

She poured this simple philosophy into Doctor Mary's ears, vouching Alec's authority for its application to Beaumaroy. The theory was too simple for Mary, whose profession had shown her at all events something of the complexity of human nature; and she was no infallibilist; she would bow unquestioningly to no man's authority, not even to Alec's, much as she liked and admired him. There was even a streak of contrariness in her; what she might have said to herself she was p.r.o.ne to criticize or contradict, if it were too confidently or urgently pressed on her by another; perhaps, too, Cynthia's claim to be the Captain's mouthpiece stirred up in her a latent resentment; it was not to be called a jealousy; it was rather an amused irritation at both the divinity and his worshiper. His worshipers can sometimes make a divinity look foolish.

Her own interview with Beaumaroy at the Cottage had left her puzzled, distrustful--and attracted. She suspected him vaguely of wanting to use her for some purpose of his own; in spite of the swift plausibility of his explanation, she was nearly certain that he had lied to her about the combination knife-and-fork. Yet his account of his own position in regard to Mr. Saffron had sounded remarkably candid, and the more so because he made no pretensions to an exalted att.i.tude. It had been left to her to define the standard of sensitive honor; his had been rather that of safety or, at the best, that of what the world would think, or even of what the hated cousins might attempt to prove. But there again she was distrustful, both of him and of her own judgment. He might be--it seemed likely--one of those men who conceal the good as well as the bad in themselves, one of the morally shy men. Or again, perhaps, one of the morally diffident, who shrink from arrogating to themselves high standards because they fear for their own virtue if it be put to the test, and cling to the power of saying, later on, "Well, I told you not to expect too much from me!" Such various types of men exist, and they do not fall readily into either of Cynthia's two cla.s.ses; they are neither Cransters nor Alecs; certainly not in thought, probably not in conduct.

He had said at Old Place, the first time that she met him, that the war had destroyed all his scruples. That might be true; but it was hardly the remark of a man naturally unscrupulous.

She met him one day at Old Place about a week after Christmas. The Captain was not there; he was at her own house, with Cynthia. With the rest of the family Beaumaroy was at his best; gaily respectful to Mrs.

Naylor, merry with Gertie, exchanging cut and thrust with old Mr.

Naylor, easy and cordial towards herself. Certainly an attractive human being and a charming companion, pre-eminently natural. "One talks of taking people as one finds them," old Naylor said to her when they were left alone together for a few minutes by the fire, while the others chatted by the window. "That fellow takes himself as he finds himself!

Not as a pattern, a failure, or a problem, but just as a fact--a psychological fact."

"That rather shuts out effort, doesn't it? Well, I mean--"

"Strivings?" Mr. Naylor smiled. "Yes, it does. On the other hand, it gives such free play. That's what makes him interesting, makes you think about him." He laughed. "Oh, I dare say the surroundings help too--we're all rather children--old Saffron, and the Devil, and Captain Duggle, and the rest of it! The brain isn't overworked down here; we like to find an outlet."

"That means you think there's nothing in it really?"

"In what?" retorted old Naylor briskly.

But Mary was equal to him. "My lips are sealed professionally," she smiled. "But hasn't your son said anything?"

"Admirable woman! Yes, Alec has said a few things; and the young lady gives it us, too. For my part, I think Beaumaroy's just drifting. He'll take the gifts of fortune if they come, but I don't think there's much deliberate design about it. Ah, now you're smiling in a superior way, Doctor Mary! I charge you with secret knowledge. Or are you puffed up by having superseded Irechester?"

"I was never so distressed and--well, embarra.s.sed at anything in my life."

"Well, that, if you ask me, does look a bit queer. Sort of fits in with Alec's theory."

Mary's discretion gave way a little. "Or with Mr. Beaumaroy's? Which is that I'm a fool, I think."

"And that Irechester isn't?" His eyes twinkled in good-humored malice.

"Talking of what this and that person thinks of himself and of others, Irechester thinks himself something of an alienist."

Her eyes grew suddenly alert. "He's never talked to me on that subject."

"Perhaps he doesn't think it's one of yours. Perhaps your studies haven't lain that way? After all, no medical man can study everything!"

"Don't be naughty, Mr. Naylor" said Doctor Mary.

"He tells me that, in cases where the condition--the condition I think he called it--is in doubt, he fixes his attention on the eyes and the voice. He couldn't give me any very clear description of what he found in the eyes. I couldn't quite make out, anyhow, what he meant, unless it was a sort of meaninglessness, a want of what you might call intellectual focus. Do you follow me?"

"Yes, I think I know what you mean."

"But with regard to the voice I distinctly remember that he used the word 'metallic.'"

"Why, that's the word Cynthia used--"

"I dare say it is. It's the word Alec used in describing the voice in which old Mr. Saffron recited his poem, or whatever it was, in bed."

"But I've talked to Mr. Saffron; his voice isn't like that; it's a little high, but full and rather melodious."

"Oh, well then--" He spread out his hands, as though acknowledging a check. "Still, the voice described as metallic seems to have been Mr.

Saffron's; at a certain moment at least. As a merely medical question of some interest, I wonder if such a symptom or sign of--er--irritability could be intermittent, coming and going with the--er--fits! Irechester didn't say anything on that point. Have you any opinion?"

"None. I don't know. I should like to ask Dr. Irechester." Then, with a sudden smile, she amended, "No, I shouldn't!"

"And why not, pray? Professional etiquette?"

"No, pride. Dr. Irechester laughed at me. I think I see why now; and perhaps why Mr. Beaumaroy--" She broke off abruptly, the slightest gesture of her hand warning Naylor also to be silent.

Having said good-bye to his friends by the window, Beaumaroy was sauntering across the room to pay the like courtesy to herself and Naylor. Mary rose to her feet; there was an air of decision about her, and she addressed Beaumaroy almost before he was within speaking distance as it is generally reckoned in society.

"If you're going home, Mr. Beaumaroy, shall we walk together? It's time I was off, too."

Beaumaroy looked a little surprised, but undoubtedly pleased. "Well, now, what a delightful way of prolonging a delightful visit. I'm truly grateful, Dr. Arkroyd."

"Oh, you needn't be!" said Mary with a little toss of her head.

Naylor watched them with amus.e.m.e.nt. "He'll catch it on that walk!" he was thinking. "She's going to let him have it! I wish I could be there to hear." He spoke to them openly: "I'm sorry you must both go, but, since you must, go together. Your walk will be much pleasanter."

Mary understood him well enough, and gave him a flash from her eyes. But Beaumaroy's face betrayed nothing, as he murmured politely: "To me, at all events, Mr. Naylor."

Naylor was not wrong as to Mary's mood and purpose. But she did not find it easy to begin. Pretty quick at a retort herself, she could often foresee the retorts open to her interlocutor. Beaumaroy had provided himself with plenty: the old man's whim; the access to the old man so willingly allowed, not only to her but to Captain Alec; his own candor carried to the verge of self-betrayal. Oh, he would be full of retorts, supple and dexterous ones! As this hostile accusation pa.s.sed through her mind, she awoke to the fact that she was, at the same moment, regarding his profile (he, too, was silent, no doubt lying in wait to trip up her opening!) with interest, even with some approval. He seemed to feel her glance, for he turned towards her quickly--so quickly that she had no time to turn her eyes away.

"Doctor Mary"--the familiar mode of address habitually used at the house which they had just left seemed to slip out without his consciousness of it--"You've got something against me; I know you have! I'm sensitive that way, though not, perhaps, in another. Now, out with it!"

"You'd silence me with a clever answer. I think that you sometimes make the mistake of supposing that to be silenced is the same thing as being convinced. You silenced Captain Naylor--oh, I don't mean you've prevented him from talking!--I mean you confuted him, you put him in the wrong, but you certainly didn't convince him."

"Of what?" he asked in a tone of surprise.

"You know that. Let us suppose his idea was all nonsense; yet your immediate object was to put it out of his head." She suddenly added, "I think your last question was a diplomatic blunder, Mr. Beaumaroy. You must have known what I meant. What was the good of pretending not to?"

Beaumaroy stopped still in the road for a moment, looking at her with a rueful amus.e.m.e.nt. "You're not so easily silenced, after all!" he said, starting to walk on again.