I was sitting in one of the Windsor chairs when Mr. Hobson came into the room. He was a dejected-looking man of middle age, with refined features and courteous manners, and my heart leapt as I thought of the solace I was about to bring to his over-burdened mind.

"Mr. Hobson," I said, coming at once to the point, "I have heard your sad story, and I have come to offer you some small relief. I am prepared to accept from you the sum of twenty thousand pounds, and I hope that with this a.s.sistance you will be able to make a fresh start and get free of your difficulties."

His thin face, already beginning to fill out from the course of high feeding to which he had been brought, flushed eagerly, and his eyes brightened, but sank immediately to their previous unhappy dullness.

"You are very kind, Mr. Howard," he said, "but I am beyond help, I fear.

I could not hold out any hope of asking you to repay me. My spirit is broken. Nothing goes right with me. A week ago I might have accepted such relief, and promised to take back the money when times were brighter. But they will never be brighter for me. I could not even use the interest you would pay me for a sum of twenty thousand pounds."

"But I don't want to pay the money back, and I don't want to pay any interest," I a.s.sured him. "I am not a money borrower. I have a good deal less than I know what to do with, and nothing will give me greater pleasure than to receive twenty thousand pounds, or even thirty thousand, as a free gift from you. We should keep the transaction entirely to ourselves, and n.o.body outside need know anything about it at all."

He stared at me in amazement, and then suddenly broke down altogether, and sobbed. "Oh, it is too much!" he cried. "Who are you, that you come as a messenger of hope, when nothing but ruin and darkness seemed to surround me? And why do you do it?"

These were rather awkward questions. "Never mind that," I said.

"Everybody has his own axe to grind, and I a.s.sure you that you will oblige me as much as I shall oblige you by presenting me with twenty thousand pounds, or even thirty thousand, as I said. Yes, we will make it thirty thousand. You shall write me a cheque at once--to bearer--and I will go straight to the bank and get the money."

When I had overcome his resistance, which wasted a lot of time, he told me that he could not write me a cheque as every penny that came in was reinvested at once, in a mad effort to lose it. "But if you are really serious," he said, "I can give you stocks and shares to the amount you so generously mention, and you can realize on them, or keep them on the chance of going down if you like, which they might do for you but will never do for me."

I was a little disappointed, but it made it easier for me in one way, for I could pretend that I hoped the securities would show a downward movement; and it also made it easier for him. Before we had completed our business, Mr. Hobson had almost persuaded himself that he was doing me a good turn in presenting me with the shares, which he said were bound to lose me a large fortune if I could hold on to them long enough; and I encouraged him to believe that I _should_ hold on to them with that end in view.

It ended in my accepting thirty-five thousand one pound shares in the Mount Lebanon gold mine, the purchase of which had been the chief cause of Mr. Hobson's downfall.

"I bought them at a low figure," he said. "I had been told that the reef would peter out immediately. But I had no sooner bought them than they found another still richer one, and they have been paying forty per cent ever since. They now stand at about eighty shillings, but I do believe that the end is in sight, and they may come down with a run any day. If only I could have stuck to them! But, oh, Mr. Howard, how can I ever thank you? With this burden removed, I shall be able to right myself by degrees. I shall be a new man."

He looked it already. His eyes sparkled, and he held his head erect. But when he suggested calling his wife to thank me for all I had done, I rose and said I must be going.

"Now it is understood that n.o.body knows about this," I said. "And please don't thank me any more. I know what I am doing, and I a.s.sure you I am very pleased to have these Mount Lebanons."

I shook hands with him, and got out of the house as quickly as he and the servants would let me.

I was a little frightened by what I had done. After intending to accept only twenty thousand pounds, I had promised to take over shares worth about seven times that amount, if I realised on them at their present figure; and I knew that I should be considered to have committed an act of sheer lunacy if it came to the ears of Mr. Perry or Edward. Besides, I could hardly get used to the idea all at once that I had suddenly become a rich man, and feared some stroke of fate that would, after all, deprive me of my well-gotten wealth.

I had had to give Herman Eppstein's name as the stockbroker who would arrange the transfer, as he was the only one I knew. There was some risk that he would give me away, but I thought I should be able to impose secrecy on him, as he had not struck me as a man of much independence of character. At any rate, I must risk it. I decided to call on him that afternoon, and now made my way back to Magnolia Hall for luncheon.

CHAPTER XXV

An unpleasant surprise awaited me. I was informed by Mr. Blother, who came in answer to my ring at the bell, while I waited by the open door,[33] that Lord Potter had called while I was out, with an inspector of police, for the purpose of taking my finger-prints, and would return sometime in the afternoon.

"What infernal impudence!" I said, as Mr. Blother showed me into the morning-room, preparatory to informing Mrs. Perry that I had returned.

"I certainly shan't stay in."

"Oh, but you must," he said, "or they can have you up. Potter is dying to get at you. I gave him a piece of my mind this morning, but I can't say that it made much impression on him. I know Potter of old; we were at the university together. He is arrogance personified. He pretended not to know me this morning, and asked me a lot of questions about my master and mistress--as to how they spent their money, and whether there was any difficulty about keeping up the household bills to the proper figure. I told him plainly that if he had taken on the job of an inspector he had no right to come without his uniform, and if he hadn't the accounts of this house were no affair of his. The impudence of his pretending that he thought the Perrys were ordinary rich people whose house he could go in and out of just as it pleased him! I would not even take his name into them, and he went away without having got much change out of _me_. You stand up to him when he comes this afternoon. Satisfy the police that you had nothing to do with the burglary, and don't let him see that you are annoyed with him for putting them on to you. You will score off him best if you ignore him altogether. Well, I will tell Mrs. Perry that you are here. Mr. Howard, is it not? I don't think you gave me a card."

When the necessary formalities had been gone through, and I had taken my place at the luncheon-table, I asked what right Lord Potter had to accompany the police in their duties, and to make himself obnoxious to anyone whom he happened to dislike.

"None," said Mr. Perry emphatically.

But Mrs. Perry said: "Well, he is a member of the House of Lords. As such, he might consider it his duty to look into anything that he thought was going wrong."

"As a member of the House of Lords," said Mr. Perry didactically, "he has a share in making laws which we all have to obey. It is not part of his duty to administer them."

"I beg your pardon," said Lord Arthur. "I don't like Potter, but I must stand up for him there. It _is_ his duty as a member of the ruling cla.s.s to interest himself in public behaviour. The House of Lords has been shorn of much of its powers, but the influence of its members remains."

"As the son of a peer, my dear Arthur," said Mr. Perry, "you are quite right to stand up for your order, and if every peer were like your father there would be no objection to their claiming such rights as Lord Potter, for instance, claims--to have free entry into every house, in order that he may satisfy himself that its occupants are behaving themselves as they should do. But we are a democratic country, and, as things stand now, such a claim as that must be resisted, however reasonable it may have been a hundred years ago."

"I don't know that I altogether agree with you there, Perry," said Mr.

Blother. "I admit that it is intolerable that such a man as Potter should force an entrance into _your_ house, however you may choose to live. But you would hardly object to a peer entering the establishment of a man, let us say, like Bolster--an admitted member of the lower cla.s.ses."

"Edward would," said Tom. "He said the other day that however rich a man was he ought to be free from interference in his own house."

"Oh, but Edward is an advanced Socialist," said Lord Arthur. "He would deny that a peer was any better than anybody else."

"You would not go so far as to say, I suppose," said Mr. Blother, still addressing Mr. Perry, and at the same time handing him a mayonnaise of salmon, "that the House of Lords did not know what was good for the people--the common people, I mean--better than they know themselves?"

"I should deny," said Mr. Perry, "that each member of the peerage knew better than each member of the proletariat what was best for him."

"If that is the case," said Lord Arthur, in some excitement, "I beg to give you a month's notice, Mr. Perry. I can cope with Edward, but if _you_ are going to preach revolutionary views it is time I looked out for another situation. I only took service here because my father said that your political views were sound at bottom, although you went farther than he approved of in many ways."

"Oh, dear Lord Arthur!" said Mrs. Perry in her pleasant sensible voice, "you know that you mustn't take everything that my husband says literally. I am sure that he only means that peers who have no official position should be careful how they exercise their rights over other people."

"Quite so," said Mr. Perry, and went on to explain that n.o.blemen like Lord Blueberry, who accepted a post under Government, even if it were not actually one of inspection, were going the right way to work.

"As a postman," he said, "Victor Blueberry gains entrance to all the houses on his round in a way that cannot upset anybody, and none of those whom he visits can object to his making any investigations that he may wish to make, in the course of his duty, on their way of living. And the same is true of Hugh Rumborough, when he takes round their greens, although he is not in so strong a position because he is not an official. I only say that with the onward march of democracy it is no longer wise for a peer to pursue his investigations harshly."

This seemed to satisfy Lord Arthur, who withdrew his notice, and left the room for a time to compose himself.

Later on, when Mr. Blother had also left us to ourselves, Mr. Perry said: "Of course one has to be careful how one expresses one's self before Arthur. He doesn't see that what may be un.o.bjectionable in certain cases would be indefensible if it were acted upon everywhere. At one time a peer of the realm had the right to make his will prevail over everybody beneath his own rank; but the right has fallen into disuse, and is now only exercised in the case of those who are not in a position to resent it. Arthur would, no doubt, admit that it would be an intolerable state of affairs if _any_ peer took to interfering with _any_ commoner, whatever position he might hold; and that if it were done to any extent, the right would have to be taken away. It is only by exercising it carefully, and, as I say, on those who are not in a position to resent it, that the peers can expect to keep it at all."

"Then I understand," I said, "that Lord Potter, as a peer, really has the right to come and interfere with me, although he holds no official position."

"If you refuse to acknowledge his right," said Mr. Perry, "as _I_ certainly do, if he tries to force himself into this house he will not find any tribunal in the country that will punish you for it."

Miriam and I went into her garden after luncheon. When we had shut the gate and were alone together in that green and shady retreat, I took her sweet face between my hands and kissed it.

"They have been saying all sorts of things about me," I said. "Do you believe them?"

She looked me straight in the eyes, and laughed. "What, that you are not quite right in your head?" she asked.

"Well, that was Edward's idea. Blother inclines to the opinion that I was drunk."

"Mr. Blother is a very silly old man," said Miriam, "and dear old Edward is so taken up with his own affairs that one need never pay much attention to what _he_ says. But, John--truly now--you are not teasing me about England? You _can_ find your way there and it _is_ as nice as you say it is?"

"Of course I can find my way there. I only wish I could go and find it now, this minute, and take you with me."

She sighed. We were now sitting on the garden-seat. "I almost wish you could," she said. "I should like to get off all the bother of the wedding. I dread that more than anything."