Blue Horizon

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Blue Horizon

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.
rather important business, and the half-holiday made it possible for
him to go.
He noticed that Miss Foster, contrary to her usual custom, went
straight to the drawing-room directly after lunch, and he followed
her there with his question as to the whereabouts of his guest.
Miss Foster stood on the hearthrug in front of the fire--luncheon
was always earlier on half-holidays, and it was not yet two-thirty.
She looked more than usually formidable, and Tony trembled before
her. As he asked his question she waved him to a chair with a
majestic motion of the hand.
"Please sit down, Mr. Bevan," she remarked, in a hard voice. "I
want to speak to you on this very subject. I have no idea where Miss
Clonmell is. She flounced out of the house in a passion because I
had to speak to her about flirting with the boys; and I believe, but I
am not certain on this point--I believe that Mr. Johns accompanied
her, which explains his absence."
Tony did not sit down. On the contrary he remained for a full
minute exactly where he was, just inside the half-open door, and
stared amazedly at Miss Foster. In perfect silence he shut the door
and crossed the room till, standing beside her on the hearthrug, he
said slowly:
"I don't think I quite understand; did you say that in
consequence of something you had said to her Miss Clonmell left the
house?"
"Not for good, Mr. Bevan; don't look so anxious. She was in a
temper because I found fault with conduct that I know you, also,
would be the first to reprobate."
 Miss Foster spoke rather nervously. Tony's face was quite
expressionless, but there was an indefinable something in his
excessively quiet manner that caused her for the first time to
question whether she had been quite wise.
"I'm afraid I must ask you to explain exactly what has
happened, Miss Foster. I can't imagine any conduct on the part of
Miss Clonmell that could call for an expression of opinion so adverse
as to drive her from my house, even temporarily. And I cannot
conceive it possible that you should so address her if she was, as
you say, accompanied by Mr. Johns."
"Mr. Johns was not with her. He happened to be following me as
I came down the stairs. I did not see him when I spoke. What
happened was this: I found Miss Clonmell standing at the window of
the staircase trying to attract the attention of three of the bigger
boys by kissing her hand to them--a most----"
"My dear Miss Foster," Tony interrupted irritably, "how very
absurd. You must have misunderstood the whole occurrence. I've
known Miss Clonmell since she was a baby, and she is the very last
girl in the world to try to 'attract' any one's attention. She doesn't
need to. As to kissing her hand, it's a foreign gesture she has
acquired from much living abroad. I don't suppose the most
conceited ass of a boy in the whole College would misunderstand
her if he saw her."
Tony's face was no longer expressionless, and Miss Foster again
experienced that strange little tremor of fear.
"I can assure you, Mr. Bevan, had you seen what I saw, you
would not treat the affair so lightly. I beg you will not think I was
animated by any personal feeling in what I did."
 "Why should you be?" Tony asked simply, looking very hard at
Miss Foster the while.
"In speaking as I did to Miss Clonmell I was animated wholly by
a desire to do my duty by B. House. The honour of the house is very
dear to me."
Miss Foster's voice broke, and Tony was melted at once.
"I am sure it is," he said cordially; "but you must take my word
for it that in this instance you have been mistaken. And now, where
do you suppose that poor child is?"
"I should say she is almost certainly with Mrs. Wentworth,
pouring her fancied woes into a sympathetic ear."
Again Tony bent his searching gaze upon Miss Foster.
"Ah," he said thoughtfully, "that last remark of yours proves
conclusively how little you know Lallie. She would no more go and
complain of you to any one outside, than she would repeat a
confidence or carry a mischief-making tale."
Miss Foster made no reply.
"Well, I must go, but I hope I have made it quite clear to you
that you were mistaken; and please remember in future, should any
little difficulty occur, you must come to me and not deal directly with
Miss Clonmell. I came to ask you to go with her in my place to the
match this afternoon, but in view of what has happened and the fact
that Miss Clonmell has not returned, I suppose that is impossible. I
shall have to stay the night at Oxford, but hope to be back in time
for morning school to-morrow. May I beg you to adopt as
conciliatory a manner as possible to Miss Clonmell--even if you
cannot bring yourself to apologise to her? She is my guest, you see,
and it would be very distressing to me to think she is unhappy in my
house. Can I depend upon you in this, Miss Foster?" Tony's voice
was so pleading and he looked so unhappy that Miss Foster relented.
"I certainly could not apologise as I feel I was justified in what I
did. I shall make no reference whatever to what has passed. I think
that will be best; don't you?"
"Much best," said Tony warmly. "Please tell her how sorry I am
not to have seen her before I left."
As the door was shut behind him Miss Foster exclaimed:
"Oh, you poor, dear, duped, deluded, man!"
Meanwhile Lallie still strolled slowly up and down the bit of road
where she had rested with Mr. Johns. A soft rain began to fall and
she had no umbrella, but she was unconscious of the fact. Physically
she was tired and chilled, and really faint from hunger. Mentally, now
that her anger and indignation had cooled, she was depressed, but
inclined to think she had exaggerated the importance of the whole
affair.
"A storm in a teacup," thought Lallie, "and I've gone and
complicated the whole thing by vanishing in the society of Paunch.
Awfully decent of him to come with me, but Tony will wonder. He'll
set Germs in her place, but he'll ask me what it was all about, and if
he discovers that Germs and I are not the dear friends he pictures
us, he'll worry, and to be a worrying guest is what I can't bear. I
wonder what I'd better do?"
For a whole hour Lallie walked up and down that little bit of
road in the rain, resting at intervals upon the exceedingly wet green
seat, till at last the grey twilight of the short November afternoon
began to close about her. A passing man looked so hard at her that
she grew nervous and set off at a great pace for B. House.
 Tony was worried and distressed. His interview with Miss Foster
had revealed to him a state of matters he had, it is true, once or
twice dimly conjectured: always putting his misgivings from him as
unfair and ungenerous to Miss Foster. He kept his hansom waiting till
the last minute in the hope that Lallie would return before he had to
go.
With the excuse of getting her to keep Val till he was safely out
of the house, he sought the matron and begged her to see that tea
was taken up to Miss Clonmell's room directly she came in, and that
her fire should be lit at once. He hung about looking so miserable
and undecided, that Matron, who had heard the whole story of the
why and wherefore of Lallie's absence from Ford--how do servants
always know everything that goes on?--was emboldened to remark
consolingly:
"It will be all right, sir; these little storms soon blow over. We all
know Miss Foster is just a little bit difficult at times; but she means
the best possible, and it soon passes. I'll look after Miss Clonmell
myself; you may depend upon me. She's a sweet young lady and
we're all devoted to her."
This was exactly what Tony wanted, and he departed somewhat
comforted.
As he was getting into his cab Matron watched him from the
window, and poor Val, whining dismally, paws on the window-sill,
watched him too. As the cab vanished out of the drive Matron leant
down and patted Val, remarking:
"After all, what's thirty-seven? A man's at his best then, and
none the worse because he has always been so busy that he doesn't
even know what's the matter with him when he's got it--rash out all
over him--got it badly."

Thus it was that when Lallie returned to B. House, front door, front
hall, front stairs, though her boots were dreadful, she found a lovely
fire in her bedroom and Matron there arranging a little tea-table
beside the armchair on the hearth. Moreover Matron insisted on her
changing everything there and then, and helped her to do it, finally
dosing her with ammoniated quinine before she would give her any
tea. She asked no questions of Lallie, but while the girl devoured
crisp toast and a boiled egg, entertained her with various items of
College news, among them that there was a case of scarlet fever in
one of the houses.
"Isn't Miss Foster in a dreadful state?" asked Lallie.
"Well, she's worried and anxious, but so are we all. It's not the
right term for it either, and the boy can't have brought it back with
him--it's too late in the term--so the question is where did he get it?
One always dreads an epidemic of any kind in a large school. We
haven't had a real bad one for four years, and then it was in the
summer term, which was better. It's always so much easier to get
people well in summer."
"I got it that time too. Of course Paddy came back with it. Three
holidays in succession he came back with something, and gave it to
me every time; and he was so sick to have it in the holidays instead
of missing school. But I should think this house is pretty safe. I
never smelt so many disinfectants in my life till I came here--Come
in!"
 Miss Foster followed her knock, and she heard Lallie's last
words.
The fire, lit three hours before its proper time; the tea-table; the
presence of Matron; above all the certainty from the few words she
had overheard that she, herself, was the subject of their discourse,
all combined to rob her manner of any geniality she might have
intended to impart to it. So annoyed was she that Matron should
have taken upon herself to give Lallie tea without her--Miss Foster's
orders, and that Lallie, as she concluded, had actually lit her own fire
in the middle of the afternoon without by your leave of any sort, that
she found nothing to say but:
"You're back I see, and have had tea--are you unwell?"
"Thank you, no," Lallie answered with quite equal frigidity, "but
I was tired and hungry and very wet, and Matron was kind enough
to bring me some tea."
"Mr. Bevan asked me to tell you that he has been unexpectedly
called to Oxford and will not be back to-night."
"Won't you sit down, Miss Foster? Must you go, Matron? Thank
you so much. Matron told me Tony had to go; it was he who asked
her to see that I had tea. I hope it has not been troublesome?" Lallie
added politely, rising from her chair.
Miss Foster stood in the middle of the room, large, remote,
unapproachable; manifestly disapproving.
"I shall esteem it a favour, Miss Clonmell, if, in future, you will
let me know beforehand when you intend to be absent from a
meal."
"Certainly, Miss Foster; then I may as well tell you now that I
shall not be home for luncheon to-morrow. I'm so glad you reminded
me. Won't you sit down?"
Lallie herself sat down again in the big deep chair; so large was
it that she almost seemed to lie down in it as she leaned back and
stared fixedly at the fire. She looked so comfortable, so entirely at
her ease, that Miss Foster simply longed to give this impudent girl a
piece of her mind, but the events of the early afternoon had
somewhat shaken her serene faith in the innate wisdom of her
instincts. For years she had religiously tended the flame of her self-
confidence till it burned with a steady radiance upon the altar of her
beliefs. To-day, however, the flame had been blown upon by an
adverse wind of criticism; it flickered until its light resembled a will-
o'-the-wisp rather than the clear light of reason she had always
supposed it to be. Even the sight of the denuded eggshell upon
Lallie's empty plate, annoying anachronism at that hour though it
was, could not stir Miss Foster to engage in open conflict.
The graceful little figure in the loose white dressing-gown,
lolling in the chair, plainly awaited the first onslaught. Lazy and
luxurious, Lallie looked sideways at Miss Foster under her long
lashes and said sweetly:
"Do sit down: you look so uncomfortable standing there."
"No, thank you"; and in spite of herself Miss Foster replied quite
civilly. "I only came to deliver Mr. Bevan's message. Do you think you
will be well enough to come down to dinner?"
"I assure you I am not in the least ill. I will come down most
punctually. But, if you will excuse me, I will not change till it's time
to dress. I have letters to write and will do them here by this nice
fire. Thank you so much for coming to inquire for me."
 Miss Foster nearly answered: "I did nothing of the kind," but
again mistrust of the "will-o'-the-wisp" prevented her, and she sailed
out of the room without another word.
Lallie thrust out her little feet to the warmth and laughed.
"Dinner alone with Paunch and Germs will be rather a silent
meal," she reflected, "unless we discuss the probabilities of scarlet
fever, which we are sure to do. I'll finish Tony's waistcoat this
evening, for to-morrow I shall be out all day. Tony will be so
annoyed with me to-morrow that he'll forget all about the stupid
little stramash to-day. I hate to vex him, but I know if he guessed
half I have to bear from Germs it would vex him far more; and if he
got questioning me I might let out something, and for all his quiet
ways Tony is very observant. Germs was very civil this evening. I
wonder why? I suppose poor old Tony gave her a dressing down,
but it would hurt him frightfully to do it. She really is so splendid in
the house, and he does love to live at peace with all his fellow
creatures. He'd never enjoy a row as I do; but then, he's as English
as ever he can be. It's quite suitable that he should find fault with a
harum-scarum like me, that won't hurt him; but it's upsetting in the
extreme to run against such a solid body as old Germs, all knobs
and hard things that hurt when you charge into her.... I hope Mr.
Ballinger won't look upon it as encouragement if I ride Kitty to-
morrow. After all, why shouldn't I? We lent him a horse several
times when he was over in Kerry last spring, and it's much safer to
lend me a horse than him. I wish he was big and benevolent like
Tony. You always feel you could lean against Tony and he'd stand
steady as a rock. If you leant heavily against Mr. Ballinger he might
collapse. Tony really is a very great dear, he's so big all round--I hate
to vex him--but perhaps it'll clear the atmosphere a bit. I wish Mr.
Ballinger looked less like a passenger when he's outside a horse.... I
wonder----"
Lallie had ceased to wish or wonder, for she was fast asleep.

CHAPTER XIV

Lallie came down to breakfast in her habit. Miss Foster did not ask
where she was going or why she was riding so early, but contented
herself with a remark to the effect that the very short and skimpy
habits now in vogue were singularly ungraceful and unbecoming.
Lallie replied that the shortness of the habit mattered very little if
only the boots below it were irreproachable, and that after all a habit
was not for walking in and that it was better to look a bit bunchy on
foot than to be dragged if you happened to be thrown. Whereupon
Miss Foster made a complicated sort of sound, something between a
snort and a sniff, and the meal proceeded in silence.
Only by going straight into College from the station could Tony
take his class at the proper time, but immediately morning school
was over he rushed down to B. House, hoping to find Lallie and take
her up to watch the pick-up.
His letters were spread out on the hall table, and one,
conspicuous from the fact that it was unstamped, caught his eye at
once. He recognised the little upright writing so like Fitzroy
Clonmell's.
 As he read, Tony's honest face flushed, then paled to a look of
pain and perplexity.

"Tony, dear," it ran, "I've disobeyed you and gone to the opening
meet after all. I've not gone alone, and I assure you all will be well.
Yesterday, in the town, I met a hunting friend of whom we saw a
good deal last season, and he tempted me with a charming little
mare whose clear destiny it was to carry me once; anyway--I fell--I
gave in. His name is Ballinger--he is quite a nice man; but he doesn't
ride a bit better than you, Tony, dear, so except as an escort I don't
fancy I shall see much of him.
"This morning I had a letter from the Chesters up at Fareham,
and they have asked me to go from to-morrow till Tuesday. They
want me to sing at a Primrose meeting on Saturday; that I know you
won't mind: it will get rid of me for a few days, and give you all a
rest. Try not to be cross with me. I'm a tiresome wretch, I know, but
I am also your loving Lallie."

Very deliberately Tony folded the letter, put it back in the envelope,
and into his breast-pocket. He gathered up the rest of his letters and
went to his study, but he made no attempt to read them. He forgot
that he ought to go and watch the pick-up. He sat down by his desk,
staring straight in front of him at nothing.
Evidently, he reflected, Lallie was unhappy in B. House; glad to
get away. She was afraid he might say something to her about
yesterday, and regardless of his expressed wish, nay his command,
so far as he could be said to exercise any authority over her, she had
disobeyed him. It had never so much as entered the realm of
possibilities that she could defy him, and he was hurt. Never until
that moment did he realise how much he counted upon her steady
affection. He had always been so sure that he and Lallie thoroughly
understood each other. From the time, when a little baby in her
nurse's arms, she would hold out her own, struggling to be "taken"
by the tall, shy undergraduate; throughout the somewhat stormy
years of her childhood, when he was ever her confidant and her ally;
during the many holidays he spent with Fitz and his family in
Ireland, till the day, two years ago, when he first beheld her in a
long frock with her clouds of dusky hair bound demurely round her
head, and became aware with a little shock of foreboding that Lallie
was growing up--never had he doubted her. And when he had got
accustomed to her more grown-up appearance he speedily
discovered that the real and essential Lallie was unchanged, that she
was just as kind and merry and easily pleased, just as warm hearted
and quick tempered, as neat fingered and capable and unexpected,
as when her frocks reached barely to her knees.
"If I had seen her yesterday I don't believe she would have
done this," Tony thought to himself; "it's not like her somehow to
take the opportunity of my being away to do what she knows I
would have done my best to prevent had I been at home. And this
young Ballinger--he's no fit guardian for Lallie out hunting. Confound
him! I wish he had stayed in his own shire. Fitz said I was not to
discourage him, but I'm convinced he never meant she was to go
out hunting with him. I suppose he is going to these Chesters, too;
probably that's why she's going. I know nothing about the young
man, but, like Charles Lamb, 'I'll d---- him at a venture.' It's too bad
of Fitz shelving his parental responsibilities like this. Suppose
anything happened to her to-day----"
This thought was so disquieting that Tony got up and walked
about the room. Finally he opened and read his letters. Then Miss
Foster came and added to his anxieties by informing him that A. J.
Tarrant, a new boy, had that morning started a bad feverish cold and
complained of sore throat.
"No rash yet," Miss Foster added gloomily, "but of course we've
isolated him."
Altogether Tony wished he could have stayed in Oxford. Yet the
day seemed very long, and when half-past five at last arrived Tony
actually sprinted from the College to B. House.
A great wave of sound met him as he opened the front door.
Lallie was playing the overture to Tanhäuser. It certainly was neither
meek nor repentant music. Nevertheless Tony ejaculated "Thank
God!"
He opened the drawing-room door very gently. The ruddy
firelight glowed and gloomed in waves of flame and shadow, but the
opening of the door let in a long shaft of light from the hall, and with
a final crash of chords Lallie turned on the piano stool, demanding:
"Is it you, Tony?"
"I didn't need to ask if it was you, and it was a great relief, I
assure you. Had you a good day?"
Out of the shadows Lallie came forward into the ruddy circle of
light.
"Your voice doesn't sound quite pleased with me," she said. "I
must see your face to make sure. Please switch on a light and let me
see."
 She laid her little hands upon his shoulders and looked up
searchingly into his face. The bright glare of the electric light made
Tony blink, and he was so inexpressibly glad to see her again that
his joy wholly crowded out the reproachful expression he had
intended his homely features to assume.
He felt an overwhelming desire to take her in his arms, kiss her,
and implore her to swear she would never go away again. It was
only the certainty that she would kiss him back with the best will in
the world, probably bursting into tears of repentance on his
shoulder, that restrained Tony. He felt that it would not be playing
the game. So very gently, with big hands that trembled somewhat,
he removed those that lay so lightly on his shoulders and said, in a
matter-of-fact voice:
"Naturally I was anxious. You see I thought we had agreed that
there was to be no hunting until we heard from your father; and
how could I tell how this--Mr. Ballinger might have mounted you?"
Lallie clasped her hands loosely in front of her, and stood before
Tony with downcast eyes, and he forgot all about the matter under
discussion in admiring her eyelashes.
"I didn't exactly promise," she murmured; then louder: "no,
that's mean of me, and untruthful; I broke my word. I knew you
wouldn't wish me to go--but I went--and I enjoyed it--rather. Not
quite so much as I expected, though the little mare went like a bird.
It was quite a short run; I was back here by three o'clock."
"Who brought you back?"
"Who brought me back? My dear, good Tony, I'm not a parcel
nor a passenger; I came back. I studied the ordnance map of this
district that's hanging in your study for a good hour last night. It was
broad daylight when the run was over, and it's a very good country
for signposts. I returned. Did you see Mr. Ballinger's cards in the
hall? He came fussing here to see that I was all right when I was in
the middle of changing, and he dutifully asked for Miss Foster, but
she'd gone to the sewing-meeting for the Mission--I ought to have
been there; I forgot all about it; I'm so sorry--and she's not back
yet, so I sent down word that I was perfectly all right and resting, so
he went empty away, poor man, longing for tea, I've no doubt; so
must you be, we'll have it brought in here, Miss Foster won't be back
till six. Some one's reading a paper to them while they sew, poor
things! I'll have another tea with you, Tony. No lunch yesterday, no
lunch to-day, and to-morrow will be the third day, though Mr.
Ballinger did bring me a beautiful box of sandwiches, but I had no
time to eat them."
"Mr. Ballinger! Why should he bring you sandwiches? Why didn't
you ask Matron for some?"
"Oh, you dear goose! How could I ask for sandwiches when I
was supposed to be going out to lunch. What would Miss Foster
have said? Do you think anybody will tell her I went out hunting all
by my gay lonesome?"
"It depends how many people knew you in the field."
"Ah, there you touch me on a tender spot. With the exception of
one old curmudgeon who used to hunt sometimes with the
"Cockshots" at Fareham last year, there was no one I knew at all,
and he rode all round me staring, and then grunted out, 'Where's
your father, Miss Clonmell?' I passed him at the first fence, that's
one comfort; but you're right, Tony--I missed Dad. People stared at
me. It was all right when the hounds were running, I forgot
everything and everybody but the fun and excitement, but at the
meet it was horrid. Is your tea nice? Oh, it is good to have you back
again!"
"And you prove your joy at my return by going off to-morrow!"
"That's only for the week-end. I always promised them to help
at their old meeting--and me a Home-Ruler--isn't it an anomaly?"
"I didn't know that your politics were so pronounced."
"You might guess I'd be 'ag'in the Government,' whichever
party's in power. Neither really cares a jot for Ireland. I think the
Tories are perhaps the less hypocritical of the two. But any sort of a
political meeting is fun. I always long to shout, and boo, and kick the
floor. I think all the disturbances they're able to make is what is so
supremely attractive about the Suffragettes."
"Are you a Suffragette as well as a Home-Ruler? I shall begin to
be quite afraid of you."
"I should have been a Suffragette if I might have gone to
meetings, carried banners, or thumped on a gong to disturb Mr.
Winston Churchill, but Dad was quite stuffy about it, and put down
his foot--really put down his foot with a stamp; fancy Dad!--and
forbade me to have anything to do with any of them, so what was
the use? It wasn't the vote I wanted."
"Fitz really has, upon occasion, wonderful flashes of common
sense, even in his dealings with you."
"Now don't you be pretending to think Dad spoils me, for you
know very well he does nothing of the kind. He has never been petty
nor interfering, but in things that really matter, I'd no more think of
disobeying him than----"
 "Of going out hunting without asking his permission," Tony
suggested mildly. "And since we have approached the subject of
your general submissiveness, might I suggest that you fall in with
one little regulation of mine, mentioned on the very first evening you
came. Do you remember my asking you not on any account to use
the boys' part of the house?"
"Well, neither I have, ever."
"What about the back staircase?"
Lallie flushed angrily and began indignantly, "It wasn't my--";
then suddenly she stopped and said with studied gentleness, "I'm
sorry, Tony; you did forbid me, but I quite forgot that those stairs
came under your ban."
Tony smiled at her.
"That's all right then. You'll remember in future. In some ways,
Lallie, you are very like a boy."
"Good ways, I hope?" her voice was anxious.
"Some of them are quite good. Some of them--well, they are
apt to get other people in trouble. See what was sent to me by the
incensed master to whom the remarks refer," and Tony held out to
her a large sheet of lined paper, closely written in her own neat little
upright writing. The first few lines comprised a decorous statement
to the effect that "Marlborough underrated the difficulty of managing
a coalition. In his necessary absence abroad this difficult operation
was in the hands of Godolphin, always a timid minister without any
real political convictions," when suddenly the style of the Reverend J.
Franck Bright lapsed into the wholly indefensible statement that
"cross old Nick is a silly old Ass," and this was repeated line after line
throughout nearly half a page.
 Lallie gasped, then burst into uncontrollable laughter,
exclaiming:
"It's Cripps's lines. He told me he had to do five hundred, and
that no one ever looked at them, so I said I'd do three hundred for
him as he wanted awfully to play fives that day. So I copied the dry
old History Book till I was sick to death of the long words, and then
in the middle I put that in just to cheer things up. What had I better
do? Go and see Mr. Nichol, or what? He simply must not punish
Cripps. He knew nothing whatever about it, poor boy. I sent him the
lines in a neat bundle, and I don't suppose he ever looked at them."
"As it happened it was Mr. Nichol who looked at them, for Cripps
omitted the very simple precaution of putting his own pages on the
top, and as his writing in no way resembles yours, Mr. Nichol
naturally suspected extraneous assistance. He turned the pages over
and came upon the one you have in your hand--your capital 'A's'
simply jump to the eye. Naturally he was much annoyed, and I am
sorry to say he describes your friend Cripps as 'a surly, insubordinate
fellow,' and demands that he should be starred."
"But he can't be starred, for he didn't do it."
"That, very naturally, Cripps did not explain; and after all he is
responsible for the lines he gives up."
"Tony, have you seen Cripps?"
"I have."
"Oh, what did you say?"
"I told him that he was a lazy young dog, and ought to do his
lines himself; that I hadn't an ounce of sympathy with him, and that
he deserved all he got and more; but I need hardly say I did not
send him to the Principal with the suggestion that his prefect's star
should be taken from him."
"Oh, Tony, I hear Miss Foster; quick--ought I to run out and see
Mr. Nichol? I'm not a bit afraid of him."
"I think that the matter may now rest in oblivion; only let me
offer you one bit of sound advice. If you are charitable enough to
help any poor beggar with his lines, write large; it's a fearful waste
of energy to do neat little writing like that--eight words to a line is
the regulation thing--and, for Heaven's sake refrain from personal
remarks."
"Tony, you are a real dear. I will fly now, for Miss Foster may
want to talk to you about the house."
Lallie darted at Tony, dropped a hasty kiss on the top of his
head, and fled across the room, opening the door to admit Miss
Foster, who had removed her outdoor things. She never came into a
sitting-room before going upstairs; she considered it slovenly.
Tony folded the large closely written sheet of paper containing
the reiterated animadversions upon the intelligence of Mr. Nichol
senior, put it in his pocket, and rose to place a chair for Miss Foster,
who regarded the tea things with a look of acute distress.
"I took the opportunity," Tony remarked, "of speaking to Miss
Clonmell on the subject you mentioned to me yesterday afternoon,
and--er--I reminded her that I had on her first arrival asked her on
no account to use the boys' part of the house." Here Tony made a
little pause, as though he expected Miss Foster to make some
observation. "I confess that the fact of her being on that staircase at
all did surprise me," he added meditatively, looking full at Miss
Foster with kind, beseeching eyes.
 That lady flushed and sat up very straight in her chair, but she
did not meet his gaze.
"What explanation did Miss Clonmell give?" she asked.
"None; she expressed regret that she had forgotten my
prohibition, but said that she did not suppose that staircase came
under it, though why, I can't imagine."
Again Miss Foster felt herself encompassed by that glance, so
full of dumb, entreating kindness. This time she raised her eyes to
his and met them fairly as she said slowly:
"Perhaps I am somewhat to blame for Miss Clonmell's presence
upon that staircase, though you may imagine I never dreamt of the
use to which she would put it. I confess that it never occurred to me
as being in any way objectionable during the day. The boys never go
up or down, and she often has such exceedingly muddy boots--I
may have even suggested she should go that way. I am sorry----"
"It doesn't matter in the least really," Tony said heartily, and his
whole face beamed. "Thank you very much for explaining."
He did not add that it was just what he had suspected from the
first moment that Lallie's frivolous conduct was revealed to him; but
he meant Miss Foster to own up, and she had owned up. Had she
failed to do so Tony could never have respected her again.
"As to Lallie," he reflected tenderly, "you never know what she'll
do next, but there are things you can depend on her not doing, and
that's to try and drag any one else into the unpleasant results of her
vagaries. She'll never go back on any one, never make mischief; and
who the devil is Ballinger that he should have all this?"
 CHAPTER XV

That evening Lallie went into the study to say good-night to Tony.
He was reading by the fire, and she came and sat on the floor at his
feet, leaning back against his knees as she had done on the evening
he corrected papers in the drawing-room. The green silk bag was
slung over her arm, but her work was allowed to remain therein, and
for once she was content to let her hands lie idle.
"I've come early," she announced, "because if you're not very
busy I'd like a little chat. I've turned out the lights and shut the door,
for Miss Foster's not coming down again, she says. Isn't it funny to
like to go to bed so early?"
"She gets up early, I expect; and perhaps she's very tired at
night. Wouldn't you like a cushion or something, don't you find the
floor very hard?"
"I'm quite comfortable, thank you. Now listen to me, Tony. Do
you think I'm getting to an age when I'd be better with a home of
my own?"
With a mental ejaculation of "Ballinger!" Tony adjusted his mind
to the question, saying quickly:
"But surely you've got that already."
"No, Tony; that's just what I have not got. As long as old
Madame was alive it was all right. Dad came and went as he
pleased, but there was always the house for Paddy and me, whether
we were in France or in Ireland. But lately I've begun to feel I'm a
bit of a drag on Dad; you know how restless he is sometimes, how
unexpected----"
"It's a family failing, Lallie," Tony interrupted.
 "And, you see, when he rushes off he won't leave me alone in
whatever house we happen to be in, and Aunt Emileen seems no
comfort to him unless he's in the house along with her; and there's
all the fuss of arranging for me, and I'm sent off here and there on
visits, whether I like it or not; and I begin to feel that I've no abiding
place at all."
"Is your visit here one of the 'nots'?"
"Now that's nasty of you. You know I meant nothing of the kind,
and I jumped for joy when Dad said I should come to you for all
these months; but when Dad has been home for a bit and the first
delight in having me again has worn off, he'll want to be wandering.
If it's wandering I can do too, that's all right. I love going about with
Dad, but if it's somewhere that he doesn't care to take me, like this
time, then it'll all come over again--the placing out--and I hate it."
"But, Lallie, most young people like plenty of change and
variety; the one thing they cannot away with is monotony. That's
what most of them, girls especially, complain of."
"Tony, I'm going to make a confession." Lallie turned half round,
and leaning an elbow on his knee lifted her face, earnest and
serious, so that she might look into his. "I'm fond of a house. I like
housekeeping, and pottering, and looking after things, and ordering
dinner, and sewing, and mending, and arranging flowers, and
cooking if I want to, and I can cook well; and you can't do any of
these things in other people's houses--at least, only the sewing
part."
"I'm sure you may cook here if you wish to. I'll undertake to eat
anything you make if it's really good."
 "Oh, it's not that. I don't mean that I'd like to be always
cooking, but I like to feel that I've got a house to look after--my own
house. I'd be perfectly happy if Dad wanted a house, but he doesn't.
He kept it up for Paddy and me when we were small because he
thought it was the right thing to do; but now he doesn't seem to
think it so necessary. Poor man, he's too young to have grown-up
children, Tony, and that's a fact. He has small patience with Paddy,
because, you know, their interests clash. It's different with a woman,
the younger she is the prouder is she to have grown-up sons and
the cleverer she thinks herself that they are grown up. Don't you
think I'm right?"
"Your generalisation," Tony began deliberately, when Lallie
interrupted by pinching his knee and exclaiming:
"Now, none of the schoolmaster, I won't have it."
"As I was about to remark when you interrupted me, what you
say has a certain amount of truth in it, but your father has not yet
returned from India. When he does return he may not feel the
slightest inclination for wandering; at any rate, not for some
considerable time--so why worry?"
"I should like to feel settled and secure."
"My dear Lallie, you'll never feel settled, you're not that sort;
and as to security, pray in what way do you feel insecure at
present?"
Lallie removed her elbow from Tony's knee, she leant back
against him again so that he could not see her face, and said, very
low:
"I feel insecure because in the course of the next few weeks I'll
have to make up my mind definitely one way or other, and
whichever way it is, it seems to me I shall regret it."
Again the whole of Tony's mentality fairly cried the name of
Ballinger aloud, and although the stillness in the quiet room was so
great that you might have heard a pin drop it seemed that his
thought must have reached Lallie, for she broke the silence by
saying in quite a different tone:
"I wish you had met Dad's friend, Mr. Ballinger, Tony; I'd like to
know what you think of him."
"That can be easily managed; we'll ask him to dinner when you
come back."
"He is going to the Chesters, you know."
"I didn't know, but I'm glad to hear it for your sake, since you
like him."
"Then you don't think I'd be better in a home of my own--
married, I mean," said Lallie with startling bluntness.
"I never said anything of the kind."
"Well, you didn't seem to smile upon the notion."
"The notion, as you call it, appears to me in itself quite
admirable, if not exactly novel; but you would need to make sure,
wouldn't you? that the husband--I think a husband is included in
your scheme of felicity--is in keeping--in the picture as it were."
Tony's voice was dry as that in which he instilled the rules of
prosody into his form. In fact it was less impassioned, for on
occasion he waxed eloquent though vituperative when dealing with
that form's Latin prose.
Again Lallie turned half round and leant her elbow on his knee.
Again her grey eyes searched his face, apparently in vain, for some
clue to the tone in which he spoke.