"Why on earth didn"t you let me know at once?"
I heard him laugh. "I"ll tell you when I see you. By the way, can Barbara have me for the week-end?"
This was like Jaffery. Most men would have asked me, taking Barbara for granted.
"Barbara would have you for the rest of time," said I. "And so would Susan. I"ll expect you by the 11 o"clock train."
"Right," said he.
"And, I say!"
"Yes?"
"Talking of fair ladies--what about--?"
"Oh, h.e.l.l!" came Jaffery"s great voice. "She"s here right enough."
"Where?" I asked.
"The Savoy. So is Euphemia--"
Euphemia was Jaffery"s unmarried sister, as like to her brother as a little wizened raisin is to a fat, bursting muscat grape.
"Euphemia has taken her on. Wants to convert her."
"Good Lord!" I cried. "Is she a Turk?"
"She"s a problem." And his great laugh vibrated in my ears.
"Why not bring her down with Euphemia?"
"I want a couple of days off. I want a good quiet time, with no female women about save Barbara and my fairy gra.s.shopper whom, as you know, I love to distraction."
"But will Euphemia be all right with her?"
I had not the faintest notion what kind of a creature the "problem" was.
"Right as rain. Euphemia has fixed up to take her to-morrow night to a lecture on Tolstoi at the Lyceum Club, and to the City Temple on Sunday.
Ho! ho! ho!"
His Homeric laughter must have shattered the Trunk Telephone system of Great Britain, for after that there was silence cold and merciless.
Well, perhaps it was just as well, for if we had been allowed to converse further I might have told him that another female woman, Doria Jornicroft, was staying at Northlands, and he might not have come.
Jaffery was always a queer fish where women were concerned. Not a chilly, fishy fish, but a sort of Laodicean fish, now hot, now cold. I have seen him shrink like a sensitive plant in the presence of an ingenue of nineteen and royster in Pantagruelian fashion with a mature member of the chorus of the Paris Opera; I ham e also known him to fly, a scared Joseph, from the allurements of the charming wife of a Right Honourable Sir Cornifer Potiphar, G.C.M.G., and sigh like a furnace in front of an obdurate little milliner"s place of business in Bond Street.
I do not, for the world, wish it to be supposed that I am insinuating that my dear old Jaffery had no morals. He had--lots of them. He was stuffed with them. But what they were, neither he nor I nor any one else was ever able to define. As a general rule, however, he was shy of strange women, and to that category did Doria belong.
When the lovers came in I told them my news. Adrian expressed extravagant delight. A little tiny cloud flitted over Doria"s brow.
"Shall I like him?" she asked.
"You"ll adore him," cried Adrian.
"I"ll try to, dear, because he seems to mean so much to you. Are you going up to town with us to-morrow?"
"There"s only a morning"s fitting at a dressmaker--no place for me," he laughed. "I"ll stay and welcome old Jaffery."
Again the most transient of tiny little clouds. But I could not help thinking that if Jaffery had been a woman instead of a mere man, there would have been a thunderstorm.
When we were alone Adrian threw himself into a chair.
"Women are funny beings," he said. "I do believe Doria is jealous of old Jaffery."
"You have every reason to be proud," said I, "of your psychological ac.u.men."
CHAPTER III
A fair-bearded, red-faced, blue-eyed, grinning giant got out of the train and catching sight of us ran up and laid a couple of great sun-glazed hands on my shoulders.
"Hullo! hullo! hullo!" he shouted, and gripping Adrian in his turn, shouted it again. He made such an uproar that people stuck wondering heads out of the carriage windows. Then he thrust himself between us, linked our arms in his and made us charge with him down the quiet country platform. A porter followed with his suit-case.
"Why didn"t you tell me that the Man of Fame was with you?"
"I thought I"d give you a pleasant surprise," said I.
"I met Robson of the Emba.s.sy in Constantinople--you remember Robson of Pembroke--fussy little c.o.c.k-sparrow--he"d just come from England and was full of it. You seem to have got "em in the neck. Bully! Bully!"
Adrian took advantage of the narrow width of the exit to release himself and I, who went on with Jaffery, looking back, saw him rub himself ruefully, as though he had been mauled by a bear.
"And how"s everybody?" Jaffery"s voice reverberated through the subway.
"Barbara and the fairy gra.s.shopper? I"m longing to see "em. That"s the pull of being free. You can adopt other fellows" wives and families. I"m coming home now to my adopted wife and daughter. How are they?"
I answered explicitly. He boomed on till we reached the station yard, where his eye fell upon a familiar object.
"What?" cried he. "Have you still got the Chinese Puffhard?"
The vehicle thus disrespectfully alluded to was an ancient, ancient car, the pride of many a year ago, which sentiment (together with the impossibility of finding a purchaser) would not allow me to sell. It had been a splendid thing in those far-off days. It kept me in health. It made me walk miles and miles along unknown and unfrequented roads. In the aggregate I must have spent months of my life doing physical culture exercises underneath it. You got into it at the back; it was about ten feet high, and you started it at the side by a handle in its midriff.
But I loved it. It still went, if treated kindly. Barbara loathed it and insulted it, so that with her as pa.s.senger, it sulked and refused to go.
But Susan"s adoration surpa.s.sed even mine. Its demoniac groans and rattles and convulsive quakings appealed to her unspoiled sense of adventure.
"Barbara has gone away with the Daimler," said I, "and as I don"t keep a fleet of cars, I had to choose between this and the donkey-cart. Get in and don"t be so fastidious--unless you"re afraid--"
He took no account of my sarcasm. His face fell. He made no attempt to enter the car.
"Barbara gone away?"
I burst out laughing. His disappointment at not being welcomed by Barbara at Northlands was so genuine and so childishly unconcealed.