What a gang! And the best blood in England! If that"s England"s idea of good blood give me Hoboken! This settles it. I was a chump ever to come to a country like this. Property isn"t safe here. I"m going back to America on the next boat.
"Where"s my check book? I"m going to write you that check right away. You"ve earned it. Listen, young man; I don"t know what your ideas are, but if you aren"t chained to this country I"ll make it worth your while to stay on with me. They say no one"s indispensable, but you come mighty near it. If I had you at my elbow for a few years I"d get right back into shape. I"m feeling better now than I have felt in years--and you"ve only just started in on me.
"How about it? You can call yourself what you like--secretary or trainer, or whatever suits you best. What you will be is the fellow who makes me take exercise and stop smoking cigars, and generally looks after me. How do you feel about it?"
It was a proposition that appealed both to Ashe"s commercial and to his missionary instincts. His only regret had been that, the scarab recovered, he and Mr. Peters would now, he supposed, part company. He had not liked the idea of sending the millionaire back to the world a half-cured man. Already he had begun to look on him in the light of a piece of creative work to which he had just set his hand.
But the thought of Joan gave him pause. If this meant separation from Joan it was not to be considered.
"Let me think it over," he said.
"Well, think quick!" said Mr. Peters.
It has been said by those who have been through fires, earthquakes and shipwrecks that in such times of stress the social barriers are temporarily broken down, and the spectacle may be seen of persons of the highest social standing speaking quite freely to persons who are not in society at all; and of quite nice people addressing others to whom they have never been introduced. The news of Aline Peters" elopement with George Emerson, carried beyond the green-baize door by Slingsby, the chauffeur, produced very much the same state of affairs in the servants" quarters at Blandings Castle.
It was not only that Slingsby was permitted to penetrate into the housekeeper"s room and tell his story to his social superiors there, though that was an absolutely unprecedented occurrence; what was really extraordinary was that mere menials discussed the affair with the personal ladies and gentlemen of the castle guests, and were allowed to do so uncrushed. James, the footman--that pushing individual--actually shoved his way into the room, and was heard by witnesses to remark to no less a person than Mr. Beach that it was a bit thick.
And it is on record that his fellow footman, Alfred, meeting the groom of the chambers in the pa.s.sage outside, positively prodded him in the lower ribs, winked, and said: "What a day we"re having!" One has to go back to the worst excesses of the French Revolution to parallel these outrages. It was held by Mr. Beach and Mrs. Twemlow afterward that the social fabric of the castle never fully recovered from this upheaval. It may be they took an extreme view of the matter, but it cannot be denied that it wrought changes. The rise of Slingsby is a case in point. Until this affair took place the chauffeur"s standing had never been satisfactorily settled. Mr. Beach and Mrs. Twemlow led the party which considered that he was merely a species of coachman; but there was a smaller group which, dazzled by Slingsby"s personality, openly declared it was not right that he should take his meals in the servants" hall with such admitted plebeians as the odd man and the steward"s-room footman.
The Aline-George elopement settled the point once and for all.
Slingsby had carried George"s bag to the train. Slingsby had been standing a few yards from the spot where Aline began her dash for the carriage door. Slingsby was able to exhibit the actual half sovereign with which George had tipped him only five minutes before the great event. To send such a public man back to the servants" hall was impossible. By unspoken consent the chauffeur dined that night in the steward"s room, from which he was never dislodged.
Mr. Judson alone stood apart from the throng that cl.u.s.tered about the chauffeur. He was suffering the bitterness of the supplanted.
A brief while before and he had been the central figure, with his story of the letter he had found in the Honorable Freddie"s coat pocket. Now the importance of his story had been engulfed in that of this later and greater sensation, Mr. Judson was learning, for the first time, on what unstable foundations popularity stands.
Joan was nowhere to be seen. In none of the spots where she might have been expected to be at such a time was she to be found. Ashe had almost given up the search when, going to the back door and looking out as a last chance, he perceived her walking slowly on the gravel drive.
She greeted Ashe with a smile, but something was plainly troubling her. She did not speak for a moment and they walked side by side.
"What is it?" said Ashe at length. "What is the matter?"
She looked at him gravely.
"Gloom," she said. "Despondency, Mr. Marson--A sort of flat feeling. Don"t you hate things happening?"
"I don"t quite understand."
"Well, this affair of Aline, for instance. It"s so big it makes one feel as though the whole world had altered. I should like nothing to happen ever, and life just to jog peacefully along.
That"s not the gospel I preached to you in Arundell Street, is it!
I thought I was an advanced apostle of action; but I seem to have changed. I"m afraid I shall never be able to make clear what I do mean. I only know I feel as though I have suddenly grown old.
These things are such milestones. Already I am beginning to look on the time before Aline behaved so sensationally as terribly remote. To-morrow it will be worse, and the day after that worse still. I can see that you don"t in the least understand what I mean."
"Yes; I do--or I think I do. What it comes to, in a few words, is that somebody you were fond of has gone out of your life. Is that it?"
Joan nodded.
"Yes--at least, that is partly it. I didn"t really know Aline particularly well, beyond having been at school with her, but you"re right. It"s not so much what has happened as what it represents that matters. This elopement has marked the end of a phase of my life. I think I have it now. My life has been such a series of jerks. I dash along--then something happens which stops that bit of my life with a jerk; and then I have to start over again--a new bit. I think I"m getting tired of jerks. I want something stodgy and continuous.
"I"m like one of the old bus horses that could go on forever if people got off without making them stop. It"s the having to get the bus moving again that wears one out. This little section of my life since we came here is over, and it is finished for good.
I"ve got to start the bus going again on a new road and with a new set of pa.s.sengers. I wonder whether the old horses used to be sorry when they dropped one lot of pa.s.sengers and took on a lot of strangers?"
A sudden dryness invaded Ashe"s throat. He tried to speak, but found no words. Joan went on:
"Do you ever get moods when life seems absolutely meaningless?
It"s like a badly-constructed story, with all sorts of characters moving in and out who have nothing to do with the plot. And when somebody comes along that you think really has something to do with the plot, he suddenly drops out. After a while you begin to wonder what the story is about, and you feel that it"s about nothing--just a jumble."
"There is one thing," said Ashe, "that knits it together."
"What is that?"
"The love interest."
Their eyes met and suddenly there descended on Ashe confidence.
He felt cool and alert, sure of himself, as in the old days he had felt when he ran races and, the nerve-racking hours of waiting past, he listened for the starter"s gun. Subconsciously he was aware he had always been a little afraid of Joan, and that now he was no longer afraid.
"Joan, will you marry me?"
Her eyes wandered from his face. He waited.
"I wonder!" she said softly. "You think that is the solution?"
"Yes."
"How can you tell?" she broke out. "We scarcely know each other.
I shan"t always be in this mood. I may get restless again. I may find it is the jerks that I really like."
"You won"t!"
"You"re very confident."
"I am absolutely confident."
""She travels fastest who travels alone,"" misquoted Joan.
"What is the good," said Ashe, "of traveling fast if you"re going round in a circle? I know how you feel. I"ve felt the same myself. You are an individualist. You think there is something tremendous just round the corner and that you can get it if you try hard enough. There isn"t--or if there is it isn"t worth getting. Life is nothing but a mutual aid a.s.sociation. I am going to help old Peters--you are going to help me--I am going to help you."
"Help me to do what?"
"Make life coherent instead of a jumble."
"Mr. Marson---"
"Don"t call me Mr. Marson."
"Ashe, you don"t know what you are doing. You don"t know me.
I"ve been knocking about the world for five years and I"m hard--hard right through. I should make you wretched."