Part 9 (1/2)

n.o.body's shocked at it any longer. Terry isn't. Lloyd George isn't--at least he pretends he isn't for fear the wild beasts may lose him an election. No one makes a stand. It's left for private individuals like ourselves, to----”

”To do what?”

Sir Tobias lost his stride. He blinked reproachfully. ”To get them back into their cages.”

For an instant Tabs nearly smiled. ”And Adair--is he the first wild beast we tackle? Have we got to get him back into the cage of matrimony?

Tell me about Adair.”

”It was no cage.” Sir Tobias spoke almost resentfully. ”His home was a kind of nest and Phyllis was the mother-bird.”

The butler had looked in several times to see whether he was free to clear away. For the first time Sir Tobias became aware of him pottering in the shadows. ”Perhaps we'd better continue in my library.”

He pushed back his chair, dropped his napkin, groped after it feebly, then led the way solemnly across the hall. When he had seated himself before the fire and fortified his courage with a fresh cigar, he plunged headlong into the story of his son-in-law's delinquencies.

IX

”How a man who has a daughter of mine for his wife can find attraction in any other woman is more than I can fathom.”

”I agree with you there, sir.” Tabs suddenly found himself carried off his feet and on the point of a confession. ”If any man were to play false by Terry, I think--I think I'd brain him.”

Sir Tobias half-closed his eyes and regarded his guest with sleepy approval. ”I somehow knew,” he said slowly, ”that that was how you felt.” Then he opened his eyes wide and darted forward in his chair, as though to trace exactly the effect of his words. He was full of tricks and contradictions, obstinacies and tendernesses, this Punch-like old gentleman with the head of Shakespeare. ”I knew that was how you felt,”

he continued, ”because you've seen all the love that has gone to their making. You were already a big fellow when they were still tiny. Wasn't it Terry who first called you Tabs because her tongue couldn't get round Taborley? Ah, I've been so proud of my girls! They were so little and white when they first came to us. They couldn't walk--not a step. One had to carry them everywhere. Then they began to crawl; they couldn't stand up right unless one gave them his hand. And then at last they walked. They walked by one's side at first and soon got tired. But as they grew stronger, they walked away and away, always getting more incomprehensible, till finally--it hasn't happened to Terry yet--till finally they met a man. Wait till you're a father, Lord Taborley; from the moment you give all that whiteness into another's keeping, you never cease to be jealous of him. He can never appreciate what a gift you have made him. He never saw her when she was little and helpless. She's your youth--she's everything vigorous that you were. The first time he affords you with a reason for hating him, you'll hate him like---- The way you said: so that you could brain him without compunction.

Adair----I could cheerfully kill him.”

Tabs felt rather than heard the pent-up pa.s.sion in his voice; it alarmed him with its sincerity. ”But mayn't you be exaggerating?” he suggested.

”Are you sure that Adair---- What I mean to say is, he may be only philandering. Heaps of men do that--go through all the motions of making fools of themselves and actually do nothing. He may be only expressing the discontent of the moment, the revolt from suspense, the flatness of quiet after terrible excitements. One didn't need to be a fighting-man to share those excitements. You say that Phyllis made a nest of her home. Perhaps he didn't like nests. It may be that that's done it. Adair can't have altered so radically over night; he wasn't forceful enough to erupt so disastrously. He was decent----”

”I know nothing definite.” The pa.s.sion had died down. It was again an old and weary man who spoke. ”I only know that she believes he's abandoning her and that it makes her wretched. She wants him back; if there's any way of getting him back, she must have him. I never denied anything to my girls. If money will persuade him, it's for you to find out how much. If this Lockwood woman has a price, let her state it. I'll spare nothing. Though everything else has lost its value, money still has the power to purchase. I can't buy back faithfulness and loyalty; but I should be able to buy the appearance of it. If I were you I would tackle this Lockwood woman first.”

He tossed the stub of his cigar towards the fire. It fell short in the grate. He picked it up and rammed it deep into the burning coals. He looked a poor, old, pitiful child, uttering embittered heresies. ”All women are mercenary; all of them except my wife and daughters. Ah, yes, and Lady Dawn.”

Tabs wondered what Lady Dawn had done to gain exemption from this sweeping accusation. ”I'll see this Maisie Lockwood to-morrow,” he said, ”if you can tell me where she lives.”

Sir Tobias had risen and was seating himself at his desk. ”I'll copy you out her address. I have it somewhere buried among these papers.”

He had hidden it so thoroughly that it took a few minutes to find. As he rustled sundry sheets and stooped over them round-shouldered, Tabs had time to reflect. Terry! Where was she? She was so little and unprotected and white. Would a day ever come when a man would play her false? At this moment he had it in his power to prevent that day from ever arriving.

”Ah, here it is!” It was his host talking. Then the painful scratching of the pen commenced.

”Sir Tobias, I want to speak to you about Terry.” The scratching of the pen stopped, but the shoulders remained bowed. ”This is an unfortunate night for me to choose to talk to you about her, but---- To tell the truth, I feel that if I don't speak to-night I may lose my chance.”

”What do you want to say about her?” The shoulders had unhunched themselves, but the head had not turned.

”Only this, that I've loved her for a very long while and that if you don't think I'm too old, I should like your permission to ask her to marry me.”

Tabs thought to himself with a glow of satisfaction, ”At last I've done it. And done it in just the way and at just the time that I'd always planned.”