CHAPTER XXVIII.—ON ENJOYING A RESPITE.

IT was the first week in October when Harold Wynne found himself in London. He had got a letter from Beatrice in which she told him that she and her father would return to London from Holland that week. Mr. Avon had conscientiously followed the track of an Irish informer in whom he was greatly interested, and who had, at the beginning of the century, found his way to Holland, where he was looked upon as a poor exile from Erin. He had betrayed about a dozen of his fellow-countrymen to their enemies, and had then returned to Ireland to live to an honoured old age on the proceeds of the bargain he had made for their heads.

The result of Harold’s consideration of the position that he occupied in regard to Beatrice, was this visit to London. He made up his mind that he should see her and tell her that, like Mrs. Browning’s hero, he loved her so well that he only could leave her.

He could bring himself to do it, he felt. He believed that he was equal to an act of heroic self-sacrifice for the sake of the girl—that was how he put the matter to himself when being soaked on the Scotch mountain. Yes, he would go to her and tell her that the conclusion to which he had come was that they must forget one another—that only unhappiness could result from the relationship that existed between them. He knew that there is no more unsatisfactory relationship between a man and a woman than that which has love for a basis, but with no prospect of marriage; and he knew that so long as his father lived and continued selfish—and only death could divide him from his selfishness—marriage with Beatrice was out of the question.

It was with this resolution upon him that he drove to the address in the neighbourhood of the British Museum, where Beatrice said she was to be found with her father.

It was one of those mansions which at some period in the early part of the century had been almost splendid; now it was simply large. It was not the house that Harold would have cared to occupy, even rent free—and this was a consideration to him. But for a scholar who had a large library of his own, and who found it necessary to be frequently in the neighbourhood of the larger Library at the Museum, the house must undoubtedly have had its advantages.

She was not at home. The elderly butler said that Mr. Avon had found it necessary to visit Brussels for a few days, and he had thus been delayed on the Continent beyond the date he had appointed for his return. He would probably be in England by the end of the week—the day was Wednesday.

Harold left the gloom of Bloomsbury behind him, feeling a curious satisfaction at having failed to see Beatrice—the satisfaction of a respite. Some days must elapse before he could make known his resolution to her.

He strolled westward to a club of which he was a member—the Bedouin, and was about to order dinner, when someone came behind him and laid a hand, by no means gently, on his shoulder. Some of the Bedouins thought it de rigueur to play such pranks upon each other; and, to do them justice, it was only rarely that they dislocated a friend’s shoulder or gave a nervous friend a fit. People said one never knew what was coming from the moment they entered the Bedouin Club, and the prominent Bedouins accepted this statement as embodying one of the most agreeable of its many distinctive features.

Harold was always prepared for the worst in this place, so when the force of the blow swung him round and he saw an extremely plain arrangement of features, distorted by a smile of extraordinary breadth, beneath a closely-cropped crown of bright red hair, he merely said, “Hallo, Archie, you here? I thought you were in South Africa lion-hunting or something.”

The smile that had previously distorted the features of the young man, was of such fulness that it might reasonably have been taken for granted that it could not be increased; the possessor showed, however, that that smile was not the result of a supreme effort. So soon as Harold had spoken he gave a wink, and that wink seemed to release the mechanical system by which his features were contorted, for in an instant his face became one mouth. In plain words, this mouth of the young man had swallowed up his other features. All that could be seen of his face was that enormous mouth flanked by a pair of enormous ears, like plantain leaves growing on each side of the crater of a volcano.

Harold looked at him and laughed, then picked up a menu card and studied it until he calculated that the young man whom he had addressed as Archie should have thrown off so much of his smile as would enable him to speak.

He gave him plenty of time, and when he looked round he saw that some of the young man’s features had succeeded in struggling to the surface, as it were, beneath the circular mat of red hair that lay between his ears.

“No South Africa for me, tarty chip,” said Archie. (“Tarty chip” was the popular term of address that year among young men about town. Its philological significance was never discovered.)

“No South Africa for me; I went one better than that,” continued the young man.

“I doubt it,” said Harold. “I’ve had my eye on you until lately. You have usually gone one worse. Have you any money left—tell the truth?”

“Money? I asked the tarty chips that look after that sort of thing for me how I stood the other day,” said Archie, “and I’m ashamed to say that I’ve been spending less than my income—that is until a couple of months ago. I’ve still about three million. What does that mean?”

“That you’ve got rid of about a million inside two years,” said Harold.

“You’re going it blind,” said Archie. “It only means that I’ve spent fifty decimals in eighteen months. I can spare that, tarty chip.” (It may possibly be remembered that in the slang of the year a decimal signified a thousand pounds.) “That means that you’ve squandered a fortune, Archie,” said Harold, thinking what fifty thousand pounds would mean to him.

“There’s not much of a squander in the deal when I got value for it,” said Archie. “I got plenty of value. I’ve got to know all about this world.”

“And you’ll soon get to know all about the next, if you go on at this rate,” said Harold.

“Not me; I’ve got my money in sound places. You heard about my show.”

“Your show? I’ve heard about nothing for the past year but your shows. What’s the latest? I want something to eat.”

“Oh, come with me to my private trough,” cried the young man. “Don’t lay down a mosaic pavement in your inside in this hole. Come along, tarty chip; I’ve got a chef named Achille—he knows what suits us—also some ‘84 Heidsieck. Come along with me, and I’ll tell you all about the show. We’ll go there together later on. We’ll take supper with her.”

“Oh! with her?”

“To be sure. You don’t mean to say that you haven’t heard that I’ve taken the Legitimate Theatre for Mrs. Mowbray? Where on God’s footstool have you been for the past month?”

“Not further than the extreme North of Scotland. It was far enough. I saw a paragraph stating that Mrs. Mowbray, after being a failure in a number of places, had taken the Legitimate. What has that got to say to you?”

“Not much, but I’ve got a good deal to say to it. Oh, come along, and I’ll tell you all about it. I’m building a monument for myself. I’ve got the Legitimate and I mean to make Irving and the rest of them sit up.”