"Of course I--I never knew--I never thought--Of course, somebody must--Oh, do forgive me, Mr. Hayes!"

Harry raised his brows in humorous astonishment. "All this is a secret to me."

"I--I told Mr. Hayes I didn't like--well--places where they sold meat--raw meat, Harry."

"What do you think really, Harry?" Andy asked.

Harry shrugged his shoulders. "Your choice, old man," he said. "You've looked at all sides of it, of course. It's getting latish, Vivien."

Andy would almost rather have had the verdict which he feared. "Your choice, old man"--and a shrug of the shoulders. Yet his loyalty intervened to tell him that Harry was right. It was his choice, and must be. He found Vivien's eyes on him--those distant, considering eyes.

"I suppose you couldn't give me an opinion, Miss Wellgood?" he asked, mustering a smile with some difficulty.

Vivien's lips drooped; her eyes grew rather sad and distinctly remote.

She gave no judgment; she merely uttered a regret--a regret in which social and personal prejudice (it could not be acquitted of that) struggled with kindliness for Andy.

"Oh, I thought you were going to be a friend of ours," she murmured sadly. She gave Andy a mournful little nod of farewell--of final farewell, as it seemed to his agitated mind--and walked off with Harry, who was still looking decidedly amused.

That our great crises can have an amusing side even in the eyes of those who wish us well is one of life's painful discoveries. Andy had expected to be told that he must accept Jack Rock's offer, but he had not thought that Harry would chaff him about it. He tried, in justice to Harry and in anxiety not to feel sore with his hero, to see the humorous side for himself. He admitted that he could not. A butcher was no more ridiculous than any other tradesman. Well, the comic papers were rather fond of putting in butchers, for some inscrutable reason. Perhaps Harry happened to think of some funny picture. Could that idea give Andy a rag of comfort to wrap about his wound? The comfort was of indifferent quality; the dressing made the wound smart.

He was alone in the road again, gay Harry and dainty Vivien gone, thinking little of him by now, no doubt. Yes, the choice must be his own. On one side lay safety for him and joy for old Jack; on the other a sore blow to Jack, and for himself the risk of looking a sad fool if he came to grief in London. So far the choice appeared easy.

But that statement of the case left out everything that really tugged at Andy's heart. For the first time in his existence he was, vaguely and dimly, trying to conceive and to consider his life as a whole, and asking what he meant to do with it. Acutest self-reproach a.s.sailed him; he accused himself inwardly of many faults and follies--of ingrat.i.tude, of sn.o.bbishness, of a ridiculous self-conceit. Wasn't it enough for a chap like him to earn a good living honestly? Oughtn't he to be thankful for the chance? What did he expect anyhow? He was very scornful with himself, fiercely reproving all the new stirrings in him, yet at the same time trying to see what they came to; trying to make out what they, in their turn, asked, what they meant, what would content them. He could not satisfy himself what the stirrings meant nor whence they came. When he asked what would content them he could get only a negative answer; keeping the shop in Meriton would not. In regard neither to what it entailed nor to what it abandoned could the stirrings find contentment in that.

He had been walking along slowly and moodily. Suddenly he quickened his pace; his steps became purposeful. He was going to Jack Rock's. Jack would be just having his tea, or smoking the pipe that always followed it.

Jack sat in his armchair. Tea was finished, and his pipe already alight.

When he saw Andy's face he chuckled.

"Ah, that's how I like to see you look, lad!" he exclaimed joyfully.

"Not as you did when you went away last night."

"Why, how do I look?" asked Andy, amazed at this greeting.

"As if you'd just picked up a thousand pound; and so you have, and better than that."

All unknown to himself, Andy's face had answered to his feelings--to the sense of escape from bondage, of liberty restored, of possibilities once more within his reach. The renewed lightness of his heart had made his face happy and triumphant. But it fell with a vengeance now.

"Well?" asked Jack, to whom the change of expression was bewildering.

"I'm sorry--I've never been so sorry in my life--but I--I can't do it, Jack."

Jack sat smoking silently for a while. "That was what you were lookin'

so happy about, was it?" he asked at last, with a wry smile. "I've never afore seen a man so happy over chuckin' away five hundred a year. Where does the fun come in, Andy?"

"O lord, Jack, I can't--I can't tell you about it. I--"

"But if it does do you all that good, I suppose you've got to do it."

Andy came up to him, holding out his hand. Jack took it and gave it a squeeze.

"I reckon I know more about it than you think. I've been goin' over things since last night--and goin' back to old things too--about the old gentleman and Nancy."

"It seems so awfully--Lord, it seems everything that's bad and rotten, Jack."

"No, it don't," said old Jack quietly. "It's a bit of a facer for me--I tell you that straight--but it don't seem unnatural in you. Only I'm sorry like."

"If there was anything in the world I could do, Jack! But there it is--there isn't."

"I'm not so sure about that." He was smoking very slowly, and seemed to be thinking hard. Andy lit a cigarette. His joy was quenched in sympathy with Jack.

"You've given me a disappointment, Andy. I'm not denyin' it. But there, I can't expect you to feel about the business as I do. Comin' to me from my father, and havin' been the work o' the best years of my life! And no better business in any town of the size o' Meriton all the country through--I'll wager that! No, you can't feel as I do. And you've a right to choose your own life. There's one thing you might do for me, Andy, though."

"Well, if there's anything else in the world--"

"I loved Nancy better than anybody, and the old gentleman--well, as I've told you, he never let me see a difference. I've got no kin--unless I can call you kin, Andy. If you want to make up for givin' me this bit of--of a facer, as I say, I'll tell you what you can do. There's times in a young chap's life when bein' able to put up a bit o' the ready makes all the difference, eh? If so be as you should find yourself placed like that, I want you to promise to ask me for it. Will you, lad?" Jack's voice faltered for a moment. "No call for you to go back across half the world for it. It's here, waitin' for you in Martin's bank in High Street. If you ever want to enter for an event, let me put up the stakes for you, Andy. Promise me that, and we'll say no more about the shop."

Andy was touched to the heart. "I promise. There's my hand on it, Jack."

"You'll come to me first--you won't go to any one before me?" old Jack insisted jealously.

"I'll come to you first--and last," said Andy.

"Aye, lad." The old fellow's eyes gleamed again. "Then it'll be our race. We'll both be in it, won't we, Andy? And if you pa.s.s the post first, I shall have a right to throw up my hat. And why shouldn't you?

The favourite don't always win."

"I'm not expecting to do anything remarkable, Jack. I'm not such a fool as that."

"You're no fool, or you'd never have been put to the trouble of refusin'

my shop," observed Jack with emphasis. "And in the end I'm not sure but what you're right. I've never tried to rise above where I was born; but I don't know as there's any call for you to step down. I don't know as I did my duty by the old gentleman in temptin' you. I'm not sure he'd have liked it, though he'd have said nothing; he'd never have let me see--not him!" He sighed and smiled over his reverential memories of the old gentleman, yet his eyes twinkled rather maliciously as he said to Andy, "Dinin' at Halton again to-night?"

"No," laughed Andy, "I'm not. I'm coming to supper with you if you'll have me. What have you got?"

"Cold boiled aitch-bone, and apple-pie, and a Cheshire in good condition."

"Oh, that's prime! But I must go and change first. I've walked fifteen or sixteen miles, and I must get into a clean shirt."

"We don't dress for supper--not o' Sundays," Jack informed him gravely.

"Oh, get out, Jack!" called Andy from the door.

"Supper at nine precise, carriages at eleven," Jack called after him, pursuing his joke to the end with keen relish.

Andy walked back to his lodgings, in the old phrase "happy as a king,"

and infinitely the happier because old Jack had taken it so well, had understood, and, though disappointed, had not been hurt or wounded.

There was no breach in their affection or in their mutual confidence.

And now, he felt, he had to justify himself in Jack's eyes, to justify his refusal of a safe five hundred pounds a year. The refusal became, as he thought over it, a spur to effort, to action. "I must put my back into it," said Andy to himself, and made up his mind to most strenuous exertions to develop that rather shy and coy timber business of his in London.

Yet, after he had changed, as he sat listening to the church bells ringing for evening service, a softer strain of meditation mingled with these stern resolves. Memories of his "Sat.u.r.day-off" glided across his mind, echoes of this evening's encounter with Harry and Vivien sounded in his ears. There was, as old Jack Rock himself had ended by suggesting, no call for him to step down. He could take the place for which he was naturally fit. He need not renounce that side of life of which he had been allowed a glimpse so attractive and so full of interest. The shop in Meriton would have opened the door to one very comfortable little apartment. How many doors would it not have shut? All doors were open now.