This was perhaps why he was so dull and awkward--not quite like other people.

Germaine felt rather sorry that Henry Buck would certainly be there to-day. Considering how very little he did for them--no, that was a beastly thing to say, even to oneself!--but considering how very unornamental and uninteresting poor old Rabbit was, it was really very nice of Bella to be so kind to him. She never seemed to mind his being there, and she had even managed to force his company on certain people whose one object in life was to avoid a bore, and who didn't care a b.u.t.ton whether a man was a pauper or a millionaire.

Of course Germaine guessed what had happened to f.a.n.n.y. She had almost certainly gone to hear some fashionable preacher--for f.a.n.n.y was the sort of woman who likes to cram everything into a visit to London. She was disappointed if every waking hour did not bring with it some new sensation, some new amus.e.m.e.nt, and this was odd--or so her simple-hearted brother told himself--because all the rest of the year f.a.n.n.y was content to lead the dull, stodgy life of a small Shropshire squire's wife.

Oliver's irritation increased. It was foolish of f.a.n.n.y to have come to London just now, in the middle of the season! Hitherto, she and her husband had always come up for a fortnight just before Christmas, and then perhaps again just before Easter. Now she had come up alone, and settled herself into dull lodgings in Marylebone; and then--well, the young man was vaguely aware that f.a.n.n.y's visit to town was really a scouting expedition. She evidently wanted to see for herself how her brother Oliver and his beautiful wife were "getting on."

Strange to say, f.a.n.n.y was not quite pleased at Bella's sudden social success--not pleased, and yet quite willing to profit by it. How queer that was! How queer, for the matter of that, most women were! But Bella was not queer--in fact, Bella had been most awfully nice about f.a.n.n.y, and had never allowed her to suspect, even by as much as a look, that her presence was not welcome. Yet f.a.n.n.y naturally proved "odd man out"

at all those little gatherings to which her lovely sister-in-law made her so carelessly welcome. f.a.n.n.y knew nothing of the delightful world in which Oliver and Bella now moved; she was quite convinced that she belonged to the very best, exclusive set, and so she did--in Shropshire.

But here in town? Why, she was even ignorant of the new social shibboleths; all her notions as to what it was the right thing to do, or to avoid doing, belonged to the year before last!

Take to-day. f.a.n.n.y would certainly feel cross and disappointed that Bella was not there, in the Park, too; and, as a matter of fact, Germaine had tried to make his wife please his sister in the little matter of Church Parade--but Bella had shaken her head smilingly.

"You know I would do anything for f.a.n.n.y," she had said, "but really, darling, you mustn't ask me to do _that_--to go into that big, horrid, staring crowd. Why should I? It makes one look so cheap! It would only bore me, and I don't think f.a.n.n.y would really enjoy having me there,"

and Bella had smiled a little smile.

Germaine had smiled too,--he really couldn't help it! It was quite true that f.a.n.n.y would not enjoy seeing Bella looked at, followed,--in a word, triumphing, in the way she did triumph every time she appeared in a place where she was likely to be recognised.

Of course it was odd, when one came to think of it, that Bella, who had been just as pretty two years ago as she was now, should, for some mysterious reason, have been suddenly discovered, by those whose word is law in such matters, to be astonishingly, marvellously beautiful!

An involuntary smile again quivered across Oliver Germaine's good-looking face. He had but little sense of humour, and yet even he saw something almost comic about it--the way that Bella, his darling, pretty little Bella, had suddenly been exalted--hoisted up, as it were, on to a pinnacle. She was now what the Londoners of a hundred years ago would have called "the reigning toast"--so an amusing old fellow, who was a great authority on history, had told him a few days ago.

Still, he ought to make allowances for his sister f.a.n.n.y. It was not in human nature--or so Oliver believed--for any woman, even for such a good sort as f.a.n.n.y undoubtedly was, to be really pleased at another woman's triumph.

Small wonder that, to use his sister's favourite expression, f.a.n.n.y could not make it out! It was unfortunate that Bella's fame--that fame of which the young husband was half ashamed and half proud--had actually penetrated to the dull village where his only sister held high state as wife of the lord of the manor.

Since f.a.n.n.y had been in town she had said little things to him about Bella's position as reigning beauty--not altogether kindly or nice little things. Even yesterday she had observed, with a touch of sharp criticism in her voice, "I wonder, dear old boy, why you allow Bella's photograph to appear in all those low papers!" and Oliver had shrugged his shoulders, not knowing what to answer, but comfortably sure, in a brotherly way, that f.a.n.n.y would have been quite willing to see her own fair features reproduced in similar fashion, had it occurred to any of the editors of these same enterprising papers to ask for the loan of her photograph.

As a matter of fact, he had remembered, even while she was speaking, a monstrously ugly photograph of f.a.n.n.y,--f.a.n.n.y surrounded by her dogs and children,--which had appeared in a well-known lady's paper. Why, she had actually sent the paper to him, marked! But Oliver magnanimously refrained from reminding her of this,--the more so, that f.a.n.n.y had hurried on from the trifling question of Bella's portrait to the more serious and unpleasant one of her brother's moderate income.

But, as Germaine now told himself complacently, he had been very short with her. In fact he had administered a good brotherly snub to inquisitive f.a.n.n.y. She had no business to ask him a lot of questions concerning the way he and Bella chose to spend their income; it was no business of hers how the money was spent. Unfortunately f.a.n.n.y did consider it her business, simply owing to the fact that she was Oliver's only sister, and very fond of him,--that went without saying,--and that unluckily her husband was Oliver's trustee. So it was that she had shown extraordinary curiosity as to how her brother and his wife managed to live in the way they did, on the income she knew they had.

"Do you know," she had said gravely, "exactly what your income is?"

Oliver had nodded impatiently. Of course he knew, roughly speaking, that he and Bella had a little over two thousand a year----

"Two thousand and sixty-one pounds, eighteen shillings," she had gone on impressively. "At least that was what it was last year, for I asked d.i.c.k." Now d.i.c.k was f.a.n.n.y's husband, and a most excellent fellow, but hopelessly under f.a.n.n.y's thumb.

Oliver Germaine had not always been so well off. In fact, when he first met Bella--something like six years ago--he had been a subaltern, with a very small private income, in a Line regiment. And it was on that small income that the loveliest girl in Southsea--now the most beautiful woman in London--had married him. Then had come an immense, unlooked-for piece of good fortune!

A distant Scotch cousin, a crusty old chap, of whom all the Germaines were afraid, and who had constantly declared it to be his intention to leave his money outside his own family, had chosen to make Oliver his heir, and had appointed f.a.n.n.y's husband, the steady-going, rather dull Shropshire squire, as trustee.

Of course Oliver, and even more Bella, knew now that the fortune which had seemed then to make them rich beyond their wildest dreams, was not so very much after all. But still, at first, it had been plenty--plenty for everything they could reasonably require.

But when Bella had become a famous beauty, they had of course to spend rather more, and about a year ago they had gone through rather a disagreeable moment. The little house in West Chapel Street which had seemed so cheap had proved more expensive than they had expected.

However, d.i.c.k, as trustee, had stretched a point in his brother-in-law's favour, and the slight shrinkage which had resulted in the Germaines'

income mattered not at all from the practical point of view, for the simple reason that they went on spending as much as, in fact rather more than, they had done before--but it was tiresome having to pay, as they now had to do, an insurance premium.

Still, it was too bad of f.a.n.n.y to have spoken as she had done, for Bella was wonderfully economical. Take one simple matter; all their friends, or at any rate the majority of them, had motors as a matter of course, but Bella, when she was not driving, as she generally did, in a car lent her by some kind acquaintance, contented herself with jobbing an old-fashioned brougham.

This restraint was the more commendable inasmuch that a friend had lately pointed out to her a way in which one could run a motor brougham in town on almost nothing at all. One bought a second-hand car for about seventy-five pounds; it was kept for one at a garage for fifteen shillings a week, and one looked out for a gentleman chauffeur who loved motoring for its own sake, and who had some little means of his own.

With care the whole thing need not cost more than a hundred and fifty pounds the first year, and less the second. They could not afford to do this just yet, though Bella was convinced it would be true economy, but Oliver hoped to start something of the kind the following winter.

Of course Oliver was never exactly easy about money. Everything always cost just a little more than he expected. It sounded absurd, and he would not have said so to anyone but himself, but they had to live up to Bella's reputation--that is, they had to go everywhere, and do everything. Yet neither of them lacked proper pride. They differed from some people they knew--that is, they did not (more than they could help) live on their rich friends. Their only real extravagance last year had been sharing a house during Goodwood week. That had let them in for a great deal more than they had expected--in fact, not to put too fine a point on it, they had been rooked, regularly rooked, and by people whom they had thought their intimate friends!

Germaine sighed impatiently. This little uneasiness about money was the one spot on a very bright sun. But he had no wish to confide this fact to f.a.n.n.y! f.a.n.n.y would be certain to blame Bella. He remembered very well, though she had apparently forgotten it, the way f.a.n.n.y had behaved at the time of his marriage.

The fact that the girl he wished so ardently to make his wife was lovely (no one could have denied that even then), and quite sufficiently well connected, had not counterbalanced, from the prudent sister's point of view, Bella Arabin's lack of fortune and her having been brought up in such a "mixed" place (whatever that might mean) as Southsea.

But Bella had never borne malice; and far from being spoilt or rendered "uppish" by her sudden intoxicating success, Bella was, if anything, nicer than before. She and Oliver were still devoted, still happier together than apart; their quarrels, so far, had been only lovers'

quarrels....

Germaine grew restless--restless and tired. He had not had such a thinking bout for a long time. Just as he reached Grosvenor Gate for the fifth or sixth time, it struck a quarter-past one. In a sense there was plenty of time, for they lunched at a quarter to two; he would give f.a.n.n.y ten more minutes and then go off home without her.

The young man looked round. Every bench was full, but there were plenty of empty chairs. He dragged one of them forward, and placed it with its back to a large tree. From there he could see everyone who came in and out of the gate, and so he and f.a.n.n.y would not lose a moment looking for one another. But, though many went out, very few came in; the Park was beginning to empty.

Suddenly two middle-aged women, the one very stout, the other very thin, walked slowly through the gate. They struck across Germaine's line of vision, and for a moment his dark eyes rested on them indifferently.

Then his gaze changed into something like attention, for he had a vague impression of having seen the elder of these two women before. What was more, he felt certain he had seen her in some vaguely unpleasant connection.

For a moment he believed her to be one of the cook-housekeepers with whom he and Bella had grappled during the earlier days of their married life. But no, this short stout woman with the shrewd, powerful face Germaine seemed to know, did not look like a servant. Even he could see that her black clothes were handsome and costly, if rather too warm for a fine July day. Her thin, nervous-looking companion was also dressed with some pretension and research, but she lacked the other's look of stout prosperity.

They were typical Londoners, of the kind to be seen on the route of every Royal procession, and standing among the crowd outside the church door at every fashionable marriage--women who, if they had lived in the London of the Georges, would have walked a good many miles to see a fellow-creature swing. But to Oliver Germaine they were simply a couple of unattractive-looking women, one of whom he thought he had seen before, and whose proximity was faintly disagreeable.

Germaine's mind had dwelt on them longer than it would otherwise have done because, when just in front of him, they stopped short and hesitated; then, looking round them much as Germaine himself had looked round a few minutes before, and, the elder woman taking the lead, each dragged a chair forward, and sat down a yard or so to the young man's right, the trunk of the tree stretching its gnarled grey girth between.

Seven minutes of the ten Oliver meant to allow f.a.n.n.y had now gone by, and he felt inclined to cut the other three minutes short, and go straight home. After all, it was too bad of her to be so unpunctual!

And then, striking on his ear, shreds of the conversation which was taking place between the two women sitting near him began to penetrate Oliver Germaine's brain. Names fell on his ear--Christian names, surnames, with which he was familiar, evoking the personalities of men and women with whom he was on terms of acquaintance, in some cases of close friendship.

Unconsciously his clasped hands tightened on the k.n.o.b of his stick, and he caught himself listening--listening with a queer mixture of morbid interest and growing disgust.

It was the elder woman who spoke the most, and she was a good speaker, with that trick,--self-taught, instinctive,--of making the people of whom she was speaking leap up before the listener. Now and again she was interrupted by little shrieks of astonishment and horror--her companion's way of paying tribute to the interesting nature of the conversation.

How on earth--so Oliver Germaine asked himself with heating cheek--had the woman obtained her peculiarly intimate knowledge of those of whom she was speaking? The people, these men and women, especially women, whose lives, the inner cores of whose existences, were being probed and ruthlessly exposed, almost all belonged to the Germaines' own particular set,--if indeed such a prosperous and popular couple as were Oliver and Bella, could be said to have a particular set in that delightful world into which they had only comparatively lately effected an entrance, and of which the strands all intermingle the one with the other.

Germaine was too young, he had been too happy, he was too instinctively kindly, to concern himself with other people's private affairs, save in a wholly impersonal fashion. He had always avoided the hidden, unspoken side of life; when certain secrets were confided to him they dropped quickly out of his mind; ugly gossip pa.s.sed him by.

Yet now he found himself listening to very ugly gossip; some feeling outside himself, some instinct which for the moment mastered him, made him stay on there, eavesdropping.

For the moment the stream of venom was directed against Mrs. Slade, the pretty, harmless little woman whom he would see within the next hour sitting at his own table. She was one of Bella's special friends, and Oliver had got quite fond of her, the more so that he was well aware that she was in a difficult position, owing to the fact, not of her seeking, or so the Germaines believed, that her husband spent most of his life away from her, abroad.

In this special case, Germaine knew something of the hidden wounds; it was horrible to hear this--this old devil engaged in plucking the scabs from these same wounds, and exposing to her vulgar companion the shifts to which the unfortunate little woman was put. Nay, more, she said certain things concerning Mrs. Slade which, if they were true, or even only half true, made the poor little soul under discussion no fit friend or companion for Germaine's own spotless wife, Bella....

The burden of the old woman's talk was money, how people got money, how they spent money, how they did without money. That was the idea running through all her conversation, although it was, of course, concerned with many uglier things than money.

Had they been men speaking Germaine would have been sufficiently filled with righteous indignation to have found words with which to rebuke, even to threaten them, but they were women, common women, and he felt tongue-tied, helpless.

And then, suddenly, there leapt into the conversation his own name, or rather that of his wife, the woman of whom he felt so exultantly, so selflessly proud. The allusion came in the form of a question, a question spoken in a shrill and odious c.o.c.kney accent.

"I should like to see that Mrs. Germaine. I wonder if she ever comes into the Park----"