V

THE COMIC SPIRIT

Pausing at the foot of the stoop, Miss Lessing looked up at the two young men and smiled.

"Good-evening," she said with a pretty nod for P. Sybarite; and, with its fellow for George, "Good-evening, Mr. Bross," she added.

Having acknowledged this salutation with that quaint courtesy which somehow seemed to fit him like a garment, P. Sybarite smiled strangely at the shipping clerk.

The latter mumbled something incoherent, glanced wildly toward the young woman, and spluttered explosively; all with a blush so deep that its effect was apoplectic.

Alarmed by this exhibition, Miss Lessing questioned P. Sybarite with her lifted brows and puzzled eyes.

"George is a little bit excited," he apologised. "Every so often he becomes obsessed with mad desire to impose upon some simple and credulous nature like mine. And failure always unbalances him. He becomes excitable--ah--irrational--"

With an inarticulate snort, Mr. Bross turned and fled into the house.

Confusion possessed him, and with it rage: stumbling blindly on the first flight of steps, he clawed the atmosphere with fingers that itched for vengeance.

"I'll get even!" he muttered savagely--"I'll get hunk with that b.o.o.b if it's the last act of my life!"

Fortunately, the hall was gloomy and at that moment deserted.

On the first landing he checked, clutched the banisters for support, and endeavoured to compose himself--but with less success than he realised.

It was with a suggestion of stealth that he ascended the second flight--with an enforced deliberateness and caution that were wasted.

For as he reached the top, the door of the back hall-bedroom opened gently for the s.p.a.ce of three inches. Through this aperture were visible a pair of bright eyes, with the curve of a plump and pretty cheek, and an adorable bare arm and shoulder.

"That you, George?" Violet Prim demanded with vivacity.

Reluctantly he stopped and in a throaty monosyllable admitted his ident.i.ty.

"Well, how'd it go off?"

"Fine!"

"He fell for it?"

"All over himself. Honest, Vi, it was a scream to watch his eyes pop.

You could've clubbed 'em outa his bean without touchin' his beak. I 'most died."

Miss Prim giggled appreciatively.

"You're a wonder, George," she applauded. "It takes you to think 'em out."

"Ah, I don't know," returned her admirer with becoming modesty.

"He's gone on her, all right, ain't he?"

"Crazy about her!"

"Think he'll make a play for her now?"

George demurred. Downright lying was all very well; he could manage that with pa.s.sable craft, especially when, as in this instance, detection would be difficult; but prophecy was a little out of his line. Though with misgivings, he resorted to unvarnished truth:

"You never can tell about P.S. He's a queer little gink."

Footsteps became audible on the stairs below.

"Well, so long. See you at dinner," George added in haste.

"George!"

"Well?" he asked, delaying with ill grace.

"What makes you sound so funny?"

"Laughin'!" protested George convincingly.

With determination and a heavy tread he went on to his room.

VI

SPRING TWILIGHT

When he had shaved (with particular care) and changed his linen (tr.i.m.m.i.n.g collar and cuffs to a degree of uncommon nicety) and resumed his coat (brushing and hating it simultaneously and with equal ferocity, for its very shabbiness) P. Sybarite sought out a pipe old and disreputable enough to be a comfort to any man, and sat down by the one window of his room (top floor, hall, back) to smoke and consider the state of the universe while awaiting the dinner gong.

The window commanded an elevated if non-exhilarating view of back yards, one and all dank, dismal, and littered with the debris of a long, hard winter. Familiarity, however, had rendered P. Sybarite immune to the miasma of melancholy they exhaled; the trouble in his patient blue eyes, the wrinkles that lined his forehead, owned another cause.

In fact, George had wrought more disastrously upon his temper than P.

Sybarite had let him see. His hints, innuendoes, and downright a.s.sertions had in reality distilled a subtle poison into the little man's humour. For in spite of his embattled incredulity and the clear reasoning with which he had overborne George's futile insistence, there still lingered in his mind (and always would, until he knew the truth himself) a carking doubt.

Perhaps it was true. Perhaps George had guessed shrewdly. Perhaps Molly Lessing of the glove counter really was one and the same with Marian Blessington of the fabulous fortune.

Old Brian Shaynon was a known devil of infinite astuteness; it would be quite consistent with his character and past performances if, despairing of gaining control of his ward's money by urging her into unwelcome matrimony with his son, he had contrived to over-reach her in some manner, and so driven her to become self-supporting.

Perhaps hardly likely: the hypothesis was none the less quite plausible; a thing had happened, within P. Sybarite's knowledge of Brian Shaynon....

Even if George's romance were true only in part, these were wretched circ.u.mstances for a girl of gentle birth and rearing to adopt. It was really a shocking boarding-house. P. Sybarite had known it intimately for ten years; use had made him callous to its shortcomings; but he was not yet so far gone that he could forget how unwholesome and depressing it must seem to one accustomed to better things. He could remember most vividly how he had loathed it for weeks, months, and years after the tide of evil fortunes had cast him upon its crumbling brownstone stoop (even in that distant day, crumbling).