Part 25 (1/2)

He was about to leave the street in which the Fallaray house had now a.s.sumed the appearance of a morgue to him when Simpkins came up from the area, with a dull face. After a moment of irresolution he followed and caught the valet up. ”Where's Miss Breezy?” he asked abruptly.

Simpkins was all the more astonished at the question for the trouble on that young cub's face. He looked him over sharply,-the cheap cap, the too long hair, the big nose, the faulty teeth, the pasty face, the un-athletic body, the awkward feet. Lola was in love. He knew that well enough. But not with this lout, that was certain, poet or no poet. ”I don't know as 'ow I've got to answer that question,” he said, just to put him in his place.

”Yes, you have. Where is she?”

”You ought ter know.” He himself knew and as there was no accounting for tastes and Lola had made a friend of this anaemic hooligan, why didn't _he_? He lived round the corner from the shop, anyhow.

”But I don't know. Neither do her father and mother.”

”What's that?” Simpkins drew up short. ”You don't know what you're talkin' about. She went 'ome last Thursday to get a little rest until to-morrer,-Tuesday.”

Treadwell would have cried out, ”It isn't true,” but he loved Lola and was loyal. He had met Simpkins in Queen's Road, Bayswater, and had seen him on familiar terms with Mr. Breezy, but he was a member of the Fallaray household and as such was not to be let into this-_this_ trouble. Not even the Breezys must be told before Lola had been seen and had given an explanation. They didn't love her as much as he did,-nor any one else in the world. And so he said, loyalty overmastering his jealousy and fear, ”Oh, is that so? I haven't had time to look in lately. I didn't know.” And seeing a huge unbelief in Simpkins's pale eyes, he hurried on to explain. ”Being in the neighborhood and having some personal news for Lola, I called at your house. Was surprised to hear that she was away. That's all. Good night.” And away he went, head forward, left foot turning in, long arms swinging loose.

But he had touched the spring in Simpkins to a jealousy and a fear that were precisely similar to his own. Lola was _not_ at home. Treadwell knew it and had called at Dover Street, expecting to find her there.

They had all been told lies because she was doing something of which she was ashamed. The night that she had come in, weeping, dressed like a lady.-The words that had burned into his soul the evening of his proposal,-”so awfully in love with somebody else and it's a difficult world.-Perhaps I shall never be married and that's the truth, Simpky.

It's a difficult world.”

”Hi,” he called out. ”Hi,” and started after Treadwell, full stride.

But rather than face those searching eyes again, at the back of which there was a curious blaze, Treadwell took to his heels, and followed hard by Simpkins, whose fanatical spirit of protection was stirred to its depths, dodged from one street into another. The curious chase would have ended in Treadwell's escape but for the sudden intervention, in Vigo Street, of a policeman who slipped out of the entrance to the Albany and caught the boy in his arms.

”Now then, now then,” he said. ”What's all this 'ere?”

And up came Simpkins, blowing badly, with his tie under his left ear.

”It's-it's alri, Saunders. A friendly race, that's all. He's-he's a paller mine. Well run, Ernie!” And he put his arm round Treadwell's shoulders, laughing.

And the policeman, whose wind was good, laughed, too, at the sight of those panting men. ”Mind wot yer do, Mr. Simpkins,” he said, to the nice little fellow with whom he sometimes took a drink at the bottom of the area steps. ”Set up 'eart trouble if yer not careful.”

Set up heart trouble? Simpkins looked with a sudden irony at the boy who also would give his life to Lola. And the look was met and understood.

It put them on another footing, they could see.

After a few more words of badinage the policeman mooched off to finish his talk with the tall-hatted keeper of the Albany doorway. And Simpkins said gravely and quietly, ”Treadwell, we've got to go into this, you and me. We're in the same boat and Lola's got ter be-looked after, by both of us.”

Treadwell nodded. ”I'm frightened,” he said, without camouflage.

”So am I,” said Simpkins.

And they went off together, slowly, brought into confidence by a mutual heart trouble that had already set up.

VI

But there was no uneasiness in Queen's Road, Bayswater. John Breezy and his good wife were happy in the belief that their little girl was enjoying the air and scents of the country with her ladys.h.i.+p. They had neither the time nor the desire to dig deeply into the daily papers. To read of the weatherc.o.c.k policy of the overburdened Prime Minister, traditionally, nationally, and mentally unable to deal with the great problems that followed upon each other's heels, made Breezy blasphemous and brought on an incapacity to sit still. And so he merely glanced at the front page, hoping against hope for a new government headed by such men as Lord Robert Cecil, Lord Derby, Lord Grey and Edmund Fallaray, and for the ignominious downfall of all professional scavengers, t.i.tled newspaper owners and mountebanks who were playing ducks and drakes with the honor and the traditions of Parliament. He had no wish to be under the despotism of a Labor Government, having seen that loyalty to leaders was unknown among Trades Unionists and that principles were things which they never had had and never would have the courage to avow.

As for Mrs. Breezy, she never had time for the papers. She didn't know and didn't care which party was in power, or the difference between them, and when she heard her husband discuss politics with his friends, burst into a tirade and get red in the face, as every self-respecting man has the right to do, she just folded her hands in her lap, smiled, and said to herself, ”Dear old John, what would he do in the millennium, with no government to condemn!” Therefore, these people had not seen in the daily ”Chit Chat about Society” the fact that Lady Feo had not left town. They never read those luscious morsels. Because Lady Feo had not left town Aunt Breezy had been too busy to come round on her usual evening, when she would have discovered immediately that Lola was up to something and put the fat in the fire. And so they were happy in their ignorance,-which is, pretty often, the only state in which it is achieved.

Over dinner that night-a sc.r.a.ppy meal, because whenever any one entered the shop Mrs. Breezy ran out to do her best to sell something-the conversation turned to the question of Lola's marriage, as it frequently did. That public house on the river, with its kitchen garden, still rankled. ”You know, John,” said Mrs. Breezy suddenly, ”I've been thinking it all over. We were wrong to suppose that Lola would ever have married a man like Simpkins.”