Part 20 (2/2)

Even Arnold began to see dimly by this time that he was likely to pay his debt of obligation with interest--as Sir Patrick had foretold.

”What am I to say to her?” he asked. ”I'm bound to do all I can do to help you, and I will. But what am I to say?”

It was a natural question to put. It was not an easy question to answer.

What a man, under given muscular circ.u.mstances, could do, no person living knew better than Geoffrey Delamayn. Of what a man, under given social circ.u.mstances, could say, no person living knew less.

”Say?” he repeated. ”Look here! say I'm half distracted, and all that.

And--wait a bit--tell her to stop where she is till I write to her.”

Arnold hesitated. Absolutely ignorant of that low and limited form of knowledge which is called ”knowledge of the world,” his inbred delicacy of mind revealed to him the serious difficulty of the position which his friend was asking him to occupy as plainly as if he was looking at it through the warily-gathered experience of society of a man of twice his age.

”Can't you write to her now, Geoffrey?” he asked.

”What's the good of that?”

”Consider for a minute, and you will see. You have trusted me with a very awkward secret. I may be wrong--I never was mixed up in such a matter before--but to present myself to this lady as your messenger seems exposing her to a dreadful humiliation. Am I to go and tell her to her face: 'I know what you are hiding from the knowledge of all the world;' and is she to be expected to endure it?”

”Bos.h.!.+” said Geoffrey. ”They can endure a deal more than you think.

I wish you had heard how she bullied me, in this very place. My good fellow, you don't understand women. The grand secret, in dealing with a woman, is to take her as you take a cat, by the scruff of the neck--”

”I can't face her--unless you will help me by breaking the thing to her first. I'll stick at no sacrifice to serve you; but--hang it!--make allowances, Geoffrey, for the difficulty you are putting me in. I am almost a stranger; I don't know how Miss Silvester may receive me, before I can open my lips.”

Those last words touched the question on its practical side. The matter-of-fact view of the difficulty was a view which Geoffrey instantly recognized and understood.

”She has the devil's own temper,” he said. ”There's no denying that.

Perhaps I'd better write. Have we time to go into the house?”

”No. The house is full of people, and we haven't a minute to spare.

Write at once, and write here. I have got a pencil.”

”What am I to write on?”

”Any thing--your brother's card.”

Geoffrey took the pencil which Arnold offered to him, and looked at the card. The lines his brother had written covered it. There was no room left. He felt in his pocket, and produced a letter--the letter which Anne had referred to at the interview between them--the letter which she had written to insist on his attending the lawn-party at Windygates.

”This will do,” he said. ”It's one of Anne's own letters to me. There's room on the fourth page. If I write,” he added, turning suddenly on Arnold, ”you promise to take it to her? Your hand on the bargain!”

He held out the hand which had saved Arnold's life in Lisbon Harbor, and received Arnold's promise, in remembrance of that time.

”All right, old fellow. I can tell you how to find the place as we go along in the gig. By-the-by, there's one thing that's rather important.

I'd better mention it while I think of it.”

”What is that?”

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