Part 10 (1/2)

”I once blacked my own boots every day for two years,” he said, breathing heavily upon the shoe. ”Now, if you want to go in and superintend the preparation of breakfast, you may leave me here, and I will undertake to produce the requisite standard of brilliancy.” His face lit up with one of his rare and illuminating smiles, and he set grimly to work again.

Daphne hesitated for a moment, and surveyed her guest doubtfully. He was burnis.h.i.+ng her shoe in a manner only to be expected of an intensely active man who has been utterly idle for a fortnight. His face was set in the lines which usually appeared when he was driving business through a refractory meeting. Daphne turned and left the boot-house, unpinning her ap.r.o.n and whistling softly.

Juggernaut finished off her shoes with meticulous care, and putting them back upon the bench turned his attention to his own boots. But his energy was plainly flagging. Several times his hand was stayed, and his eye wandered in the direction of his hostess's shoes. They were a remarkably neat pair. Daphne was proud of her feet--they were her only real vanity--and she spent more upon her boots and shoes than the extremely limited sum voted for the purpose by her conscience. More than once Juggernaut laid aside his own property and returned to the highly unnecessary task of painting the lily--if such a phrase can be applied to the efficient blacking of a shoe. Finally he picked up his boots and departed, to endure a pom-pomming of the most whole-hearted description on his appearance at the breakfast table.

But henceforth he found his way to the boot-house every morning at seven-thirty, where, despite his hostess's protests, he grimly carried out his expressed intention.

This was the only occasion, however, on which he a.s.serted his will with Daphne. In all else she found him perfectly amenable. He permitted her without protest to overhaul his wardrobe, and submitted meekly to a scathing lecture upon the negligence apparent in the perforated condition of some of his garments and the extravagance evinced by the multiplicity of others. In short, Daphne adopted Juggernaut, as only a young and heart-whole girl can whose experience of men so far has been purely domestic. She felt like his mother. To her he was a child of the largest possible growth, who, not having enjoyed such advantages as she had all her life bestowed upon the rest of the flock, must needs be treated with twofold energy and special consideration. He was her Benjamin, she felt.

Juggernaut was to depart to-morrow. His socks were darned. Items of his wardrobe, hitherto anonymous, were neatly marked with his initials. His very pocket-handkerchiefs were numbered.

”You are sending me back to work thoroughly overhauled and refitted,”

he said to Daphne, as she displayed, not without pride, his renovated garments laid out upon the spare bed. ”I feel like a cruiser coming out of dry dock.”

”Well, don't get your things in that state again,” said Daphne severely--”that's all! Who looks after them?”

”My man.”

”He ought to be ashamed of himself, then. By the way, there is a dress waistcoat of yours with two b.u.t.tons off. Can I _trust_ you, now, to get them put on again, or had I better keep the waistcoat until I can get b.u.t.tons to match?”

”You are very good,” said Juggernaut, bowing before the storm.

”That's settled, then. Where shall I send it to?”

Juggernaut thought, and finally gave the address of a club in Pall Mall.

”Club--do you live in a _club_?” inquired Daphne, with a woman's instinctive dislike for such a monastic and impregnable type of domicile.

”Sometimes. It saves trouble, you see,” said Juggernaut apologetically. ”My house in town is shut at present. I spend a good deal of time in the north.”

”Where do you live when you are in the north?” inquired Daphne, with the healthy curiosity of her age and s.e.x.

”I have another house there,” admitted Juggernaut reluctantly. ”It is called Belton.”

”How many houses have you got altogether?” asked Daphne, in the persuasive tones of a schoolmaster urging a reticent culprit to make a clean breast of it and get it over like a man.

”I have a little place in the Highlands,” said Juggernaut humbly--

Daphne rolled her brown eyes up to the ceiling.

--”But it is the merest shooting-box,” he added, as if pleading for a light sentence.

”Is that all?”

”Yes--on my honour!”

”And--you live in a _club_!”

Then came the verdict--the inevitable verdict.