Part 26 (1/2)

And George meanwhile? Little knowing how Fate has changed in a flash an ally into an opponent he is standing at the edge of the shrubbery near the castle gate. The night is very beautiful; the barked spots on his hands and knees are hurting much less now; and he is full of long, sweet thoughts. He has just discovered the extraordinary resemblance, which had not struck him as he was climbing up the knotted sheet, between his own position and that of the hero of Tennyson's Maud, a poem to which he has always been particularly addicted--and never more so than during the days since he learned the name of the only possible girl. When he has not been playing golf, Tennyson's Maud has been his constant companion.

”Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls Come hither, the dances are done, In gla.s.s of satin and glimmer of pearls.

Queen lily and rose in one; s.h.i.+ne out, little head, sunning over with curls To the flowers, and be their sun.”

The music from the ballroom flows out to him through the motionless air. The smell of sweet earth and growing things is everywhere.

”Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, hath flown, Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk of the rose is blown.”

He draws a deep breath, misled young man. The night is very beautiful. It is near to the dawn now and in the bushes live things are beginning to stir and whisper.

”Maud!”

Surely she can hear him?

”Maud!”

The silver stars looked down dispa.s.sionately. This sort of thing had no novelty for them.

CHAPTER 15.

Lord Belpher's twenty-first birthday dawned brightly, heralded in by much twittering of sparrows in the ivy outside his bedroom. These Percy did not hear, for he was sound asleep and had had a late night. The first sound that was able to penetrate his heavy slumber and rouse him to a realization that his birthday had arrived was the piercing cry of Reggie Byng on his way to the bath-room across the corridor. It was Reggie's disturbing custom to urge himself on to a cold bath with encouraging yells; and the noise of this performance, followed by violent splas.h.i.+ng and a series of sharp howls as the sponge played upon the Byng spine, made sleep an impossibility within a radius of many yards. Percy sat up in bed, and cursed Reggie silently. He discovered that he had a headache.

Presently the door flew open, and the vocalist entered in person, clad in a pink bathrobe and very tousled and rosy from the tub.

”Many happy returns of the day, Boots, old thing!”

Reggie burst rollickingly into song.

”I'm twenty-one today!

Twenty-one today!

I've got the key of the door!

Never been twenty-one before!

And father says I can do what I like!

So shout Hip-hip-hooray!

I'm a jolly good fellow, Twenty-one today.”

Lord Belpher scowled morosely.

”I wish you wouldn't make that infernal noise!”

”What infernal noise?”

”That singing!”

”My G.o.d! This man has wounded me!” said Reggie.

”I've a headache.”