Part 24 (2/2)

Reggie was very modern. He built no altar to Mary in his heart nor did he set her image in a sacred shrine apart. He had no use for anyone in a shrine. He wanted a comrade, and he craved this particular comrade with all the intensity of a well-disciplined, entirely practical nature. He was not in the least conceited, but he knew that if he lived he would ”get there,” and the fact that he never had had, or ever would have, sixpence beyond the pay he earned did not deter him in his quest a single whit. Mary wouldn't have sixpence either. He knew the Redmarley rent-roll to a halfpenny. Mrs Ffolliot frankly talked over her affairs with him ever since he left Woolwich, and more than once his shrewd judgment unravelled some tangle which Mr Ffolliot's singularly unbusiness-like habits had created. He knew very well that were it not for General Grantly the boys could never have got the chance each was to get. That General Grantly was spending the money he would have left his daughter at his death in helping her children now when they needed it most. Mary and he were young and strong. They could rough it at first. Afterwards--he had no fears about that afterwards if Mary cared.

But would Mary care?

Reggie felt none of the qualms of a more sensitive man in making love to a very young girl who might certainly, both as regarded looks and social position, be expected to make an infinitely better marriage. He was a.s.sailed by no misgivings as to what might be thought of the man who made use of his position as almost a son of the house to make love to this girl hardly out of the schoolroom.

It was Mr Ffolliot's business to guard against such possibilities.

If, however, he might be called unscrupulous on that score, his sense of fairness was stronger than his delicacy; for where the latter proved no obstacle, the former decided him that it would not be playing the game to make open love to Mary till she had ”been out a bit,” and he laid down the poker with a smothered oath.

He had gone further than he intended that afternoon and he was sorry--but not very sorry. ”There's no harm in letting her know I'm in the running,” he reflected. ”I hope it will sink in. Otherwise she might stick me down in the same row with Grantly and the twins, which is the last thing in the world I want.”

He was glad he had told her about that story, even if it revealed him in an unfavourable light. ”If she ever cares for me, and G.o.d help me if she doesn't--she must care for me as I really am, an ugly devil with some brains and a queer temper. I'll risk no disillusionment afterwards. She must see plenty of other chaps first--confound them; but if any one out of the lot shows signs of making a dart I'll cut in first, I won't wait another minute, I'm d.a.m.ned if I will.”

And suddenly conscious that he had spoken aloud, Reggie undressed and went to bed, knowing full well that even though the hearth-stone should be eternally cold, and the high hopes flattened beyond all possible recognition, there yet remained to him something pa.s.sing the love of women.

For Reggie was not without an altar and a secret shrine, though not even the figure of the woman he loved best would ever fill it. The sacred fire of his devotion burned with a steady flame that illumined his whole life, though not even to himself did he confess the vows he paid.

”One must choose one's own mystery: the great thing is to have one.”

And if prayer be the daily expression to the soul of the desire to do the right thing, then Reggie prayed without ceasing that he might do his WORK, and do it well. His profession was his G.o.d, and he served faithfully and with a single heart.

Mary had no fire to sit over, but all the same she dawdled throughout her undressing and, unlike Reggie, wasted the precious electric light.

She had a great deal to think about, for Grantly and Reggie were not the only people to confide in Mary that holiday. The day before he left, General Grantly had taken her for a walk, sworn her to secrecy, and then had sprung upon her a most astounding project. No other than that he and Mrs Grantly should take her mother with them when they went to the South of France for March--their mother without any of them.

”She has never had a real holiday by herself since she was married,”

the General said, ”and my idea is that she should come with us directly your father gets back. The boys will be at school--Grantly at the Shop. There will only be the two little ones and your father to consider, and you could look after them. I'd like to take you too, my dear, but I don't fancy your mother could be persuaded to leave your father unless there was someone to see to things for him.”

”She'd never leave father alone,” Mary said decidedly; ”but she might, oh, she might go now I'm really grown up. I should love her to go.

Don't you think”--Mary's voice was very wistful--”that she's been looking a little tired lately . . . not quite so beautiful . . . as usual?”

”Ah, you've noticed it too--that settles it--not a word, mind; if it's sprung upon her at a few days' notice it may come off. If she has time to think she'll discover insurmountable difficulties. Strategy, my dear, strategy must be our watchword.”

”But father,” Mary suggested dubiously, ”who's going to manage him?”

”I think,” the General said grimly, ”I think we may safely leave your father in Grannie's hands. She has undertaken to square him, and, what she undertakes--I have never known her fail to put through.”

”It will be most extraordinary to have mother go off for quite a long time by herself,” Mary said thoughtfully.

”She won't be by herself, she'll be with _her_ father and mother; has it never occurred to you as possible that sometimes we might like our daughter to ourselves?”

Mary turned an astonished face towards her grandfather, exclaiming emphatically,

”No, Ganpy, it certainly never has . . . before.”

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