Part 36 (2/2)

”Then why didn't you drive, Gilbert?”

”I? Oh, well, I did myself rather well in the train coming down, and so I thought I'd leave it to William!”

Gilbert smiled as he said this, his absolutely frank and charming smile--it would have disarmed a coroner!

Ingworth smiled also, but here was something self-conscious and deprecating. He was apologising for his friend's rueful but open statement of fact. The big man had said, in effect, ”I was drunk,” the small man tried to excuse the plain statement with quite unnecessary sycophancy.

”But you couldn't have been very bad?”

”Oh, no, I wasn't, d.i.c.ker. But I was half asleep as we got into the village, and as you see this cart is rather high and with a low splashboard. My feet weren't braced against the foot-bar and I simply shot out!”

Ingworth looked quickly at Lothian, and chuckled. Then he clicked his tongue and the trap rolled on silently.

Lothian sat quietly in his place, smoking his cigar. He was conscious of a subtle change in this lad since he had come down. It interested him. He began to a.n.a.lyse as Ingworth drove onwards, quite oblivious of the keen, far-seeing brain beside him.

--That last little laugh of Ingworth's. There was a new note in it, a note that had sounded several times during the last few days. It almost seemed informed with a slight hint of patronage, and also of reservation. It wasn't the admiring response of the past. The young man had been absolutely loyal in the past, though no great strain had been put upon his friends.h.i.+p. It was not difficult to be friends with a benefactor--while the benefactions last. Certainly on one occasion--at the Amberleys' dinner-party--he had behaved with marked loyalty.

Gilbert had heard all about it from Rita Wallace. But that, after all, was an isolated instance. Lothian decided to test it... .

”Of course I wasn't tight,” he said suddenly and with some sharpness.

”My dear old chap,” the lad replied hastily--too hastily--”don't I know?”

It wasn't sincere! How badly he did it! Lothian watched him out of the corner of his eye. There was certainly _something_. d.i.c.kson was changed.

Then the big mind brushed these thoughts away impatiently. It had enough to brood over! This small creature which was just now intruding in the great and gathering sweep of his daily thoughts might well be dissected some other time.

Lothian's head sank forward upon his chest. His eyes lost light and speculation, the mouth set firm. Instinctively he crossed his arms upon his breast, and the clean-shaved face with the growing heaviness of contour mingled with its youth, made an almost Napoleonic profile against the bright grey arc of sky over the marshes.

Ingworth saw it and wondered. ”One can see he's a big man,” he thought with a slight feeling of discomfort. ”I wonder if Toftrees is right and his reputation is going down and people are beginning to find out about him?”

He surveyed the circ.u.mstances of the last fortnight--two very important weeks for him.

Until his arrival in Norfolk about a week ago he had not seen Lothian since the night of the party at the Amberleys', the poet having left town immediately afterwards. But he had met, and seen a good deal of Herbert Toftrees and his wife.

These worthy people liked an audience. Their somewhat dubious solar system was incomplete without a whole series of lesser lights. The rewards of their industry and popularity were worth little unless they were constantly able to display them.

Knowing their own disabilities, however, quite aware that they were in literature by false pretences so to speak, they preferred to be reigning luminaries in a minor constellation rather than become part of the star dust in the Milky Way. Courtier stars must be recruited, little eager parasitic stars who should twinkle pleasantly at their hospitable board.

d.i.c.kson Ingworth, much to his own surprise and delight, had been swept in. He thought himself in great good luck, and perhaps indeed he was.

Nephew of a retired civilian from the Malay Archipelago, he had been sent to Eton and Oxford by this gentleman, who had purchased a small estate in Wilts.h.i.+re and settled down as a minor country squire. The lad was destined to succeed to this moderate establishment, but, at the University, he had fallen into one of those small and silly ”literary”

sets, which are the despair of tutors and simply serve as an excuse for general slackness. The boy had announced his intention of embracing a literary career when he had managed to sc.r.a.pe through his pa.s.s schools.

He had a hundred a year of his own--always spent before he received it--and the Wilts.h.i.+re squire, quite confident in the ultimate result, had cut off his allowance. ”Try it,” he had said. ”No one will be more pleased than I if you make it a success. You won't, though! When you're tired, come back here and take up your place. It will be waiting for you. But meanwhile, my dear boy, not a penny do you get from me!”

So d.i.c.kson Ingworth had ”embraced a literary career.” The caresses had not as yet been returned with any ardour. Conceit and a desire to taste ”ginger in the mouth while it was hot” had sent him to London. He had hardly ever read a notable book. He had not the slightest glimmerings of what literature meant. But he got a few short stories accepted now and then, did some odd journalism, and lived on his hundred a year, a fair amount of credit, and such friends as he was able to make.

<script>