The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XV

UP IN LON­DON

Some kind and at­ten­tive read­er may per­haps re­mem­ber that Miss Grace Craw­ley, in a let­ter writ­ten by her to her friend Miss Lily Dale, said a word or two of a cer­tain John. ‘If it can on­ly be as John wish­es it!’ And the same read­er, if there be one so kind and at­ten­tive, may al­so re­mem­ber that Miss Lily Dale had de­clared, in re­ply, that ‘about that oth­er sub­ject she would rather say noth­ing,’–and then she added, ‘When one thinks of go­ing be­yond friend­ship–even if one tries to do so–there are so many bar­ri­ers!’ From which words the kind and at­ten­tive read­er, if such a read­er be in such mat­ters in­tel­li­gent as well as kind and at­ten­tive, may have learned a great deal in ref­er­ence to Miss Lily Dale.

We will now pay a vis­it to the John in ques­tion–a cer­tain Mr John Eames, liv­ing in Lon­don, a bach­elor, as the in­tel­li­gent read­er will cer­tain­ly have dis­cov­ered, and cousin to Miss Grace Craw­ley. Mr John Eames at the time of our sto­ry was a young man, some sev­en or eight and twen­ty years of age, liv­ing in Lon­don, where he was sup­posed by his friends in the coun­try to have made his mark, and to be some­thing a lit­tle out of the com­mon way. But I do not know that he was very much out of the com­mon way, ex­cept in the fact that he had some few thou­sand pounds left him by an old no­ble­man with great af­fec­tion, and who had died some two years since. Be­fore this, John Eames had not been a very poor man, as he filled the com­fort­able of­fi­cial po­si­tion of the pri­vate sec­re­tary to the Chief Com­mis­sion­er of the In­come-​Tax Board, and drew a salary of three hun­dred and fifty pounds a year from the re­sources of the coun­try; but when, in ad­di­tion to this source of of­fi­cial wealth, he be­came known as the un­doubt­ed pos­ses­sor of a hun­dred and twen­ty-​eight shares in one of the most pros­per­ous joint-​stock banks in the metropo­lis, which prop­er­ty had been left to him free of lega­cy du­ty by the lament­ed no­ble­man above named, then Mr John Eames rose very high in­deed as a young man in the es­ti­ma­tion of those who knew him, and was sup­posed to be some­thing a good deal out of the com­mon way. His moth­er, who lived in the coun­try, was obe­di­ent to his slight­est word, nev­er ven­tur­ing to im­pose up­on him any sign of parental au­thor­ity; and to his sis­ter, Mary Eames, who lived with her moth­er, he was al­most a god on earth. To sis­ters who have noth­ing of their own–not even some spe­cial god for their own in­di­vid­ual wor­ship–gen­er­ous, af­fec­tion­ate, un­mar­ried broth­ers, with suf­fi­cient in­comes, are gods up­on earth.

And even up in Lon­don Mr John Eames was some­body. He was so es­pe­cial­ly at his of­fice; al­though, in­deed, it was re­mem­bered by many a man how raw a lad he had been when he first came there, not so very many years ago; and how they had laughed at him and played him tricks; and how he had cus­tom­ar­ily been known to be with­out a shilling for the last week be­fore pay-​day, dur­ing which pe­ri­od he would bor­row six­pence here and a shilling there with en­er­gy, from men who now felt them­selves to be hon­oured when he smiled up­on them. Lit­tle sto­ries of his for­mer days would of­ten be told of him be­hind his back; but they were not told with ill-​na­ture, be­cause he was very con­stant in re­fer­ring to the same mat­ters him­self. And it was ac­knowl­edged by ev­ery­one at the of­fice, that nei­ther the friend­ship of the no­ble­man, nor that fact of the pri­vate sec­re­tary­ship, nor the ac­qui­si­tion of his wealth, had made him proud to his old com­pan­ions or for­get­ful of old friend­ships. To the young men, lads who had late­ly been ap­point­ed, he was per­haps a lit­tle cold; but then it was on­ly rea­son­able to con­ceive that such a one as Mr John Eames was now could not be ex­pect­ed to make an in­ti­mate ac­quain­tance with ev­ery new clerk that might be brought in­to the of­fice. Since com­pet­itive ex­am­ina­tions had come in­to vogue, there was no know­ing who might be in­tro­duced; and it was un­der­stood gen­er­al­ly through the es­tab­lish­ment–and I may al­most say by the civ­il ser­vice at large, so wide was his fame–that Mr Eames was very averse to the whole the­ory of com­pe­ti­tion. The ‘Dev­il take the hind­most’ scheme he called it; and would then go on to ex­plain that hind­most can­di­dates were of­ten the best gen­tle­men, and that, in this way, the Dev­il got the pick of the flock. And he was re­spect­ed the more for this be­cause it was known that on this sub­ject he had fought some hard bat­tles with the com­mis­sion­er. The chief com­mis­sion­er was a great be­liev­er in com­pe­ti­tion, wrote pa­pers about it, which he read aloud to var­ious bod­ies of the civ­il ser­vice–not at all to their de­light–which he got to be print­ed here and there, and which he sent by post all over the king­dom. More that once this chief com­mis­sion­er had told his pri­vate sec­re­tary that they must part com­pa­ny, un­less the pri­vate sec­re­tary could see fit to al­ter his view, or could, at least, keep his views to him­self. But the pri­vate sec­re­tary would do nei­ther; and, nev­er­the­less, there he was, still pri­vate sec­re­tary. ‘It’s be­cause John­ny has got mon­ey,’ said one of the young clerks, who was dis­cussing this sin­gu­lar state of things with his brethren at the of­fice. ‘When a chap has got mon­ey, he may do what he likes. John­ny has got lots of mon­ey, you know.’ The young clerk in ques­tion was by no means on in­ti­mate terms with Mr Eames, but there had grown up in the of­fice a way of call­ing him John­ny be­hind his back, which had prob­ably come down from the ear­ly days of his scrapes and pover­ty.

Now the en­tire life of Mr John Eames was per­vad­ed by a great se­cret; and al­though he nev­er, in those days, al­lud­ed to the sub­ject in con­ver­sa­tion with any man be­long­ing to the of­fice, yet the se­cret was known by them all. It had been his­tor­ical for the last four or five years, and was now re­gard­ed as a thing of course. Mr John Eames was in love, and his love was not hap­py. He was in love, and had long been in love, and the la­dy of his love was not kind to him. The lit­tle his­to­ry had grown to be very touch­ing and pa­thet­ic, hav­ing re­ceived, no doubt some em­bel­lish­ments from the imag­ina­tions of the gen­tle­men of the In­come-​Tax Of­fice. It was said of him that he had been in love from his ear­ly boy­hood, that at six­teen he had been en­gaged, un­der the sanc­tion of the no­ble­man now de­ceased and of the young la­dy’s par­ents, that con­tracts of be­trothal had been drawn up, and things done very un­usu­al in pri­vate fam­ilies in these days, and that then there had come a stranger in­to the neigh­bour­hood just as the young la­dy was be­gin­ning to re­flect whether she had a heart of her own or not, and that she had thrown her par­ents, and the no­ble lord, and the con­tract, and poor John­ny Eames to the winds, and had–Here the sto­ry took dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions, as told by dif­fer­ent men. Some said the la­dy had gone off with the stranger and that there had been a clan­des­tine mar­riage, which af­ter­wards turned out to be no mar­riage at all; oth­ers, that the stranger sud­den­ly took him­self off, and was no more seen by the young la­dy; oth­ers that he owned at last to hav­ing an­oth­er wife–and so on. The stranger was very well known to be one Mr Cros­bie, be­long­ing to an­oth­er pub­lic of­fice; and there were cir­cum­stances in his life, on­ly half known, which gave rise to these var­ious ru­mours. But there was one thing cer­tain, one point as to which no clerk in the In­come-​Tax Of­fice had a doubt, one fact which had con­duced much to the high po­si­tion which Mr John Eames now held in the es­ti­ma­tion of his broth­er clerks–he had giv­en this Mr Cros­bie such a thrash­ing that no man had ev­er re­ceived such treat­ment be­fore and lived through it. Won­der­ful sto­ries were told about that thrash­ing, so that it was be­lieved, even by the least en­thu­si­as­tic in such mat­ters, that the poor vic­tim had on­ly dragged on a crip­pled ex­is­tence since the en­counter. ‘For nine weeks he nev­er said a word or ate a mouth­ful,’ said one young clerk to a younger clerk who was just en­ter­ing the of­fice; ‘and even now he can’t speak above a whis­per, and has to take all his food in pap.’ It will be seen, there­fore, that Mr John Eames had about him much of the hero­ic.

That he was still in love, and in love with the same la­dy, was known to ev­ery­one in the of­fice. When it was de­clared of him that in the way of am­ato­ry ex­pres­sions he had nev­er in his life opened his mouth to an­oth­er wom­an, there were those in the of­fice who knew that to be an ex­ag­ger­ation. Mr Cradell, for in­stance, who in his ear­ly years had been very in­ti­mate with John Eames, and who still kept up the old friend­ship–al­though, be­ing a do­mes­tic man, with wife and six young chil­dren, and liv­ing on a small in­come, he did not go out much among his friends–could have told a very dif­fer­ent sto­ry; for Mrs Cradell her­self had, in the days be­fore Cradell had made good his claim up­on her, been not un­ad­mired by Cradell’s fel­low-​clerk. But the con­stan­cy of Mr Eames’s present love was doubt­ed by none who knew him. It was not that he went about with his stock­ings un­gartered, or any of the old ac­knowl­edged signs of un­re­quit­ed af­fec­tion. In his man­ner he was rather jovial than oth­er­wise, and seemed to live a hap­py, some­what lux­uri­ous life, well con­tent­ed with him­self and the world around him. But still he had this pas­sion with­in his bo­som, and I am in­clined to think that he was a lit­tle proud of his own con­stan­cy.

It might be pre­sumed that when Miss Dale wrote to her friend Grace Craw­ley about go­ing be­yond friend­ship, plead­ing that there were so many ‘bar­ri­ers’, she had prob­ably seen her way over most of them. But this was not so; nor did John Eames him­self at all be­lieve that he had giv­en the whole thing up as a bad job, be­cause it was the law of his life that the thing nev­er should be aban­doned as long as hope was pos­si­ble. Un­less Miss Dale should be­come the wife of some­body else, he would al­ways re­gard him­self as af­fi­anced to her. He had so de­clared to Miss Dale her­self and to Miss Dale’s moth­er, and to all the Dale peo­ple who had ev­er been in­ter­est­ed in the mat­ter. And there was an old la­dy liv­ing in Miss Dale’s neigh­bour­hood, the sis­ter of the lord who had left John­ny Eames the bank shares, who al­ways fought his bat­tles for him, and kept a close look-​out, ful­ly re­solved that John­ny Eames should be re­ward­ed at last. This old la­dy was con­nect­ed with the Dales by fam­ily ties, and there­fore had the means of close ob­ser­va­tion. She was in con­stant cor­re­spon­dence with John Eames, and nev­er failed to ac­quaint him when any of the bar­ri­ers were, in her judg­ment, giv­ing way. The na­ture of some of the bar­ri­ers may pos­si­bly be made in­tel­li­gi­ble to my read­ers by the fol­low­ing let­ter from La­dy Ju­lia De Guest to her young friend:-

‘GUEST­WICK COT­TAGE, De­cem­ber, 186- ‘MY DEAR JOHN,

‘I am much obliged to you for go­ing to Jones’s. I send stamps for two shillings and fourpence, which is what I owe to you. It used on­ly to be two shillings and twopence, but they say ev­ery­thing has got to be dear­er now, and I sup­pose pills as well as oth­er things. On­ly think of Pritchard com­ing to me, and say­ing she want­ed her wages raised, af­ter liv­ing with me for twen­ty years! I was very an­gry, and scold­ed her round­ly; but as she ac­knowl­edged, she had been wrong, and cried and begged my par­don, I did give her two guineas a year more.

‘I saw dear Lily just for a mo­ment on Sun­day, and up­on my word I think she grows pret­ti­er ev­ery year. She had a young friend with her–a Miss Craw­ley–who, I be­lieve, is the cousin I have heard you speak of. What is this sad sto­ry about her fa­ther, the cler­gy­man! Mind you tell me about it.

‘It is quite true what I told you about the De Cour­cys. Old La­dy De Cour­cy is in Lon­don, and Mr Cros­bie is go­ing to law with her about his wife’s mon­ey. He has been at it in one way or the oth­er ev­er since poor La­dy Alexan­dri­na died. I wish she had lived, with all my heart. For though I feel sure that our Lily will nev­er will­ing­ly see him again, yet the tid­ings of her death dis­turbed her, and set her think­ing of things that were fad­ing from her mind. I rat­ed her sound­ly, not men­tion­ing your name, how­ev­er; but she on­ly kissed me, and told me in her qui­et drolling way that I didn’t mean a word of what I said.

‘You can come here when­ev­er you please af­ter the tenth of Jan­uary. But if you come ear­ly Jan­uary you must go to your moth­er first, and come to me for the last week of your hol­iday. Go to Black­ie’s in Re­gent Street, and bring me down all the colours in wool I or­dered. I said you would call. And tell them at Dol­land’s the last spec­ta­cles don’t suit at all, and I won’t keep them, they had bet­ter send me down, by you, one or two more pairs to try. And you had bet­ter see Smithers and Smith, in Lin­coln’s Inn Fields, No 57– but you have been there be­fore–and beg them to let me know how my poor dear broth­er’s mat­ters are to be set­tled at last. As far as I can see I shall be dead be­fore I shall know what in­come I have to spend. As to my cousins at the manor, I nev­er see them; and as to talk­ing to them about busi­ness, I should not dream of it. She hasn’t come to me since she first called, and she may be quite sure I shan’t go to her till she does. In­deed I think we shall like each oth­er apart quite as much as we should to­geth­er. So let me know when you’re com­ing, and pray don’t for­get to call at Black­ie’s; nor yet at Dol­land’s, which is much more im­por­tant than the wool, be­cause my eyes are get­ting so weak. But what I want you spe­cial­ly to re­mem­ber is about Smithers and Smith. How is a wom­an to live if she doesn’t know how much she has got to spend? ‘Be­lieve me to be, my dear John, ‘Your most sin­cere friend, ‘JU­LIA DE GUEST.’

La­dy Ju­lia al­ways di­rect­ed her let­ters for her young friend to his of­fice, and there he re­ceived the one now giv­en to the read­er. When he had read it he made a mem­oran­dum as to the com­mis­sions, and then threw him­self back in his arm-​chair to think over the tid­ings com­mu­ni­cat­ed to him. All the facts stat­ed he had known be­fore; that La­dy De Cour­cy was in Lon­don, and that her son-​in-​law Mr Cros­bie, whose wife–La­dy Alexan­dri­na–had died some twelve months since at Baden Baden, was at vari­ance with her re­spect­ing mon­ey which he sup­posed to be due to him. But there was that La­dy Ju­lia’s let­ter that was worm­wood to him. Lily Dale was again think­ing of this man, whom she had loved in the old days, and who had treat­ed her with mon­strous per­fidy! It was all very well for La­dy Ju­lia to be sure that Lily Dale would nev­er de­sire to see Mr Cros­bie again; but John Eames was by no means equal­ly cer­tain that it would be so. ‘The tid­ings of her death dis­turbed her’! said John­ny, re­peat­ing cer­tain words out of the old la­dy’s let­ter. ‘I know they dis­turbed me. I wish she could have lived for ev­er. If he ev­er ven­tures to show him­self with­in ten miles of Alling­ton, I’ll see if I can­not do bet­ter than I did the last time I met him!’ Then there came a knock at the door, and the pri­vate sec­re­tary, find­ing him­self to be some­what an­noyed by the dis­tur­bance at such a mo­ment, bade the in­trud­er en­ter in an an­gry voice. ‘Oh, it’s you, Cradell, is it? What can I do for you?’ Mr Cradell, who now en­tered, and who, as be­fore said, was an old al­ly of John Eames, was a clerk of longer stand­ing in the de­part­ment than his friend. In age he looked much old­er, and he had left with him none of that ap­pear­ance of the gloss of youth which will stick for many years to men who are for­tu­nate in their world af­fairs. In­deed it may be said that Mr Cradell was al­most shab­by in out­ward ap­pear­ance, and his brow seemed to be laden with care, and his eyes were dull and heavy.

‘I thought I’d just come in and ask you how you are,’ said Cradell.

‘I’m pret­ty well, thank you; and how are you?’

‘Oh, I’m pret­ty well–in health, that is. You see one has so many things to think of when one has a large fam­ily. Up­on my word, John­ny, I think you’ve been lucky to keep out of it.’

‘I have kept out of it, at any rate; haven’t I?’

‘Of course; liv­ing with you as much as I used to, I know the whole sto­ry of what kept you sin­gle.’

‘Don’t mind about that, Cradell; what is it you want?’

‘I mustn’t let you sup­pose, John­ny, that I’m grum­bling about my lot. No­body knows bet­ter than you do what a trump I got in my wife.’

‘Of course you did;–an ex­cel­lent wom­an.’

‘And if I cut you out a lit­tle there, I’m sure you nev­er felt mal­ice against me for that.’

‘Nev­er for a mo­ment, old fel­low.’

‘We all have our luck, you know.’

‘Your luck has been a wife and fam­ily. My luck has been to be a bach­elor.’

‘You may say a fam­ily,’ said Cradell. ‘I’m sure that Amelia does the best she can; but we a des­per­ate­ly pushed some­times–des­per­ate­ly pushed. I nev­er had it so bad, John­ny, as I am now.’

‘So you said last time.’

‘Did I? I don’t re­mem­ber it. I didn’t think I was so bad then. But, John­ny, if you can let me have one more fiv­er now I have made ar­range­ments with Amelia how I’m to pay you off by thir­ty shillings a month–as I get my salary. In­deed I have. Ask her else.’

‘I’ll be shot if I do.’

‘Don’t say that, John­ny.’

‘It’s no good your John­ny­ing me, for I won’t be John­nyed out of an­oth­er shilling. It comes too of­ten, and there’s no rea­son why I should do it. And what’s more, I can’t af­ford it. I’ve peo­ple of my own to help.’

‘But oh, John­ny, we all know how com­fort­able you are. And I’m sure no one re­joiced as I did when the mon­ey was left to you. If it had been my­self I could hard­ly have thought more of it. Up­on my solemn word and hon­our if you’ll let me have it this time, it shall be the last.’

‘Up­on my word and hon­our then, I won’t. There must be an end to ev­ery­thing.’

Al­though Mr Cradell would prob­ably, if pressed, have ad­mit­ted the truth of this last as­ser­tion, he did not seem to think that the end had as yet come to his friend’s benev­olence. It cer­tain­ly had not come to his own im­por­tu­ni­ty. ‘Don’t say that, John­ny; pray don’t.’

‘But I do say it.’

‘When I told Amelia yes­ter­day evening that I didn’t like to got to you again, be­cause of course a man has feel­ings, she told me to men­tion her name. “I’m sure he’d do it for my sake,”‘ she said.

‘I don’t be­lieve she said any­thing of the kind.’

‘Up­on my word she did. You ask her.’

‘And if she did, she oughtn’t to have said it.’

‘Oh, John­ny, don’t speak in that way of her. She’s my wife, and you know what your own feel­ings were once. But look here–we are in that state at home at this mo­ment, that I must get mon­ey some­where be­fore I go home. I must, in­deed. If you’ll let me have three pounds this once, I’ll nev­er ask you again. I’ll give you a writ­ten promise if you like, and I’ll pledge my­self to pay it back by thir­ty shillings a time out of the next two months’ salary. I will, in­deed.’ And then Mr Cradell be­gan to cry. But when John­ny at last took out his cheque-​book and wrote a cheque for three pounds, Mr Cradell’s eyes glis­tened with joy. ‘Up­on my word I am so much obliged to you! You are the best fel­low that ev­er lived. And Amelia will say the same when she hears of it.’

‘I don’t be­lieve she’ll say any­thing of the kind, Cradell. If I re­mem­ber any­thing of her, she has a stouter heart than that.’ Cradell ad­mit­ted that his wife had a stouter heart than him­self, and then made his way back to his own part of the of­fice.

This lit­tle in­ter­rup­tion to the cur­rent of Mr Eames’s thoughts was, I think, good for the ser­vice, as im­me­di­ate­ly on his friend’s de­par­ture he went to his work; where­as, had not he been called away from his re­flec­tions about Miss Dale, he would have sat think­ing about her af­fairs prob­ably for the rest of the morn­ing. As it was, he re­al­ly did write a dozen notes in an­swer to as many pri­vate let­ters ad­dressed to his chief, Sir Raf­fle Buf­fle, in all of which he made ex­cel­lent­ly-​word­ed false ex­cus­es for the non-​per­for­mance of var­ious re­quests made to Sir Raf­fle by the writ­ers. ‘He’s about the best hand at it that I know,’ said Sir Raf­fle, one day, to the sec­re­tary; ‘oth­er­wise you may be sure I shouldn’t keep him here.’ ‘I will al­low that he’s clever,’ said the sec­re­tary. ‘It isn’t clev­er­ness, so much as tact. It’s what I call tact. I hadn’t been long in the ser­vice be­fore I mas­tered it my­self; and now that I’ve been at the trou­ble to teach him I don’t want to have the trou­ble to teach an­oth­er. But up­on my word he must mind his p’s and q’s; up­on my word, he must; and you had bet­ter tell him so.’ ‘The fact is, Mr Kiss­ing,’ said the pri­vate sec­re­tary the next day to the sec­re­tary–Mr Kiss­ing was at that time sec­re­tary to the board of com­mis­sion­ers for the re­ceipt of in­come tax–’the fact is, Mr Kiss­ing, Sir Raf­fle should nev­er at­tempt to write a let­ter him­self. He doesn’t know how to do it. He al­ways says twice too much, and yet not half enough. I wish you’d tell him so. He won’t be­lieve me.’ From which it will be seen Mr Eames was proud of his spe­cial ac­com­plish­ment, but did not feel any grat­itude to the mas­ter who as­sumed to him­self the glo­ry of hav­ing taught him. On the present oc­ca­sion John Eames wrote all his let­ters be­fore he thought again of Lily Dale, and was able to write them with­out in­ter­rup­tion, as the chair­man was ab­sent for the day at the Trea­sury–or per­haps at his club. Then, when he had fin­ished, he rang his bell, and or­dered some sher­ry and so­da-​wa­ter, and stretched him­self be­fore the fire–as though his ex­er­tions in the pub­lic ser­vice had been very great–and seat­ed him­self com­fort­ably in his arm-​chair, and lit a cigar, and again took out La­dy Ju­lia’s let­ter.

As re­gard­ed the cigar, it may be said that both Sir Raf­fle and Mr Kiss­ing had giv­en or­ders that on no ac­count should cigars be lit with­in the precincts of the In­come-​Tax Of­fice. Mr Eames had tak­en up­on him­self to un­der­stand that such or­ders did not ap­ply to a pri­vate sec­re­tary, and was well aware that Sir Raf­fle knew his habit. To Mr Kiss­ing, I re­gret to say, he put him­self in op­po­si­tion when­ev­er and wher­ev­er op­po­si­tion was pos­si­ble; so that men in the of­fice said that one of the two must go at last. ‘But John­ny can do any­thing, you know, be­cause he has got mon­ey.’ That was too fre­quent­ly the opin­ion fi­nal­ly ex­pressed among the men.

So John Eames sat down, and drank his so­da-​wa­ter, and smoked his cigar, and read his let­ter; or, rather, sim­ply that para­graph of the let­ter which re­ferred to Miss Dale. ‘The tid­ings of her death have dis­turbed her, and set her think­ing again of things that were fad­ing from her mind.’ He un­der­stood it all. And yet how could it pos­si­bly be so? How could it be that she should not de­spise a man–de­spise him if she did not hate him–who had be­haved as this man had be­haved to her? It was now four years since this Cros­bie had been en­gaged to Miss Dale, and had jilt­ed her so heart­less­ly as to in­cur the dis­gust of ev­ery man in Lon­don who had heard the sto­ry. He had mar­ried an earl’s daugh­ter, who had left him with­in a few months of their mar­riage, and now Mr Cros­bie’s no­ble wife was dead. The wife was dead, and sim­ply be­cause the man was free again, he, John Eames, was to be told that Miss Dale’s mind was ‘dis­turbed’, and that her thoughts were go­ing back to things which had fad­ed from her mem­ory, and which should have been long since ban­ished al­to­geth­er from such holy ground.

If Lily Dale were now to mar­ry Mr Cros­bie, any­thing so per­verse­ly cru­el as the fate of John Eames would nev­er have yet been told in ro­mance. That was his own idea on the mat­ter as he sat smok­ing his cigar. I have said that he was proud of his con­stan­cy, and yet, in some sort, he was al­so ashamed of it. He ac­knowl­edged the fact of his love, and be­lieved him­self to have out-​Ja­cobed Ja­cob; but he felt that it was hard for a man who had risen in the world as he had done to be made a play­thing of by a fool­ish pas­sion. It was not four years ago–that af­fair of Cros­bie–and Miss Dale should have ac­cept­ed him long since. Half-​a-​dozen times he had made up his mind to be very stern with her; and he had writ­ten some­what stern­ly–but the first mo­ment that he saw her he was con­quered again. ‘And now that brute will reap­pear and ev­ery­thing will be wrong again,’ he said to him­self. If the brute did reap­pear, some­thing should hap­pen of which the world would hear the tid­ings. So he lit an­oth­er cigar, and be­gan to think what that some­thing should be.

As he did so he heard a loud noise, as of harsh, rat­tling winds in the next room, and he knew that Sir Raf­fle had come back from the Trea­sury. There was a creak­ing of boots, and a knock­ing of chairs, and a ring­ing of bells, and then a loud an­gry voice–a voice that was very harsh, and on this oc­ca­sion very an­gry. Why had not his twelve o’clock let­ters been sent up to him to the West End? Why not? Mr Eames knew all about it. Why did Mr Eames know all about it? Why had not Mr Eames not sent them up? Where was Mr Eames? Let Mr Eames be sent to him. All which Mr Eames heard stand­ing with the cigar in his mouth and his back to the fire. ‘Some­body has been bul­ly­ing old Buf­fle, I sup­pose. Af­ter all he as been up at the Trea­sure to­day,’ said Eames to him­self. But he did not stir till the mes­sen­ger had been to him, nor even then at once. ‘All right, Raf­fer­ty,’ he said; ‘I’ll go just now.’ Then he took half-​a-​dozen more whiffs from the cigar, threw the re­main­der in­to the fire, and opened the door which com­mu­ni­cat­ed be­tween his room and Sir Raf­fle’s.

The great man was stand­ing with two un­opened epis­tles in his hand. ‘Eames,’ said he, ‘here are let­ters–’ Then he stopped him­self, and be­gan up­on an­oth­er sub­ject. ‘Did I not give ex­press or­ders that I would have no smok­ing in the of­fice?’

‘I think Mr Kiss­ing said some­thing about it.’

‘Mr Kiss­ing! It was not Mr Kiss­ing at all. It was I. I gave the or­der my­self.’

‘You’ll find it be­gan with Mr Kiss­ing.’

‘It did not be­gin with Mr Kiss­ing; it be­gan and end­ed with me. What are you go­ing to do, sir?’ John Eames stepped to­wards the bell, and his hand was al­ready on the bell-​pull.

‘I was go­ing to ring for the pa­pers, sir.’

‘And who told you to ring for the pa­pers? I don’t want the pa­pers. The pa­pers won’t show any­thing. I sup­pose my word may be tak­en with­out the pa­pers. Since you are so fond of Mr Kiss­ing–’

‘I’m not fond of Mr Kiss­ing at all.’

‘You’ll have to go back to him, and let some­body come here who will not be too in­de­pen­dent to obey my or­ders. Here are two most im­por­tant let­ters that have been ly­ing here all day, in­stead of be­ing sent up to me at the Trea­sury.’

‘Of course they have been ly­ing there. I thought you went to the club.’

‘I told you that I should go to the Trea­sury. I have been there all morn­ing with the chan­cel­lor’–when Sir Raf­fle spoke of­fi­cial­ly of the chan­cel­lor he was not sup­posed to mean the Lord Chan­cel­lor–’and here I find let­ters which I par­tic­ular­ly want­ed ly­ing up­on my desk now. I must put an end to this kind of thing. I must, in­deed. If you like the out­er of­fice bet­ter say so at once, and you can go.’

‘I’ll think about it, Sir Raf­fle.’

‘Think about it! What do you mean by think­ing about it? But I can’t talk about that now. I’m very busy, and shall be here till past sev­en. I sup­pose you can stay?’

‘All night, if you wish it, sir.’

‘Very well. That will do for the present–I wouldn’t have had these let­ters de­layed for twen­ty pounds.’

‘I don’t sup­pose it would have mat­tered one straw if both of them re­mained un­opened till next week.’ This last lit­tle speech, how­ev­er, was not made aloud to Sir Raf­fle, but by John­ny to him­self in the soli­tude of his own room.

Very soon af­ter that he went away, Sir Raf­fle hav­ing dis­cov­ered that one of the let­ters in ques­tion re­quired im­me­di­ate re­turn to the West End. ‘I’ve changed my mind about stay­ing. I shan’t stay now. I should have done if these let­ters had reached me as they ought.’

‘Then I sup­pose I can go?’

‘You can do as you like about that,’ said Sir Raf­fle.

Eames did do as he liked, and went home, or to his club; and as he went he re­solved that he would put an end, and at once, to the present trou­ble of his life. Lily Dale should ac­cept him or re­ject him; and, tak­ing ei­ther the one or oth­er al­ter­na­tive, she should hear a bit of his mind plain­ly spo­ken.