Vol. 92

No. 4

W

CHAPTER I

INN STAINES respected God, the royal family, and his regiment; but even his respect for these three things was in many ways academic: he respected nothing else.

His father, Admiral Sir Peter Staines, had never respected anything; he went to church, however, because his wife didn't. They were that kind of family.

Lady Staines had had twelve children. Seven of them died as promptly as their constitutions permitted; the five survivors, shouted at, quarreled over, and thrashed, tore themselves through a violent childhood into a rackety youth. They were never vicious, for they never reflected over or considered anything that they did.

Winn got drunk occasionally, assaulted policemen frequently, and could carry a small pony under each arm. Charles and James, who were in the navy, followed in the footsteps of Sir Peter; that is to say, they explored all possible accidents on sea or ashore, and sought for a fight as if it were a mislaid crown jewel.

Dolores and Isabella had to content themselves with minor feats and to be known merely as the terrors of the neighborhood, though ultimately Dolores suc

ceeded in making a handsome splash by running away with a prize-fighting groom. She made him an excellent wife, and though Lady Staines never mentioned her name again, it was rumored that Sir Peter met her surreptitiously at Tattersall's and took her advice upon his horses.

Isabella, shocked and outraged by this sisterly mischance, married, in the face of all probability, a reluctant curate. He subsided into a family living given to him by Sir Peter, and tried to die of consumption.

Isabella took entire control of the parish, which she ruled as if it were a quarter-deck. She did not use her father's language, but she inherited his voice. It rang over boys' clubs and into mothers' meetings with the penetration and volume of a megaphone.

Lady Staines heartily disliked both her daughters, and she appeared not to care very deeply for her sons, but of the three she had a decided preference for Winn. Winn had a wicked temper, an unshakable nerve, and had inherited the strength of Sir Peter's muscles and the sledge-hammer weight of Lady Staines's wit. He had been expelled from his private school for unparalleled insolence to the head master; a repetition of his summing up of

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that gentleman's life and conduct delighted his mother, though she assisted Sir Peter in thrashing him for the result.

It may have contributed to his mother's affection for him that Winn had left England at nineteen, and had reached thirty-five with only two small intervals at home. He had been sent straight from Sandhurst to South Africa, where he had fought with violence and satisfaction for two years, winning the D. S. O., a broken nose, and a cut across the face. When the fighting was over, he obtained leave for a two-years exploring expedition into the heart of West Africa. Ten men had gone on this expedition, and two survived. Winn never talked of these experiences, but he once admitted to a friend that the early study of his sisters' characters had saved him in many awkward moments. He had known how to appeal to female savages with the unerring touch of experience.

From West Africa he was called to the Indian frontier, where he put in seven years in variegated and extremely useful service. He received his majority early, and disappeared for two years into Tibet, Manchuria, and China. After that he came back to England for polo, and met Estelle Fanshawe. She was lovely, gentle, intensely vain, and not very truthful.

Lady Staines disposed of her at once as "a mincing ninny." The phrase aggravated Winn, and his fancy deepened. It was stimulated by the fact that Estelle was the belle of the neighborhood and had a large supply of ardent admirers. It was almost like running a race with the odds against you. Winn was not a conceited man, and perhaps he thought the odds more against him than they actually were. He was the second son of a man who was immensely rich.

He met her at a dance, and insisted upon dancing with her the whole evening. He took her card away from her, and scored off all her indignant partners. In the interval of these decisive actions he made love to her in a steady, definite way that was difficult to laugh at and impossible to turn aside.

Lady Staines told her son at breakfast a few mornings later what she thought of Miss Fanshawe.

"She 's a girl," she observed, knocking the top off her egg, "who will develop into a nervous invalid or an advanced coquette, and it entirely depends upon how much admiration she gets which she does. I hear she 's religious, too, in a silly, egotistical way. She ought to have her neck wrung."

Sir Peter disagreed; they heard him in the servants' hall.

"Certainly not!" he roared, "certainly not! The girl 's a damned pretty piece. I won't have the boy crabbed for fancying a neighbor! It's very natural he should. You never have a woman in the house fit to look at. Who the devil do you expect your boys to marry? Negresses or barmaids?"

"Gentlewomen," said Lady Staines, firmly, "unless their father's behavior prevents them from being accepted."

Winn said nothing. He got up and began cutting ham at the sideboard. His mother hesitated a moment; but as she had only roused one of her men, she made a further effort in the direction of the other.

"The girl 's a mean-spirited little liar," she observed. "I would n't take her as a housemaid."

"You may have to take her as a daughter-in-law, though," Winn remarked without turning round from the sideboard.

Sir Peter grunted. He did n't like this at all, but he could n't very well say so without appearing to agree with his wife, a thing he had carefully avoided doing for thirty years.

Lady Staines rose and gathered up her letters. "You 're of age," she said to her son, "and you 've had about as much experience of civilized women as a European baby has of crocodiles, and you 'll be just

about as safe and clever with them. As

for you, Peter, I should think you might begin to save toward the damages of Winn's divorce proceedings now."

Sir Peter's oaths accompanied his wife across the dining-room to the door, which her son opened ceremoniously for her. Their eyes crossed like swords.

"If I get that girl, you 'll be nice to her," Winn said in a low voice.

"As long as you are," replied Lady Staines, with a grim smile. He did not bang the door after her, as she had hoped; instead, he went to see the girl.

CHAPTER II

It was eleven o'clock when Winn arrived at the Fanshawes. Estelle was barely dressed; she always slept late, had her breakfast in bed, and gave as much trouble as possible to the servants.

However, when she heard who had called to see her, she sent for a basket and some roses, and five minutes later strolled into the drawing-room, with her hat on, and the flowers in her hands.

Her mother stayed in the garden and nervously thought out the lunch.

"Oh," she said, "but, Winn-it 's so sudden-so soon!"

"Leave 's short," Winn explained, "and besides, I knew the moment I looked at you that I wanted you. I don't know how you feel, of course; but-well-I 'm sure you are n't the kind of girl to let a fellow kiss you, are you, and mean nothing?"

Estelle's long lashes swept her cheeks; she behaved exquisitely. She was, of course, exactly that kind of girl.

"Ah," she said, with a little tremble in her voice, "if I do marry you-will you be kind to me?"

Winn trembled, too; he flushed very red, and suddenly he did the funniest, most unlikely thing in the world: he got down on his knees beside her, and taking both her hands in his, he kissed them.

"I 'll be like this as much as ever you 'll let me," he said gravely.

ESTELLE's wedding was a great success, but this was not surprising when one realized how many years had been spent in preparation for it. Estelle was only twenty-three, but for the last ten years she had known that she would marry, and she had thought out every detail of the ceremony except the bridegroom. You could have any kind of bridegroom,-men were essentially imperfect, but you need have

She was n't frightened of him, but she pretended to be. She said, "Oh, Major Staines!" She looked as soft and innocent as a cream-fed kitten. Winn cleared his throat. It made him feel rather religious to look at her. He did not of course see her as a kitten; he saw her approximately as an angel.

be ideal.

Estelle had visualized everything from the last pot of lilies-always annunciation ones, not arum, which look paganat the altar, to the red cloth at the door. There were to be rose-leaves instead of rice; the wedding was to be in June, with a tent in the garden and strawberries.

"You 're hurting my wrists," she murmured. He dropped them. "Winn," she said under her breath.

"Look here," he said after a moment's pause, "would you mind marrying me?" Estelle lifted her fine China blue eyes to his. They were n't soft, but they could sometimes look very mysterious.

having proved too remote, the dean had to do. But he was a fine-looking man, and would be made a bishop soon, so Estelle did not really mind. The great thing was to have gaiters on the lawn afterward.

The day was perfect. Estelle woke at her usual hour in the morning, her heart beating a little faster than it generally

After she had had seven chicken sandwiches, pâté de foie gras, half a melon, and some champagne, she began to be agreeable.

Winn was delighted at this change in her and quite inclined to think that their little "breeze" had been entirely due to his own awkwardness. Still, he wished she had owned up.

It took him a month to realize that he had paid his money, had his shy, and knocked down an empty cocoanut.

He could n't get his money back, and he must spend the rest of his life carrying the cocoanut about with him.

It never occurred to him to shirk the institution of marriage. The church, the law, and the army stood in his mind for good, indelible things. Estelle was his wife as much as his handkerchief was his handkerchief. This meant that they were to be faithful to each other and go out to dinner together, and he was to pay her bills. He knew the great thing in any tight corner was never in any circumstances to let go. All the dangers he had ever been in had yielded only because he had n't.

It was true he had not been married before, but the same rule no doubt held good of marriage. If he held on to it, something more bearable would come out of it. Then one could be out of the house a good deal, and there was the regiment. He began to see his way through marriage as a man sees his way through a gap in an awkward fence. The unfortunate part of it was that he could n't get through the gap unless Estelle shared his insight.

He would have liked to put it to her, but he did n't know how; he never had had a great gift of expression, and something had brought him up very short in his communications with his wife.

It was so slight a thing that Estelle herself had forgotten all about it, but to a Staines it was absolutely final. She had told the gardener that Winn wanted hyacinths planted in the front bed. Winn

had let her have her way in everything else; but he had said quite plainly that he would n't on any account have hyacinths. The expression he used about them was excessively coarse, and it certainly should have remained in Estelle's memory. He had said that the bally things stank Nevertheless, Estelle had told the gardener that the master wanted hyacinths, and the gardener had told Winn. Winn gazed at the gardener in a way which made him wish that he had never been a gardener, but had taken up any other profession in which he was unlikely to meet a glance so "nasty." Then Winn said quietly:

"You are perfectly sure, Parsons, that Mrs. Staines told you it was my wish to have the hyacinths?" And the gardener had said:

"Yes, sir. She did say, sir, as 'ow you 'ad a particler fancy for them." And Winn had gone into the house and asked Estelle what the devil she meant? Estelle immediately denied the hyacinths and the gardener. People like that, she informed Winn, always misunderstood what one said to them.

"Very well, then," Winn replied. "He has lied to me, and must go. I 'll dismiss him at once. He told me distinctly that you had said I liked them."

Estelle fidgeted. She did n't want the gardener to go. She really could n't remember what she 'd said and what she had n't said to him. And Winn was absurd, and how could it matter in any case, and the people next door had hyacinths, and they 'd always had them at home.

Winn listened in silence. He did n't say anything more about the gardener having lied, and he did n't countermand the hyacinths; only from that moment he ceased to believe a single word his wife said to him. This is discouraging to conversation and was very unfair to Estelle; for she might have told the truth more often if she had not discovered that it made no difference to her husband whether she told it to him or not.