"On the contrary, sir. A child could have guessed it. You have just come to the decision--in my opinion a thoroughly sensible one--that your engagement to her ladyship can not be allowed to go on. You are quite right, sir. It won"t do."

Personal magnetism covers a mult.i.tude of sins. Roland was perfectly well aware that he ought not to be standing here chatting over his and Lady Eva"s intimate affairs with a butler; but such was Teal"s magnetism that he was quite unable to do the right thing and tell him to mind his own business. "Teal, you forget yourself!" would have covered the situation.

Roland, however, was physically incapable of saying "Teal, you forget yourself!" The bird knows all the time that he ought not to stand talking to the snake, but he is incapable of ending the conversation.

Roland was conscious of a momentary wish that he was the sort of man who could tell butlers that they forgot themselves. But then that sort of man would never be in this sort of trouble. The "Teal, you forget yourself" type of man would be a first-cla.s.s shot, a plus golfer, and would certainly consider himself extremely lucky to be engaged to Lady Eva.

"The question is," went on Mr. Teal, "how are we to break it off?"

Roland felt that, as he had sinned against all the decencies in allowing the butler to discuss his affairs with him, he might just as well go the whole hog and allow the discussion to run its course. And it was an undeniable relief to talk about the infernal thing to some one.

He nodded gloomily, and committed himself. Teal resumed his remarks with the gusto of a fellow-conspirator.

"It"s not an easy thing to do gracefully, sir, believe me, it isn"t.

And it"s got to be done gracefully, or not at all. You can"t go to her ladyship and say "It"s all off, and so am I," and catch the next train for London. The rupture must be of her ladyship"s making. If some fact, some disgraceful information concerning you were to come to her ladyship"s ears, that would be a simple way out of the difficulty."

He eyed Roland meditatively.

"If, for instance, you had ever been in jail, sir?"

"Well, I haven"t."

"No offense intended, sir, I"m sure. I merely remembered that you had made a great deal of money very quickly. My experience of gentlemen who have made a great deal of money very quickly is that they have generally done their bit of time. But, of course, if you----. Let me think. Do you drink, sir?"

"No."

Mr. Teal sighed. Roland could not help feeling that he was disappointing the old man a good deal.

"You do not, I suppose, chance to have a past?" asked Mr. Teal, not very hopefully. "I use the word in its technical sense. A deserted wife? Some poor creature you have treated shamefully?"

At the risk of sinking still further in the butler"s esteem, Roland was compelled to answer in the negative.

"I was afraid not," said Mr. Teal, shaking his head. "Thinking it all over yesterday, I said to myself, "I"m afraid he wouldn"t have one." You don"t look like the sort of gentleman who had done much with his time."

"Thinking it over?"

"Not on your account, sir," explained Mr. Teal. "On the family"s. I disapproved of this match from the first. A man who has served a family as long as I have had the honor of serving his lordship"s, comes to entertain a high regard for the family prestige. And, with no offense to yourself, sir, this would not have done."

"Well, it looks as if it would have to do," said Roland, gloomily. "I can"t see any way out of it."

"I can, sir. My niece at Aldershot."

Mr. Teal wagged his head at him with a kind of priestly archness.

"You can not have forgotten my niece at Aldershot?"

Roland stared at him dumbly. It was like a line out of a melodrama. He feared, first for his own, then for the butler"s sanity. The latter was smiling gently, as one who sees light in a difficult situation.

"I"ve never been at Aldershot in my life."

"For our purposes you have, sir. But I"m afraid I am puzzling you. Let me explain. I"ve got a niece over at Aldershot who isn"t much good. She"s not very particular. I am sure she would do it for a consideration."

"Do what?"

"Be your "Past," sir. I don"t mind telling you that as a "Past" she"s had some experience; looks the part, too. She"s a barmaid, and you would guess it the first time you saw her. Dyed yellow hair, sir," he went on with enthusiasm, "done all frizzy. Just the sort of young person that a young gentleman like yourself would have had a "past" with. You couldn"t find a better if you tried for a twelvemonth."

"But, I say----!"

"I suppose a hundred wouldn"t hurt you?"

"Well, no, I suppose not, but----"

"Then put the whole thing in my hands, sir. I"ll ask leave off to-morrow and pop over and see her. I"ll arrange for her to come here the day after to see you. Leave it all to me. To-night you must write the letters."

"Letters?"

"Naturally, there would be letters, sir. It is an inseparable feature of these cases."

"Do you mean that I have got to write to her? But I shouldn"t know what to say. I"ve never seen her."

"That will be quite all right, sir, if you place yourself in my hands. I will come to your room after everybody"s gone to bed, and help you write those letters. You have some note-paper with your own address on it?

Then it will all be perfectly simple."

When, some hours later, he read over the ten or twelve exceedingly pa.s.sionate epistles which, with the butler"s a.s.sistance, he had succeeded in writing to Miss Maud Chilvers, Roland came to the conclusion that there must have been a time when Mr. Teal was a good deal less respectable than he appeared to be at present. Byronic was the only adjective applicable to his collaborator"s style of amatory composition. In every letter there were pa.s.sages against which Roland had felt compelled to make a modest protest.

""A thousand kisses on your lovely rosebud of a mouth." Don"t you think that is a little too warmly colored? And "I am languishing for the pressure of your ivory arms about my neck and the sweep of your silken hair against my cheek!" What I mean is--well, what about it, you know?"

"The phrases," said Mr. Teal, not without a touch of displeasure, "to which you take exception, are taken bodily from correspondence (which I happened to have the advantage of perusing) addressed by the late Lord Evenwood to Animalcula, Queen of the High Wire at Astley"s Circus. His lordship, I may add, was considered an authority in these matters."

Roland criticized no more. He handed over the letters, which, at Mr.

Teal"s direction, he had headed with various dates covering roughly a period of about two months antecedent to his arrival at the Towers.

"That," Mr. Teal explained, "will make your conduct definitely unpardonable. With this woman"s kisses hot upon your lips,"--Mr. Teal was still slightly aglow with the fire of inspiration--"you have the effrontery to come here and offer yourself to her ladyship."

With Roland"s timid suggestion that it was perhaps a mistake to overdo the atmosphere, the butler found himself unable to agree.

"You can"t make yourself out too bad. If you don"t pitch it hot and strong, her ladyship might quite likely forgive you. Then where would you be?"

Miss Maud Chilvers, of Aldershot, burst into Roland"s life like one of the sh.e.l.ls of her native heath two days later at about five in the afternoon.

It was an entrance of which any stage-manager might have been proud of having arranged. The lighting, the grouping, the lead-up--all were perfect. The family had just finished tea in the long drawing-room.

Lady Kimbuck was crocheting, Lord Evenwood dozing, Lady Eva reading, and Roland thinking. A peaceful scene.

A soft, rippling murmur, scarcely to be reckoned a snore, had just proceeded from Lord Evenwood"s parted lips, when the door opened, and Teal announced, "Miss Chilvers."

Roland stiffened in his chair. Now that the ghastly moment had come, he felt too petrified with fear even to act the little part in which he had been diligently rehea.r.s.ed by the obliging Mr. Teal. He simply sat and did nothing.

It was speedily made clear to him that Miss Chilvers would do all the actual doing that was necessary. The butler had drawn no false picture of her personal appearance. Dyed yellow hair done all frizzy was but one fact of her many-sided impossibilities. In the serene surroundings of the long drawing-room, she looked more unspeakably "not much good" than Roland had ever imagined her. With such a leading lady, his drama could not fail of success. He should have been pleased; he was merely appalled. The thing might have a happy ending, but while it lasted it was going to be terrible.

She had a flatteringly attentive reception. n.o.body failed to notice her.