A Safety Match Part 24

"Ah!" Nicky nodded her head judicially. "We must give you a carbolic bath when we get you home."

_The Westminster Gazette_ emitted a perceptible crackle.

"It will never do," pursued Nicky, getting into her stride, "to have you disfigured for life."

Stiffy, who was impervious to all reflections upon his personal appearance, grinned faintly. Opposite, a scared and bulging eye slid cautiously round the edge of _The Westminster Gazette_, and embarked upon a minute and apprehensive inspection of the plague-stricken youth. Nicky saw, and thrilled with gratification. She was on the point of continuing when the train dived into a tunnel. Having no desire that her schemes should go awry in the din, she waited.

The train came to a sudden and unexplained stop. Deathlike silence reigned, broken only by murmurs of conversation from next door.

Presently in the gross darkness Nicky's voice was once more uplifted.

"By the way, is it infectious, or merely _contagious_? I meant to ask when I called for you at the Inst.i.tute"--she was rather proud of that inspiration: an Inst.i.tute sounded more terrifying and mysterious than a Hospital--"but in the excitement of that last fainting-fit of yours I forgot. Which is it?"

"Both, I think," said Stiffy, anxious to help.

"Ah! I feared as much. Still, things might be worse," commented Nicky philosophically. "So many of these complaints are infectious in the early stages, when no one suspects any trouble. Mumps, for instance, or scarlet fever. But others, like yours, are only dangerous in the convalescent stage, and then of course one knows exactly where one is."

There was a crumpling of paper in the darkness, accompanied by a shuffling of feet and a vibratory motion of the seat-cushions--all indicative of the presence of one who knows exactly where _he_ is, and regrets the fact exceedingly.

"The air is very close in here," resumed Nicky's voice. "I wonder----"

she whispered a sentence into Stiffy's ear, the only distinguishable word in which was "germs." "Of course, I have _had_ it--slightly," she added in a relieved tone.

Something moved again in the darkness opposite to them, and then came a sound as of a window being cautiously slid open.

"Still, I _think_," replied Stiffy solicitously--as usual he was warming up to the game slowly but surely--"that it would be wiser for you to keep your mouth closed and breathe through your nose. One cannot be too careful."

"All right," said Nicky.

Once again silence reigned. But presently there fell upon the ears of the conspirators, rendered almost incredulous by joy, an unmistakable and stertorous sound, as of some heavy and asthmatic body taking in air through unaccustomed channels.

Five minutes later the train, groaning arthritically, resumed its way and crawled out of the tunnel into a station. Nicky and Stiffy, blinking in the sudden daylight, beheld the reward of their labours. A corpulent and rapidly ageing citizen, shrinking apprehensively into a corner of the compartment and holding a small handbag upon his knees as if with a view to instant departure, sat glaring malignantly upon them. His face was mottled, his mouth was firmly closed, and he breathed perseveringly through his nostrils.

Next moment he had flung open the door and was out upon the platform, inhaling great gulps of vernal air and looking for the station-master.

"Stiffy, you darling! I'll never call you a fat-head again!" declared Nicky, enthusiastically embracing her complacent accomplice. "That notion of yours was simply _It!_ Daph, wasn't it splen--Hallo! Bless me, Stiffy, if Daph isn't breathing through her nose too! Look!"

Certainly Daphne's lips were tightly compressed, but she turned to her companions and smiled faintly.

"It's all right, kids," she said; "I think this carriage is overheated or something. I shall be all right in a minute. Keep that window open, Stiffy dear."

She was very white, but on emphatically declining Nicky's offer of first aid she was left to herself, while her brother and sister discussed the course to be followed in the event of another invasion of the carriage. Like true artists, they scorned to achieve the same effect by the same means twice running.

Meanwhile Daphne re-read her husband's letter.

"... I have waited six months, and as you display no inclination to look facts in the face, I am compelled to take the initiative myself. As far as I can gather from your att.i.tude, you seem to consider that things are very well as they are. On this point I beg to differ from you. The present situation must _end_. We must either come together again or part for good on some definitely arranged terms.

"... As you have exhibited no desire to reconcile yourself to me--your letter indicates that your sole object in returning home is to play with your latest toy, the new house--I conclude that you wish to remain your own mistress. I therefore place the new house entirely at your disposal. You can draw money as you require it from Coutts', and I will see to it that there is always an adequate balance. I think, if you have no objection, that it would be as well if I occasionally came to the house, and occupied the bachelor suite off the billiard-room; but I shall come and go without troubling you. We ought to make this concession to appearances.

"I should not like your father, for instance, to be made unhappy by the knowledge that his daughter and her husband found it better to go their several ways.

"... As for the custody of the boy----"

A long, slow shudder rippled down Daphne's spine. Custody! There was a horrible legal, end-of-all-things, divorce-court flavour about the word.

"I think it would be a good scheme, Stiffy dear," broke in Nicky's cheerful voice, "for you to pretend this time that you have just been discharged from an asylum. I will be taking you home, and ..." Her voice faded.

"... You will naturally like to have him with you while he is a mere child. I will therefore leave him in your hands for the present. Later, when he goes to a public school and University, I think I should like him to be with me during his holidays.

When he grows up altogether, he must please himself about----."

Public School! University! Daphne turned sick and faint. Were the provisions of this merciless letter to cover all eternity? What had she done to deserve this?

"It would be a bright thought," continued Nicky's voice, returning from a great distance, "to roll up your handkerchief into a ball and put it right into your mouth. Then do something to attract their attention, and when they are all looking, pull it right out with a jerk, and mop and mow. _Can_ you mop and mow, Stiffy? Mop, anyhow!

Just before a station, you know, so that they can get out. If that doesn't work, roll about on the cushions, and----."

Daphne detached her gaze from the flying landscape, and finished the letter.

"Forgive me if I appear to have resorted to extreme or harsh measures. I suppose I am a hard man: at any rate, I am not pliable. I dare say if I had been differently built I might have played the part of the modern husband with fair success, and you could have picked your companions at will.

Unfortunately, I would rather die than permit you to impose such a _regime_ upon me, as you seem prepared to do. The thing is degrading. To my mind there can be no compromise, no half-measures, between man and wife. It must be all in all, or not at all....

"Lastly, Daphne, let me say how sorry I am that things have come to this pa.s.s. I realise that it is my fault. I should not have asked a young and inexperienced girl to marry me. You could not be expected to know better: I might and should. And it is because I realise and admit that the fault is mine, that I refrain from attaching any blame to you or uttering any reproaches. All I can do is to say that I am sorry, and make it possible for you to go your way, unhampered as far as may be by the ties of a marriage which should never have taken place.

"If I can at any time be of service to you, command me. I can never forget that we have had our happy hours together."

Daphne folded up the letter with mechanical deliberation. The first numbness was over. Her brain was clear again, and thoughts were crowding in upon her. But two things overtopped all the others for the moment.

The first was the realisation of the truth of her husband's words. The old situation _had_ been impossible--as impossible as the new one was inevitable. She saw that--at last. "All in all, or not at all," he had said, and he was right.

The second was a sudden awakening to the knowledge that we never begin really to want a thing in this world until we find we cannot have it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

INTERVENTION.

"Madame," announced the major-domo of the Hotel Magnifique with a superb gesture, "the post from England!"

"Thank you, Themistocle," said Mrs Carfrae. "But you are over-generous: one of these letters is not for me."

She handed back an envelope.

Themistocle, needless to remark, was desolated at his own carelessness, and said so. But the old lady cut him short.

"Don't distress yourself unduly, Themistocle. It is a mistake even an English body might have made. There is not much difference between Carfrae and Carthew."

The punctilious Themistocle refused to be comforted.

"But no, madame," he persisted; "I should have observed that the letter addressed itself to a monsieur, and not a madame. Doubtless it is intended for one of the English party who arrive this afternoon."