Doomsday. Warwick Deeping

tucked the magazines under one arm, and went out for kindly intervention should intervention be necessary. He rather hoped that it would.

      Reaching the "Green Shutters" gate he saw no one on the doorstep. Had the fellow pushed his way in? Colonel Sykes deliberated, and then cut neatly round the house to the patch of grass at the back of it, to find Furze standing beside Mary Viner's chair. H'm, damned cheek! Surely—?

      He was very much the great gentleman. He arrived convincingly on the other side of Mary's chair, eye-glass glimmering, magazines at the present, his heels together.

      "Well, how are we to-day? Better? Capital, capital! Brought you a few things to look at."

      Very properly, when he had paid his homage to the lady, he attended to the man.

      "Afternoon, Furze."

      Furze smiled and nodded.

      "Good afternoon, sir."

      The next few moments were a little awkward, for Furze remained on the other side of the chair with an air of having as much right to be there as had Colonel Sykes, yes—and more right. He was twenty-five years younger; he had come in the spring of the year to this April woman; he made the Colonel look like a withered old chanticleer. Moreover, he had ease, and the repose of a strong thing rooted on that grass patch, a little shy and reserved, but capable of smiling.

      Colonel Toby did not feel like smiling. He dropped his eye-glass, picked up one of the magazines, and discovering a particular picture, displayed it before Mary's eyes.

      "See that. Sir Carnaby Jackson. Knew him in India. Used to play polo together."

      "How interesting."

      She looked at the photo of Sir Carnaby, and Colonel Sykes looked at her. What was the matter? Frightened? Yes, she looked frightened, distressed. Surely, that fellow had not come to present a bill for milk and eggs? He glanced under his yellow-grey eyebrows at Furze who was staring intently and with a puzzled gentleness at Mary's feet. Tucked up in the rug they had fidgeted themselves free, and one shoe was half off. The colonel was shocked. He saw Furze bend down as if he was doing the most natural thing in the world, he slipped the shoe back on to Mary Viner's foot, and readjusted the rug.

      "Damn the fellow!" thought Colonel Sykes.

      He replaced his eye-glass, and discovered blushes, a glowing quivering face, and eyes that were veiled. No wonder! Infernal cheek of the chap! He felt excessively hot and annoyed. Capital, capital, splendid, splendid! No, not exactly. And Furze had his hands in his pockets, and was looking down at the rug-covered feet, and was smiling as in a dream.

      Colonel Sykes cleared his throat. Something needed saying—and the remark that arrived had to be directed to old Hesketh who appeared with a trowel and a trug basket containing—well—of all things—the scrapings of the chicken house.

      "Ha—Viner, active again—I see."

      Captain Hesketh was one of God's most simple creatures.

      "A little something for my sweet peas, Sykes."

      "Capital—capital!"

      But the surprise was yet to come. The big fellow appeared to wake out of his dream. He was smiling at old Hesketh and taking the trug from him, and though they had only approached each other over milk bills, they went off together like a couple of dogs who understood each other from the first mingling of their doggy sense of smell. Furze was saying something to the old man. They walked on past the six blackcurrant bushes and the two scraggy pyramid apple trees to where old Hesketh cherished his sweet peas.

      Colonel Sykes' eye-glass fell out of his eye, and he bent devotedly and just a little deprecatingly over the April woman.

      "My dear little lady—I do hope—ahem—that that fellow has not been—"

      She went the colour of June.

      "I don't quite understand."

      Her brown eyes were all blurred. Colonel Sykes smoothed the air with a suave hand.

      "You really must excuse me, little lady. I am concerned. The fellow has been worrying you—"

      She was almost voiceless.

      "Worrying?"

      "Yes, with some wretched milk bill—or other."

      Her face seemed to sink into an extraordinary and blank silence. She was groping for something—her handkerchief. She found it and pressed it over her mouth.

      2

      Colonel Sykes never discovered the truth of the matter, for when his April Lady had smothered what he took to be a spasm of coughing, she erected a barrier between herself and that too intimate and sentimental eye-glass. She spread one of the papers he had brought her, and made desultory remarks upon the illustrations, while he had to stand at the back of her chair in order to see what she was talking about.

      "Ha," he said to himself, "sensitive—proud, of course. Does not wish to talk about it. Such sweet, silent pride is adorable."

      When all the pictures had been looked at twice Punch was put away, and then the brown eyes of Mary Viner rediscovered her lover. Colonel Toby's eye-glass glimmered towards the same quarter, the strip of ground beyond the currant bushes and the apple trees. Dash it, if the fellow had not got his coat off, and possessed himself of a spade, and was hard at it opening a trench for the planting of Captain Viner's sweet peas. And there was old Hesketh with his trugful—of—ahem—tipping it into the bottom of the trench that Furze was digging!

      "Capital, capital! So—Mr. Furze comes in and does odd jobs for you?"

      She did not appear to catch the remark.

      "A useful fellow. Might employ him myself—now and again. By the way—what does he charge by the hour?"

      Her brown eyes remained utterly innocent.

      "I don't know. Why not ask him?"

      He had had his "devoir" given him by his dear lady, and since his sense of direction was limited and his only movements were one of advance or retreat, he marched across to where Furze was digging and old Hesketh was scattering the colour that was to be. Mary could do nothing else but watch. She saw Arnold Furze pause in his digging, and stand with his two hands on his spade. Colonel Sykes was speaking, and Furze was looking into the colonel's face. The man with the spade had dignity, and realizing his dignity she was both afraid and glad.

      Colonel Sykes returned to her. He did not see the faces of the two Jamieson children projecting above the fence, each with a penny screwed into an eye, but Mary saw them, and all her sympathy was with the colonel. The Jamieson children always produced in her an angry and self-conscious seriousness. She lost her sense of humour—and she had not too much of it—when those two strawberry-jam faces appeared above the fence. Little beasts! Her elderly Orpheus discovered her a readier listener to his sentimental music.

      "The man's too busy. I asked him. Wonder if I put my foot in it, Mary?"

      She dared to remind him that Furze was a farmer, and that when a man had a hundred and twenty acres and cattle to look after—Besides, in spite of a surface smile, she had her grievance against the great man. She could not decide how much or how little guile lay behind that eye-glass. Having lived with her father's simplicity for twenty years and marvelled at it, she was on the watch for a like simplicity in other old soldiers. For to her Colonel Sykes was old, though he did not appear to know it.

      Very properly he asked after her mother, while she tried not to see those detestable children, each with one blue eye and one copper one. They were beginning to giggle.

      "Mother is rather weak—still."

      Colonel Sykes had "Capital, capital"—on the tip of his tongue but managed to withdraw the words before they had escaped.

      "She must be careful. These spring days—treacherous—you know. Sure—now—that