# All Sorts/An Episcopal Scherzo

[ Sections: II — III — IV — V — VI — VII ].

### IV
#### AN EPISCOPAL SCHERZO

I
The bishop pirouetted slowly on his heel and surveyed himself from a new angle. He then tried various poses in succession, some of unstudied ease, some dignified and authoritative, and one at least distinctly truculent, with the air of a man not quite certain of his real vocation in life. His eye was critical but not unsatisfied.
"I think, Henrietta," he remarked dreamily, "that if the Kamketchgars saw me now they would be surprised."
Henrietta, who was small and mouse-like by comparison, stood a little in the background and caught glimpses of his reflection whenever she could, which was not often because the bishop's width and height practically filled the looking-glass to its frame. At such times, however, her expression was eloquent of much tenderness, some anxiety and no surprise at all. Even when he doubled his fists and assumed a threatening attitude towards his vis-à-vis, she only shook her head as one confronted with a worrying but entirely commonplace phenomena.
"I only hope, Llywelyn dear, that no one will see you," she said. "It would be terrible. Indeed, under the circumstances I'm sure you ought not to go. You know what the Bible says about Cæsar's wife."
But she spoke clearly from a sense of duty and without hope. It was equally certain that the bishop had not heard her, though he smiled affectionately.
"I never realised before the difference clothes make to a man," he reflected. "I don't believe our psychologists have studied the matter with sufficient seriousness. It's worth studying. I feel its importance in my own flesh. A few minutes ago I was what I am, and now—now I might be pretty well anything——"
"Not anything," Henrietta objected mildly.
"Well, no—of course not. But—but—something—different—I can't think what for the moment. It may come to me. And the strange part of it is I feel different. I feel more in touch with life, Henrietta. It's extraordinary. As though my gaiters had been a gulf between me and my fellow-creatures. Perhaps they were. According to my theory they would be. One cannot really speak out to soul with a fellow who offends one's sartorial sense of fitness. Clothes are a method of self-expression, and a man who wears gaiters and an apron and a curly brimmed hat deliberately dissociates himself from his kind. Henrietta, I believe I am on the track of a new sociological principle——"
"Llywelyn," Henrietta interrupted in the same gentle and hopeless tone, "I do wish you would be careful. We're not in Kamketchgar. People won't understand you as they do there. And it's so important that they should understand. We came all this way to make them understand, didn't we?"
"I have heard people actually complain against modern evening-dress," the bishop pursued, tapping his beautiful shirt front with a proud forefinger. "They call it ugly. But, really, if a man has half a figure—you know, Henrietta, I never thought my bishop's rig-out did me justice. The gaiters may have been well enough. Like the immortal Willoughby, I have a leg. But the apron—no, the apron was grotesque—really grotesque."
"I shall wait up for you," Henrietta said, sighing. "I couldn't sleep——"
Her husband turned regretfully from the fascinating vision, threw a fur coat over one arm, and adjusted a top-hat with a brisk man-of-the-world tap on the crown.
"You would think they had been made for me," he declared happily. "There is not a crease anywhere. But, then, Thomas and I are of the same height to an inch. He told me himself that he was considered to have the best figure on the London stage. He did indeed."
"I have no doubt of it, dear," Henrietta assented with some bitterness. But the expression on her faded, still charming little face was unchangeably tender and rather wistful. "If only you weren't going with him!" she lamented to herself.
"But, dear one, I couldn't go without Thomas. He knows London better than any man living. If I went by myself I should probably end up in an A.B.C. with a glass of milk and a bun, and as much wisdom as I had before."
"Oh, if only you would," Henrietta murmured.
"Besides, who should go with me but my own brother?" the bishop asked largely. "Whom else should I trust?"
"There is no one I trust less," Henrietta objected.
Her husband dropped from his cloud for a moment to consider her with a sorrowful perplexity.
"Henrietta, how unkind—how prejudiced! Because my brother is an actor—a member of a most distinguished and honourable profession—you forget his good heart, his generosity, his impulsiveness."
"I don't, Llywelyn. It's just what worries me. Good-hearted people do get one into such dreadful trouble."
"Thomas is the only man I know with imagination enough to understand my motive in going," the bishop added. "I shall never forget his sympathy when I told him. You know I was afraid he might laugh—make a joke of it. And that would have hurt me terribly."
"I know, dear, I know. And I do hate your being hurt And I know you will be."
The bishop shook his head.
"We mustn't be too afraid of pain, Henrietta. Besides, that fellow out in Kamketchgar was quite right. He annoyed me very much at the time—he had a most offensive manner—but as I told him afterwards, his remarks were justified to the hilt."
"Llywelyn, how could you! Such a vulgar, violent man!"
"One must be just even to the vulgar, Henrietta. I remember it was at the service for the new converts, and he stood up in the middle of my address and pointed at me. 'What business have you to talk to these innocent people of civilisation?' he shouted. 'What do you know about it? Have you ever lived in an East End slum? Have you ever been in a West End gambling hell?' Which, of course, was a bad blow for me, Henrietta. Because I never had——"
"I should think not!" Henrietta exclaimed indignantly.
"But now I am going to." The bishop nodded grimly to the gentlemanly reflection, and the Celtic flavouring to his otherwise pellucid English became suddenly more marked. "If ever a man stands up again in my congregation to twit me I shall be able to look him in the face and say: 'Yes—and indeed I have'. I'll have no upstart Saxon telling me I don't know the ways of the devil."
A long restrained tear escaped Henrietta's vigilance and rolled slowly down her cheek. It had no successors—tears are a luxury, and Henrietta regarded luxuries with suspicion—but it was a large and glittering specimen, and the bishop saw it.
"Henrietta—you're not—you're not—I haven't upset you?"
"A little, dear, just a little." By standing on tiptoe she managed to put her hands on his shoulders, and the tear finished its undesired existence on the immaculate shirt front. "It's because I'm so afraid for you. I keep on imagining you in some desperate, wicked place. And you are so chivalrous—so impulsive. You would stand up in their midst and testify against them—I know you would—and—and they might kill you."
"But, my dear one, that's nothing new to us, is it? Have you forgotten how they attacked me in the middle of my Lenten sermon? Why, the knife missed my head by an inch."
"Yes, yes; but that was different All the Kamketchgar bishops have been murdered. It—it would have been respectable—people would have understood."
"Henrietta, whenever and wherever we oppose the devil we are respectable," the bishop answered. "Besides," he added reminiscently, "it's always the other fellow who gets killed."
Henrietta's sigh was dissatisfied, but she followed him to the door and kissed him. He looked oddly unfamiliar, and the kiss had a distinct flavour of impropriety. When he waved to her from under a lamp at the street corner she even blushed and shook her head in protest. As a born Calvinistic Methodist, Henrietta had never really approved of bishops, and now she was quite sure that if only Llywelyn had followed his father at the Ebenezer Chapel up at Llanbedr this at any rate would not have happened.
To belong to the Anglican Church was to be English, and to be English was to be capable of anything.
When the bishop had vanished into the brazen glitter of the adjoining thoroughfare, Henrietta turned back into the hall and shut the door. She shut it firmly, deliberately, as one shutting out a vision of sin. Then she went to the telephone. For a person of her size her bearing was extraordinarily formidable. She liked telephones as little as she liked bishops, and she gave the number severely, as though that too were not all that it might have been.
"Is that the Elysian Theatre? I thank you. Would you be kind enough to tell Mr. Thomas Morgan that his sister-in-law—I beg your pardon. Oh, is that you Thomas?"
"No, my dear old girl, it is not. At birth I may have been afflicted with Thomas Morgan, but by the grace of God and my own unaided efforts I have cast my affliction from me. To the world I am Rhys Glendower. Remember it, dear girl. No actor—not even with my reputation—could survive the Thomas—the Morgan would be his funeral knell."
"You were christened Thomas," said Henrietta, "and I shall call you Thomas."
"Not at all. Don't apologise. It was splendid of you to have rung up. I knew you'd be anxious. I've just this moment come off. I've been superb—simply superb. Not a dry eye in the house. In the last act, when I fall over Juliet's body—you know the part——"
"I do not," Henrietta interrupted sternly. "I rang up about my husband, who has just left me."
Thomas Morgan, alias Glendower, made sympathetic noises, then suddenly he laughed.
"Why, to be sure, I'm to meet him. Promised to trot out all the sins of London. Fixed up the luridest sort of orgy——"
"Thomas Morgan, I beg of you to be serious. Remember what trouble we are in already. If the Archbishop heard——"
"My dear Henrietta, as a staunch Dissenter I care nought for bishops, arch or otherwise."
"He wouldn't understand," Henrietta persisted desperately. "I don't think anyone would. Llywelyn is so impulsive—so headstrong. Couldn't you persuade him—couldn't you stop him? Couldn't you tell him there were no such places?"
"Would you have me lie, woman?" Mr. Rhys Glendower demanded indignantly. "And has anyone ever stopped him? I never have. Don't believe it can be done."
"But, Thomas, if you knew how anxious I was——"
"No need to be, dear old girl. I shall be there."
Henrietta winced. Twenty years of the bishop's society had not acclimatised her to the artistic temperament, and she felt sure that Thomas had been drinking. Nevertheless her own voice became almost mellifluous in its pleading.
"You will take care of him? You know how I trust you."
"Of course I do. And I'd do anything to please you, Henrietta Bach. But I couldn't disappoint Llywelyn—couldn't really. He's just aching for a bout with the Evil One, the dear fellow. Much better give him his head. He shan't come to any harm. You know what I am, Henrietta. I am a man of ideas—of infinite resource. And I wouldn't have my own brother's beautiful reputation blasted for the whole world."
"I shall stay awake all night," Henrietta said brokenly.
"Good! I'll ring up when he's on his way home. But, my poor, dear girl, if you had only been here for the balcony scene! You know, what with my voice and figure——"
Henrietta hung up the receiver.
Since there was nothing better to do and no one to see, she cried bitterly, not unrestrainedly. When she had cried as much as she felt was permissible in a bishop's wife, she put out the lights and pulled back the curtains and, drawing her chair close to the window, sat down.
Very upright, her delicate hands tightly clasped, and her eyes, full of sorrowful patience, bent on the streets of modern Babylon, she sat there, waiting.
II
When Owen Llywelyn-ap-Morgan took orders, Wales definitely lost a champion heavy-weight. It was all there in him—the height, the reach, the muscle, and the spirit. His bullet head, with its upstanding thatch of black hair, the pugnacious nose and square, blue-tinted jowl were perfect. As a prize-fighter he would have been too good to be true.
So he went into the Church.
Possibly the unexpectedly sensitive mouth and mystical grey eyes got him there. But whether they or his superb physique won him his bishopric is more doubtful. History had nothing to relate of the zealous missionary until he threw a murderously-inclined West African chieftain over a six-foot wall and broke his neck and incidentally a very nasty-looking revolt. Then, indeed, it occurred to the authorities that this was a heaven-appointed man.
So Owen Llywelyn-ap-Morgan became Bishop of Kamketchgar.
The Kamketchgars were a dubious race, easily converted, but given, to periodic "rattings" which invariably included a massacre of any white men within a thousand-miles radius; But there was no back-sliding under the new bishop. Kamketchgar, in fact, being climatically delightful, was on the way to becoming a health resort when the dissensions of various rival bodies of Christians, who flourished under the protection of the bishop's strong right arm, began to have an unfortunate influence on the native temper. The Kamketchgars harboured suspicions of a Ju-ju whose disciples had such a poor opinion of each other, and their distrust found an expression in the knife-throwing incident already related. Fortunately for all parties the knife missed its mark, and the bishop finished a very eloquent sermon. But the next day the missionaries of all the conflicting denominations held a service of complete brotherly concord.
As a result the baffled Kamketchgars simmered down, and several outraged mother-churches sent out post-haste for their erring sons and an explanation. The chief transgressor arrived first, primed with a good conscience, suppressed eloquence, and the energy resulting from three weeks' confinement on the high seas. But things in England move in a dignified and ordered fashion. The ecclesiastical authorities thought that in about six months' time they might begin to go into matters. In the meantime the bishop had better wait. Unfortunately, waiting was a feat the bishop had never accomplished gracefully. And besides there was the good conscience, the unoccupied eloquence, and the general exuberance of homecoming to be contended with.
To some extent this biographical notice may explain how Owen Llywelyn-ap-Morgan, Bishop of Kamketchgar, came to be on the streets of London, close on midnight, wonderfully arrayed, and seeking a new form of devil on his own ground.
III
They met outside Piccadilly tube. Several night revellers, attracted by their unusual appearance, turned to admire them as they proceeded arm-in-arm in the direction of Leicester Square. It did undersized humanity good just to look at them. They were almost beautiful in their largeness—their air of having always occupied the centre of the pavement—and the bishop's borrowed fur coat fairly exhaled opulence. Mr. Rhys Glendower, sensing an appreciative audience, broke off in the middle of a detailed description of the evening's triumph to squeeze his brother's arm.
"You're just perfect, dear fellow. Just perfect. The histrionic talent must run in the family. You don't even look respectable, let alone clerical, which is just as well. At the place I'm taking you to they'd stick a knife into a bishop as soon as they'd pick his pocket—and that's saying something."
The bishop nodded gravely as befitted the prospect. But without knowing it he had not felt so well content since he had left his Kamketchgars to their own unholy devices. The Kamketchgars, in a superlative degree, possessed the quality of making most other things in this life appear flat and insipid by contrast, and in addition the bishop, whose task it was to bring civilisation to dark places, was personally intensely bored by it. But now its monotony was to be broken. A long-looked-for encounter stood at hand. His eye took in the garish lights, the luring gateways to unknown wickedness, the shadowy, white-faced figures that drifted past, with the keen intentness of a soldier measuring his adversary.
"It all looks nice and tidy enough on top," Glendower murmured mysteriously. "I dare say you'd think these crowds were just respectable people on their way home from the theatres—that everyone was asleep behind those dark windows—and I'm not sure it isn't a cruelty to tear the bandages from your eyes——"
"I've come here to see things as they are," the bishop interrupted grimly. "And I won't go back until I have seen them."
"Well, perhaps you're right," Glendower admitted, "and anyhow I'll keep my promise. To begin with, we'll turn in here if you don't mind. Romeo gives me the deuce of an appetite. I lose myself so completely in the part, you know, that nothing less than steak and onions restores my mental balance. And we have an hour before closing time. Follow me, and I beg of you to show discretion. Though outwardly a restaurant, like any other, this place is frequented by people of the worst character. We shall meet some of them later, and if we were to arouse suspicion——"
He made a sinister, suggestive gesture.
"I shall do nothing foolish," the bishop assured him simply; "I have faced danger too often to lose my head now."
"Dear Llywelyn!" his brother murmured with affection. "What a delightful fellow you are. One of the very best. Positively my conscience smites me——"
"It is too late to turn back," the bishop answered.
This was not to be denied. They had reached the end of the shining corridor, and a uniformed Cerberus had already laid hold of the bishop's fur coat and received his opera hat with obsequious determination. A gentleman in evening-dress appeared from nowhere in particular to assure them that a special table had been reserved. He bowed and smiled repeatedly, and it was evident from his manner that Glendower was a respected and familiar client. Towards the bishop his bearing was courteous but more distant.
"If these people are to show themselves in their true light," the bishop reflected cunningly, "they must believe that I am one of them." He did not quite know what one did when one has definitely abandoned virtue, but he thrust his hands into his pockets and hummed an accompaniment to the sweet, insiduous music that came to them from behind the drawn curtains. "I hope to goodness there is something fit to drink," he said aloud. "Champagne for choice."
The foreign gentleman rubbed his hands together.
"By all means, monsieur. Cliquot 1907. A magnum, perhaps? I will give ze order at once."
"Make it a bottle," said the bishop carelessly.
The knowledge that he had played up well in the first round helped him to enter the big gilded room with an air of having done nothing better for the last twenty years. In reality the lights, the music bewilderingly interwoven with voices and the clatter of plates, the many tables that seemed to dance round him in a fantastic circle, had a disturbing effect on the bishop's temperament. He felt larger than usual and enormously elated, and at the same time slightly insecure. But it was not till a flimsily-clad Columbine skipped past, throwing him a professional smile en route, that the bishop obviously lost countenance.
"Oh, she's hired by the management," Glendower explained. "It's only a side-line anyhow. Belongs to some gang or other. You'd better send her a box of chocolates. It's the correct thing to do here, and it'll give you an air of verisimilitude."
"Did I—do I—eh?—look so very unnatural?" the bishop asked anxiously.
Glendower screwed in his eye-glass and inspected his brother with genuine admiration.
"The years sit lightly on you, Llywelyn," he said. "As I passed I heard one harpy declare that you were 'just too sweet.' I am accustomed to a certain amount of adulation myself, but I have not your sun-tanned lion-hunter's look. No, there is nothing clerical about you—nothing to be ashamed of."
The bishop overlooked the flippancy. The dancer, pirouetting with due regard for breakages among the tables, became aware of his grave attentiveness, and blushed strenuously. He shook his head, whilst his foot, undetected, beat time to the waltz.
"She doesn't look bad," he reflected wistfully; "just a child."
"You missionary fellows are too accustomed to dealing with crude material," Glendower retorted, helping himself to caviare. "You expect black to be black and white white. Civilisation is only another word for dissimulation. We all try to look what we are not, and some of us succeed. That party on your right, for instance—no, don't turn immediately—might be Surbiton out for its yearly 'do.' Well I know for a fact that two of them have 'done time'. Forgery. The elderly lady with hair parted down the middle and the jet brooch—ten years—passing faked Bank of England notes—a very violent and dangerous character into the bargain——"
"I think that's really tragic," the bishop interrupted. "A very nice-looking old lady; I'm sure with better opportunities——"
"That's your clerical sentimentality, Llywelyn. You simply can't judge. Now there's a man over there I'd like you to notice—yes, with the yellow moustache and the bad head A noted crook. The police have been after him for years. Far too clever. Don't stare. We'll be seeing him again. Have some of your champagne, dear fellow."
"I suppose I'd better," the bishop consented doubtfully.
"Much better. It will help you to keep up appearances. We don't want anyone to suspect you. They're naturally rather nervy. Anything might happen to any of them any minute."
"If my Kamketchgars knew there was a place like this in England," said the bishop with sudden bitterness, "they'd be so shocked they'd wipe the lot of us off the face of the earth."
Mr. Glendower shrugged dispassionately.
"I dare say your precious Kamketchgars are just as wicked as they know how to be," he said. "It's all a matter of education——" He broke off, aware of some violent atmospheric upheaval in his immediate neighbourhood, and perceived that his companion's appearance had suddenly completely changed. His expression of rather awed distress had vanished. He sat back, his fists clenched on the: table, his shoulders squared, his eyes two points of white-hot anger. "My dear Llywelyn," Glendower began with contrition, "I wouldn't hive hurt your feelings for the world. I'm sure under your shepherding the Kamketchgars make the most admirable citizens."
"The cads! The unspeakable cads!" the bishop exclaimed passionately.
"Well," his brother retorted, "you asked me to show you the species. If you wanted angels——"
"Can't they even respect innocency?" the bishop demanded of high heaven. "I should have thought even the blackest-hearted rascal would be moved by such a spectacle."
Here Glendower realised that there was more than the insult to his late flock at the bottom of his companion's wrath. A Mephistophelean simper on the face of the nearest waiter further drew his attention to the fact that within a radius of several tables everyone was smiling. The smile ranged in quality from good-natured amusement through tolerant superiority to acid contempt. And it was not directed against the bishop. Reassured on this point, Glendower followed the direction of the general gaze.
She was quite alone and very young and very pretty.
And she was eating the wrong end of her asparagus.
Mr. Rhys Glendower forgot the bishop, and screwed in a delighted eye-glass. She was like a solitary country flower set in the midst of a cluster of haughty orchids. She was lonely and out of place and delicious as an old-fashioned song. Her clothes were evidently her very best, and to the veriest tyro it was obvious that they had been constructed in some sleepy village whither no fashion of any sort had ever penetrated. They were so utterly wrong that they escaped criticism.
A pair of cotton gloves lay on the table and an absurd satin bag.
She looked at no one. But all the time she was adjusting herself, trying to seem at ease, making jerky, would-be careless movements. And there was something heroic in the way she struggled with the thick white stalks of her asparagus. Because it was evident that she had no confidence in her own procedure. Her small, childish face grew flushed with distress and her hand shook. Once, as though against her will, she glanced up, only to encounter the head waiter's satirical stare. Her eyes dropped instantly, but not long afterwards a slow, ungovernable tear trickled down her cheek.
"Poor child!" Llywelyn-ap-Morgan muttered between his teeth. "Poor child!" Perceiving that his vis-à-vis's face reflected the general feeling, he leant forward. "Do you find it funny?" he asked menacingly.
Mr. Rhys Glendower came back to caviare and the bishop. It is probable that he already foresaw danger. At any rate, his tone was distinctly peevish.
"No, I don't," he said, "I think it tragic—with forced asparagus at thirty shillings a bundle. And I do hope, my dear Llywelyn," he added, "that you will do nothing rash."
"I have never done anything rash in my life," the bishop retorted indignantly.
Then he got up and walked across to the forlorn diner.
One does not live among the Kamketchgars without learning to act promptly and with dexterity under all circumstances, and the bishop's manœuvre was carried out in perfect order. He stood between the girl and the curious, amused watchers and held out his big hand.
"Please to pretend to know me," he said. "And, my dear young lady, try the other end; it's so much nicer."
IV
Her small, shaking hand rested on his for quite a minute. In fact he held on to it firmly and reassuringly because he saw that otherwise the tears would break out in good earnest. All the time he talked to her—of the weather, of the music, of anything that came into his head; he had never lacked either ideas or language. And presently she looked up. She saw that he was larger than any other man in the room—and possibly the fact comforted her, for her quivering lips first steadied and then smiled. It was a very delightful smile—childlike and doubtful and a little mischievous, as though behind her present grief lay considerable possibilities of mirth. Even her tears twinkled.
"And how was I to know which end would be the right one, whatever?" she said resentfully. "The horrid stuff! I never saw it in all my life before."
"At your age I shouldn't have known either," the bishop admitted "They didn't grow it in our parts, and if they had I shouldn't have got any."
"And th' peepul laffin' so," she persisted miserably. "Oh, yess—indeed, I know. As though it burnt me all over it wass—and they're laffin' now—that big gentleman with the bald face especially—just dyin' of laffin'."
"Well, I dare say they'll stop in a minute," the bishop said. He sat down in the vacant place opposite her and folded his arms. He looked steadily at the head waiter, and when that personage abruptly remembered that he had business elsewhere the bishop's eye passed on to the occupants of the next table. The elderly lady with the jet brooch happened to be among them, but she made no stand in the least worthy of her ferocious reputation, and in less than a minute the whole battery was masked and silent. Mr. Rhys Glendower held out longest, partly because he had a genuine right to stare and partly because, as an actor, he was accustomed to keep his countenance under the most trying ordeals. But in the end he too sought refuge in his dinner. "It's all right now," the bishop announced genially. "They won't laugh again, I think."
"That's because they're afraid," she said reverently.
The bishop shook his head.
"The truth is that they aren't nice people at all," he said, "and that this isn't a nice place."
"Oh, but indeed it's a lufly place! I nefer dreamed there could be such a lufly place. All the lights and music and, indeed, it's like fairyland!"
Her piquant little face, with its upturned nose and frame of golden hair, shone with eagerness. The bishop found her very touching.
"Does one usually cry in fairyland?" he asked.
"Oh, that was because it was all so strange; it was silly of me, whatever——"
"No, it wasn't It was because what I say is true."
"But you are here——"
"Oh, well—as to that, what do you know about me?"
She propped her chin in her hand and looked at him. Her expression was ingenuous and most flattering.
"I think you must be a soldier," she declared at last. "Yess, indeed, a soldier back from the wars. I've seen coloured pictures of soldiers, look you, and they are always big and brown—like you—and fierce."
The bishop's eye that still smouldered challenge and indignation melted.
"Well, perhaps you're right," he said. "At any rate, I'm in the wars sure enough. But shall I guess about you instead? You see, in my profession one learns to read people quickly, and I saw at the first glance that you didn't belong to all this—that without knowing why, you weren't comfortable. I can't help wondering how you come to be here—alone. I should like to help you—in fact, I don't feel I could leave you until I have."
"There's kind you are," she murmured shyly.
The bishop's attention took a leap in a new direction.
"Why, you must be Welsh, too?"
"Ess fey—indeed I am."
"Ydi chwi 'n si ard Cymraeg?" asked the bishop joyfully.
"Ydw—mae 'n dda caei ely wed y iaith eto!" she answered, with clasped hands and shining eyes.
The bishop sat back as though to see her better. For a moment he forgot the lurid surroundings and his Kamketchgars and a score of years.
"Why, I was born there!" he declared triumphantly. "At Llanbedr. My father was minister at the Ebenezer Chapel He wanted me to be minister after him, but I wouldn't, and it nearly broke the old fellow's heart. Dear me, dear me, just hearing you brings it all back—the big mountain and the yellow-faced chapel perched on the top, deacons in their black coajs, and the long, long dusty road on Sunday——"
"It was like that at Llancrchymeydd," she broke in eagerly. "The chapel is on a mountain too; we have to walk all the way from the village. One got so tired. It's only a little place, whatever. It seemed so big to me this morning."
"This morning?" the bishop echoed.
A faint trouble crept into her tear-dimmed eyes.
"Oh, perhaps I ought not to have said; I was told not to talk about it to anyone."
"But I'm not anyone." The bishop's smile was very charming. It had all the deliberate guilelessness of a confirmed soul-hunter. "I'm a friend and a fellow-countryman in a strange land. And you're in difficulty."
"Oh, but indeed no—I'm not." She laughed a little and blushed. "I'm to be married."
"Ah!" said the bishop softly and encouragingly.
"To-morrow morning!" She nodded at his astonishment. "Yess, indeed. We have only just arrived, look you, and he brought me in here for supper while he goes to the bishop to buy the licence. And then he's to fetch me and take me for the night to friends." She stretched out her right hand proudly. "He gave me that," she said.
"Ah!" the bishop repeated He considered the monstrous sham emerald respectfully, whilst his mind worked like a pack of hounds in a covert. Things that he had read, up on the long voyage home came back to him. As far as theory went he knew the tactics of his enemy by heart But this was the real warfare—and now it was for him to find the counter move.
He looked up at her with his innocent, delightful smile.
"And now I should like to know whom I have to congratulate?" he said.
"I'm Gwenyth Jones," she answered solemnly, "and to-morrow, look you, I shall be Lady Northstone."
"Ardderchog!" said the bishop. "And how proud your people will be. They will have come a long way to see you married."
She could not hide the flash of distress. Her eyes dropped before his. The hand with the cracker ring trembled as she brushed away an imaginary strand of hair.
"No, indeed, they haven't—they wouldn't They didn't like him. They didn't approve. They said silly, awful things. They had always lived at Llanerchymeydd, look you. They didn't understand. So—so we ran away."
She shot him another doubtful, anxious glance, but his eyes betrayed neither disgust nor disapproval nor even astonishment They did not tell her what he thought of a lord who gave his promised lady fake emeralds and left her in dubious restaurants at midnight whilst he went off to buy a licence from a bishop. They were just exceedingly kind.
It was at this point, in fact, that Llywelyn-ap-Morgan proved definitely that ten years of Kamketchgar human nature had not unfitted him for dealing with human nature in general. He did nothing obvious. He made no appeal to her conscience or her common sense. He just said: "Well, they'll be sad-hearted up at Llanerchymeydd to night." And left it at that.
But there was more than guile in this masterly reticence. The girl had suddenly ceased to listen to him. Her eyes no longer cared whether he approved or disapproved. They were wide open and full of a proud and joyful recognition. So that the bishop knew that unless some inspiration came to him it was too late.
Lord Northstone proved to be an undersized pink-and-yellow young man. He had protuberant blue eyes, narrow shoulders, and a rather foolish mouth. His clothes were vulgar and in the latest fashion, and the emerald appeared to be a very fair specimen of his taste in jewellery. He looked at the bishop as a mongrel cur looks at the dog in possession of his bone, and the bishop got up and bowed.
"Well—and who the devil are you?" his lordship asked pleasantly.
Not even on the occasion of the West African chieftain's abrupt demise had the bishop showed greater self-possession.
"Permit me to introduce myself, Lord Northstone. Owen Llywelyn at your service. Miss Jones and I happen to be friends and fellow-countrymen, and I ventured to keep her company during your absence, more especially as she was being annoyed by some of the people here. I trust the intrusion is forgiven——"
"Well, I don't know so much."
"And that I may be allowed to offer my best wishes——"
His lordship grunted doubtfully.
"In a little bottle of the best," added the bishop with mellifluous devilment.
And on the flash of the longed-for inspiration he winked.
It was a successful wink. From his lonely point of vantage Mr. Rhys Glendower witnessed the results with rising anxiety and an admiration for his brother's conduct and appearance which would have been undiluted had it not been for the painful consciousness of the Kamketchgar inquiry, the archbishop and Henrietta hovering menacingly in the background.
The orgy was brief but splendid.
It appeared that among other accomplishments the bishop knew how to tell a funny story. He told it with his elbow on the table and the wine-glass stem twirling delicately between his fingers. His very attitude was ribald. The pink-and-yellow young man roared bovine approval, and the girl smiled palely and a little anxiously. The lady with the jet brooch at the next table wore an expression of disgust.
Mr. Rhys Glendower's dinner was completely spoilt.
As the first lights went out the bishop strolled across to his forsaken mentor. His flushed face and shining eyes promised the worst. His voice, by contrast, was almost shockingly episcopal and authoritative.
"We are going to take these two with us, Thomas," he announced. "I've invited them, and they have accepted. It's a clear case. Nothing but a complete revelation of that fellow's character will save the infatuated girl. I am a judge of character, Thomas, and I know. He is a drunken scoundrel with the worst intentions, and he thinks I'm another. Under our influence he will reveal his true colours before the night is out and to-morrow she will be on her way back to her Welsh mountains, or I'm a Saxon. Waiter—the bill."
"But, my dear Llywelyn, think of your position."
"I do think of it," the bishop answered simply. "And I am doing my best to live up to it. I shall not let that poor child out of my sight till she is safe—even if I have to go to the devil myself." He lit a very large cigar with a somewhat conscious air of abandon. "Tell me, Thomas, as one artist to another, don't you think I'm rather wonderful?"
Mr. Rhys Glendower's sardonically set mouth relaxed.
"Wonderful!" he admitted resignedly. "But I don't complain. Henrietta warned me that you would be——"
V
Glendower gave the directions, and the taxi man proceeded down deserted and narrow streets which at another time might have excited the bishop's crusading spirit by their air of skulking wickedness. But the bishop appeared lost to the world. And it must be admitted that though his facetiousness during that long and complicated drive was in itself entirely harmless, the bishop's general bearing was that of a person of no morals in the first stages of inebriety.
Lord Northstone continued to offer uproarious appreciation, and the girl at his side grew silent—anxiously attentive. Every now and again she lifted a white face to her companion, and her hand slipped into his with an appealing pressure. Once she whispered to him, and her glance travelled across to the bishop, questioningly, as though she were already alarmed and bewildered. These things the bishop, tense and alert as a terrier at a rat hole, noted with machiavellian satisfaction.
And he was so sorry for her that he decided that to-morrow Henrietta and he would take her back to Llanerchymeydd and explain matters. They would throw an episcopal halo round the girlish escapade, and if that did not do, the bishop's connection with the Ebenezer Chapel might help to establish friendly relations. The bishop, in fact, was simultaneously performing a work of rescue and reconciliation among his native mountains and telling his best story in a London taxi, when the latter jerked to a violent and disconcerting standstill.
"It's the liveliest den in London," Glendower explained. "And if they do let you in, mind your pockets, that's all."
"Gosh!" said Lord Northstone between respect and incredulity.
They disembarked on a lonely square and before a house that, like its neighbours, appeared wrapped in righteous slumber. When the taxi lights had vanished round the corner Glendower went up the steps and, having made sure that he was unobserved, rapped mysteriously. A square of light shot out into the darkness, and there followed a muttered and protracted argument, during which lord Northstone and his companion stood close together and whispered.
It was evident that she was dissuading earnestly, and it was no part of the bishop's plan that she should succeed. He laid his hand gently on her arm.
"You're quite safe," he said. "You can trust me."
Whether it was the sound of her native tongue or the look on his face, showing dimly in the lamplight, that comforted her cannot be said. At least her eyes lost their fear. They smiled back at him.
"And indeed I do," she said.
"You can come up," whispered Glendower from the shadows.
They followed close on each other's heels. There was no light in the hall or on the long uncarpeted staircase or in any of the rooms through which they passed. But as each door opened before them a bell pealed through the eerie stillness. The sound had a sinister and menacing quality. It chilled even the bishop's blood, and Lord Northstone laid an angry frightened hand on Glendower's m.
"What the hell's that row for?" he demanded. "Do they want to raise the dead?"
"In case of a police raid," Glendower whispered back.
"Well, if I wanted the police I'd make a noise something like that."
"Of course, if you're afraid," began Glendower.
"Oh, shut up!" said Lord Northstone between his teeth. "It's her—the girl—I'm thinking of."
"It would be," murmured the bishop.
Northstone turned in his direction, but a pair of folding doors were flung open by their unseen guide and, as far as the bishop was concerned, he ceased temporarily to exist. He was pushed aside, and the bishop went past him gallantly like a soldier going into action.
It was so exactly as he had imagined it that the scene was almost familiar. The large room, showily yet cheaply furnished, brilliantly lit yet dim and misty with smoke and heat, the long green table under the concentrated glare of electric light, the tense crowd of men and women—it was all like a huge tableau posed by an academician with an eye to the picture of the year. It was so obviously wicked that it was stupid. The very atmosphere tasted evil It was sticky with scent and the fume of wine. One felt that here at any rate the Devil revealed himself as a vulgar person of no subtlety.
"Messieurs—faites vos jeux!"
The bishop knew what that meant. He knew who the man was with the gaunt intent lace and the long greedy rake. And his heart grew hot with pity and incipient rage. The victims were of all ages. There were young women, bare-shouldered, thickly rouged and powdered to hide their ravaged youth. There were old women, pitiful, hideous husks, living only in the life of their last passion, crouching like hawks over their little piles of gold. And the men leant over them and watched the revolving wheel with a naked, shameless avarice.
From the bar at the far end of the room came subdued laughter and the clink of glasses. But for that and the rustle of gold and paper as it was swept into the bank's rapacious maw there was no other sound. Those grouped round the table were deadly silent.
Llywelyn-ap-Morgan thought remorsefully of his Kamketchgars. It seemed to him that even the West African chieftain, by contrast, had been an innocent and gentle creature.
But Lord Northstone had gone to the gaming-table as a needle turns to a magnet, and the bishop came back sternly to his immediate task. For a moment he lost pride in it. It had become almost too easy—unsporting—like trapping a stupid, unwary animal The pseudo-nobleman's expression itself betrayed him. And best of all—saddest of all—the girl saw it and understood. Not all at once. It came gradually to her—first puzzlement, and then distress, and at last downright fear. There was something tragic about her as she stood there on the edge of the crowd, brows knit, hands clasped, watching the swift disintegration of her idol. Llywelyn-ap-Morgan, being of her race, saw with her, felt with her, until suddenly she turned and came straight to him.
"I don't like it," she said breathlessly, "I don't like it—I don't understand."
"It's not like Llanerchymeydd," returned the bishop, dryly and significantly.
She stared at him blankly for an instant. Then her expression changed. Her lips quivered. She seemed on the point of breakdown.
"I want to get away," she stammered.
"If you go with this man to-night you will never get away."
"Oh, please, please help me."
"I'm going to. I promised. You've got to trust me. You must come with me—at once—while there's time."
"I can't—I can't."
"You must. You see for yourself what it means."
She gave an uncontrollable exclamation of distress, and Lord Northstone, who had been watching the roulette with a hypnotised intentness, swung round. He came straight to them—and yet the bishop had a swift, instinctive conviction that it was not fear of losing his prey that brought him. Some other cause was at the root of his alarm, which, for a thorough-paced villain, was almost comic.
"What is it?" he demanded hoarsely. "What's the game? There's something here I don't like—something queer; I haven't liked it from the first. It isn't a proper place——"
"I know—I know," the girl interrupted with intense feeling.
"They're not playing on the straight," Lord Northstone persisted savagely. "They're playing anyhow—all over the shop—like a lot of lunatics—and the money's faked. It's my belief it's a damned trap, and I'm going to get out of it."
He siezed the girl by the wrist, and let go instantly with a gasp of pain.
"And if it is a trap," the bishop demanded loudly, "what right have you to complain, you black-hearted impostor? You set a trap yourself—a trap to catch an innocent, foolish girl—and you've met your match. In this diabolical plague spot you have betrayed yourself."
"You let she and me go," Lord Northstone wailed wildly and ungrammatically.
"I am not going to let her go."
"So you're after my girl, are you? "
He came for the bishop with a courage which, considering his size, bordered on the heroic. And the bishop, in whom many things, theological and human, had been simmering for some time past, caught him scientifically by the scruff of the neck and flung him deliberately, with the same accuracy with which he had handled the deceased African, over the heads of the players on to the roulette table.
Fortunately, but unexpectedly, the roulette table gave way.
Amidst the hysterical screaming of the women, who rose up like a flock of terrified birds from some unsavoury meal, the cursing of men, and the metallic jingle of money rolling to the farthest corner of the room, there sounded the shrill, persistent clamour of an electric bell.
"The police!"
"For heaven's sake, Llywelyn——"
The bishop threw off his brother's hand.
"I'm glad—I thank God!" he declared exultantly. "It's time this devil's haunt was swept clear."
"You're mad—don't you realise—it means the police court—quod perhaps for the lot of us."
"It's what they deserve." And then Llywelyn-ap-Morgan, Bishop of Kamketchgar, caught sight of Gwenyth Jones, and his righteous fury turned cold with understanding. For she was crying, and her hands were outstretched to him in pitiful, accusing supplication.
"Oh, I trusted you—I did trust you."
"I know," he said, "I know." He looked about him—at the madly gyrating, panic-stricken crowd fighting its way to the narrow exit at the further end of the room. He had the habit of quick thinking, and his jaw hardened. "Any escape there?" he asked.
Glendower nodded, white to the lips.
"Yes—I believe so—to the roof—fire-escape—but there's no time."
"There will be," said the bishop simply. He pushed Gwenyth Jones into Glendower's arms. "Take care of her," he commanded. "Take her to Henrietta—explain."
The bell sounded almost in their ears. It was evident that the invaders had passed one barrier after another without pause. And the room still seethed with fugitives, frenziedly baulking each other of escape. The bishop gave them no more than one calculating, contemptuous glance. He had met worse villains and respected them. It seemed that civilisation had a demoralising effect—even on born scoundrels. The man at Kamketchgar had been right—ill-mannered no doubt, but right. It was an impertinence to preach at the Kamketchgars when one had a breed like this to deal with at home.
The bishop's brain worked on this thesis whilst he thrust the croupier's rake through the ornate handles of the folding doors. He hooked his arms round the ends of his extemporary pin and set his immense shoulders against the panelling in the nick of time. Under the first onslaught the doors bulged ominously. The bishop took firmer hold and they flattened out. After that he did not appear to move. He held his ground, like some modern-clad Samson, his face grim with effort, the veins of his neck swollen to whip-cord—an heroic if unepiscopal figure.
From the rear of the dwindling crowd Gwenyth Jones looked back at him. And he smiled at her, painfully, but reassuringly.
VI
He removed the obstructing pin suddenly and not entirely without malice. That the enemy may have justice on his side is a point which even a bishop may overlook in the heat of battle.
The inspector, when he had recovered his equilibrium and official dignity, measured the bishop with dispassionate admiration.
"Held us up single-handed, did you?" he asked.
The bishop bowed.
"It's a trick I learnt—where I come from," he explained.
"I see. Bird's flown. Your little roost, I suppose."
"My first visit."
"I believe you. Well, you're a stout fellow and I give you best, but muscle won't help you much at Bow Street. Better come along quiet. I've got five more men downstairs. Pity to smash up any more of the crockery."
"Really, I hate to have given you so much trouble," the bishop assured him. "It's a disgraceful place. It ought never to be allowed." He paused, aware of certain inconsistencies in his position.
"Perhaps this will explain a little," he said unhopefully.
The inspector's first expression as he fingered the bishop's visiting-card was satirical.
"So likely!" he said. "So very likely!"
"It's so unlikely that you can take it that it's true," the bishop retorted.
This was wisdom, The inspector favoured his captive with a long, considering stare.
"Why, I do seem to know your face," he admitted. "Seen it somewhere—Scotland Yard—or—or some illustrated paper. Wait a minute—Comecatchyer Enquiry—it had written underneath."
"Kamketchgar," the bishop corrected courteously.
"Well, it'll be some inquiry after this," the inspector remarked.
But his manner changed. It was deferential and impertinent. An ordinary mortal caught red-handed may be an object of sympathy as one man to another, but a bishop in like circumstances is a joke. Llywelyn-ap-Morgan realised, as he caught the faint but malicious flutter of the inspector's eyelid, that he would represent that gentleman's top note in humour for some years to come.
"In any case, I am ready to accompany you," he said, with dignity. "I quite see that some explanation is necessary, and I wish to give it at once."
"We shouldn't dream of troubling your lordship at this hour. Your lordship will be given another opportunity—at the police-court proceedings. I'm afraid your lordship will be sole defendant—having given his friends such a good start" He coughed. "At present there is nothing for me to do but search the premises. I wish your lordship good-night."
The bishop gathered up the fur coat and the remnants of an opera hat.
"And if you should happen to find a girl," he said "quite a young girl, with fair hair and a rather turned-up nose, please let her go. She has nothing to do with this place. I am entirely responsible. I brought her here."
"I take your lordship's word for it," said the inspector wickedly.
With his three constables looming discreetly in the shadow, he tramped back through the deserted passages. But the bishop lingered. With an eye to a strong realistic sermon, he took in the details of the general ruin. Amongst them the smashed roulette table gave him the keenest satisfaction. For a man of his years it had been a wonderful toss. Even that Kamketchgar fellow would have to admit that he knew how to tackle any devil—civilised or uncivilised.
And he had saved the girl from disaster. He had preserved innocence. He had kept his promise.
The archbishop and even Henrietta would see that as a bishop and a gentleman he had done the only possible thing.
It was not till he caught a glimpse of himself in the long glass opposite that he suffered his first doubt as to their verdict He doubted himself. He had a moment's sickening doubt in his own motives. He did not look like a bishop. He did not look like a gentleman. He looked wild and violent and disreputable. The light of battle still glowed sullenly in his eye. The white shirt front was crumpled to a rag, and the tie stuck up truculently under one ear.
He looked horribly as though he had enjoyed himself.
It was impossible to believe anything but the worst of such a figure.
So that he might never preach again—never scold his Kamketchgars back to the paths of virtue. And he had loved preaching—loved his Kamketchgars.
Well, he had saved the girl, anyhow.
Then out of the shadow a small voice called timidly.
"Mr. Llywelyn—Mr. Llywelyn—please——"
VII
He followed it down a narrow passage and then up an iron ladder on to the roof. And then because he felt suddenly very tired and broken-hearted he sat down beside it in the lee of a monstrous chimney-pot.
"You shouldn't have stayed," he said. "You ran a grave risk. You should have gone with my brother. Why didn't you?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"To tell you the truth, I didn't fancy your brother much. When I explained things to him he laughed. I thought he'd fall into the street—seemed to think it funny."
"Thomas would," the bishop admitted wearily. "The poor fellow has to live through so many artificial tragedies that when the reality comes his way he can't believe in it. But you could have trusted him."
She did not answer for a minute. He felt that she was looking at him—trying to see him through the darkness.
"Queer the p'lice didn't follow us up here," she meditated at last. "Must have squared them somehow, didn't you?"
"They—they recognised me."
"Been in trouble before, eh?"
"In a way—yes."
"You're that sort, Always in the soup. I know."
The bishop rubbed his eyes. An odd, charming sense of unreality was creeping over him. He seemed to be looking at things from a new angle and failing painfully to recognise them. London itself was different. From a grimly actual world of bricks and mortar and worrying, scurrying mortals, it had become an Arabian fairy story. A myriad golden genii danced a bewildering dance round its housetops, on which reclined, more or less at their ease, bishops and other usually respectable people. At least to the Bishop of Kamketchgar it seemed impossible that he should be the only one.
As to his companion—she eluded dim. She had become a mystery—an enigma. She slipped—figuratively—through his fingers.
He sighed and shook himself.
"Anyhow, there's no need for us to sit here in the cold," he said, laying firm hold of common sense. "It's quite safe. I spoke to the inspector, Miss Jones. I told him that you were entirely innocent. He took my word for it."
"Well, I'm not taking his," she remarked. "I'll stay here, if you don't mind. When the milk comes round I'll slip off down the fire escape. Policemen have their hours like other folk, and when the bell rings they down tools and run home to bed. I've had enough shocks for one night, and I'm taking no chances."
"Poor child!" said the bishop gently.
"Oh, never mind me. It's your funeral. And a cheap one, I don't think. 'Obstructing the police in the performance of their duties,' and all that. They'll make out a nice little bill for you, you'll see."
"I dare say I shall." But not for the world would he have told her the real cost. "It was worth it," he added bravely.
She felt for his hand and squeezed it hard.
"You're a sport. I always says myself if I gets my fun I don't mind paying for it. And you've had yours all right. My word, it was a treat just to see you. There isn't another man I know could have done it. You must be strong."
A faint comfort crept round the bishop's tired heart.
"I suppose I am—rather."
"All the same, you ought not to chuck people about like that," she added reprovingly. "You might have broken Jim's neck."
"If Jim is Lord Northstone," said the bishop, "I almost wish I had. He's a bad man."
"He isn't. After all, you were trying to nab his girl."
"I was not."
"Well—now, weren't you? Own up!"
He hedged confusedly.
"Anyhow, my dear child, in my profession one gets to know good from evil at a glance."
She hugged herself.
"Oh, what you know about everything!" she murmured.
The bishop frowned at her. But it was too dark for her to appreciate the effort. And all at once he realised that she was shaking from head to foot. He took off the fur coat and slipped it over her shoulders.
"You're cold."
"I'm not—I'm—— Besides—oh, you go home."
"I'm not going to leave you."
"What—not ever?"
"Not till I've done what I meant to from the beginning. Put you in the first train for Llanerchymyedd."
"Oh, Gawd!"
He listened intently, anxiously, but she made no further protest She crept closer, shifting half the coat back to his shoulders.
"Share and share alike," she murmured. "Honest injun!"
There was a long silence. Presently her head drooped against him, and he put his arm round her, holding her gently. Her sleep was so sweet and untroubled that the tears came to his eyes. She seemed less strange—less unfamiliar. He thought of her people among the Welsh mountains—of Henrietta—all waiting, hoping.
He was very tired—not so young as he was. Life in Kamketchgar was much easier.
Probably the bishop slept.
At least the next thing he knew clearly was that the Arabian fairy story had been told to an end. The curtain had been rung down and the players were taking off their paint. There was London already in its work-a-day dress—smoky and grey and rather sulky-looking in the chill dawn, like a reveller waking after a long and riotous night out And Gwenyth Jones had changed. She had propped a tiny pocket mirror against a chimney-pot and was arranging her golden curls with practised fingers.
Was it part of the disillusionment that the curls seemed less golden?
"Good morning," said the bishop doubtfully.
She glanced back at him over her shoulder.
"Oh, you're awake, are you. Well, don't look, there's a dear. Must have lost my complexion in the scrimmage. Perfect fright aren't I?"
"There's a train to Cardiff at nine o'clock," said the bishop, clutching at reality. "We mustn't miss it."
"A train? Where to?"
"Llanerchymeydd."
"Oh, drop that, I'm too tired." She finished her toilet, yawned and stretched herself, and then came gingerly down the sloping tiles to the bishop's side. She stood there in the gutter, looking down at him. Certainly, now that there were no lights—no music—she looked less child-like. "S'cuse my temper," she said; "it's never rosy in the morning, and it's been a trying night for us all. Anyhow, don't talk to me about Llanerchymeydd. I don't know the place. Never been there and don't want to go. The very name's worn me to a shadow. Fact is, dear old boy, I'm not Welsh. I can't speak Welsh. I've worked up one or two sentences and an accent, and leave the rest to Providence. I can do a Scotch turn and an Irish jig according to requirements. I heard your brother call you Llywelyn, so I had your weak spot at once. See?"
"No—not clearly," said the bishop.
She smiled kindly at him.
"I do a different stunt every time," she went on. "Sometimes it's asparagus I can't manage—sometimes I can't pay my bill—sometimes I lose my way. But I'm always helpless and clinging. Then, when I've hooked the fish, Jim pops up, and either we leads it off gently to a game of poker—among friends, you understand—or there's a row and he pays up for peace and quiet, or we humours him a bit first—like we did you. See now?"
"Good God!"
"And there's no need to call anyone names either," she said severely. "I'm a respectable married woman—out of business hours. Got to make a living like everyone else. And who are you, anyhow? Trying to lure a poor innocent girl off to a gambling hell?"
The bishop buried his face in his hands, and suddenly she sat down beside him. She put her arm over his shoulder and rumpled up his stiff black hair affectionately. "There now, don't you take on! I'm not blaming you—straight I'm not. Bit wuzzy in the head, weren't you? I can guess what it's like, coming home after a spell in some outlandish hole. One's got to go off the rails or bust. I saw you were a good sort at bottom right from the first—though, mind you, I had a bad five minutes in that queer place, and Jim swore you were a police guy doing a new stunt on his own. But you played up fine, and as far as I'm concerned all's forgiven and forgotten, see?"
The bishop looked round at her, and was amazed to see that the carefully-shaded eyelashes had grown moist with tears.
"Oh, I'm always sloppy when I'm tired," she explained. "And you're a dear boy. Quite touching. Now you take your old mother's advice: Keep off this sort of game. You're past it. With young things it doesn't matter so much. They get over it. But one of these days you'll get into bad hands and stay there. You trot back to your what's-his-name chapel at what's-his-name and live quiet. It pays best in the end."
"And what about you?"
She smiled.
"Well after last night I reckon we'll go into private life. I'm getting too old for shocks, and Jim and I, we've lived sober as judges, so we can afford to retire. A nice little house in Peckham and a pew in the parish church for us."
"I see," said the bishop thoughtfully.
"And I'd like to feel my last job was doing a real Christian deed," she went on; "turning the erring from the path of evil and all that. You've had your lesson, dear boy. Keep out of the soup. Next time a girl don't know which is the right end of her asparagus, you look the other way. Promise?"
"Promise," said the bishop.
"Well—then you can come and see me on my bus. I reckon Jim's just worrying his poor old head off."
The descent down the fire escape was uneventful and unobserved. The bishop, his ruined opera hat under one arm, followed his guide passively. He had almost ceased to think. The process seemed quite useless. But as they stood together at a windy corner one thought did flash upon him.
"Tell me," he said, "why did you wait? Why didn't you escape—when you had the chance—with—with Jim?"
For the first time she did not meet his eye. She was fumbling in her silk bag, and her voice was almost sulky.
"Oh, I don't know. You seemed a good sort—a real gent. Personally, I like a chap who plays the game. It didn't seem fair—leaving you—like leaving a pal. If they'd nabbed you—or done any rough-housing, I'd have butted in and explained."
"Really?"
She pushed something hard and cold into his hand. Involuntarily he glanced down. It was his gold watch and chain.
"Couldn't keep it—couldn't really—not between friends. So long, dearie." She skipped lightly on to an empty bus as it rumbled past and blew him a kiss. "No ill-feeling, eh?"
"None," said the bishop. "None whatever."
He waved to her as she turned the corner. Considering the circumstances, he felt ridiculously light-hearted—as though amidst the general ruin he had found something of great price.
Yes. The Kamketchgars were perhaps easier to understand.
But civilised or uncivilised, the devil had his points all the world over.
Henrietta had dozed too.
With her patient forehead against the window pane she dreamed a horrible dream. In it the bishop fought single-handed against a crowd of incensed demons, whose fearful scream of victory, contrary to custom, grew louder and more blood-curdling as the helpless witness tore herself back to consciousness.
Ever afterwards Henrietta's distrust of telephones amounted to a religious superstition.
She was stiff with weariness, shaking with premonitions. The receiver beat a tattoo on the wooden box. Her voice was like the twittering of a frightened bird.
"Oh, Thomas—is that you?"
"No, Henrietta—not Thomas—even at this hour of the morning. Is Llywelyn back? No—well, and I don't wonder. Arrested last night in a gambling hell—defying the police—no—no, Henrietta, don't faint—for heaven's sake—it was a fake—all through—best actors in London—perfect stage management—best thing I've ever done—absolute realism—every scene rehearsed—except one—Llywelyn's. Never have told the dear fellow—only there's the devil to pay—Adams' door smashed—half a dozen watches gone—disreputable friends of Llywelyn—you ask him about them—about the little Welsh girl——"
A step, lagging and very weary, sounded in the empty street. The hushed scratching of a latch-key reached the faithful, listening ears.
Mr. Rhys Glendower went on talking, and Henrietta ran out into the hall with outstretched arms.