Braithwaite

“ So you are perfectly all right to be absent again to-day. If you feel like going down to-morrow I’ll drive you down myself; we shall see!”
“How good you are to me, Miss Braithwaite!” cried Cis. “And I never shall be able to do the least thing for you!”
“Don’t be too sure of it!” cried Miss Braithwaite. “I have designs on you! A girl of your sort can do no end of things for me, a proxy me, who is far more important than the me direct. There are several things near and dear to my heart which are more interesting and important than a fusty, aging maiden lady, Cicely Adair. ”

“ In his preface Braithwaite describes himself as being in the service of the African Company, and as having, when very young, served in the fleet in Anne's reign, and then having been a lieutenant in the Welsh fusiliers, ensign in the royal guards, and secretary to his kinsman Christian Cole, British resident at Venice, with whom he travelled through Europe. ”

“ Braithwaite also, despite her screaming and anathema.
“Now help me here, Bert,” directed Masters, indicating our captives' feet. I seized Braithwaite's bound legs, and then helped Masters carry him over and place him on the bed. His wife was also placed beside him; this operation stilled all her cries. I saw ghastly terror replace all the pseudo anger on her unpleasant countenance.
“Come in and have chairs,” invited Masters pleasantly, motioning to Hal and Crosby. He took a seat himself as did I. “Don't get near the bed; there is a real reason to keep away.” ”

“ Tabs said. "I wish you very good luck. I hope we part friends. And of course you understand that I now consider myself entirely free to do my utmost to win Terry for myself."
He extended his hand. Braithwaite made no motion to take it. He held himself erect as if prepared for an affront. His tones were icy when he spoke. "Before I shake hands with you, Lord Taborley, I have to know what you mean by your utmost. With so many playing-cards out against me, I don't stand the ghost of a show unless—— Perhaps I have no right to expect it; I never asked quarter from any man. ”

“ Braithwaite has done well. He is to-day the foremost man of the race in pure literature. But above any partial or limited consideration, after years of hard work he now has recognition not only as a poet of standing, but as the chief sponsor for current American poetry. No comment on his work could be better than that of the Transcript, November 30, 1915: "He has helped poetry to readers as well as to poets. ”

“ Braithwaite glanced across at Terry for encouragement. "I [Pg 75] know what it created in me and in thousands like me. It created in us the most valuable of all assets—character. In the bitter test of pain and dirt and despair we found ourselves—found ourselves capable of more nobility than we had ever dreamt possible. We sorted out afresh, in hours that we thought would be our last, all our inherited superstitions and servilities; in so doing we discovered that God and life itself are much kinder than we had been informed. ”

“ Fellows like this General Braithwaite don't help matters by telling us that we oughtn't to want to get them back——"
"Perhaps he's one of the animals," Tabs interpolated. "You couldn't expect him to want to be put back."
"Perhaps he is. In fact that's what I've felt about him. That's what's helped me to make up my mind that he shall see no more of Terry." He reached out and tapped Tabs' hand, taking it for granted that he was his ally. "The sight's becoming far too normal—wild beasts everywhere, sunning [Pg 87] themselves in impertinent freedom, as if they were house-cats. ”

“ Lady Dawn sprang to her feet and came between the two tall men. "Not married to her! But you intend to marry her? You told us you were married."
Braithwaite was still smiling. "I am." To their amazement he slipped his arm about Ann and kissed her sleepy, tender mouth. "Terry is safe with your Ladyship's sister. We took her there when she arrived last night."
He turned to Tabs. "You said that I was the better man. I'm not. It was your sense of duty that always urged me. I have to thank your Lordship for the greatest happiness that can befall any man. ”

“ Curious, Terry, that you should have attracted two round-the-corner admirers! It makes one almost believe that you're a round-the-corner person yourself."
He had said it without consciousness of magnanimity. There was nothing magnanimous about stating the truth according to his code of honor. He was seeing the bleak look that would come into Braithwaite's face should he hear of this happening. He was wondering whether Braithwaite possessed the insight into feminine strategy not to take offense, but to interpret it as surrender. ”

“ He found that little lady standing to receive him beside her hearth; the position of the chairs told him that she had not been long alone.
Although Miss Braithwaite had never seen Rodney Moore before, she recognized upon his face, in his disordered clothes, the marks of unhappy disturbance of mind. He stopped short seeing her, and said:
“I want Cicely Adair.”
“I know you do,” said Miss Braithwaite, and there was pity in her voice. “Sit down, Mr. Moore. Miss Adair has asked me to see you for her. She [275] will not be able to endure anything more than she has borne.” ”

“ Terry; so does Braithwaite. Lord Dawn felt it when he couldn't drag his wife down to him and couldn't climb up to her. And his wife must have felt it too, when she sat always by herself. Phyllis feels it when she sees that, for the moment, you have more attraction for her husband than she has. And Adair feels it as well, when he risks his good name for a little desperate comfort and is willing to clothe you, for whom he professes to care, with all the appearance of dishonor. You're no exception; it's the feeling that you are exceptional that makes you unscrupulous in your self-pity. ”

“ I like a man to be more emphatic in his loyalties and aversions. I like him to show more fire. In days that I can almost remember, Braithwaite's intrusion would have been an occasion for a duel. Terry's mother feels the same about you; it makes her unhappy. 'He lacks ardor'—that was how she expressed it. 'Perhaps, after all, he's too old for Terry,' she said. Personally I don't go as far as that."
Now that he had made an end, Sir Tobias attempted to beam on Tabs with his accustomed suavity. He was skillful in saying offensive things with an air of consideration. ”

“ Tabs' face had gone suddenly white. He acknowledged to himself that, had he been Terry's father, he would have said no less. When he spoke it was with quiet intensity.
"I am annoyed, Sir Tobias—a good deal more annoyed than I care to own to myself; but I try not to let my annoyance obscure my sense of justice. It isn't fair to consider Braithwaite in the light of a servant. He isn't a servant; he's won his spurs. He arrived at the position he occupies to-day through original and unaided merit. That the man who was my servant, happens to be my rival, is bitterly galling. ”

“ It would be a burning shame if, now that the war's ended, we should fall to squabbling among ourselves."
"And yet the fact remains," said Braithwaite, "that I, who used to be your servant, have cut you out of Terry. How are we going to remain pals in a case like that?"
Tabs flinched at the bluntness of the words, "cut you out of Terry." For a moment he felt inclined to say right out, "You're mistaken. She's sent me to get her promise back." Instead he said, "How [Pg 118] are we going to remain pals! That's what I'm here to talk about. I've made up my mind how I'm going to act. ”

“ Braithwaite answered carelessly, "It's with Maisie, isn't it? I heard Terry suggest to her that she should make it. She's a nice little woman. I shouldn't like to be the cause of her disappointment. She was looking forward——" The rest was lost as a flunkey requested the registered number of whatever Tabs had left in the cloak-room. ”

“ A dreamer, a visionary, but a great man. You might ask Miss Braithwaite to teach you his ‘Gettysburg Address.’ It is rather a model as to speech-making, although it contains doctrines that—well, you’d better learn it.”
He smiled again, to himself. It touched his ironic sense of humor that he, who had devoted his life to maintaining that all men are not free and equal, when on that very day that same doctrine of liberty was undermining his throne—that he should be discussing it with the small heir to that throne.
“Yes, sir,” said Prince Ferdinand William Otto. ”

“ Tabs sought for the most lenient words, "you know what you're doing. You'd despise to cheat at cards, but you don't mind cheating the woman whom you profess to love best.—And then there's Ann."
"I'd rather not discuss Ann." The abrupt pain in Braithwaite's tone betrayed the grumbling ache of an old wound. "I think even you will grant that there are some things in a man's heart which are privately sacred. Ann lies entirely outside the bounds of all justifiable interference on your part." ”

“ When the last sleepy caress had been given, all men who lacked the caution of the anchorite, were sooner or later destined to hear that cry.
How much nobler men had been in a womanless world! Some of them had had to become womanless before they could be noble. Pollock plunging to his death from the clouds, like an eagle struck by a thunderbolt! Lord Dawn with the smile of calm remembrance on his lips, purged of all his fruitless sex-contentions, lying white and quiet beneath the crack and spatter of exploding shells! Braithwaite, the ex-valet, who had proved himself an aristocrat in courage! ”

“ If our friend did kill her, he has completely covered up his tracks!”
“I am inclined to believe,” said the other hesitatingly, “that Garlett is an absolutely innocent man.”
“In that case, God help the poor devil! He doesn’t know what he’s letting himself in for,” observed Braithwaite. “He’ll be a marked man all his life. Think of what a country town can be like for malice and all uncharitableness.”
“I wonder,” said the Scotsman, “if it’s the girl who’s driven him to this extreme course? What if she’s made her marriage conditional on all this mess being cleared up? ”

“ Miss Braithwaite said.
“I’ll leave you here, and return for you,” she told Cis, stopping her car before the Jesuit house and school. “I have two people whom I ought to see this morning, if it is at all possible. I’ll be back here not later than noon, I hope. But wait for me; I won’t fail you. One never is able to make a positive engagement to the minute, when a car is involved in its keeping.”
[236] CHAPTER XV
DECISION THE lay-brother who responded to Cicely’s summons on the bell was old, slow moving, kindly, but remote from daily affairs. ”

“ I have no specialized training to offer to a commercial world which calls for experts. The only knowledge that I have to sell is the old knowledge that you used to purchase. My house of cards has collapsed. To be unwisely frank, my financial resources are limited to little more than my war-gratuity."
"And yet you're anxious to marry Terry," Tabs suggested; "to marry her without letting her know about any of these handicaps of which she would have to share the penalty."
Braithwaite's head went up with a soldierly jerk. The bleak look came into his eyes. He was "Steely Jack" at that moment. ”

“ Lord Bobs used to say that a soldier asked, for the good of the cause, to serve as a drummer boy under his worst enemy should do so not only with alacrity but with joy. Braithwaite agrees with me that we must [Pg 110] just take the responsibility of doing nothing at all and of leaving him quietly to cool down at Mudros. Hill, who carries on, was the General in command at Mitylene when I inspected there; he is a good fellow; he was anxious to push on upon that fatal 7th August at Suvla and everyone says he is a stout fellow. ”

“ Miss Braithwaite agreed with him. “I see, but I don’t know, truly. I do know that the idea never crosses Cicely’s mind, and so, though I understand how and why the approaches to her mind are guarded against the entrance of the idea, still, it does seem to me that there can’t be ground for our entertaining it. It’s hard for me to believe in the novel heroine who has no suspicion that she is sought until the hero plumps himself down on his knees at her feet! I think, as a rule, a woman feels even the dawn of interest in her, the [317] power of her attraction, before any onlooker can sense it.” ”

“ It's not my business to dispute the fact. I didn't want to introduce the class view of things; but, by the same showing, you're beneath Terry. She's young to-day: through a lifetime she might outgrow you. She's as much your social superior as you claim to be Ann's. You've discarded Ann on the ground of inequality of rank. In your case Terry's family have a perfect right to raise the same objection."
"Not at all." The answer came like the crack of a whip. Braithwaite drew himself up with the pride of one who had moved men like pawns across the checker-board of life and death. ”

“ And yet it should convince you. At any rate we'll try. In your right-hand top waistcoat pocket you have three cards." Here he leant his head on his hands and shut his eyes. "One is crinkled and torn, but it has written on it, in pencil, the name of Edward Braithwaite, Macquarrie Street, Sydney. I presume the name is Braithwaite, but the t and e are almost illegible. The second is rather a high-sounding one—the Hon. Sylvester Wetherell, Potts Point, Sydney, New South Wales; and the third is, I take it, your own, Richard Hatteras. Am I right?" ”