Whiteoaks of Jalna: A Novel

IV

ONE afternoon, a month later, Finch was standing among a group of amateur actors in the narrow passage between the stage and the row of dressing rooms in the Little Theatre. They were dispersing after a rehearsal of St. John Ervine’s John Ferguson, and Mr. Brett, the English director, had just come up. Hands in pockets, he lounged over to Finch, and, with an eager smile lighting his clever, humorous, actorish face, observed, ‘I want to tell you, Whiteoak, how awfully pleased I am with your performance to-day. If you keep on as you ’re going now, you are going to make a really splendid Cloutie John.’

‘Thanks—Mr. Brett,’ stammered Finch. ‘I’m glad you think I’m all right.’ He was crimson from embarrassment and deep joy. Praise! Warm praise, before all of them!

Arthur Leigh broke in: ‘Yes, that’s just what I’ve been telling Finch, Mr. Brett. He’s simply splendid. I’m certain of this, that I’m doing my own part better since he’s been playing Cloutie John. He brings a feeling of absolute reality into it.’

Finch stared straight ahead of him, his fixed expression a burning mask for the confused elation of his spirit.

‘Well, I’m very, very pleased,’ reiterated Mr. Brett, pushing toward the door — he was yearning for his tea. ‘To-morrow at the same hour, then, and everybody on time.’ The door at the end of the passage was opened and a gust of crisp December air rushed in. The players drifted in a small body on to the stone steps. The walls of the university rose about them, showing here and there a lighted window. The arch of the Memorial Tower glistened in a bright armor of ice. Leigh turned to Finch as they reached the last step.

‘I wish you lived in town, Finch,’ he said. ‘I’d like to see something of you. But there’s always that beastly train to be caught.’

‘I’m afraid I’ve missed it to-night. I’ll have to take the late one. Ten-thirty.’

Leigh looked rather pleased. ‘That’s good news. You’ll come home with me to dinner, and we can have a talk. Besides, I’d like my mother and sister to meet you. I’ve been talking about you to them.’ He turned his clear, rather feminine gaze eagerly on Finch.

‘ Sorry. . . . Sorry,’ muttered the boy.

‘ What utter nonsense! Of course you can come. Why not?’ He slipped his arm persuasively through Finch’s.

‘Oh, I don’t know. At least — well, my clothes are n’t right. And besides . . . you know I ’m no good with women — ladies. Your mother and sister’d think me an awful dud. I’d have nothing to say, and — and — look like — Cloutie John.’

Leigh broke into delighted laughter.

‘If only you would! If only you would both look and act like him! They’d throw themselves on your neck and embrace you. Come along — don’t be an idiot!’ He drew Finch on through the delicate drift of snowflakes, the air on their faces icy, yet somehow crisply caressing. Other young figures were moving quickly through the park, silhouetted against the whiteness.

Finch had, from the first moment of acquaintance, liked and admired Arthur Leigh, been flattered by the attraction he so evidently had for the other, but now he experienced a sudden outrush of warmth toward him which filled him with wonder. He felt that he loved Leigh, wanted to be his near, his closest friend. The pressure of Leigh’s slender, small-boned body against his made him fee! stronger than he had ever felt before. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘I’ll go.’

They boarded a street car and stood together, swaying, hanging by the straps, smiling into each other’s eyes, oblivious of the other passengers. They recalled amusing moments of the rehearsal, muttered lines of their parts, were almost suffocated by laughter. They were so happy they scarcely knew what to do.

But as Leigh put his latchkey into the lock, and Finch stood behind him before the imposing doorway, young Whiteoak felt again an overwhelming shyness.

‘Look here,’ he began, ‘look here! I — I — ’

But the door was open and he was inside the hall, where bright firelight was dancing over the surfaces of polished wood and brass, where there was such a look of immaculacy and order as Finch had never before beheld.

In the drawing-room they found Leigh’s mother and sister. Two sisters, Finch thought at first, the mother looked so young.

‘My friend Finch Whiteoak,’ Leigh introduced him, a protective hand on his arm. ‘This is my mother, Finch, and this illlooking young person my sister Ada.’

In turn their soft hands lay in Finch’s bony one. In turn he saw the soft pale oval of each face, the drooping locks of bronze hair, the heavy-lidded gray eyes. But the mother’s hair had a tinge of gold, her eyes a tint of blue, and the amused and tolerant expression of her mouth made him afraid of her.

‘Brothers will say such cruel things about their sisters,’ she said, with an adoring smile at her son. ‘I suppose you do it occasionally yourself.’

Finch, breathing heavily, stammered, ‘ Well — I suppose so — at least, I really don’t know.’

‘Honestly now,’ said Leigh, ‘don’t you find Ada distressingly ill-favored?’

She returned their gaze serenely, and Finch stammered again, ‘Oh, look here, Leigh . . . ’

Mrs. Leigh observed, ‘Arthur has talked of you a great deal. He thinks your acting of the idiot boy quite wonderful.’

‘Ah, that’s easy for me,’ grinned Finch. ‘The idiot part.’

‘Mother,’ broke in Leigh, ‘how can you? Cloutie John is n’t an idiot. He’s mad. Absolutely, gloriously mad.’

Ada Leigh said, in a low, deep voice, with a look into Finch’s eyes which set them definitely apart from the others, ‘Is that easy, too, for you? The madness, I mean.’

Her brother answered for Finch, fearing that he would give another stammering, grinning reply. ‘The easiest thing in the world, my child. All he has to do is to be himself. He’s absolutely, gloriously mad also. Just wait until you see the play. When Cloutie John comes on the stage, madness, like an electric current, is going to thrill the soul of that simple-minded audience. We’re all thrilled by him, even at rehearsals.’

Ada continued to gaze into Finch’s eyes as though Leigh had not spoken.

‘I expect I am a little mad,’ he answered, feeling now not shy, but oddly troubled.

‘I wish you would teach me how to be mad. I am far too sane to be happy.’

‘I could n’t teach anyone anything except how to play the fool.’

Mother and son were leading the way to the dining room.

Finch saw that the table, delicately bright, was laid for four. Evidently Mrs. Leigh was a widow, though she did not look at all like Finch’s idea of one. Perhaps her husband was merely out of town.

Nothing could draw him into conversation. With set face he ate his way slowly and solemnly through the intricacies of the meal. Leigh, depressed by the sense that his friend was making no impression but one of stupidity on his mother and sister, talked little. Ada seemed to make no effort to please anyone but herself, and her pleasure apparently lay in making Finch aware of the insistent gaze of her long, heavy-lidded eyes. Mrs. Leigh alone kept the talk from dying into silence. Her voice, lighter and higher than her daughter’s, flowed brightly on, though Finch had the feeling that her thoughts were far away. Across her brightness a shadow fell once when she referred to the ‘time of my husband’s death, five years ago.’

When dinner was over she left them, returning only for a moment to the drawingroom in an ermine evening cloak to say good-bye before she was whirled away in a dove-gray limousine. They had followed her to the stone porte-cochère to see her off. Leigh had tucked her in and kissed both her hands.

‘Is n’t she the most adorable mother to own? ’ he demanded, as they returned to the fireside.

‘Rather,’ agreed Finch, his eyes on Ada. She had settled herself among the cushions of a deep couch, her narrow sloping shoulders, her slender arms, from which open filmy lace sleeves fell away, seeming almost transparent in their whiteness. Between her rather pale lips she held a Chinese-red cigarette holder.

Leigh suddenly found his tongue. He talked eagerly of the play to Finch, criticized Mr. Brett’s directing of it, rehearsed one of his own important speeches, appealing to Finch for criticism.

‘Come, Finch,’ he said at last, determined to show off his friend before his sister, ‘let’s do our scene together where you come to the house at night, after I’ve killed Witherow. Have you got your whistle here?’

‘Oh, no. I can’t possibly. I’d feel a frightful fool.’

‘If it’s because of Ada, I’ll send her away.’

‘I wish you would do it to please me,’ said Ada. ‘I should love to see it.’

‘She’s likely to fly into a passion if she does n’t get what she wants. Are n’t you, Ada?’ asked her brother.

‘You can’t make me believe that,’ said Finch. ‘Just the same, she’s a very determined young person, so you may as well give in. Wait! I know what we need to loosen things up. A whiskey and soda. That wine at dinner was native and there’s simply nothing to it but gas on the stomach. Come along to the dining room. You won’t want anything, will you, Ada?’

‘No, thanks. I’ll just wait here.’

In the dining room Leigh said, ‘I don’t think we need whiskey, Finch. Nothing so common. A nice little crème de menthe or Benedictine, eh? I said whiskey before Ada merely to put her off the scent; she does n’t like it. But she does like liqueurs, and I don’t think they’re good for a young girl, do you? I really have to look after Ada, you know, my father being dead. What will you have?’

‘Oh, I don’t care.’ Finch stared at the glittering array of glasses in the cabinet Leigh opened.

‘Benedictine, then. We’ll both have Benedictine. Is n’t the color glorious? I want you to come and stay the week of the play with me, Finch. You can’t possibly go home at night after the performance.’ At that moment he definitely made up his mind to take young Whiteoak into his intimate circle, to make him his most intimate friend. He perceived his sister’s intense interest in him. She recognized something peculiar, different, beautiful in Finch.

‘I’m afraid I can’t.’

Leigh was astonished. He had expected Finch to be most gratefully eager to accept any offering of friendship from him.

‘But why not?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. But I think I’d better not. Thanks just the same.’

Leigh had been accustomed all his life to doing exactly what he wanted to, to having whatever he desired. His face showed the calm brightness of youth whose will has never been crossed.

‘ What nonsense! Of course you ’ll come. You’re only shy. We need see very little of my mother and Ada, if it’s that you mind.’

‘No. The truth is,’ Finch burst out, ‘I should never have gone into this thing.’

Leigh said nothing, only looked at him with bright questioning eyes.

‘I believe I’ll have another glass of that — er — Benedictine.’

‘I don’t think I would if I were you. It’s rather potent. . . . You were saying —’

Finch carefully set down his empty glass, fragile as a bubble. ‘You know I failed in my matric, Leigh.’

' Certainly. Consequently you ’ll not need to swat at all this year. Take it easy.'

‘But my family —'

‘Tell me about your family, Finch. You ’ve never spoken of your parents to me.'

‘They’re dead. My eldest brother runs things.’

‘ Your guardian, eh? What sort of chap is he? Hard to get on with?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so. He’s sharptempered if you don’t toe the mark. But he’s awfully kind sometimes.’

‘ What makes you think he won’t be kind this time?’

‘He’s got no opinion of theatricals and things of that sort. He’s all for horses.’

‘Ah, I remember. I saw him ride gloriously at the horse show. I’d like to meet him. I might be able to persuade him that play-acting is good for you.’

‘You’re quite wrong there, Leigh. He stopped my music lessons because of the matric business.’

‘Good heavens!’ Leigh restrained himself from saying, ‘ What a beast! ’ He asked, ‘And you were keen about music?’

‘Awfully,’

‘And you’ve never mentioned it to me!’ His tone expressed hurt.

‘We were always talking about sport or the theatre.’

Leigh, with a gesture almost of petulance, turned to the sideboard. He refilled his own glass and that of Finch. ‘You are amazingly reticent,’ he said coldly. ‘I thought we were friends.’

Finch sipped his Benedictine. He did not question why it was so suddenly given, after having been withheld. He saw Leigh in a glittering aura, a beautiful and desired being who would go through life choosing his paths, his friendships, with princely ease. He exclaimed eagerly, ‘ But we are! We are! At least, I am yours — I mean, you are mine. . . . Only, you can’t understand. I did n’t think you’d be a bit interested in my family or what I cared about. Like music, you know. . . . I’ll be awfully glad to spend that week with you, Leigh, if you want me. I’ll manage it somehow.’

His long, hollow-cheeked boy’s face was flushed with emotion, his eyes glistened with sudden tears. Impulsively Leigh put his arm about his shoulders. ‘We are friends, then — for always. I can’t tell you what you mean to me, Finch. I’ve been attracted by you from the first moment I saw you. You’re unlike any other fellow I know. I’m positive you’ve genius, either dramatic or musical. We’ll see. Tell me all about it, anyhow.’

‘There’s nothing much to tell — Leigh.’

‘Call me Arthur.’

Finch’s eyes lighted. ‘Oh, may I? Thanks awfully. I’ll like that. . . .There’s nothing much to tell, Arthur. I can’t play decently yet, but I’d rather be doing it than anything. I think it’s chiefly because I can lose myself doing these things. Forget that I’m Finch Whiteoak.’ He stared in silence at the floor for a moment, his hands thrust in his pockets; then he raised his eyes to his friend’s face and asked ingenuously, ‘It’s wonderful when you’re able to forget yourself completely, is n’t it?’

‘It must be. . . . But I could n’t do it, Finch. I’m so damned self-conscious. I’m always posing. I don’t want to forget myself. My great joy in life is watching my own stunts. But,’ he added, seriously, ‘my feeling about you is not self-conscious. It’s real. As real as you are, and you’re as real as one of those spirited horses your redheaded brother rides so well.’

Finch uttered one of his sudden guffaws. ‘I’m real enough, but I’m no more spirited than a — than a — why, I guess Renny’d take a fit if he heard anyone call me spirited.’

‘ Well, I suppose I should have said sensitive, highly strung. . . . And this — Renny — stopped your music lessons, eh? Because you failed to pass your matric. Had he given you a good teacher?’

‘Splendid. When Renny does anything, he does it thoroughly — even if it’s swearing. I’ve never heard anyone who could curse like Renny,’

‘He seems a thoroughgoing beast, but I like him in spite of myself. Is he married?’

Finch shook his head, and he thought of Alayne.

‘ Does n’t care about women ? ’

‘They fall for him.’

‘Are any of your brothers married?’

‘Yes. Eden’s married; that is — well, he’s separated from his wife. She’s in New York. Her name is Alayne. Piers is married, too. He and his wife live at Jalna.’

‘Jalna?’

‘Yes, that’s the name of our place. Indian military station. My grandfather was stationed there.’

Leigh exclaimed, ‘Look here, Finch, you must ask me out. I’m eaten up with curiosity to meet this family of yours. You’re like a picture without its frame. I want to be able to see you in that frame. Just give me a chance to use my charms on your Renny and there’ll be no trouble about the week in town. We’ll even have him in to see the show.’

Ada’s voice came from the drawing-room. ’If you are not coming back, I wish you’d tell me. I’d find a book to read or go to bed.’

‘What a shame to desert her so!’ exclaimed Leigh. He returned with his quick, graceful movements to the couch where she lay, and bent over her. ’sorry, little one. Finch has been telling me about his family. He’s invited me to go out to meet them. Are n’t you jealous?’

‘Frightfully.’

‘Now we’re going to rehearse our scene for you. . . . Come, Cloutie John, rumple your locks, and show Sis how truly mad you are.’

But the rehearsal was a failure. It was impossible for Finch to abandon himself to his part in that room, with Ada Leigh’s critical eyes fixed on him. Leigh, after a little, saw how impossible it was and gave up the attempt.

He asked Finch to play. Time after time Finch’s eyes had been drawn to the shining ivory of the keyboard, flushed by the roseshaded light. He longed for the feel of it under his hands. He longed to feel the sense of power, of freedom, that always came with that contact. And this was a noble-looking grand piano. He had never touched one in his life. . . . His awkwardness fell from him as he slid on to the polished seat and laid his hands on the keys. Leigh noticed then what shapely hands he had despite their boniness. He noticed the shape of his head. Finch was going to be a distinguishedlooking man some day. He was going to help Finch to attain his full spiritual growth, foster with his friendship the genius that he felt sure was in him. ‘Play,’ he said, smiling, and leaned across the piano toward him.

The piano was a steed. Finch’s hands were on the bridle. A moment more and he would leap into the saddle and be borne away over wild fields of melody under starry skies. The steed knew him; it thrilled beneath his touch. His foot felt for the pedal. . . . What should he play?

He raised his eyes to Leigh’s face, smiling encouragement. He saw Ada’s eyes on him, too, mysterious behind a faint veil of smoke. He wished she were not there. Her presence dimmed the brightness of his contact with the keyboard, as the smoke dimmed the brightness of her eyes. He felt confused. He did not seem able to remember one piece from another.

‘What shall I play?’ he appealed to Leigh.

‘Dear old fellow, I don’t know what things you’ve done. Can you play Chopin? You look as though you could.’

‘Yes. I’ll try one of his waltzes.’

But, though his fingers ached to gather the notes, his brain refused to guide them.

‘Oh, hell! ’ he muttered to Leigh. ‘I’m up against one of my fool fits!’ . . .

Late that night he wrote in his diary, at the end of the account of his day’s doings, not the usual item concerning Joan, but in black, desperate-looking characters, the words ‘Met Ada.’

V

In the days that followed, the friendship between Finch and Arthur Leigh strengthened into one of those sudden, passionate attachments of youth. They wished always to be together, but, as Finch was still at school and Leigh was a second-year student at Varsity, this was impossible. Leigh, however, had a car of his own, and he made it his habit to call for Finch every noon hour and take him out with him for luncheon. After the rehearsals it became the custom for Finch to return to the Leighs’ house for dinner and to take the late train home. Finch explained this to Renny by saying that he had made a friend of a clever Varsity fellow who was willing to help him with the mathematics which were his weakness. This was partially true, for Leigh would now and again work with him for an hour. At the end of these periods Leigh, who had a bent toward mathematics, found himself nervously exhausted. It was impossible to make Finch really understand even simple problems. The most that Leigh could do was to teach him certain tricks, and to show him how to make use of his excellent memory.

Finch never forgot the lines of his part. The director of the Little Theatre told him that if the stage were not in such a bad way he would advise him to make acting his profession. Finch could not feel any great elation over Mr. Brett’s praise because he was at the moment greatly harassed by the necessity of spending the last fortnight before the play in town. More and more rehearsals were demanded. At last he agreed that his friend should come with him to Jalna to see what his influence could do toward softening the heart of the eldest Whiteoak on the subject of play-acting. He had put off the visit several times when Leigh had suggested it, but at last, in desperation, he threw himself on Leigh’s protection and resource.

It was a Saturday afternoon in the New Year. The January thaw had come and gone. The weather had become cold again, but there was no snow. It was an iron day. An iron sky and iron earth, a wind the metallic iciness of which might well take the heart out of even a strong man.

Leigh gasped out, the words whistling between his teeth, ’I say, Finch, do you do this walk every day — in all kinds of weather? Deep snow — and sleet — and all that?’

‘Of course I do. Are you cold, Arthur?’

‘I’ve been warmer. Don’t they ever send a car for you?’

‘Good Lord, no. Sometimes I get a lift. We’ll soon be there now.’

They strode on.

A little later Leigh exclaimed petulantly, ‘I was never made for such a climate. As soon as I get through college, I’ll cut these winters out.’

‘Atlantic City, eh?'

‘Oh, my dear, no! The south of France. The Lido. You and I’ll go together, Finch.’

Finch grinned at him lovingly. He did not see where he would ever get money for traveling, but the thought of being in Europe with Arthur was beautiful.

Leigh was looking so chilled that Finch was glad when he was able to steer him at last up the driveway behind the shelter of the spruces and hemlocks. ‘Here we are!’ he announced. ‘We’ll sprint to the stables. It’s warm enough there.’

Running together, they passed a young fellow in leggings with a fine color in his cheeks. He picked up a frozen winter pear from the ground and sent it after Finch’s legs.

‘That is my brother Piers,’ said Finch, as they entered the stables.

They found Renny in a loose box, arranging the forelock of a coy-looking mare with great exactness. Finch made the introduction without enthusiasm. He hoped little from this meeting.

‘How do you do?’ said the eldest Whiteoak, with a sharp glance at the visitor.

He was indeed formidable, thought young Leigh. He did not blame Finch for being afraid of him. His face, under its peaked tweed cap, looked as though wind and weather, strong passions, and a high temper had hammered into it a kind of fierce immobility. . . .

The youths discussed the mare together, her master — rather ostentatiously, Leigh fancied — turning his back on them, and continuing his caressing arrangement of her mane and forelock. No admiring comment or carefully provocative question from Leigh drew more than a monosyllable from him. Still they persisted. He could not spend the entire afternoon over the mare’s toilette. . . .

No, apparently he was satisfied. He looked her over; then, taking her head quickly between his hands, he pressed a kiss on her nose. ‘My pretty one,’ Leigh heard him say. The mare’s eyes were two beaming orbs of contentment, her forehead the very throne of love. She uttered a deep sigh.

A stableman was carrying buckets of water along the passage to the various stalls. He placed one before the occupant of the stall nearest them, and a long gray head was thrust forward, yearning lips were plunged into the cold drink. Renny pushed past the boys and went around into the stall.

‘How is the leg, Wright?’

‘Fine, sir. Could n’t be mendin’ better.’

They bent over a bandaged hind leg.

‘It was wonderful, sir, you getting him the way you did. He’s going to make his mark, I’m sure of it. And, for my part, I don’t believe he’s spoiled for flat racing, say what they will.’

Renny and the stableman stared with concentration at the bandage. The water in the bucket was lowered three parts of the way down. Coaxing whinnies, the indolent jangle of buckles, the petulant stamp of a hoof, were the only sounds.

‘How did he get hurt?’ asked Leigh, in an attempt to draw nearer to the master of Jalna through the horses which were so plainly his absorbing interest.

‘Kicked himself.’ He was pressing a practised thumb along the dappled gray flank.

‘Really! How did he happen to do that? ’

‘Shied.’ He straightened himself and turned to Wright. ‘How is Darkie’s indigestion ? ’

‘Better, sir, but he’ll have those attacks just as long as he bolts his oats the way he does. He’s more like a ravening wolf than a horse with his feed.’

A shadow fell across Renny’s face. ‘Has he had his oats ? ’

‘Yes, sir. I divided them into two lots, like you said to. After he’d had the first lot, I made him wait ten minutes. I’ve just give him the last half now.’

Renny strode with irritable swiftness to a stall farther down the passage, where a tall black horse was feeding with ferocious eagerness. He ceased champing his oats for a second to look back at his master entering the stall, then, with his mouth full, the oats dribbling from his lips, he plunged his face once more into his feed box.

Renny caught his head and jerked it up. ‘Cut out that guzzling!’ he ordered. ‘Are you trying to kill yourself?’

The horse tried to shake him off, straining desperately toward his oats, his great eyes rolling in anger at the interruption. He snorted his outraged greed. Renny became suddenly hilarious and broke into noisy laughter.

‘I should think that such irritation would be worse for the beast’s digestion than bolting,’ observed Leigh.

‘Should you?’ grinned Finch, highly pleased with his brother.

The horse now was showing his big teeth, as though he too felt a kind of grim amusement.

Finch whispered to Leigh, ‘Now would be a good time to speak to him about the play. At least,’ he added, rather pessimistically, ‘as good as any.’

Leigh looked toward the red-haired master of Jalna with some apprehension. ‘I suppose so,’ he said. Then he had an idea — impulsive, extravagant, but one to break the ice between himself and Finch’s brother.

He said, ‘I wonder, Mr. Whiteoak, if you could tell me where I might buy a good saddle horse. I have been wanting one for some time,’ — he was in truth afraid of horses, — ‘ but I have n’t found — have n’t been quite able’ — his sentence broke down weakly.

There was no need for him to finish it. The arrogant face before him softened into an expression of almost tender solicitude. Renny said, ‘It’s a good thing young Finch brought you out. It’s a serious matter, buying a horse, if you are inexperienced. Especially a saddle horse. I was talking the other day to a young fellow who had paid a fancy price for one and it had turned out not only nasty-tempered but a wind-sucker. A handsome beast, too. But he’d got badly stung. I have —’ He hesitated, examining a bleeding knuckle which Darkie had jammed against the manger.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Arthur, eagerly, though he felt a certain resentment at the ease with which the barrier between had been swept away when the possibility of a deal in horseflesh had appeared.

Renny took the knuckle from his lips. ‘I have a lovely three-year-old here — by Sirocco, out of Twilight Star — the image of his sire. You ’ve seen Sirocco, of course? ’

Arthur shook his head.

Renny regarded him pityingly. ‘You have n’t? Well, I’ll take you around to see him. Every stallion, you must know, — that is, every really great stallion, — reproduces himself absolutely only once. And Sirocco has only done it once. But perhaps’ — he had been about to lead the way down the passage, but he wheeled, as if seized by an arresting thought — ‘perhaps you don’t care much about breeding points, and just want a —’

‘Not at all,’ interrupted Arthur. ‘It must be a real beauty, everything you say—’

‘Horse like that can’t be bought cheaply, you know.’

‘Oh, that doesn’t matter.’ Then he reddened a little, thinking he might appear pretentious, too affluent, and added, ‘The fact is, I’ve been saving up for a saddle horse for a very long time.’

The eldest Whiteoak had already heard, though without great interest at the time, that Leigh had inherited a large fortune, and that he would shortly be of age. He said, cheerfully, ‘Well, in that case’ — and led the way to the stallion’s loose box.

Finch followed, wondering what all this would lead to, worrying over the thought of Arthur in Renny’s grip for the sake of him.

From the loose box to the stall where the three-year-old was they proceeded, and Leigh learned more about saddle horses in half an hour than in all his preceding life. He thanked God that the day was wild, for otherwise he knew he would have been forced into a trial ride on the scornfullooking beast that cast suspicious glances at him down its nose.

The sound of small feet running came to them, and Wakefield dashed along the passage, a coat thrown over his head beneath which his face looked out, brighteyed and scarlet-cheeked.

‘I simply flew over,’ he panted, ‘to tell you to come to tea. It’s five o’clock and there was a perfectly ’normous cake and it’s nearly gone and there’s a fresh pot of tea made for you, Renny. And for Mr. Leigh, o’ course.’

The snow had come at last. He was feathered all over with it.

‘ You should not have come out in this gale,’ said Renny. ‘Was there no one else to send?’

‘I wanted to come! Which nag is that? Is he a good jumper? I must run around and see my pony. Should n’t you like to see my birthday pony, Mr. Leigh?’

Renny caught him by the arm. ‘No. Don’t go around there. Wallflower is in the next stall and she’s feeling very nervous to-day. Go to the house, Finch, and tell Aunt that Mr. Leigh will follow you in a little while. Tell her to keep the tea hot for him. Send Rags over with a pot for me, and some bread and butter. I’ll take it here.’ He picked up Wakefield as though he had been a parcel, and deposited him on Finch’s back. ‘Give this youngster a ride. He’s got nothing but slippers on. You deserve a good cuffing, Wake. And see that you keep that coat over your head.’ He raised his voice and shouted, ‘Open the door for this thoroughbred, Wright!’

Alone with Leigh in the stable, Renny remarked, a shadow on his face, ‘A delicate boy, that.’

‘Yes, so I gathered,’ returned Leigh. ‘Perhaps he’ll outgrow it. They often do, don’t they? I was n’t a very strong kid myself.’

Renny looked him over. ‘Hmph,’ he observed, without any note of encouragement; then added, more cheerfully, ‘I’d like to take you to my office and show you the horse’s pedigree.’ He led the way to a small room partitioned off from a corner of the stable. He switched on a dangling electric bulb, and, after placing a kitchen chair for Leigh, seated himself before a yellow oak desk and began to look over a file of papers.

As he sat engrossed, beneath the hard white light, Leigh studied him with an access of interest. He tried to put himself in Finch’s place, to imagine how it would feel to be obliged to ask this stern-looking fellow for permission to do this and that, to face him after failure in an exam. . . . He washed very much that he were not going to buy the horse. It would be necessary to board it out; it would be necessary to ride it, and he did not care for riding. Renny Whiteoak’s performance at the horse show had left him quite unmoved. He had been driven to buying the horse in order to create a meeting place where he and Finch’s brother could talk about Finch.

But how was he to begin? He shivered, for the room seemed to him very cold with a damp chill that he supposed penetrated from the stable.

‘Ah, here we are! Now, just draw your chair up to the desk.’

Leigh obediently drew toward the desk, and the two bent over the pedigrees.

They were still absorbed when a tap came at the door and Wragge entered with Renny’s tea. Leigh began to feel desperate. His chances for pleading Finch’s cause to the head of the clan seemed to be lessening. With a sudden nervous decision he closed the bargain. The payment was arranged.

Renny observed, while he washed his hands in a basin on a small washing stand in a corner, ‘It’s too bad to have kept you from your tea so long. I wish I had had Rags fetch enough over here for two.’

Leigh shivered. He was nervous, he was cold, and the thought of eating in a stable disgusted him.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It does n’t matter at all.’ He shivered again, as he noticed how Renny rubbed yellow soap on his hands regardless of the raw knuckle.

Rags set the tray on the desk. As the door closed behind him, words came more easily to Leigh. ‘I think, sir, that Finch’ — he had the good sense to use moderation in his statement — ‘ is really a very clever boy. I think he will be a great credit to you — to Jalna.’ His subtle mind had discovered that, more than his horses, the eldest Whiteoak loved his house. He went on: ‘I am sure he will, if he is allowed a little margin — a chance, you know, to develop in his own way. There are some fellows who can’t stand the grind of study unless they have some kind of outlet —’

‘Oh, he’s been telling you about the music lessons, eh? Well, I thought it best to stop them for a while. He was always strumming, and he failed —’

‘It was not necessarily the music that caused him to fail. Any number of fellows fail the first time who don’t know one note from another. If he’d had more music in his life, he might not have failed. It’s quite possible.’

Renny, pouring himself more tea, burst into laughter.

Leigh hurried on: ‘But music has nothing to do with this. This is about acting.’

‘Acting!’

‘Yes. Finch has great talent for acting. I’m not sure that it is not greater than his talent for music.’

Renny threw himself back in his chair. Good God, was there no limit to the extraordinary talents of this hobbledehoy? ‘Where’s he been acting? Why have n’t I been told about it?’

‘I’m afraid I’ve been to blame about that. I felt that the expression of — of some art is so necessary to Finch that I persuaded him — made him promise not to let anyone put a stop to it.’

The fiery brown eyes were on him. ‘His promises to me are worth nothing, then! ’

‘But they are! I give you my word that he has not been neglecting his work.’

A knock sounded on the door.

‘Come in,’ said Renny, and Wright entered.

‘The vet’s here, sir.’

‘Good,’ exclaimed Renny, rising. With a movement of suppressed irritation he turned to Leigh: ‘What do you want me to do?’

He was faintly suspicious of Leigh. He felt that Leigh had cornered him. He supposed that Finch had got Leigh working on his behalf. Finch had a way of enlisting the sympathies of susceptible people — intellectual people. There had been Alayne. How she had pleaded for music lessons for him! The thought of her softened him. He added, ‘I don’t expect Finch to plug away and never have any fun. I don’t object to anything so long as it’s not going to interfere with his studies.’

A feeling of weakness stole over Leigh. His efforts seemed suddenly futile. The life of this place was too strong for him, the personalities of the Whiteoaks too vigorous. He said, with an effort, ‘If you would only let Finch feel that. If he could know that you don’t despise him for needing something — some form of expression other than the routine of the school curriculum — of school games — ’

Wright’s round blue eyes were riveted on his face. The eyes of all the horses in the glossy prints and lithographs that covered the wall were riveted on him, their nostrils distended in contempt.

Outside in the stable a man’s voice was raised, shouting orders. There was a clatter of hoofs.

Leigh said, hurriedly, ‘Mr. Whiteoak, will you promise me something? Let Finch spend the next fortnight with me. I’ll help him all I can with his work, and I honestly think I can help a good deal. Then I want you to come, if you will, to our place for dinner one night of the play and see for yourself how splendid Finch is. My mother and sister would like to meet you. You know you’re a hero to Finch, and consequently to us, too. He’s told us about what you did in the War — the D. S. 0., you know.’

Renny showed embarrassment, as well as impatience. ‘Very well,’ he said, curtly. ‘Let him go ahead with the play. But no slacking, mind.’

‘And you ’ll come one night?’

‘Yes. And I hope you will like the horse.’

‘I know I shall.’

They shook hands and parted.

VI

The opening night of the play Finch was wrought up to such a pitch of excitement that he wondered if he would ever feel natural again.

Leigh was nervous, too. He had the part of the hero, mixture of courage and cowardice, to play, and his soul yearned over Finch, who had not only to make his first appearance at the Little Theatre, but to make it before Renny. Leigh had intended that the elder brother should see the performance late in the week, but Mrs. Leigh, unadvised by him, had sent the invitation to dinner, naming Monday. There was nothing to do but make the best of it, induce a complacent state of mind in the difficult guest by good wine and charming feminine companionship. For the latter, Leigh put all trust in his mother and sister. In his haste and perturbation, he took time to speculate as to which of them would interest Renny the more, upon which his quick glance might linger. For himself, the two so claimed his life, his love, that he wondered whether he should ever care for any other woman. He hoped not. His mother, his sister, Finch — these were enough.

Finch, coming into the drawing-room, where he now felt happily at ease, found Ada Leigh already there. She said, with her peculiar, slanting look at him, across a lighted candelabrum, ‘I suppose you’re awfully nervous.’

He was in one of his moments of elation. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t believe I ’m as nervous as Arthur is.’

‘I think you are. You ’re trembling.’

‘That’s nothing. It doesn’t take anything to make me shake. Why, I can’t pass a teacup without slopping the tea over.’

‘Ah, but this is different. You ’re afraid.’ She was smiling teasingly. He felt that she wanted him to be frightened. He drew nearer to her and saw the reflection of a pointed flame in her eyes.

‘Afraid of what?’

‘Afraid of me.’

‘Afraid of you?' He tried to look astonished, but he began to feel afraid, and yet oddly elated.

‘Yes . . . and I of you.’

He laughed now and he ceased trembling. Quick pulses began to beat all over his body. He took her hand and began to caress her fingers. He examined her pink nails as though they were little shells he had found on some strange shore. . . .

Then she was in his arms. He who had never kissed a girl! He felt suffocated. . . . It seemed to him an unreal dream that he was kissing her. She was snuggling under his chin. . . . Over her head he looked out into the darkness beyond the window, and saw the cluster of candle flames reflected like a cluster of golden blooms. He saw the reflection of his own head, the pale green of her dress like a shimmering pool in the darkness, over which his head was bent. How unreal it all seemed! He embraced her, excited by the beautiful reflection, by a new sense of power, of daring, but he felt that he was acting a part. They kissed in a tremulous dream.

Mrs. Leigh and Arthur were coming down the stairs together. There was plenty of time for the two in the drawing-room to draw apart, he to pick up a book and she to rearrange some flowers in a black bowl. No longer the darkness beyond the window reflected the entwined figures of the impassioned pursuers of experience.

Arthur went to Finch and threw an arm across his shoulders. ‘Darling Finch,’he said, in his low, musical voice, ‘I’m so glad you’re not nervous any more. You’ve a beam of absolute assurance in your eyes. I’m the one who is nervous.'

How comforting Arthur’s caressing arm was! Finch rejoiced in the yoke of friendship thus laid across his shoulders. He saw Ada’s eyes fixed on them, dark with jealousy.

If only Renny were not coming to dinner, he should be happy, he thought. He could not conceive of Renny’s fitting into the delicately adjusted contacts of that group. Yet, when Renny came, looking distant and elegant to Finch in his dinner jacket, he fitted in marvelously well. More strangely still, he did not adjust his conversation to the light current which usually flowed easily about the table, but brought with him something of the more vigorous, harsh atmosphere of Jalna. His red head, his shoulders that had the droop of much riding in the saddle, his sudden, sharp laughter, dominated the room.

Finch was so exhilarated by his experience of love-making, so proud of Renny, that his face was full of brightness. He looked charming. An observer would have found it interesting to compare him with the slouching, deprecating, often sullen youth who appeared at home.

Renny ate and talked with zest. Arthur, delighted with the success of his plans, found his dislike of the elder brother turning to appreciation of his generous and fiery temper. He felt that it would be good for him to have a man of this sort coming to the house, good for Ada, too, who was beginning to expect admiration from all males.

Arthur and Finch were leaving for the theatre before the others. Mrs. Leigh and Ada were upstairs preparing to put on their evening wraps. While Arthur was ordering a car, the two brothers were left alone in the drawing-room for a moment.

In a burst of nervous excitement, Finch whispered, hoarsely, ‘What do you think, Renny? I kissed Ada Leigh in this room to-night!’

‘The deuce you did! Did she like it?’ ‘I think so. We were reflected in the strangest way in the window. Ourselves, only more beautiful.’

‘H’m.’ Renny regarded him with genial amusement. ‘Are you sure she did n’t ask for it?’

‘Of course I am.’ He reddened, but he still leaned over Renny’s chair in a confidential attitude.

‘Well, it’s an experience for you. She’s a pretty girl.’

Leigh’s voice called from outside.

‘Coming, Arthur!’ Finch hastened out to his friend. . . .

Renny sat puffing at his cigarette, the glow of amusement still brightening his eyes. Young Finch making love! And it seemed like yesterday when he had turned Finch across his knee and warmed his seat. And now he was getting to be a man, poor devil!

He looked about him. An unreal room. Not a bit like the drawing-room at Jalna. Nothing homelike about it, with all these little pictures speckled over the walls, all the delicate furnishings, the fragile ornaments. But it suited the two pretty women. Odd, mysterious women — attractive, yet uncomfortable.

Later, in the theatre, seated between mother and daughter, Renny experienced a feeling of exasperation, of being trapped. The two pretty women seemed like jailers, and this place a prison. He hated the ‘arty’ atmosphere, the cold, chaste walls, the curtain. The lack of an orchestra depressed him. For him a theatre should blaze in gilt and scarlet, the curtain should present some florid Italian scene, and his spirit should be borne on the crash of music as on an element. He began to be unaccountably nervous for Finch. He had not wanted him to go in for anything of this sort, but now that he was . . . His throat tightened. He had trouble in taking a deep breath.

The play began. It increased his low spirits. The religion of the old man, his quoting of the Scriptures, made Renny want to howl. And Finch, when at last he appeared! His wild hair, his dirty face, his rags, his bare feet! Something deeply conservative in Renny disliked very much the sight of bare feet on the stage. The legs of a chorus girl, that was quite different, but a man’s — his brother’s — bare feet were distinctly ugly. And the way Finch blew on his whistle, the mad way he danced about, and sat on the floor and jumped up again, and begged for scraps of food, and slept in the chimney corner, and was always appearing suddenly and disappearing! And his Irish brogue!

The applause thundered. Finch was the bright star of the evening. His face was white and wild with exultation as he was applauded again and again.

After the play there was a little gathering in the director’s room. Friends crowded about the actors. Finch, not quite rid of his make-up, showed a dingy smear on his cheek. He trembled when he came to speak to Mrs. Leigh and Renny.

‘Oh, my dear,’ cried Mrs. Leigh, her hand squeezing his arm, ‘you could not have been better! We are all thrilled by you.’

Renny said nothing, regarding him with the same grin of disapproval. To Finch it seemed to say, ‘ Wait until I get you alone, young man.’ His feeling of triumph was gone. He felt that he had been making a fool of himself for the amusement of the audience. Not again during the week did he recover his buoyancy and complete abandon in the part.

Returning home in the train next day, Renny thought about Finch, and not only Finch, but all those younger members of the family who were his half brothers. What was wrong with them ? Certainly there was some weakness, bred in the bone, that made them different from the other Whiteoaks.

The face of their mother flashed into his mind. She had been governess to him and Meg before his father had married her. They had given her rather a rough time both as governess and as stepmother. He remembered her sobbing with exasperation over his misbehavior. But when she had become their stepmother she had held herself somewhat aloof from them, encircled by the love of her husband, absorbed by her too frequent motherhood.

Renny recalled vividly now the fact that when he had come upon her she had nearly always been reading. Poetry, too. What a mother for men! He had come upon her reading poetry to his father, who stared at her, listening, his eyes enfolding her. She had loved him, and had not long survived him. Poor young Wake had been a posthumous child.

Poetry in them — music in them — that was the trouble. Eden was full of poetry, and he had inherited his mother’s beauty, too. . . . Where was he now? They had heard nothing of him in the year and a half he had been away. How ghastly to think that Alayne was tied to him. ... At the thought of Alayne an ache struck him in the breast, an ache of longing for something that he could not possess. His soul groped, searching for a way to turn aside from the longing. He wondered at himself. He, for whom it had been so easy to forget. . . .

He shifted his body on the seat, as an animal, puzzled by pain, changes its position, bending his lean red face to stare out of the window on the far side of the car. He saw a frozen stream there and the rounded black forms of a clump of cedars.

Of what had he been thinking? Ah, yes, the boys! Eden. A damned fool, Eden. But Piers was no fool. Sound as a nut. A Whiteoak, through and through. Then Finch, the young whelp, deceiving him! Posturing, play-acting before a parcel of highbrows. And mad about music, too. Well, he’d got to work in earnest now if he were going to amount to anything. . . . There was Wake, fanciful little rascal. No knowing what he’d be up to in a few years. . . .

Like an eagle whose nestlings were turning out to be skylarks, Renny regarded his brood, his love, his pride in them, clouded by doubt.

At the station Wright was waiting for him with a dappled gray gelding harnessed to a red sleigh. The drifts were too high for motoring. Wright had brought Renny’s great coon coat, in which he enveloped himself on the platform.

When they arrived at the stables Piers was there. He asked, as Renny alighted, ‘Well, how did the matinée idol get on?’

‘He took the part of an idiot. Too damned well.’

‘He would,’ said Piers.

VII

Besides Arthur Leigh, Finch had one other friend. This was George Fennel, the rector’s second son. But his friendship with George lacked the sense of adventure, the exhilaration of his friendship with Arthur. Arthur and he had sought out each other. They had bridged barriers to clasp hands. But George and he had been thrown together since infancy. Each thought he knew all there was to know about the other. Each was fond of the other and a little despised him. Their bonds were hatred of mathematics and love of music. But where Finch toiled and sweated over his mathematics, and ached with desire for music, George made no effort to learn what was hard for him, concentrating with dogged purpose on the subjects he liked, early determining that, square peg as he was, he would be fitted into no round hole. He played whatever musical instrument was handy without partiality. He liked the mouth organ as well as the piano, the banjo as well as the mandolin. He made them all sing for him of the sweetness of life. He was a short, thickset youth, yet somehow graceful. His clothes were always untidy and his hair rumpled. Arthur Leigh thought him boorish, commonplace, a country clod. He did what he could to draw Finch away from him, and Finch, during that winter, till the time of the play, had never seen so little of George. But after the play he had yearned toward George. For some reason which he could not have explained, he was no longer quite so happy at the Leighs’. Not that his passage with Ada had made any palpable difference. He did not follow his advance by another step or by a repetition. She seemed to have forgotten it. Arthur had become oversensitive, exacting, critical of him. Finch was now often finding out that he had, by some gruff or careless remark, hurt Arthur; that he had, by some coarseness or stupidity, offended him; that, when he loudly aired his opinions, Arthur winced. Yet they had hours of such happiness together that Finch went home through the snow joyous in all his being. The trouble was, he decided, that Arthur loved him so well that he wanted him to be perfect, as he was perfect, not knowing how impossible that was.

How different with George! George expected nothing of him and was not disappointed. They could spend an evening together in his tiny bedroom in the rectory, working at an uninspired level of intelligence, chaffing, telling each other idiotic jokes, littering the floor with nutshells, and finally descending to the parlor for an hour of music before Finch must hasten home.

George, like Finch, was always hard up. Sometimes they had not between them two coins to rub together. When Finch was with Arthur he was continually accepting favors, continually being given pleasures which he could only repay by gratitude. At times he felt that the fount of his gratitude must dry up from the unceasing flow.

How different with George! There was nothing about which he need be grateful to George. They were both about as poor in this world’s possessions as they well could be. Each owned a few shabby clothes, his schoolbooks, his watch, and a cherished object or two, such as George’s banjo and an old silver snuffbox which Lady Buckley had given Finch. When he was going to the rectory, Finch would fill his pockets with apples; Mr. Fennel would carry a plate of crullers to the boys; they would both rifle Mrs. Fennel’s pantry. It was a pleasant and inexpensive give and take.

One evening George said to him, ’I know a fellow who would rig up a radio for us for next to nothing.’

‘H’m,’ grunted Finch, tearing a bite from a russet apple. ‘If we only had that next to nothing! ’

‘They’re any amount of fun,’ sighed George. ‘You can get wonderful concerts from New York, Chicago — all over, in fact.’

‘Good music, eh? Piano playing?’

George leaned forward, his square, roguish face twinkling. ‘I know how we can earn some money, Finch.’

Finch flung the core of the russet into the waste-paper basket. ‘How, then?’ His tone was skeptical.

‘By getting up an orchestra.’

‘An orchestra! You’ve gone dotty, have n’t you?’

‘Not by a long shot. Listen here. The other day my father was making a sick call in Stead, and I drove him there. These people have a greenhouse, and while I waited outside I strolled about looking through the windows at the plants. A fellow came out and we got to talking. He was a grandson and he’d just come out from town because of the sickness. I soon found out that he plays the mandolin. He’s got a friend who plays it, too, and another who plays the flute. They’ve been thinking for some time they’d like to get up an orchestra if they could find some fellows to play the banjo and piano. He was awfully excited when I told him we might go in for it.’

Finch was staggered. ‘But your father — what will he say?’

‘He won’t know. You see, I did n’t tell this fellow I was Dad’s son. He thinks I’m just employed by him. I thought it was better, because one’s people are so darned silly about who you go with.’ And he added softly, ‘One of the chaps is a tailor’s assistant — he’s the flutist — and the other works in the abattoir.’

‘Gee!’ exclaimed Finch. ‘Do you mean to say he kills things?’

‘I did n’t ask him,’ returned George testily. ‘The point is that he can play the mandolin.’

‘So you’ve met them!’

‘Yes. At the noon hour. They’re awfully decent chaps, and they’re quite old, too. The one I first met is twenty-three, and the other looks about twenty-six or so. They ’re awfully anxious to meet you.’

Finch began to shake with excitement. ‘There’s no earthly use in talking about an orchestra to me. I should n’t be let go to town for practising or playing at places. There’d be a hell of a row if I proposed such a thing.’

‘No need for you to mention it. I ’ve got it all arranged. You don’t object to making five dollars every now and again, do you?’

Finch sat up and stared. ‘Should I get that much ? ’

‘Certainly. Lilly, that’s the leader’s name, says we can easily get twenty-five dollars a night for playing at dances in restaurants. That’s five each. It’ll be the simplest thing in the world for us to work it. Bv bolting a bit of lunch, we can get in an hour’s practice at noon. Sometimes we can do it after five o’clock by staying in town for the seven-thirty train. That’s easy. Now, for the dances. You remember my aunt, Mrs. St. John, has been widowed lately.’

Finch nodded.

‘Very well. My aunt was saying only yesterday that she would like me to spend a night with her once a week for company. She would be pleased if I were to bring you along, and, seeing that she’s a favorite of your darned old family, I don’t suppose they’d object to your spending a night in her house, when she’s widowed and all that, and I guess Renny thinks you’re more likely to study when you ’re with me than with that Leigh chap.’ George, in his quiet way, thoroughly disliked Leigh.

‘But your aunt, won’t she be suspicious?’

George smiled gently. ‘It all fits in beautifully. Auntie is ordered to bed by her doctor at eight every night. She ’ll see us get our books out — the library’s downstairs — and then toddle off to her bedroom and go bye-bye. The dances begin at nine. We ’ll see life in those restaurants, too, mind you. And five bucks apiece.’

They whispered, planning together, till it was time for Finch to go home. There he sat, wrapped in a quilt, studying, to make up for lost time. But between him and the page returned again and again the vision of Ada’s face with mouth tremulously smiling, quivering from the kisses he had given her. With an effort he would put these pictures away and drag his mind back to its task. . . .

Difficult, unlikely as it had seemed, the orchestra came into being. It flourished. Lunches were bolted and the noonday period was spent in practice in the parlor above the tailor shop, into which penetrated the pungent smell of hot iron pressing damp cloth. The tailor’s assistant was cousin to the tailor, and he and his girl-wife and puny infant lived also above the shop. He was the oldest member of the orchestra, being twenty-six. His name was Meech. Finch soon became well acquainted with all the family, and, as they were kind to him and admired his playing, his affection rushed out to them. Often, when the practice was over, he would stay awhile, making himself late for school, to play Chopin or Schubert before the friendly circle. Then the thin girl-wife of the young tailor would crouch at the end of the piano watching his hands as he played. She was so close to him that she was in his way, but he would not ask her to move. Sitting so, with her eyes on him, music springing up beneath his hands, he felt firm and strong, free as air.

Finch now saw a new kind of life, the life of shopgirls and their beaus seeking pleasure at night in cheap restaurants. On the mornings of the days when the orchestra had engagements to play, he awoke with a start, excited in all his being. He found it was the easiest thing in the world to lead a double life. Aunt Augusta would send a box of little cakes or a pot of marmalade to Mrs. St. John. His aunt, though she looked at him coldly, her head drawn back with her air of offense, had a tender spot in her heart for the boy. To his amazement, he had won the prize canary in the raffle, and had smuggled the cage to her room, swathed in paper, a present for her on her seventy-fifth birthday. She had told him that his winning the lottery was a good omen for his future. The two were drawn together. He often visited her room to see the canary, and they gloated over the prize together. She soon grew to love it extravagantly. Finch would have liked to buy presents for the family from the wealth that poured in so fast, but where would they think he had got the money? But he could not resist a necktie for Renny’s birthday, which fell in March, He spent a long time in the haberdasher’s choosing it — two shades of blue in a gorgeous stripe. Renny’s eyebrows flew up in surprise when it was presented. He was touched. But when he appeared at Sunday tea wearing it, the vivid blue blazing against the highly colored flesh of his face, his red hair, a storm of protest arose from the family. Renny’s beauty — which, they declared, required dark colors to set it off — was ruined by the tie. Now it would have become Piers, with his blue eyes and fair skin. And the next time Finch saw the tie Piers was wearing it.

He had better luck with the box of water colors he bought for Wakefield. To avoid suspicion, for it was a very good box of colors, he said that it was a present from Leigh. Wake, who was condemned to his bed that week, was delighted. He painted pictures day in and day out. Renny, finding his bed littered with them, thought, with a moment’s heaviness, ‘By God, this poor youngster’s going to be a genius, too!’

Engagements for the orchestra came thick and fast. The young musicians played with such untiring gayety; they were so obliging. Finch conscientiously slaved at his books, and, between practising and studying and loss of sleep, grew so thin that even Piers was moved to concern.

Just after Easter, George announced an engagement in a restaurant in which they had played several times. The members of some athletic club were having a dance. The two boys had spent the Easter holidays with Mrs. St. John, and the orchestra had worked very hard learning new dance music. They had played at four dances, so Finch had twenty dollars to add to the hoard hidden on the top shelf of his clothes cupboard in an old fishing basket. Since the opening of school he had studied late into every night, apprehensive of again failing in his examinations.

On the night of the dance he was very tired. There had been trouble over spending the night in town, and only a passionate appeal to Aunt Augusta to intervene for him had made it possible. The rector, too, was beginning to think that his sister should be able to get on without George, and even Mrs. St. John herself had become a little less yearning toward her two young visitors. Finch felt that he could stand the strain no longer, that for a while the orchestra should take no new engagements or that someone else must be found to play the piano. Yet he loved it. It was life — making music, watching the dancing, the love-making, being in the streets late at night, the freshly earned money in his pocket.

The dance hall was hot. The room was full of young men and girls — the men, hockey players, lithe and strong; the girls, bare-shouldered, silken-legged, with laughing red-lipped faces. Some of them knew Finch by sight as a member of the orchestra, and waved to him as he sat sounding one note while the musicians tuned up. There was something about him that they liked. ‘ I say, Doris, there ’s the boy with the blond hair! I think he’s a lamb. Should n’t mind dancing with him.’

The flute, the two mandolins, the banjo, the piano, gave voice. They sang of the joy of the dance, of strong limbs, of supple backs, of touching electric finger tips. All the brightly colored crowd galloped like huntsmen, led by the five hounds, in pursuit of that adroit fox, Joy.

When the time came for supper, the members of the orchestra rose and stretched their legs. They had been playing for three hours. A waiter brought them refreshments. Finch, trying not to seem ravenous, was irritated when a tall black-haired girl came up to him. ‘My, you boys can play,’ she said. ‘I’d sooner dance to your music than any of the big orchestras.’

‘Oh, go on!’

‘Honestly, I would.’

He took another sandwich. His gaze did not rise above her shimmering shins.

‘You’re a funny boy. Gosh, your eyelashes are almost a mile long!’

He blushed, and raised his eyes as high as the marble whiteness of her chest.

A stout fellow came up and took her arm. ‘Here, Betty,’ he said, ‘none of that.’ He led her off, but her bold greenish eyes laughed over her white shoulder at Finch.

He boasted to Meech, the flutist, of the advances she had made, while they hurriedly consumed cake and coffee. ‘That’s a good sort to steer clear of,’ Meech counseled. ‘There’s a lot of bold-looking hussies here, and no mistake.’

The dance went on, the dancers displaying even more freedom of movement and brightness of eyes than before supper. They had been drinking a little, but they were not noisy. At two o’clock Burns, the mandolin player, who worked in an abattoir, passed a flask among the players. They were very tired. A little later they emptied it.

‘One dance more!’ the dancers begged at three o’clock. ‘One dance more!’ They clapped their hands vigorously. Finch felt ready to drop from the stool. A tendon in his right hand ached horribly. The dancers seemed to him like vampires, sucking his blood, never tiring of the taste of it.

A waiter appeared with a glass jug and glasses. ‘Have some ginger ale?’ he asked, smiling.

Finch took a glass. Something stronger than ginger ale, he discovered. A pleasant glow passed into him with the first half of the glass. After the second half he felt stronger, firmer. He looked over his shoulder at the others. George Fennel’s eyes were shining under his tumbled hair. Meech, the flutist, showed a pink flush on his high, pale forehead, Lilly and Burns were laughing together. Burns said, in a heavy bass voice, ‘Lilly, here, can’t see the strings. He’s pipped, are n’t you, Lilly?’

But now they discovered that they could go on. A little gush of energy swept them into ‘My Heart Stood Still.’ The dancers moved in silence, holding each other tightly, the sliding of their feet sounding like the dry rush of autumn leaves. The cruel white lights showed them as people growing old. A blight seemed to have fallen on them.

At last the dancing feet stood still. It was past four o’clock when the members of the orchestra descended the narrowstairs and went out into the darkness of the morning.

(To be continued)