"The more the merrier," said Donaldson. "Don't spoil sport."
Paul shook his head, hesitating. But Manning supported him. "You're right, Kestern," he said. "We'll keep the joke to ourselves. You three are pretty thick, and it would be low down to split on a pal."
So the letter was written and posted, and Paul was at breakfast next morning when Strether came in with it. He flung himself into an arm-chair and tossed the note on the table. "Who wrote that?" he demanded savagely, his limbs sprawling all over the place.
Paul, feigning surprise, opened it. "'Elsie Dawson,'" he read, as one bewildered. "Great Scott, Gussie, I shouldn't have thought you'd have had a correspondence with girls! Why, she's the girl we met yesterday! Good Lord—'Will you meet me to-night at 9.30 on Jesus Bridge?' What are you going to do? My aunt, fancy her having the cheek!"
Strether kicked out at a footstool. "I don't know the girl," he exclaimed bitterly.
For the life of him, Paul couldn't help playing up to the game now that the victim had risen so well. He got up and went over to the fire. "But look here," he said seriously, "she's seen you and she's plainly after you. Well, hang it all, man, we don't want her sort hanging about whenever we go down to the river. You'd better meet her once and choke her off. Take Donaldson with you; he'll take her off your hands."
Strether growled, muttered, and kicked out at the footstool again, the while Paul, intensely amused but outwardly serious, gathered at last that he was cursing Donaldson, declining to tell that worthy a thing about the letter, and demanding how the girl could have learnt his name.
"She overheard Donaldson saying it, I expect," invented the resourceful Paul.
He was cut short by the noise on the stair that usually heralded that gentleman's approach. "Give me the letter," said Strether hurriedly, "and don't say anything."
"If you go, come in here afterwards and tell me what happens," replied Paul quickly, tossing it him. The other nodded.
"Has he got it?" demanded Donaldson eagerly, as soon as they were alone at the boathouse that afternoon.
Paul nodded.
"Oh my holy aunt, what a spree! What did he say? What's he going to do?"
Paul explained, smiling. "You're not to know. I kidded him all right, and I think he's going to-night."
"Lor! what an ass! Well, we'll be there anyway. Wonder if Manning would care to come?"
"Don't ask him," said Paul. "After all Gussie's our pal, and Manning's not our year. I wish he knew nothing about it."
Donaldson stared. "He's a damned good sport, anyway."
"May be," retorted Paul. "So's old Gussie, if it comes to that."
"All right," conceded the other. "But we'll go. We'll go out at nine. It'll need a bit of reconnoitring."
Paul showed admirable strategy by suggesting to Strether that he, Paul, should take Donaldson out of college before the arranged hour for the rendezvous to avoid any awkward questions as to the other getting away from them. In the shadow of a tree, with coat collars turned up, they watched their victim arrive, cross and recross the bridge nervously; advance, obviously fuming, some way into the Common; return; look at his watch; fume some more; stamp about for a quarter of an hour; and finally make off for home. The conspirators returned another way, and Donaldson went to his own room. Paul found Strether in his, awaiting him.
"Hullo! Back?" queried Paul. "What happened, Gussie?"
No answer.
"Oh come on," said Paul, "what did she say? Did you get rid of her easily?"
"All this fuss about beastly females," muttered Strether. Then he flung himself back in his chair and half bellowed: "She wasn't there!"
Paul could have screamed. It was irresistibly comic, but he maintained his composure by an effort. "Not there!" he exclaimed. "What do you mean?"
The other explained. Paul suggested that she might have been kept at home. Hadn't he, Strether, left the Bridge a bit too soon? Strether emphatically thought not, and gloom descended upon him. What if she wrote again? What if the porters spotted her hanging around? What if—but further speculation was cut off, the wooden stairs betraying approaching visitors. Manning and Donaldson came in together.
"Hullo, Gus Strether," cried the latter noisily, "where've you been? We've been searching the place for you."
"Shut up," growled Strether suspiciously.
Manning smiled at both of them. "What a bally row you do make, Donaldson," he said. "Can you give us some coffee, Kestern? Look here, I thought those verses of yours the other night jolly good."
The talk drifted into literature, but ten minutes later there was a further knock on the door. "Come in," called Paul.
The door opened, and "old Sam," an under-porter, put in his head. He was an ancient mariner, short, red-faced, with smiling eyes, a genial old boy and popular, since he was ready for anything that included a tip. "Beggin' your pardon, sir," he said to Paul, "but is Mr. Strether 'ere? I couldn't find 'im in 'is rooms."
Strether made a noise of some sort, indicative of his presence, from his chair. His face was a study.
"Oh there you are, sir. 'Xcuse me, but there's a young lady in the porch a-arskin' after you."
Pandemonium. Donaldson attempted to rush out and Strether closed with him. Manning sprang to the lamp, laughing so much that he could hardly hold it. An arm-chair was overturned. Paul caught Donaldson, and Strether freed himself. Sam beamed beneficently on them all and closed the door with a wink as Strether went out.
"Oh my holy aunt," roared Donaldson. "Gussie will be the death of me. Did you see his face? But what's the next move, Manning?"
"Wait for him to come back. Then pull his leg."
They waited a long ten minutes, and then went off to Strether's rooms. His oak was sported, and no amount of banging, not even Donaldson's uproarious "Gus Strether! Open, you old blighter. Come on, Gussie! Pull up your socks. Who's your lady friend?" echoing through the night, was of any use.
The three departed together, Donaldson to Manning's rooms for a drink. But Paul refused the invitation. He climbed his stairway, a bit conscious-stricken, and sported his own door. He glanced round the little room, and drew consolation from its remote comfortable air. Then he remembered that it was Saturday night and he had an address for the morrow to prepare. He sighed and sat down to think.
(3)
The children's service proved to be a small affair compared with his own at Claxted and requires no further notice, but the open-air meeting on Parker's Piece was a different matter. When Paul at last found himself on a chair beneath the central lamp-post, it was with feelings he had never had before. A big crowd of townsfolk surrounded him, but among them were 'Varsity men, some members of the C.I.C.C.U., but others who were not. Paul realised himself and his position as he had never done in Lambeth Court. He was not merely preaching repentance to obvious and ignorant sinners; he was challenging life and thought which could meet him on equal terms. The sense of it surged through him as he stood there and read the curious faces, yellow in the lamplight, that ringed him round against the foggy gloom behind. Even these town's men were a new audience to him. They had caught something of the criticism, the independence, of the University; and they were also sarcastic, as Mr. Mavis and Mrs. Roper might be, having seen in their day many things. This particular young gentleman's whim was religion, just as another's might be the breaking of windows, or the purchase of a certain kind of picture, or some form of sport, or highly coloured socks. One had to take these phenomena philosophically, thankful if one's own young gentleman had the more harmless crazes.
The sensitive Paul was aware that this was the temper of the greater part of his audience, while the lesser part would be critical, amused, or ragging