"Don't talk such utter damn nonsense," said the angry Hal, "I've done nothing yet."
"Help!" cried the lounging figure at the top of the wall. "He's done nothing yet– but – !"
"Will you be quiet, sir," roared Hal desperately red in the face; "you'll alarm the neighbourhood and make yourself a laughing stock – "
The Duke had seen the flutter of a white dress coming through the little glass house, and as the girl with an alarmed face ran into the garden he made his appeal to her.
"Miss Terrill," he said brokenly, "as one human being to another, I beg you to save me from this savage and I fear reckless young man. Call him off! Chain him up! Let him turn from me the basilisk fires of his vengeful eyes."
"I thought – I thought," faltered the girl.
"Not yet," said the Duke cheerfully, "you have arrived in the nick of time to save one who is your ever grateful servant, from a terrible and, I cannot help thinking, untimely end."
She turned with an angry stamp of her foot to her cousin.
"Will you please take me into the house, Hal," she said ignoring the young man on the wall, and his exaggerated expression of relief.
"On behalf of the organ fund," read Hank and regarded the pink tickets that accompanied the vicar's letter with suspicion.
"It's a curious fact," said the Duke, "that of all people and things in this wide world, there is no class so consistently insolvent as the organ class. There isn't a single organ in England that can pay its way. It's broke to the world from its infancy; its youth is a hand-to-mouth struggle, and it reaches its maturity up to the eyes in debt. It has benefit sermons and Sunday-school matinées, garden parties, bazaars and soirées, but nothing seems to put the poor old dear on his legs; he just goes wheezing on, and ends his miserable existence in the hands of the official receiver. What is this by the way?"
"A soirée," said Hank moodily, "and will we help."
The Duke sprang up.
"Rather!" he said jubilantly "will we help? Why, this is the very opportunity I've been waiting for! I'll sing a sentimental song, and you can say a little piece about a poor child dying in the snow."
"Snow nothing," said Hank, "you can sing if you want, and I'll go outside so that folk's shan't see I'm ashamed of you."
He took a turn or two up and down the apartment, then came to an abrupt stop before the Duke.
"Say," he said quickly, "Bill Slewer's out."
The Duke raised his eyebrows.
"The amiable William?" he asked with mild astonishment, "not Bad Man Bill?"
Hank nodded gravely.
"I got a letter from Judge Morris. Bill had a pull in the state and the remainder of his sentence has been remitted by the new governor."
"Well?" asked the Duke with a yawn. Hank was searching his pocket for a letter. He opened one and read —
"… hope you are having a good time … m – m your Nevada properties are booming … (oh, here we are). By the way Big Bill Slewer's loose, the man the Duke ran out of Tycer country and jailed for shooting Ed. Carter the foreman.
"Bill says he is going gunning for Jukey – "
"Ugh!" shuddered the Duke.
" – and reckons to leave for Europe soon. Japhet in search of his pa will be a quaker picnic compared with Bill on the sleuth. Tell Jukey – "
The Duke groaned.
"Tell Jukey to watch out for his loving little friend Bill. Bill is going to have a big send off and a bad citizens' committee has presented the hero with a silver plate Colt's revolver and has passed a special resolution deprecating the artificial social barriers of an effete and degenerate aristocracy."
The Duke smiled.
"If Bill turns up in Brockley I'll run the military gentleman loose on him," he announced calmly; "in the meantime let us address ourselves to the soirée."
It was announced from the pulpit on the next Sunday that amongst the kind friends who has promised to help was "our neighbour the Duc de Montvillier" and the next morning Miss Alicia Terrill sought out the vicar and asked to be relieved of a certain promise she had made.
"But, my dear Miss Terrill, it's quite impossible," protested the amazed cleric; "you were so very keen on the soirée, and your name has been sent to the printer with the rest of the good people who are singing. Here's the proof." He fussed at his desk and produced a sheet of paper.
"Here we are," he said, and she read: —
"No. 5 (song), 'Tell me, where is fancy bred' – Miss A. Terrill.
"No. 6 (song), 'In my quiet garden' – The Duc de Montvillier."
"And here again in Part II," said the vicar. She took the papers with an unsteady hand.
"No. 11 (song), 'I heard a voice' – Miss A. Terrill.
"No. 12 (song), 'Alice, where art thou' – The Duc de Montvillier."
She looked at the vicar helplessly.
"Why – why does the Duke follow me?" she asked weakly.
"It was his special wish," explained the other. "He said his voice would serve to emphasize the sweetness of your singing and coming, as it would, immediately after your song – these are his own words —his feeble efforts would bring the audience to a – "
"Oh yes," she interrupted impatiently, "I can well imagine all that he said, and I'm thoroughly decided that the programme mustbe rearranged."
In the end she had her way.
For some reason she omitted to convey to her mother the gist of the conversation. If the truth must be told, she had already regretted having spoken of the matter at all to her family, for her mother's letter to the Tanneurs had brought to her a greater infliction than her impetuous suitor. Whatever opinion might be held of the genius of Hal Tanneur at Hydeholm, in the expressive language of the 9th's mess, he was "no flier." The girl had learnt of his coming with dismay, and the gleam of hope that perhaps after all, he might be able to effectively snub the young man of the step ladder, was quickly extinguished as the result of the brief skirmish she had witnessed. And Hal was attentive in his heavy way, and had tricks of elephantine gallantry that caused her more annoyance than alarm.
On the evening of the day she had seen the vicar, Mr. Hal Tanneur decided upon making a diplomatic offer, so set about with reservations and contingencies, that it was somewhat in the nature of a familiar stock exchange transaction. In other words he set himself the task of securing an option on her hand, with the understanding that in the event of his father's refusal to endorse the contract, the option was to be secretly renewed for an indefinite period. He did not put the matter in so few words as I, because he was not such a clever juggler of words as I am, but after he had been talking, with innumerable "d'ye see what I mean Alic's" and "of course you understand's," she got a dim idea of what he was driving at. She let him go on. "Of course the governor's got pots of money, and I don't want to get in his bad books. Just now he's a bit worried over some Nevada property he's trying to do a chap out of – in quite a business-like way of course. The other chap – the chap who has the property now has got a big flaw in his title and he doesn't know it. See? Well, unless he renews his claim and gets some kind of an order from the court, or something of that sort, the governor and the governor's friends can throw him out, d'ye see what I mean?"
"I really don't see what this is to do with me," said Alicia frankly bored, "you said you wanted to tell me something of the greatest importance, and I really ought to be seeing about mother's supper."
"Wait a bit," he pleaded, "this is where the whole thing comes in: if the governor pulls this deal off, he'll be as pleased as Punch, and I can say out plump and plain how I feel about you."
It