Not wholly stranded, however! Lady Brian had stayed at Fairharbour before at the Anchor Hotel down by the fishing-quay--"the Anchovy Hotel" Bunny called it on account of its situation. It was not a very high-class establishment, but Lady Brian had favoured it on a previous occasion because Lord Saltash had a yacht in the vicinity, and it had seemed such a precious opportunity for dear Maud. He also had large racing-stables in the neighbourhood of the downs behind the little town, and there was no knowing when one or other of his favourite pastimes might tempt him thither.
Nothing had come of the previous visit, however, save a pleasant, half-joking acquaintance with Mr. Sheppard, the proprietor of the Anchor Hotel, during the progress of which Lady Brian's appealing little ways had laid such firm hold of the worthy landlord's rollicking fancy that she had found it quite difficult to tear herself away.
Matters had not then come to such a pass, and she had finally extricated herself with no more than a laughing promise to return as soon as the mood took her. Maud had been wholly unaware of the passage between them which had been of a very slight and frothy order; and not till she found herself established in some very shabby lodgings within a stone's throw of the Anchor Hotel did the faintest conception of her mother's reason for choosing Fairharbour as their city of refuge begin to dawn in her brain.
She was very fully alive to it now, however, and hotly, furiously resentful, albeit she had begun already to realize (how bitterly!) that no resentment on her part could avert the approaching catastrophe. As Lady Brian pathetically said, something had got to be sacrificed.
And there was Bunny! She could not leave Bunny to try to earn a living. He was utterly dependent upon her--so dependent that it did not seem possible that he could live without her. No, she could see no way of escape. But it was too horrible, too revolting! She was sure, too, that her mother had a sneaking liking for the man, and that fact positively nauseated her. That awful person! That bounder!
"So, you see, dear, it really can't be helped," Lady Brian said, rising and opening her sunshade with a dainty air of finality. "Why his fancy should have fallen upon me I cannot imagine. But--all things considered--it is perhaps very fortunate that it has. He is quite ready to take us all in, and that, even you must admit, is really very generous of him."
Maud's eyes travelled again to the far sky-line. They had a look in them as of a caged thing yearning for freedom.
"It is getting late," said Lady Brian.
Sharply she turned. "Mother," she said, "I shall write to Uncle Edward. This is too much. I am sure he will not condemn us to this."
Lady Brian sighed a trifle petulantly. "You will do as you like, dear, no doubt. But pray do not write on my account! Whatever he may be moved to do or say can make no difference to me now."
"Why not?" Curtly her daughter put the question. The beautiful brows were painfully drawn.
"Because," said Lady Brian plaintively, "it will be too late--so far as I am concerned."
"What do you mean?" Again, almost like a challenge, the girl flung the question.
Lady Brian began to walk along the beach. "I mean, dear, that I have promised to give Mr. Sheppard his answer to-night."
"But--but--Mother--" there was almost a cry in the words, "you can't--you can't have quite decided upon what the answer will be!"
Lady Brian sighed again. "Oh, do let us have a little common-sense!" she said, with just a touch of irritation. "Of course I have decided. The decision has been simply thrust upon me. I had no choice."
"Then you mean to say Yes?" Maud's voice fell suddenly flat. She turned her face again to the open sea, a glint of desperation in her eyes.
"Yes," said Lady Brian very definitely. "I mean to say Yes."
"Then Heaven help us!" said Maud, under her breath.
"My dear, don't be profane!" said Lady Brian.
CHAPTER II
THE IDOL
"I say, Maud, what a dratted long time you've been! What on earth have you and the mother been doing?" Young Bernard Brian turned his head towards his sister with the chafing, impatient movement of one bitterly at variance with life. "You swore you wouldn't be long," he said.
"I know. I'm sorry." Maud came to his side and stooped over him. "I couldn't help it, Bunny," she said. "I haven't been enjoying myself."
He looked up at her suspiciously. "Oh, it's never your fault," he said, with dreary sarcasm.
Maud said nothing. She only laid a smoothing hand on his crumpled brow, and after a moment bent and kissed it.
He jerked his head away from her caress, opening and shutting his hands in a nervous way he had acquired in babyhood. "I've had a perfectly sickening time," he said. "There's a brute with a gramophone upstairs been driving me nearly crazy. For goodness' sake, see if you can put a stop to it before to-night comes! I shall go clean off my head if you don't!"
"I'll do my best, dear," Maud promised.
"I wish to goodness we could get away from this place," the boy said restlessly. "Even the old 'Anchovy' was preferable. I loathe this hole."
"Oh, so do I!" said Maud, with sudden vehemence. And then she checked herself quickly as if half-ashamed. "Of course it might be worse, you know, Bunny," she said.
Bunny curled a derisive lip, and looked out of the window.
"Did you really like 'The Anchor' better?" Maud asked, after a moment.
He drew his brows together--beautiful brows like her own, betraying a sensitive, not too well-balanced temperament. "It was better," he said.
Maud sat down beside his sofa with a slight gesture of weariness. "You would like to go back there?" she asked.
He looked at her sharply. "We are going?"
She met his look with steady eyes. "Mr. Sheppard has offered to take us in," she said.
The boy frowned still more. "What! For nothing?" he said.
"No; not for nothing." The girl was frowning too--the frown of one confronted with a difficult task. "Nobody ever does anything for nothing," she said.
"Well? What is it?" Bunny's eyes suddenly narrowed and became shrewd. "He doesn't want you to marry him, I suppose?"
"Good gracious, Bunny!" Maud gasped the words in sheer horror. "What ever made you think of that?"
Bunny laughed--a cracked, difficult laugh. "Because he's bounder enough for anything; and you're so beastly fond of him, aren't you?"
"Oh, don't!" Maud said. "Really don't, Bunny! It's too horrible to joke about. No, it isn't me he wants to marry. It's--it's----"
"The mother?" queried Bunny, without perturbation. "Oh, he's quite welcome to her. It's a pity he's been such a plaguey time making up his mind. He might have known she'd jump at him."
"But, Bunny--" Maud was gazing at him in utter amazement. There were times when the working of her young brother's brain was wholly beyond her comprehension. "You can't be--pleased!" she said.
"I'm never pleased," said Bunny sweepingly. "I hate everything and everybody--except you, and you don't count. The man's a brute of course; but if the mother has a mind to marry him, why on earth shouldn't she? Especially if it's going to make us more comfortable!"
"Comfortable on his money!" There was scorn unutterable in Maud's voice. Her eyes were tragically proud.
"But, why not?" said Bunny, with cynical composure. "We shall never be comfortable on our own, that's certain. If the man is fool enough to want to lay out his money in that way, why, let him!"
"Live on his--charity!" said Maud very bitterly.
The