"Do tell us what the Countess was laughing at?" This question was shot at him at least thirty times. He always said he would not tell. And one girl who had danced with Mr. Stanway, who had danced with the Countess, said that Mr. Stanway had said that the Countess would not tell, either. Proof, here, that he was being extensively talked about!
Toward the end of the festivity the rumour floated abroad that the Countess had lost her fan. The rumour reached Denry, who maintained a culpable silence. But when all was over, and the Countess was departing, he rushed down after her, and in a dramatic fashion which demonstrated his genius for the effective, he caught her exactly as she was getting into her carriage.
"I 've just picked it up," he said, pushing through the crowd of worshippers.
"Oh! thank you so much!" she said. And the Earl also thanked Denry. And then the Countess, leaning from the carriage, said with archness in her efficient smile: "You do pick things up easily, don't you?"
And both Denry and the Countess laughed without restraint, and the pillars of Bursley society were mystified.
Denry winked at Jock as the horses pawed away. And Jock winked back.
The envied of all, Denry walked home, thinking violently. At a stroke he had become possessed of more than he could earn from Duncalf in a month. The faces of the Countess, of Ruth Earp, and of the timid Nellie mingled in exquisite hallucinations before his tired eyes. He was inexpressibly happy. Trouble, however, awaited him.
CHAPTER II. THE WIDOW HULLINS'S HOUSE
I
The simple fact that he first, of all the citizens of Bursley, had asked a Countess for a dance (and not been refused) made a new man of Denry Machin. He was not only regarded by the whole town as a fellow wonderful and dazzling; but he so regarded himself. He could not get over it. He had always been cheerful, even to optimism. He was now in a permanent state of calm, assured jollity. He would get up in the morning with song and dance. Bursley and the general world were no longer Bursley and the general world; they had been mysteriously transformed into an oyster; and Denry felt strangely that the oyster-knife was lying about somewhere handy, but just out of sight, and that presently he should spy it and seize it. He waited for something to happen.
And not in vain.
A few days after the historic revelry, Mrs. Codleyn called to see Denry's employer. Mr. Duncalf was her solicitor. A stout, breathless, and yet muscular woman of near sixty, the widow of a chemist and druggist who had made money before limited companies had taken the liberty of being pharmaceutical. The money had been largely invested in mortgage on cottage-property; the interest on it had not been paid, and latterly Mrs. Codleyn had been obliged to foreclose, thus becoming the owner of some seventy cottages. Mrs. Codleyn, though they brought her in about twelve pounds a week gross, esteemed these cottages an infliction, a bugbear, an affront, and a positive source of loss. Invariably she talked as though she would willingly present them to anybody who cared to accept; "and glad to be rid of 'em!" Most owners of property talk thus. She particularly hated paying the rates on them.
Now there had recently occurred, under the direction of the Borough Surveyor, a re-valuation of the whole town. This may not sound exciting; yet a re-valuation is the most exciting event (save a municipal ball given by a titled mayor) that can happen in any town. If your house is rated at £40 a year, and rates are 7/- in the £, and the re-valuation lifts you up to £45, it means thirty-five shillings a year right out of your pocket, which is the interest on £35. And if the re-valuation drops you to £35, it means thirty-five shillings in your pocket, which is a box of Havanas or a fancy waistcoat. Is not this exciting? And there are seven thousand houses in Bursley. Mrs. Codleyn hoped that her ratable value would be reduced. She based the hope chiefly on the fact that she was a client of Mr. Duncalf, the Town Clerk. The Town Clerk was not the Borough Surveyor and had nothing to do with the re-valuation. Moreover Mrs. Codleyn presumably entrusted him with her affairs because she considered him an honest man, and an honest man could not honestly have sought to tickle the Borough Surveyor out of the narrow path of rectitude in order to oblige a client. Nevertheless Mrs. Codleyn thought that because she patronised the Town Clerk her rates ought to be reduced! Such is human nature in the provinces—so different from human nature in London, where nobody ever dreams of offering even a match to a municipal official, lest the act might be construed into an insult.
It was on a Saturday morning that Mrs. Codleyn called to impart to Mr. Duncalf the dissatisfaction with which she had learned the news (printed on a bit of bluish paper) that her ratable value, far from being reduced, had been slightly augmented.
The interview, as judged by the clerks through a lath-and-plaster wall and by means of a speaking tube, atoned by its vivacity for its lack of ceremony. When the stairs had finished creaking under the descent of Mrs. Codleyn's righteous fury, Mr. Duncalf whistled sharply twice. Two whistles meant Denry. Denry picked up his shorthand note-book and obeyed the summons.
"Take this down," said his master rudely and angrily.
Just as though Denry had abetted Mrs. Codleyn! Just as though Denry was not a personage of high importance in the town, the friend of Countesses, and a shorthand clerk only on the surface!
"Do you hear?"
"Yes, sir."
"Madam"—hitherto it had always been "dear Madam," or "dear Mrs. Codleyn"—"Madam. Of course I need hardly say that if, after our interview this morning and your extraordinary remarks, you wish to place your interests in other hands, I shall be most happy to hand over all the papers on payment of my costs. Yours truly … To Mrs. Codleyn."
Denry reflected. "Ass! Why does n't he let her cool down?" Also: "He's got 'hands' and 'hand' in the same sentence. Very ugly. Shows what a temper he's in!" Shorthand clerks are always like that—hypercritical. Also: "Well, I jolly well hope she does chuck him! Then I sha n't have those rents to collect." Every Monday, and often on Tuesday too, Denry collected the rents of Mrs. Codleyn's cottages: an odious task for Denry. Mr. Duncalf, though not affected by its odiousness, deducted 7-½ Per cent. for the job from the rents.
"That 'll do," said Mr. Duncalf.
But as Denry was leaving the room, Mr. Duncalf called with formidable brusqueness:
"Machin."
"Yes, sir?"
In a flash Denry knew what was coming. He felt, sickly, that a crisis had supervened with the suddenness of a tidal wave. And for one little second it seemed to him that to have danced with a Countess while the flower of Bursley's chivalry watched in envious wonder, was not after all the key to the door of success throughout life.
Undoubtedly he had practised fraud in sending to himself an invitation to the ball! Undoubtedly he had practised fraud in sending invitations to his tailor and his dancing-mistress! On the day after the ball, beneath his great glory, he had trembled to meet Mr. Duncalf's eye lest Mr. Duncalf should ask him: "Machin, what were you doing at the Town Hall last night, behaving as if you were the Shah of Persia, the Prince of Wales, and Mr. George Alexander?" But Mr. Duncalf had said nothing, and Mr. Duncalf's eye had