him almost fiercely:
“Why won’t it suit us? It will suit us first-class.”
Ingpen merely said, with quiet delicacy:
“So much the better.... We might go all through the Mozart fiddle sonatas.”
“And who’s your violinist?” asked Johnnie.
“I am, if you don’t mind.” Ingpen smiled. “If your sister will take the piano part.”
Hilda exclaimed admiringly:
“Do you play the violin, too, Mr. Ingpen?”
“I scrape it. Also the tenor. But my real instrument is the clarinet.” He laughed. “It seems odd,” he went on with genuine scientific unegotistic interest in himself. “But d’you know I thoroughly enjoy playing the clarinet in a bad orchestra whenever I get the chance. When I happen to have a free evening I often wish I could drop in at a theatre and play rotten music in the band. It’s better than nothing. Some of us are born mad.”
“But Mr. Ingpen,” said Janet Orgreave anxiously, after this speech had been appreciated. “I have never played those Mozart sonatas.”
“I am glad to hear it,” he replied with admirable tranquillity. “Neither have I. I’ve often meant to. It’ll be quite a sporting event. But of course we can have a rehearsal if you like.”
The project of the musical evenings was discussed and discussed until Janet, having vanished silently upstairs, reappeared with her hat and cloak on.
“I can go alone if you aren’t ready, Johnnie,” said she.
Johnnie yawned.
“No. I’m coming.”
“I also must go—I suppose,” said Ingpen.
They all went into the hall. Through the open door of the dining-room, where one gas-jet burned, could be seen the rich remains of what had been “light refreshments” in the most generous interpretation of the term.
Ingpen stopped to regard the spectacle, fingering his beard.
“I was just wondering,” he remarked, with that strange eternal curiosity about himself, “whether I’d had enough to eat. I’ve got to ride home.”
“Well, what have you had?” Johnnie quizzed him.
“I haven’t had anything,” said Ingpen, “except drink.”
Hilda cried.
“Oh! You poor sufferer! I am ashamed!” And led him familiarly to the table.
iv
Edwin was kept at the front-door some time by Johnnie Orgreave, who resumed as he was departing the subject of the proposed new works, and maintained it at such length that Janet, tired of waiting on the pavement, said that she would walk on. When he returned to the dining-room, Ingpen and Hilda were sitting side by side at the littered table, and the first words that Edwin heard were from Ingpen:
“It cost me a penknife. But it was dirt cheap at the price. You can’t expect to be the Almighty for much less than a penknife.” Seeing Edwin, he added with a nonchalant smile: “I’ve told Mrs. Clayhanger all about the answer to prayer. I thought she ought to know.”
Edwin laughed awkwardly, saying to himself:
“Ingpen, my boy, you ought to have thought of my position first. You’ve been putting your finger into a rather delicate piece of mechanism. Supposing she cuts up rough with me afterwards for hiding it from her all this time! ... I’m living with her. You aren’t.”
“Of course,” Ingpen added. “I’ve sworn the lady to secrecy.”
Hilda said:
“I knew all the time there was something wrong.”
And Edwin thought:
“No, you didn’t. And if he hadn’t happened to tell you about the thing, you’d have been convinced that you’d been alarming yourself for nothing.”
But he only said, not certain of Hilda’s humour, and anxious to placate her:
“There’s no doubt George ought to be punished.”
“Nothing of the kind! Nothing of the kind!” Ingpen vivaciously protested. “Why, bless my soul! The kids were engaged in a religious work. They were busy with someone far more important than any parents.” And after a pause, reflectively: “Curious thing, the mentality of a child! I doubt if we understand anything about it.”
Hilda smiled, but said naught.
“May I enquire what there is in that bottle?” Ingpen asked.
“Benedictine.”
“Have some, Mr. Ingpen.”
“I will if you will, Mrs. Clayhanger.”
Edwin raised his eyebrows at his wife.
“You needn’t look at me!” said Hilda. “I’m going to have some.”
Ingpen smacked his lips over the liqueur.
“It’s a very bad thing late at night, of course. But I believe in giving your stomach something to think about. I never allow my digestive apparatus to boss me.”
“Quite right, Mr. Ingpen.”
They touched glasses, without a word, almost instinctively.
“Well,” thought Edwin, “for a chap who thinks women ought to be behind the veil...!”
“Be a man, Clayhanger, and have some.”
Edwin shook his head.
With a scarcely perceptible movement of her glass, Hilda greeted her husband, peeping out at him as it were for a fraction of a second in a glint of affection. He was quite happy. They were all seated close together, Edwin opposite the other two at the large table. The single gas-jet, by the very inadequacy with which it lighted the scene of disorder, produced an effect of informal homeliness and fellowship that warmed the heart. Each of the three realised with pleasure that a new and promising friendship was in the making. They talked at length about the Musical Evenings, and Edwin said that he should buy some music, and Hilda asked him to obtain a history of music that Ingpen described with some enthusiasm, and the date of the first evening was settled,—Sunday week. And after uncounted minutes Ingpen remarked that he presumed he had better go.
“I have to cycle home,” he announced once more.
“To-night?” Hilda exclaimed.
“No. This morning.”
“All the way to Axe?”
“Oh,
