cock of the walk, whereas among the members at his club there was a sad tendency to think themselves as good as he. But here his tastes and his convenience were consulted before those of any other guest, cream was poured forth for the mollification of his tantrums and his wish was of the nature of law to the economies of the establishment. He was convinced that Mrs. Oxney had no greater pleasure in life than to please him, no greater cross to bear than the sense that all had not been as he would have had it; he regarded himself as being looked on with a pleasant mixture of awe and respectful affection. Every now and then, it is true, there appeared here some outsider who did not seem duly reverential, and at the present moment he had occasional doubts about the true state of Mrs. Holders's sentiments with regard to him, but such possible exceptions were negligible and temporary. They came for their few weeks of cure and passed away again. He bore them no real ill will, and hoped they had profited by their stay. He and Miss Howard alone went on for ever; on the whole he was very much pleased with Miss Howard, and when, in his more romantic moments she appeared to unusual advantage as she sat in profile against a dark wall (a rather favourite position of hers) he wondered if he would be more comfortable with an establishment of his own, and a presentable middle-aged woman to look after him, and bear his name. Her occasional allusions to her little place in Kent were interesting. Indeed he really asked very little of life; only that he should be quite well, and ride a great many miles on his bicycle, and that Wentworth should unweariedly admire all he did, and sun itself in his approbation. Given that these modest requirements had been granted when, between half-past ten and eleven at night, he did a few energetic dumb-bell exercises before going to bed, he claimed nothing more of the morrow than that it should be like to-day; sufficient unto the day had been the good thereof. That something should have occurred like the felling of his favourite tree, or the unpunctuality of Miss Howard at lunch, which had caused a tantrum, would not prove to have spoiled the day; he was large-minded enough to take a broader view than that.
Plans and retrospections eddied pleasantly round in his head, the volume of Macaulay's Essays, already upside down, slipped from his hand, and he indulged as usual in half an hour's nap, from which the sound of the dressing-gong and the entry of the maid with his hot water, roused him. Here was a fine opportunity to linger before making his toilet, in order to demonstrate to others what an inconvenient thing it was not to be punctual. But, being very hungry, he scorned so paltry a reprisal. He had not quite finished with his evening paper for there was a leader on the coal strike which a cursory glance had shewn him was written in a vein which he thoroughly approved, and he took it down with him to read it as he dined.
Colonel Chase openly used spectacles for reading when he was alone, and furtively in company, slipping them off if he thought they would be noticed, for they were a little out of keeping with that standard of perfect health and vigour of which he was so striking an example. Still they were useful with small print (print was not what it used to be, or the electric light, probably owing to the coal strike, was not so luminous) and by propping his paper against his cruet he thought they would be unnoticed. Occasionally he glanced over the top of it at the new arrival of the afternoon, who sat at a table close in front of him. She was a good-looking woman of middle age, of healthy and attractive appearance, wearing a fixed bright smile for no particular reason. She was evidently on the best terms with life, and until Colonel Chase saw that at the conclusion of dinner she walked out with a pronounced limp, and leaned heavily on a stick, he had felt sure that she was no patient in search of health. The dining-room had cleared before he finished his glass of port, and when he went out, the guests with Mrs. Oxney and Mrs. Bertram, were sitting in the lounge. This was the usual procedure. They all sat talking there till he joined them and proposed the pastime which he preferred. Usually he liked playing bridge and a table was formed. Sometimes he challenged Mrs. Oxney to a game of chess which always ended in the capture of all her pieces (for he ran no risks,) and a brilliant check-mate. But before that there would generally be two or three guests trying to solve the cross-word puzzle in the evening paper, and though he invariably professed never to glance at a cross-word puzzle, his quiet work at it in his room before dinner often enabled him to help them with some wonderful extempore solutions. To-night, Miss Kemp, Mrs. Oxney and Mrs. Holders formed the cross-word group, and were sadly at loss for nearly everything. In a corner of the lounge, away from any possible draught, Mr. Kemp had successfully cornered the new bright smiling guest and was telling her all about Bath and Buxton and Harrogate and Aix. Mrs. Oxney, with apologies for interrupting Mr. Kemp's conversation introduced Colonel Chase to her as Mrs. Bliss, a name which seemed to suit her excellently, and then claimed his assistance in the puzzle.
"We shall get on better now that the Colonel will help us," she said. "Such a difficult one to-night, Colonel."
Colonel Chase quite forgot that he had pencilled the greater part of this arduous puzzle into his evening paper, and put it carelessly down on the table by the particular armchair that was always reserved for him.
"I'm sure if it's difficult I shan't be of much use to you," he said. "I've no head for these things."
"Oh, but you're wonderful," said Mrs. Oxney, "a town in Morocco, six letters. How is one to know that if one's never been there? Perhaps I'd better get an atlas."
"No, no, wait a minute," said Colonel Chase. "Let's do without an atlas if we can. Let me think now. Fez? No, that is too short. Now what is that other place? It's on the tip of my tongue. Six letters, did you say? Ha! Tetuan! How will that suit you?"
A chorus of praise went up and so did Mrs. Holders's eyebrows.
"And it fits unicorn," cried Miss Kemp in ecstasy. "We should never have guessed Tetuan. Then thirteen down, the Latin for south-west wind, eight letters, and if Tetuan's right, which it must be because of unicorn, there's an 'n' for the fifth."
"Latin: come, come! I've forgotten all my Latin," said this fatuous man. "If it was Hindustanee now. . . . But let me try to be a boy again. There's Boreas, but that's north wind I'm afraid, and too short for you. You've stumped me there. Wait a moment though: Ovid; something in Ovid. I've got it. Try 'Favonius'. See if Favonius will help you."
Shrill sounded the chorus of praise, because Favonius fitted 'vampire' and 'alpha'.
"I knew you'd make short work of it, Colonel," said Mrs. Oxney. "You're a positive encyclopædia; that's what I always say of you. And what's a trigonometrical term of six letters with an 's' for the third? You ought to go in for the prizes, indeed you ought, for you'd win every one."
"Upon my word, Mrs. Oxney, you want to know a lot to-night," said he. "I must recollect my mathematics as well as my Latin, and perhaps you'll want Hebrew next. Trigonometry now: there's equation, no, perhaps you'd call that algebra. But there's tangent, only that's got no 's': there's 'sine' . . . oh, put down 'cosine'. Cosine's right."
"Why, I never heard of such a thing," said Mrs. Oxney. "How can I guess what I've never heard of? Cosine! Fancy?"
A diabolical notion, worthy only of a low mind struck Tim Bullingdon. Colonel Chase had got up and was standing commandingly by the fire-place with his back half-turned. So Tim drew his copy of the evening paper from the table, and stealthily turned to the cross-word page, where he found the entire puzzle legibly pencilled in. Then he skilfully replaced the paper again, and pointing to it, winked at Mrs. Holders. That ingenious lady guessed his purport, and gave a little squeal of laughter which she converted into an unconvincing cough . . . So while Colonel Chase now feigned hesitation over 'frieze', 'crampit' and 'piston' Mr. Bullingdon dreamily but fluently supplied them all. These brilliant suggestions finished the puzzle and the Colonel after magnanimously complimenting him on his quickness, invited the three ladies of the group to play bridge with him in the smoking-room. Miss Howard in view of her improvisation at the entertainment next week betook herself to the piano in the drawing-room to fix in her mind a few fragments of extempore melody.
Mr. Kemp meantime had been enjoying a splendid innings. He was accustomed to tell the long and tragic history of his left hip from March
