IV
The International
OME old lady in a Welsh farm-house had promised a Persian kitten to Drusilla, and with Matthew Arnold in his mail-cart we went to meet it by the four o'clock train from Shrewsbury. Quite unexpectedly, we met Georgie, too—Georgie and a travelling companion.
"Hallo!" cried he, flinging his bag down almost upon my feet. "This is no end of luck. I am glad to see you, old chap. How's Drusie and the kid?"
"They're here," said I. "You look well, Georgie."
Georgie sighed ostentatiously.
"Oh, I'm well," he said, "in health; but I'm a bit worried."
"Worried?" I eyed the travelling companion with puzzled curiosity.
"Yes. Oh, here's Drusilla and old Muffin face. I am glad to see you looking so fit and beautiful, Drusie. I want—may we come round by the Little Mansion and have some tea, as a sort of break in the journey, you know? The porter can take my bag home. I want to have a nice, serious talk with you and Martin. You'll let us come, won't you?"
Us! Drusilla gazed in wondering silence at Georgie and his new friend. And well she might. Clinging in tight desperation to his hand was a little forlorn-looking boy in a shabby, tight sailor-suit of weather-beaten blue serge a splendid little boy with black, fierce brows and wonderful eyes; with a sulky scarlet cupid's bow of a mouth and a sun-browned skin. In his grubby hand he clutched tightly a sailor cap, flaunting in tarnished gold letters the word "Conqueror." Drusilla stooped and told him he was a dear, pretty boy, but he merely scowled at her for the attention with whole-hearted disapproval.
"Isn't he a ripping little chap?"
Georgie beamed at us both. "For a five-year-old he's no end of a sportsman. I've been teaching him to hit straight, coming down in the train. See him punch the cushions! Hits out at 'em like a good 'un."
"What is he doing with you?" I asked in some surprise.
Georgie's travelling companion was so extremely young.
"Look at his jolly fat legs!" Georgie hastily cried, disregarding my question. "Brown, and beefy, and as firm as a rock. There's no flabbiness about him."
He glanced as he spoke almost disparagingly at our son, who was even then stretching longing baby arms to his faithless friend from the mail-cart.
"Matthew Arnold is barely two," said I indignantly, and Drusilla looked hurt.
Georgie realized that he had been slightly wanting in tact.
"Of course, old Muffin face is immense," said he, digging him in the ribs. "Best little chap in the world." But his eyes quickly strayed back to his travelling companion, and he picked him up and put him on his shoulder, from which high eminence the little lad cast glances of pure fury at the rest of us.
"Where is his mother?" Drusilla asked gravely.
"Hold tight, old man. We won't go into details till you've taken us in and fed us," Georgie said firmly.
It was only ten minutes' walk to the Little Mansion, and Drusilla gave us tea in the garden.
From Georgie's knee the travelling companion took gulps of sweet weak tea out of Georgie's saucer, and with a friendly absence of ceremony, he took small, fierce bites from Georgie's bread and butter.
Between bites he scowled at us. Drusilla could bear the suspense no longer.
"Georgie, I don't want to seem inquisitive, and I shouldn't like to hurry you, but what are you doing with that very cross little boy?"
He gulped down the remains of his tea and looked desperately from Drusilla to me.
"Look here," he said, "I know you'll say I'm an awful ass, but I believe any decent chap would have done the same thing."
"Oh!" Drusilla gazed at me.
"I was in Pwllheli," Georgie began desperately, "doing a bit of mackerel fishing, and it was one day when we couldn't whistle up a wind anyhow. The men wouldn't take the boat out—couldn't, in fact—and I can't stick that dirty flat-fishing business in the harbor, so I just loafed about the old town, down in the fishermen's quarters, and that was when I first saw old Taffy."
"Old what?"
He laughed.
"Taffy I call him. He's Welsh, you see. He was going for a lot of other little lads, swearing and spitting at 'em like anything in his ridiculous native tongue. They'd taken his football, I think, and he meant to get it back. He got it too, like a good 'un. It was only an old salmon tin, but it was the nearest thing the poor little beggar had, and the kicking instinct was in his blood."
"Georgie," said Drusilla gently, "have you stolen him from his mother, or only borrowed him? Is he here on a visit? Do tell us the awful truth at once. I never could bear to have things broken gently to me."
"Well," Georgie looked confused. "You'd better let me go on with my story, hadn't you? It would be a pity if I mixed things up now."
"Go on," said I. "Drusilla, do you think Matthew Arnold ought to cut his hair off with the cake knife? He hasn't enough as it is."
Drusilla, deeply occupied with Georgie and his travelling companion, saved her precious in the nick of time, and the strange, wolfish little boy cuddled up on Georgie's knee, nestling a sticky, sulky face in his friend's beautiful waistcoat. Georgie had a weakness for wonderful waistcoats about that time.
"I thought," said Georgie dreamily, "of the trial game next Saturday, and I remembered my first match. It is one of the few perfect memories of my life, and when I watched this little chap kicking his absurd salmon tin up and down, it seemed heartrending to think that perhaps for want of a little care, a fine full-back was being lost to the county."
"What?" said I in amazement.
"Yes," Georgie went on gravely, "and to the country too, perhaps. I've never heard of an international coming out of the workhouse. Have you?"
"The workhouse?" Drusilla glanced with troubled eyes at poor Taffy, now fast asleep and no longer fierce.
"Yes," Georgie said slowly. "Skilly would weaken a chap's kick, don't you think? His mother's dead. So is his father; fell off his boat drunk. This chap's been living with an aunt ever since."
"Where is the aunt now?" I asked sternly.
Georgie ruffled the little boy's black hair.
"She's ill," he said. "Cancer. Old lady can't last out more than a month or two at the most, the doctor told me. Poor look-out for this chap."
"The doctor?"
"A man in the lane told me the story, and so I waited for the doctor to see if it was true. It is—quite. He said she was dying by inches. Young Evan Davies, or David Evans, I forget which, was being dragged up by any odd neighbor who happened to drop in, and when the aunt dies there's nothing for him but the workhouse. He took to me at once."
"But," said I hastily, "has the child no other relations?"
"No," Georgie replied solemnly, "at least no one who would take him. Every one seems to have twelve or fourteen kids of their own, and they say Taffy doesn't get on with other children. He's not popular at school, I gather. It's his high spirits. They don't take to high spirits in the workhouse, I believe. Try to break 'em."
Drusilla broke the long silence.
"It's a sad little story," said she with a sigh and a pitiful look at the boy. "What are you doing with the boy, Georgie?"
Georgie was silent.
"What have you brought him away for?"
"From the workhouse!" Georgie broke out hotly. "Think of it! Have you ever been in a workhouse, Drusie? Would you like to think old Muffin face was going to be brought up in a uniform, to a set pattern, on skilly?"
"I don't believe there is such a thing as skilly now," I said quickly, "and, Georgie—of course it seems a pity, but it is a terrible necessity, you see. Thousands of them have to be turned over to the parish every year. This little man must take his chance with the others, I am afraid."
Georgie flushed indignantly and moved restlessly. Taffy grunted in his sleep and buried his grimy face farther into the gorgeous waistcoat.
"Look at him," Georgie said. "When I saw him kicking his absurd apology for a ball and giving the other chap such a thundering good licking, I seemed to see 'International' written big all over him."
"Very likely," said I gravely.
He looked up at Drusilla with a quick, charming, boyish laugh. "It all came to me in a flash," said he. "I remembered some one who was always kind and sweet to children. I thought of you."
"Georgie!" Drusilla laughed almost hysterically.
His bright face clouded a little at her reception of his outburst. "Yes," he repeated doggedly, "I thought you might like to adopt him."
I was thunderstruck. Even from Georgie this was overwhelming.
"Yes," he went on earnestly, "I don't suppose old Muffin face will ever be much of a sportsman, and there's no doubt about this chap. It's written big all over him."
"Upon my word!" I gasped. Georgie had surpassed himself.
"You've always been good friends to me," he went on persuasively, turning in ardent appeal from one to the other. "I don't think you've ever quite understood me, but as far as you go, you've stood by me. And Drusie's as good as gold. There's no doubt about her heart. I thought I should like to do you a good turn for once."
I gazed at Drusilla, now weakly giggling with her face hidden in Matthew Arnold's white frills, and then, quite speechless, I met Georgie's anxious blue eyes.
"Can't you see the thing as it stands?" he murmured. "When you come to think of it, Martin, it would be a pretty big thing to have the bringing up and training of an international, wouldn't it?"
"It would, indeed," said I firmly; "much too great an honor for me. Far too big a thing."
"Certainly"—Georgie rather missed my point—"you aren't much of a sportsman, but you might influence him in other ways, don't you think? Manners, and truthfulness, and early rising, and little things like that. Not books, I shouldn't let him read too much; seems to me it rather spoils a chap. You might have been an athlete yourself if you hadn't taken to ink-slinging when you were young enough to know better. I should think you'd be glad to adopt a chap like this. Matthew Arnold will never make a footballer. I don't suppose you'll ever get him to do anything really manly. He's sure to write, or paint, or something—something piffling."
I wondered at Georgie's methods of persuasion.
"I'm sorry," said I grimly, "and it may seem heartless; but we can't adopt your protégé, Georgie. We shall find it as much as we can manage to provide for Matthew Arnold's future, I am afraid. And it will take all the earnings of my piffling pen to keep the Little Mansion over our three heads in modest comfort. And as you say, I am not a sportsman, therefore not qualified to develop his young promise in football. You had better leave him to the Welsh parish. And seriously, my dear boy, do think of the risk. You don't know what kind of a scoundrel his father may have been."
"Yes, I do," said Georgie shortly. Evidently he did not wish to enlarge upon the subject.
"Well," said I, "and his mother was probably a dishonest maid-of-all-work, who stole the jam and lump sugar in seaside lodgings. Give it up, Georgie."
Georgie flung me a glance full of scorn.
"Thanks," said he, "for your advice. You're always chock full of advice, Martin. A man may be sure of getting that from you if he gets nothing else."
"In this case," said I coldly, "it is all I have to offer you."
"Thanks. Drusilla—" he turned to Drusilla and looked sternly into her rosy, anxious face. "Some day," he said tragically, "you will be sorry that you've turned this poor little beggar out in the cold. Wake up, Taffy, old man. We've got to go. They don't want us here."
"Oh," said Drusilla uncomfortably, "I can't bear you to think me horrid, Georgie! I really should be glad to do anything—anything in reason for you. But you know you really do do extraordinary things, don't you?"
"This," said Georgie sternly, "is the sort of thing which shows up a man's friends in their true light."
Drusilla grew red.
"Oh, my dear boy!" she said in a pained voice. "How can we? You know we never thought of adopting any one. Why should we? It doesn't seem necessary, you see. And—why do you call him Taffy? I wish you wouldn't."
"Taffy was a Welshman," he said slowly, picking up the "Conqueror" cap to hold the elastic so clumsily that it flicked back into the ruddy, dazed little face and made the child cry out. Drusilla snatched it from his hands and slipped to her knees on the lawn in a moment.
"Oh, Georgie, you've hurt him! Let me do it. Dear little lad, he's only half awake."
She ruffled up his heavy hair with her quick fingers and pushed his hat back a little. I suppose her glowing face, fresh and pretty and kind under his sleepy eyes, disarmed him, for he stopped crying and smiled at her. She hugged him.
"He is a darling," she said with sudden enthusiasm. "Really, when he grins in that delicious way, I don't wonder at you, Georgie. Don't call him Taffy. Taffy was a thief, you know."
"People never grow up to fit their names," Georgie said gloomily. "Look at me. There's nothing solid and British and conventional about me, you know. I'm not narrow, or conservative, or obstinate. George is a very John Bull kind of name."
I thought of a possible Georgie, twenty years ahead, and smiled to myself.
But Drusilla looked gravely from the stern young face to the little boy, and back again, and I was amazed to find tears in her absurd eyes.
"I'm not so sure of that," she said. "There was Saint George, you see. I believe I can see you in armor, fighting dragons, Georgie, without much of an effort."
Occasionally Drusilla's imagination escapes from control and paints her friends in wonderful rosy tints invisible to me. And in pure, unadulterated folly Georgie had surpassed himself that afternoon.
"Are you going to take the boy up to the Manor?" I asked curiously, for Georgie's mother was a person with ideas of her own on most subjects.
"Yes," said he curtly. "My mother has some decent feelings, and she's fond of children."
"She must have been," I said softly, "to bring you up."
Georgie gave a disgusted grunt. "Anything cheaper than the general run of your jokes," said he, "I've never heard. Do you know if Phillida's come back to-day?"
Georgia's Goddess Girl had been visiting in the Midlands, and at last, I believe, Georgie and she were formally engaged.
"Yes," Drusilla answered him. "She came back this morning in time for lunch. We are to dine at the Manor House to-night, Martin and I."
Georgie's look of frank horror was refreshing.
"Not a dinner-party?" he asked aghast.
"Yes," said I, pleasantly. "There is to be rather a large dinner-party, I believe."
Without another word Georgie picked up his travelling companion and departed.
Drusilla looked at me and laughed: she hugged Matthew Arnold and laughed again.
"What a boy!" she cried. "Oh, Martin, what a boy! To say my son will never be a sportsman! What will his mother say to him when she sees that cross little boy? And Phillida—what will she say?"
"Drusilla," said I gravely, "is there any rift in that lute? Is there anything wrong between those two? Why did they let the Goddess Girl go rushing off to visit all those dull people?"
Drusilla was silent.
"Georgie's mother is a darling," she said at last, "but she has ideas about a wife's duties. She thinks a woman ought to be able to cook the dinner she orders, and get up her own muslins and lace and things, even if she never has to do it."
"And the Goddess Girl?"
Drusilla laughed. "Objects—or, rather, differs."
"A goddess," said I, "naturally would."
"Well," said Drusilla meekly, "perhaps. But she might have given in and pretended an interest. Georgie's mother wanted her to go into the kitchen and have lessons from the cook, and she refused flatly. Said she guessed she wasn't going to spoil her gowns and finger-nails, doing chores. Said if Georgie's mother wanted a domestic treasure for a daughter-in-law she must look in the next block. She wasn't exactly rude, I think, but a little too firm. And Georgie thoroughly agrees with his mother about a woman's duties. He is very conservative in these things, I fancy. Phillida will have to be careful if she is fond of him."
"My sympathies," said I firmly, "are entirely with the Goddess Girl."
"Ye-es." Drusilla arranged the tea-things. "She is lovely—to look at, and the best company in the world, but—"
"Well?" What more, I wondered.
"Oh, nothing, only I want our boy to be happy. He is—well, he has had disappointments, hasn't he? And he is a dear boy. I should like to think some one was going to make up to him for—"
"For losing you?" I asked with admirable gravity. Drusilla sighed.
"I am glad I put on my pretty dress," Drusilla whispered as we went in, and I was glad, too, although I laughed at her vanity.
She wore something which gave a general impression of plump pink rosebuds in a setting of green leaves, and the drawing-room as we went in seemed to be running alive with pretty girls.
Georgie's mother loved girls and surrounded herself with them on every possible occasion; thus poor Georgie was kept by her constantly under fire. She was a delightful person, not very wise, but charming to everybody, and she came to meet us with hearty, handsome welcome from the hearth-rug, to leave the Goddess Girl standing alone in stately, silent magnificence. Georgie, who ought to have been at her side, seemed to be lost in earnest conversation with that prim little fair-haired girl, Diana Leigh, and there were other stars shining here and there, very pleasant to the eye at the time, but of no importance in this story. The men were the usual set, Georgie's own kind, very young, and redolent of the goal-post and the wicket. There was also that insufferable old nuisance, Borricole, who was asked partly because he was expected to leave money to Georgie, and partly because he was able to advise Georgie's mother on the various little financial matters which interested her so much. She had a taste for risky speculation in those days, and I could see, dearly loved to plunge a bit. I am afraid that, like Georgie, she was not quite as wise as she was charming.
Georgie crossed the room, and in mid-flight I caught him.
"What does she say?" I asked softly.
"Who? What do you mean?"
"Why, your mother, Georgie?"
"My mother?" in actual bewilderment as to my meaning. Georgie had always found it fatally easy to shut up his anxieties in the back cupboards of his mind.
"Taffy!" I reminded him curtly.
His glowing face fell.
"Oh, hang it, Martin! You needn't spoil a chap's dinner. Of course I haven't told her yet. How could I?"
"Where is he?"
"Oh, I smuggled him in the back way. He's asleep in my bed. I shall tell her after this crowd's gone home. It'll be all right, I know."
But there was no confidence in his tone, and while I talked to the Goddess Girl, glorious in a misty green gown and a wonderful emerald necklace, I wondered a good deal what the end of this last craze would be.
It fell to my lot to take down prim young Diana, who was almost a stranger to me, and I had watched Georgie at his head of the table for some time before I noticed that she was watching him, too, with even more intensity.
With the Goddess Girl at his right hand to entrance his ears with piquant pearls of pure Virginian, and Drusilla on his left, to laugh at his absurd jokes and listen sympathetically to his odds and ends of youthful wisdom, he ought to have been happy. Obviously, as we passed from one course to another, he grew gay and flushed and excited, and his end of the table became a very noisy one. There was something curiously penetrating about the voice of his betrothed, and something boisterous and infectious about Georgie's laughter.
"He seems a very cheerful kind of boy," a fresh little voice at my side volunteered.
I turned to my neighbor and laughed.
"Yes," I said, "cheerful and most absurd. Georgie's letting himself go a bit to-night."
"He has been telling me about his poor little Welsh boy."
I suppose I looked my surprise, for she hastily went on:
"Oh, I've known Georgie quite a long time; ever since last winter, and I have four brothers of my own. Naturally I have had a great deal of experience with boys, you see."
I looked at her, and laughed. She was apparently just out of the schoolroom herself and her eldest brother was about fifteen. I hardly thought she had had to listen to such confidences as Georgie's from them. She was an old-fashioned little girl, and I wondered rather where Georgie's outpourings would end. But she was certainly pretty. Her unusually pale hair and dark brows, made one think of old miniatures of the powder days.
"Wasn't it noble of him to come to the rescue of the boy in that splendid, unselfish way?" she asked.
I hesitated.
"Very," said I. "Oh, very noble! But I can't help wondering how his mother will like this last proof of his nobility."
"His mother is a darling," Diana Leigh said warmly. "She will be glad to save the dear boy. I am sure any person with a heart would. Georgie ought to have told her the truth at once, though, and I told him so before dinner. It is always best to tell the truth from the very beginning. Putting things off is such weakness, don't you think? Such a terrible snare."
I surveyed her with some amusement.
"Well," said I at last, "there are two ways of looking at it, and I can't help thinking that it would have been rather a mistake to upset the poor lady on the verge of a dinner-party. Georgie isn't often wise, but in this case I fancy that a short delay was, to say the least of it, expedient."
"Oh!" cried Diana. Expedient is a hateful word. I hate expediency. People ought to do right whatever happens. There are only right and wrong, you see. There are no lights and shades where duty is concerned."
I thought it was only kind to respect the opinions of rigid eighteen without attempting to disillusionize, so, gracefully, I changed the subject.
"Are you looking forward to the hunting?" I asked, vaguely remembering something Georgie had once said of her tastes. Her eyes lit up.
"You bet!" she cried, with a sudden relapse into brotherly slang. "Last year it was too ripping for words. Georgie used to take the most awful fences last year. There's a bull-finch behind the primrose pasture that would make your hair curl. Georgie can ride—he's promised to tell his mother about the little Welsh boy directly after dinner," she returned to her subject.
"Whew!"—I whistled in my sleeve, if such a thing be possible, and glanced at Georgie.
"He is not at all the sort of person to break a promise," Diana said with her head in the air
"Um!" said I.
But this last event proved her right. Georgie walked boldly up to his mother, holding her pretty court of girls on the big tiger-skin hearth-rug, and I followed up closely across the drawing-room to see and hear what happened.
"Mother," he said in a low voice, "I wish you'd come upstairs with me for a minute or two."
She turned a jolly, laughing face to him.
"Oh, Georgie! I can't come away now."
"But I wish you would, mother," he persisted. "I want to show you something."
"What, Georgie? Is it a present?"
I laughed softly. It might even have been dignified thus, I thought, but little did she guess what shape this new gift of his had taken.
"N-not exactly. At least—" he paused imploringly. "Won't you come and see?"
"Can't you bring it down and show me?"
She lifted a pretty ringed hand and pushed the brown hair from his damp forehead. Georgie flushed and cast a whimsical look at me.
"Well—hardly," he said with an uneasy laugh.
"But why? Can't you carry it?"
I turned away. This was more than I could bear with gravity.
Georgie straightened his shoulders.
"Yes," he said with a reckless laugh, "I think I can carry it. You are sure you would like to see it—here?"
His mother smiled.
"Why not?" said she. "I'm not slim enough to run up and down stairs so soon after dinner, Georgie. So go and bring your present down, there's a dear boy."
He went. I gasped and tried to catch Drusilla's eye for sympathy, but she was entranced in the woes of a misunderstood center three-quarter, in a far corner, and absolutely blind and deaf to her husband's appeals.
"Absurd boy!" With delighted pride Georgie's mother turned to me. "He always makes such a mystery over his little surprises. He's as bad now as he was when he used to smuggle snakes and hedgehogs into his bedroom. Dear boy! The housemaids used to go into fits when they made his bed, and found Georgie's curious pets amongst his blankets. One girl was never quite the same afterward, and I've been obliged to keep her with me ever since, doing light work in the kitchen. He isn't at all careful even now."
Careful! With fascinated eyes I stared at the white door. He seemed to be gone hours, but at last it crashed open and he plunged defiantly into the midst of us, to an accompanying murmur of astonishment and the light laughter of girls. On his shoulder enthroned sat Taffy.
"Georgie!"
"I've brought him," said Georgie quietly. He put the child down on the rug and faced his amazed mother with pale and desperate courage. I hid behind the Goddess Girl and laughed. Poor Taffy wore some strange and wonderful garment of striped flannellette with many frills of pink embroidery in his neck and sleeves. I found out afterward that Georgie had abandoned his own pyjamas in despair and boldly borrowed a nightgown from a deeply-interested parlor-maid. The child's black hair was ruffled, his cheeks rose pink from his sudden awakening, and his beautiful eyes wide open, bewildered. The girls in their pretty bright gowns crowded around us, and their brothers watched with surprised, amused faces over their shoulders. Georgie faced his mother in pale silence, and I waited. Little Diana peeped from behind Drusilla with a pleased, excited face. It was the Goddess Girl who broke the silence. If I remember right, it generally was.
"Say!" she cried. "Isn't he just too cute for anything? Whose little piccaninny's this, Georgie? Do tell."
Georgie cast a grateful glance at his fiancée.
"Georgie," demanded his mother, "kindly explain this—this apparition at once."
The apparition in a sudden panic made a step forward to his protector, was at once hopelessly involved in billowing folds of flannellette and fell headlong at the feet of the Goddess Girl. She stepped back hastily.
"My! Is he clean!" she asked anxiously, for her gown was a new one.
Georgie grew red and stooped suddenly to pick up the boy, but he wasn't quick
"Diana took poor, frightened Taffy into her arms"
enough. Diana slipped between them, and took poor frightened Taffy into her arms, casting a look at the Goddess Girl which ought to have withered that young woman. Then she sat down on a little stool at the corner of the brass fender, and Taffy cuddled up against her soft white gown, glancing ferociously at the rest of us. He even made a remark in his native tongue which sounded like a wizard's curse—or a heathen incantation. The Goddess Girl smiled amiably.
"Guess you're fond of children," said she. "Those sticky little paws will crush your chiffon some."
"Oh!" Diana's gray eyes were absurdly indignant. "I've got brothers of my own, and I don't know how you can!"
But Georgie's mother, with amazed eyes, demanded explanations, and Georgie, driven to it, told his story. With the deepest interest, everybody listened. When he had finished, his mother sat down and laughed till the tears came into her eyes. Everybody laughed, and Georgie, scarlet and excited, joined in the laugh against himself and faced us all from the hearth-rug, with his hands in his pockets, defiant and yet ashamed.
"Georgie," said his mother, at last, "you take the first train to Pwllheli in the morning, and give back that child to his relations."
Georgie set his teeth, and I knew that under his breath he made a good round vow to the contrary.
"Yes," said his mother, "I've spoilt you, Georgie, from the day you were born, but there are limits. Snakes are all very well, and even caterpillars—but a boy! When I think of what I went through whilst I was bringing you up. A boy! For me to adopt! My goodness!"
I did not tell her then that Drusilla and I had already had the refusal of him. I felt that it would hardly have been kind to Georgie, and a delighted chorus of laughter from his friends made his face flame as it was.
But he said no more. He merely set his teeth, and crossed to where Taffy scowled and nestled in Diana's youthful arms. With tearful eyes she looked up at him; a dainty Dresden china shepherdess of a girl. Drusilla told me afterward that the little Puritan whispered something to console him, something about doing the right thing as it came in your way, however hard it was. She finished up, Drusilla told me, with a reference to the straight and narrow path, and this unusual advice seemed to soothe and encourage Georgie.
"Take that child away at once," said his mother. "My dear boy, you must be mad! He ought to have been asleep hours ago. We will discuss the matter more fully in the morning. Diana, give him to Georgie. Really, without prejudice, I think I never saw a more disagreeable-looking child."
Diana gave him up with reluctance.
"His head is burning," said she anxiously, "and his little feet are like ice. When Dickie had the measles—"
There was a general shriek. Georgie laughed shortly, and took poor Taffy from the girl.
"Little chap," he murmured to her with a dejected laugh. "He'll play for his county some day. These beggars won't jeer at him then. He can kick now like anything. Been practising on my shins. You 're a brick, Diana, but it's a beastly hard-hearted world."
"I've got brothers of my own," said Diana gravely. She was a queer little lady.
•••••••
Looking for late roses for Drusilla's table the next day, I heard a familiar shout from the gate: Georgie.
"Come in!" I called.
"I can't. You come here, Martin. I want to speak to you."
In some surprise, I went down the path to him. His face was pale, but in spite of his pallor he carried a triumphant air.
"Well?" I asked breathlessly.
"Whew!" said he, taking off his hat to let the autumn breeze cool his forehead. "We've had a hot morning."
I laughed. "I rather thought you would," said I. "Come in and tell Drusilla about it."
"No," said Georgie. "I can't. Little chap's ill."
"Ill?"
"Yes. That ass Borricole came sniffing round this morning and found it out. Old fool's a phrenologist, or some such rot, and he wanted to feel the boy's bumps with a view to adopting the kid himself. Thought he'd like to do me out of his money, I suppose. I wish he would; I don't want his ill-gotten gains, old sweep. He pinched and prodded poor old Taffy till he roared, and then told my mother the child was an incipient criminal of the lowest possible type."
I laughed.
"Poor little boy!" said I. "I suppose that put the finishing touch to the affair."
"You don't know my mother," said he. "She meant before that to pack us off together by the first train. If old Borricole's verdict did anything, it weakened her. She doesn't believe in him, you see—at least, not as a phrenologist. He examined me when I was a youngster, and told her I should grow up a dreamy, thoughtful scholar: sort of Miss Nancy, don't you know. My mother was furious, and now she always believes the exact opposite of what he tells her—of people's characters."
"You say the boy is ill?"
Georgie's face lengthened.
"Borricole noticed how flushed he was, and pulled his mouth open, as if he'd been a puppy or a horse. Said his tonsils and larynx were inflamed. I don't suppose he knows anything about it, but old Taffy bit at him like a good 'un. Made him yell, I can tell you. Borricole said he was a little devil—told my mother he was sickening for something catching, and fled the scene. We've sent for the doctor, but he hasn't come yet, and I thought I'd come round and tell you to keep away. I shouldn't like old Muffin face to run any risks."
"Thank you," said I. "I shouldn't have expected so much forethought. Let me know the verdict."
Georgie rooted up a tuft of grass with his stick.
"I noticed that the poor little chap tossed about a good deal in the night," said he, "but I thought that might be the usual thing in a five-year-old. How was I to guess it meant a temperature? When you come to think of it, it was rather awkward—my plunging him into the middle of all those people last night."
I thought uneasily of Drusilla who had hugged him—of our baby, who had been hugged by Drusilla directly afterward.
Georgie, however, chuckled.
"They'll all be in fits for a fortnight," said he, "waiting for their rashes to come out. Serve 'em right."
"What about you?" said I.
"Oh, I'm all right!" he answered lightly. "I've had everything over and over again."
"And the Goddess Girl? How does she like the idea?"
Georgie's face fell, and he looked away across the fields.
"Girls," said he, "are curious things. It's all off with Phillida."
"Off?" I asked in surprise. "What?"
"Our engagement. She's off too."
"Georgie!"
"Yes," said Georgie, "by the midday train. Refused to see me at all, and left a note. Says she's only one complexion and means to keep it. Says she doesn't mean to begin housekeeping with a ready-made family. Says she's been thinking things over, and on the whole she doesn't consider that Englishmen make enough fuss of their wives. Says she likes the Yankee style of husband best."
"Poor old chap." I had plenty of real sympathy for a man who had possessed the Goddess Girl and lost her. "I'm very sorry," said I earnestly.
Georgia's eyes on the distant horizon were dreamy.
"Well," he said at last, "I'm not sure. A woman should be womanly. Don't you think so, Martin?"
But the labyrinth of Georgie's affections was beyond me, and seeing that no more was forthcoming I sent him home.
At night he came again in the lowest spirits.
"Diphtheria!" cried he from the other side of the lane.
I whistled. "Poor little chap!"
"Yes," said he slowly. "They rammed in anti-toxin at once, but he's very ill. Temperature's up like anything."
"Who's nursing him?"
Georgie's face lit up.
"Why, my mother. She's splendid. Turned every one out of the room and put an apron on. The doctor wanted to wire for an ambulance to have him carried off to the hospital, but she won't hear of it. Says it brings back me and the measles, and she's not going to let the child go for a four-mile drive with a temperature like that. Says she's going to fight the beastly thing for all it's worth. Little Diana Leigh wanted to stay and help to nurse. She's not afraid of infection. She's nursed her brothers through everything, and likes it."
"Oh!" said I. I was beginning to see. His enthusiasm was enlightening.
"They won't let her, of course, but she'll stay in the other part of the house till there's no fear of infection for her brothers. She's a jolly good sort."
"Oh!" said I again.
"Yes." Georgie blushed and went away, promising to let me have news the first thing in the morning.
When the news came it was bad. In the afternoon it was worse. But not till Sunday morning did I understand how thoroughly the difficulty as to the disposal of poor Taffy had melted away.
Alas for Georgie's International!