"What have I said? Well, I reminded him of a trifling incident which there was no need to remind him of at all, for the mere thought of it turned him pale the moment he saw me. So I took the liberty of showing him what might still happen if he didn't do exactly what I wanted about you. My boy, the thing was settled in two minutes. A rising young fellow like Wintour Phipps is not the man to be struck off the rolls if he knows it! But I wasn't coming away without having the whole thing down in black and white, and here it is."

From his inner pocket he took out a long blue envelope and slapped it down on the desk.

"May I see?" said Harry in a throbbing voice.

"Certainly; it's your business now, not mine."

Harry ran his eye over the brief document. Then he looked up.

"It's my business now – not yours?"

"To be sure."

"Then I'm very much obliged to you, Mr. Lowndes, but here's an end of it."

He tore the paper twice across, and carefully dropped it into the waste-paper basket. Then he looked up again. And he had never seen Lowndes really pale until that moment, nor really red until the next. Yet the storm passed over after all.

"Well – upon – my – soul!" said Gordon Lowndes, very slowly, but with more humour and less wrath in each successive word. "And you're the man who wanted a billet!"

"I want one still, but not on such terms. I'd rather starve."

"There's no accounting for taste."

"But I'm very sorry, I am indeed, that you should have troubled yourself to no purpose," continued Harry, holding out his hand with genuine emotion. "It was awfully good of you, and I shall never forget it."

"Nonsense – nonsense!" said Lowndes sharply. "Don't name it, my good fellow. We all look at these things differently – don't we, Bacchus? You wouldn't have had any scruples, would you? No more would I, my boy, I tell you frankly. But don't name it again. It was no trouble at all, and, even if it had been, there's nothing I wouldn't do for any of you, Ringrose, and now you know it. Hurt my feelings? Not a bit of it, my dear boy, I'm only frightened I hurt yours. Good night, good night, and my love to the old lady. Cut away home and tell her I've no more principles than Bacchus has brains!"

But Harry thought the matter over in the Underground; and it was many a day before he mentioned it at the flat.

CHAPTER XII
THE CHAMPION OF THE GODS

Harry had gathered that another week would decide the fate of the H.C.S. & T.S.A., Ltd., and he could not help feeling anxious as that week drew to its close. Not that he himself had gained much confidence in the mighty scheme in question, for he found it more and more impossible to believe very deeply in Gordon Lowndes or any of his works. Yet he knew now that Lowndes would help him if he could, by fair means or by foul, and he could say the same of no other man. Lowndes was not merely his friend, but his only friend in London, and you cannot afford to be hypercritical of an only friend. He might be unscrupulous, he might be unreliable, but he stood by himself for staunchness and the will to help. He might be a straw for sinking hopes, but there was no spar in sight.

So Harry searched the papers at the Public Library, not only for likely advertisements (which he would answer to the tune of several stamps a day), but also for the announcement of the return from Scotland of the Earl of Banff, K.G. When that announcement appeared, and two or three days slipped by without a line from Lowndes, though the week was more than up, then, and not until then, did Harry Ringrose abandon his last hope of getting anything to do in London. His one friend there had failed him, and was very likely himself in prison for debt. He had, it is true, an infinitely better friend at Guildford, whom he was on the eve of visiting, and who might help him to some junior mastership, but this was the most that he could hope for now. Such a post would in all probability separate him from his mother, but even that would be better than living upon her as he was now doing. And in London he seemed to stand no chance at all.

To this melancholy conclusion had Harry come on the day before he was to go to Guildford, when the electric bell began ringing as though it was never going to stop, and there stood Lowndes himself at ten o'clock in the morning. Harry instantly demanded to be told the worst or the best. The other held up his finger and shook his head. His face seemed wilfully inscrutable, but it was also full of humour and encouragement.

"The fact is, Ringrose," said Lowndes, "I have heard so much of that blessed Company every day for so many months, that I mean to give myself one day without thinking or speaking about it at all. Come to me to-morrow and you shall know everything. Meanwhile you and your mother must dine with me this evening to celebrate the occasion. Let us say the Grand Hotel and seven o'clock. Then we can all go to some theatre afterwards."

Harry ran to tell his mother he felt certain the Company was coming out at last, and to repeat this invitation word for word; but he had great difficulty in getting her to accept it. How could she go out again? She might be seen; it would look so bad; and she did not want to enjoy herself. Then, said Harry, neither did he; and so gained his point by rather doubtful means. Lowndes, who was on his way to the City, and would not come in, whispered to Harry that a little outing would do his mother all the good in the world; then his eyes fell, and he stood quizzically contemplating the shiny suit which he still seemed to prefer to all the new ones he had ordered from Harry's tailors.

"I think, Ringrose," said he, "that you and I had better dress. I keep some war-paint in the City, so it will be no trouble to either of us. Tell your mother not to bother, however, as my daughter will not be in evening dress. I forgot to mention, by the way, that she is coming in to pay her belated respects to Mrs. Ringrose this afternoon, and I want you to be so good as to bring her along with you to the Grand Hotel. Seven o'clock, recollect, and you and I will dress."

With that he ran down the stone stairs, and the swing doors closed behind him with a thud while Harry Ringrose still loitered on the landing outside the flat. Delighted as he was at the unwonted prospect of a little gaiety, and more than thankful for all that it implied, those emotions were nothing to the sudden satisfaction with which he found himself looking forward to seeing Miss Lowndes again and at the flat. It is true that the keener pleasure was also the less perfect. It was mingled with a personal anxiety which it was annoying to feel, but which Harry could not shake off. He was unreasonably anxious that his mother should like Miss Lowndes, and that Miss Lowndes should like his mother. And yet he told himself it was a natural feeling enough; he recalled its counterpart in old days when he had taken some schoolfellow home for the holidays.

As for Mrs. Ringrose, she was not only pleased to hear the girl was coming, but regarded that unprecedented fact as a happier augury than any other circumstance.

"I really think you must be right," said she, "and that the ship he has always talked about is coming in at last. I am sure I hope it is true, for I know of nobody who would make a better millionaire than Mr. Lowndes. He is generous with his money when it seems that he has less than I should have believed possible, so what will he be when he is really rich! But he never would tell me what his great scheme was; and I am not sure that I altogether care for it from your description, my boy. I like Mr. Lowndes immensely, but I am not sure that I want to see you concerned in a pure speculation. However, let us hope for the best, and let neither of them suppose that we do not believe the best. Yes, of course, I shall be glad to see the daughter. Go down, my boy, and tell the porter's wife to come up and speak to me."

When in the fulness of time Miss Lowndes arrived, the door was opened by neither Harry nor Mrs. Ringrose, and the flat was brightened by a few fresh flowers which the former had brought in without exciting his mother's suspicions. Mrs. Ringrose, indeed, had an inveterate love of entertaining, which all her troubles had not killed in her, and she received the visitor in a way that made Harry draw a very long breath. Palpably and indeed inexplicably nervous as she came in, so genial was the welcome that the girl recovered herself in a moment, and in another Harry's anxieties were at an end. Once she had mastered her momentary embarrassment, it was obvious that Miss Lowndes was in infinitely better spirits than when he had seen her last at Richmond. She looked younger; there was a warmer tinge upon her cheek, her eyes were brighter, her dress less demure. Harry had only to look at her to feel assured that fortune was smiling after all upon the H.C.S. & T.S.A.; and he had only to hear the two women talking to know that they would be friends.

Miss Lowndes explained why she had never been to call before. She said frankly that they had been terribly poor, and she herself greatly tied in consequence. She spoke of the poverty in the perfect tense, with the freedom and nonchalance with which one can afford to treat what is passed and over. Nothing could have been more reassuring than her tone, nothing pleasanter than the way in which she and Mrs. Ringrose took to one another. Harry was so pleased that he was quite contented to sit by and listen, and to wait upon Miss Lowndes when the tea came in, and only put in his word here and there. It was his mother who would speak about the accepted verses, and when Harry fled to dress he left her ransacking the escritoire for his notorious outrage on Gray's Elegy. Nor was this the final mark of favour. When they started for Charing Cross, it was Mrs. Ringrose who insisted that they should take an omnibus, and Mrs. Ringrose who presently suggested that the young people would be cooler outside. It was as though Fanny Lowndes had made a deeper impression on Harry's mother than on Harry himself.

Now, there is no more delightful drive than that from Kensington to the Strand, at the golden end of a summer's afternoon and on the top of a Hammersmith omnibus. If you are so fortunate as to get a front seat where nobody can smoke in your face and the view is unimpeded, it is just possible that your coppers may buy you as much of colour and beauty and life and interest as Harry Ringrose obtained for his; but certainly Harry was very young and much addicted to enthusiasm over small things; and perhaps nobody else is likely to breast the first green corner of the Gardens with the thrill it gave him, or to covet a certain small house in Kensington Gore as he coveted it, or to see with his eyes through the railings and the thick leaves of the Park, or to read as much romance upon the crowded flagstones of Piccadilly. Already he knew and loved every furlong of the route; but Fanny Lowndes was the first companion who had been with him over the ground; and afterwards, when he came to know every yard, every yard was associated with her. The beginning of the Gardens henceforth reminded Harry of his first direct question about the Company, and her assurances ever afterwards accompanied him to the Memorial. That maligned monument he never passed again without thinking of the argument it had led to, without deploring his companion's views as to gilt and gay colours, without remembering sadly that it was the one subject on which they disagreed that happy summer evening. He found her more sympathetic even than he had been imagining her since their first meeting. They touched a score of topics on which their spirits jumped as one: in after days he would recall them in their order when he came that way alone, and see summer sunshine through the dripping fogs, and green leaves on the black branches in the Park.

Their last words he remembered oftenest, because even the Underground leads to Trafalgar Square, and it was there that they were spoken. The shadows of the column lay sharp and black across the Square; that of the Admiral was being run over by innumerable wheels in the road beyond, and the low sun flashed in every window of the Grand Hotel.

"Our future offices!" laughed Harry, pointing to the pile.

"I don't think I want them to be yours," said Fanny Lowndes.

"Why not?"

"I want you to go on with your writing."

"But you see how little good I am. One thing accepted out of seven written! I should never make bread and butter at it."

"You have not done what I told you to do at Richmond. You should try prose, and draw on your own experiences."

"Would you be my critic?"

"If I had the qualifications."

"Well, will you read me and say what you think?"

"With all my heart."

"Then I'll set to work as soon as ever I get back from Guildford. You would put pluck into a mouse, Miss Lowndes, and I'll try to deserve the interest you take in me."

The omnibus stopped, and their eyes met with a mutual regret as they rose. Harry could not have believed that a change of fortune would so change a face; that of Miss Lowndes was always lighted by intelligence and kindness, but with the light of happiness added it was almost beautiful. And yet, the fine eyes fell before Harry's, and fell again as he handed her to the curb with a cordial clasp, so that the boy was thoughtful as they crossed to the hotel, thinking of her nervousness at the flat.

A few hours later he could understand the daughter of Gordon Lowndes feeling nervous in accompanying comparative strangers to public places under the wing of that extraordinary man.

It was evident from the first that Lowndes was in a highly excitable state. Harry overheard him telling his daughter she was five minutes late in a tone which made his young blood boil. But it was the hotel officials who had the chief benefit of the company-promoter's mood. Something was wrong with the soup – Harry was talking to Miss Lowndes and never knew what. All he heard was Lowndes sending for the head waiter, and the harangue that followed. The head waiter ventured to answer; he was instantly told to fetch the general manager. A painful scene seemed inevitable, but the worst was over. In making two officials miserable, and in greatly embarrassing his daughter and his guests, it suddenly appeared that Lowndes had quite recovered his own spirits, and the manager found a boisterous humourist instead of the swashbuckler for whom he had come prepared. The complaint was waived with dexterous good-nature; but care seemed to be taken that no loophole should be given for a second. The remainder of the repast was unexceptionable (as, indeed, the soup had seemed to Harry), and Lowndes, who drank a good deal of champagne, continued uproariously mirthful almost to the end. He told them the name of the piece for which he had taken stalls. It had only been produced the previous evening, so none of them could say that they had seen it before.

"I don't know what it's like," added Lowndes. "I never read criticisms. Have you seen anything about it, Ringrose?"

"Why, yes," said Harry; "I looked in at the library this morning, and I saw two or three notices. They say it is a good enough play; but there was a bit of a row last night. The papers are full of it. In fact that's how I came to read the criticisms."

"A row in the theatre?" said Lowndes. "What about?"

"Fees," said Harry. "You know there are no fees at the Lyceum and the Savoy, and three or four more of the best theatres, so they want to abolish them there also."

"Who do?"

"The public."

"But it's a question for the management entirely. The public have nothing to do with it."

"I don't know about that," argued Harry. "The public pay, and they think they shouldn't."

"Why?" snapped Lowndes; and it became disagreeably apparent that his lust for combat had revived.

"Well, they think they pay quite enough for their places without any extras afterwards, such as a fee for programmes. They say you might as well be charged for the bill-of-fare when you dine at a restaurant. But their great point seems to be that if half-a-dozen good theatres can do without fees all good theatres can. They call them an imposition."

"Rubbish," snorted Lowndes, in so offensive a manner that Harry could say no more; he was therefore surprised when, after a little general conversation in which Lowndes had not joined, the latter leant across to him with all the twinkling symptoms of his liveliest moments.

"I presume," said he, "that all the row last night was kicked up by the pit and gallery?"

"So I gathered."

"Ah! What they want is a remonstrance from the stalls. There would be some sense in that."

There were no more disagreeables at the hotel, and none with either of the cabmen outside the theatre. All at once Lowndes seemed to have grown unnaturally calm and sedate, Harry could not imagine why. But only too soon he knew.

They had four stalls in the centre of the third row. Harry sat on the extreme left of the party, with Fanny Lowndes on his right, to whom he was talking as he tucked his twelve-shilling "topper" as carefully as possible under the seat, when his companion suddenly looked round and up with a startled expression. Harry followed her example, and there was Gordon Lowndes standing up in his place and laughing in the reddening face of the pretty white-capped attendant. In his hand were four programmes.

"Certainly not," he was saying. "The system of fees, in a theatre like this, is an outrage on the audience, and I don't intend to submit to it."

"I can't help the system, sir."

"I know you can't, my good girl. I don't blame you. Go about your business."

"But I must fetch the manager."

"Oh, fetch the police if you like. Not a penny-piece do I pay."

And Gordon Lowndes stood erect in his place, fanning himself with the unpaid-for programmes, and beaming upon all the house. Already all eyes were upon him; it was amusing to note with what different glances. The stalls took care to look suitably contumelious, and the dress-circle were in proper sympathy with the stalls. But the front row of the pit were leaning across the barrier, and the gallery was a fringe of horizontal faces and hats.

"We're behind you," said a deep voice in the pit.

"Good old four-eyes!" piped another from aloft.

The gods had recognised their champion: he gave them a magnificent wave of the programmes, and stood there with swelling shirt-front, every inch the demagogue.

"Now, sir, now!"

The manager was a smart-looking man with a pointed beard, and a crush-hat on the back of his head. He spoke even more sharply than was necessary.

"Now, sir, to you," replied Lowndes suavely, and with an admirable inclination of his head.

"Well, what's the matter? Why won't you pay?"

"I never encourage fees," replied Lowndes, shaking his twinkling face in the most fatherly fashion. He articulated his words with the utmost deliberation, however, and there was a yell of approval from the gods above. A ripple of amusement was also going round the house; for Mrs. Ringrose was holding up half-a-crown and making treacherous signs to the manager, which, however, he would not see. It seemed he was a fighting man himself, and his eyes were locked in a tussle with Lowndes's spectacles.

"You must leave the theatre, that's all."

"Nonsense," retorted Lowndes, with his indulgent smile.

"We shall see about that. May I trouble you, ladies and gentlemen, to leave your places for one moment?"

Lowndes's incomparable guffaw resounded through the auditorium. It was receiving a hearty echo in pit and gallery, when he held up his programmes, and the gods were still. The ladies and gentlemen had kept their seats.

"My dear sir, why give yourself away?" said Gordon Lowndes, still chuckling, to the manager. "You daren't touch me, and you know you daren't. A pretty figure you'd cut at Bow Street to-morrow morning! Now kindly listen to me – " and he tapped the programmes authoritatively with his forefinger. "You know as well as I do that there was trouble last night in this theatre about this very thing; my dear sir, I can promise you there'll be trouble every night until you discontinue your present obsolete and short-sighted policy. How I wish you were a sensible man! Then you would think twice before attempting to force a barefaced imposition of this sort down the throats of your audience; an imposition that every theatre of repute has recognised as such and thrown overboard long and long ago. You don't force it down my throat, I can tell you that. You don't bluff or bully me. As if we didn't pay enough for our seats without any such exorbitant extras! Why, they might as well charge us for the bill-of-fare at a first-class restaurant. Besides, what a charge! Sixpence for these – sixpence for this!" And he spun one of his programmes into the pit, and waved another towards the gallery.

But that cool quick tongue was no sooner silent than the house was in a hubbub. Here and there arose a thin, peevish cry of "Turn him out," but on the whole the sympathy of the house was with Lowndes. The stalls were no longer visibly ashamed of him; the dress-circle jumped with the stalls; but the pit clapped its ungloved hands and stamped with its out-of-door boots, while every species of whistle, cheer and cat-call came hurtling from the gallery. This went on for some three minutes, which is a long time thus filled. There was no stopping it. The manager retreated unheard and impotent. A minute later the curtain went up, only to give the tumult a new impetus. The hapless actors looked at one another and at the front of the house. The curtain came down, and the popular and talented lessee himself stepped in front of it, dressed in his stage costume. But even him they would not hear. Then arose the unknown, middle-aged gentleman in the stalls, with the splendid temper and the gold eye-glasses – and him they would.

"Come, come, ladies and gentlemen," cried he, "haven't we done enough for one night? We have all paid our money, are we not to see the piece? As for that other matter, I think it may safely be left in the hands of yonder wise man who stands before us."

And it was – with a result you may remember. Meantime the curtain was up for good and the play proceeding after a very short interval indeed, during which Gordon Lowndes bore himself with startling modesty, sitting quietly in his place and doing nothing but apologise to Mrs. Ringrose for having caused such a scene on an occasion when she was his guest. He should have thought only of his guests; but his sense of public duty, combined with his bitter and inveterate intolerance of anything in the shape of an imposition, had run away with him, and on Mrs. Ringrose's account he was humbly sorry for it. That lady forgave him, however. Through a perfect agony of shame and indignation she had come to a new and not unnatural pride in her eccentric friend.

As for Harry, there was no measure to his enthusiasm: the tears had been in his eyes from sheer excitement.

"A wonderful man, your father!" he whispered again and again to the pale girl on his right.

"He is," she answered, with a smile and a sigh. And the smile was the sadder of the two.

Between the acts Harry visited the foyer with Lowndes, who was complimented by several strangers on his spirited and public-spirited behaviour.

"But do you know," said Harry, when they were alone, "from the way you spoke at dinner I fancied you took quite an opposite view of the whole question of fees?"

"So I did," whispered Lowndes, with his tremulous grin, "but I saw my way to some sport, and that was enough for me. I was spoiling for some sport to-night, and a bit of bluff from the stalls was obviously what was wanted. You must excuse my using your arguments, but the fact is I very seldom set foot inside a theatre, and they were the only ones I'd ever heard."

"At dinner you said they were nonsense!"

The other winked as he lowered his voice.

"So they were, my dear Ringrose. That was exactly where the sport came in."