They had their afternoon together—free from embarrassment, for they constrained themselves to conceal their happiness during the ordeal of lunch in order that they might enjoy for an hour or two the sacred reserves of their precious secret. After that, as they well understood, the family would have to know, and more than the fact of their engagement. They would have to be told, also, that Hartling was to lose two of its members.
They debated that last decision before they were agreed. Arthur, still suspicious of the good faith of Miss Kenyon and Charles Turner, was for postponing what he regarded as the lesser announcement until after his interview with the old man. Eleanor saw more clearly.
"They would never dare to anticipate us," she said. "It would be too risky. Haven't you realised that they never interfere with him? For one thing they are agreed that there shan't be any kind of competition between them, for favours and so on—which is awfully wise of them, if you come to think of it. And for another, they would not like to be the bearer of bad news or even disturbing news. Their fear of him goes as deep as that."
"And yet he never loses his temper with them, does he? Or threatens them in any way?" Arthur asked.
"He threatens them all the time, indirectly," she said. "But I've never seen him lose his temper. He doesn't seem to care enough for that."
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They had found a delightfully secluded spot in the larch plantation for their talk, and it was from there that they saw the car return a little before five o'clock. By that time, however, their plans were settled. The fact of their engagement was to be whispered to some member of the family when they went in to tea, in the certain hope that thereafter the news would instantly spread through the household. The second, and, for the Kenyons, the more important announcement was to follow, with the warning that the head of the house was to be told nothing until the next morning, when it should be Arthur's duty to inform him.
And so far as the future was concerned they were content to await the day. If the expected explosion took place, Eleanor was to go to the Paynes; she had sent her letter and seemed to have no doubt that they would receive her. Arthur was prepared in any case to return to Peckham the next afternoon.
They rose reluctantly when they saw the car softly running up the drive. No caresses had been exchanged between them as yet, but they had been exquisitely content in each other's company. Arthur asked for nothing better than to sit at her feet, and enjoy the bliss of her favour. And they had so much to say that had so far been impeded by the necessity for making their immediate plans. They wanted to tell one another the stories of their lives. He knew more of her life than she knew of his, Eleanor complained, and made it clear that every detail of his youth and young manhood must be told to her.
Moreover, for those two hours they had been temporarily emancipated from every restraint of Hartling, and now they had to face the task of finally cutting themselves free. And Eleanor knew
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 that that task would not be performed without effort. Her grandfather would exert himself to the utmost to keep them both, and she had an uneasy fear that he might discover some form of suasion which might appear morally to bind them. She had never yet seen him exert himself in any connection of this kind. Until now he had always been so easily and so disinterestedly master of the situation. She had been present when he had dismissed Ken Turner's request for the payment of his debts, and had seen her grandfather refuse that petition with the emotional indifference of a man who decided between his investments. He had not shown a spark of temper, and his refusal, however final, had been almost gentle. She hoped that he would display the same methods on this occasion. But she was afraid that he might draw upon some hitherto untouched reserve of power. He had so much the air of a man with immense hidden reserves.
Also, she expected a chorus of remonstrance and dissuasion from the rest of the family. She knew that they all, with the exception of Miss Kenyon, were genuinely fond of her—it was impossible to picture Miss Kenyon as being fond of any one—and she guessed that their pleading might be hard to resist. Indeed, if anything could have altered her decision, it would have been her sense of compassion for them. If she could have helped them, she might have stayed. But she knew that her departure would make no real difference to their lives. Only one event could do that.
The announcement of the engagement created only a mild stir in the Hartling drawing-room. Evidently the thing had been expected; no opposition was anticipated in this instance from the ruler
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 of destinies, and the affair was amply justified by precedent. Mrs Turner was still very depressed, and the news seemed to add another melancholy to her very depressed thoughts. No doubt she was reflecting that if her son had fallen in love with his Cousin Elizabeth, he too might now be settling down with the others to await the inevitable event that must finally determine their period of bondage. And if he had done that, the family would have been complete, with no further fear of any intrusion from the outside.
Hubert gave the fullest expression to his congratulations. He appeared genuinely pleased, and went as far as suggesting that his own marriage and Arthur's might take place on the same day. And Elizabeth was at least outwardly complacent; although Arthur wondered if her almost incessant chatter, that afternoon, concealed a faint chagrin. Probably she would have married him if he had asked her. Not because she was in love with him, but because he happened to be the only man available.
Joe Kenyon alone exhibited any signs of uneasiness, glancing across at Arthur more than once over the tea-table with a look that conveyed a hint of doubt and suspicion.
Arthur himself was far from confident. He was unhappily aware of the fact that he was accepting their congratulations under false pretences. And he could not bring himself to announce his further plans to the full company. If Eleanor had been present they might have dared it together. But she had gone straight up to her grandfather after confiding the news of the engagement to Mrs Kenyon, and had not come down again.
It was inevitably his uncle that Arthur chose as
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 his first confidant. There was a certain honesty and heartiness about him that the others lacked, and from him alone, perhaps, could be expected disinterested encouragement and advice. Moreover, Arthur was a trifle curious about that look of suspicion he had caught on his uncle's face.
"Care to come for a stroll down the garden," he asked, going up to him before the meal was actually finished.
"Eh? Oh! Wait till I get a cigar on," Joe Kenyon replied. "I'd like to have a talk with you."
As usual all essentials were deferred until they were out of earshot of the house, and then Joe Kenyon began somewhat abruptly by saying,—
"Changed your mind, I suppose, about what you said to Charles this morning. You won't be leaving us now, I take it."
"I shall," Arthur said. "She's coming too."
Joe Kenyon stopped in his walk and stared his surprise. "Good God!" he ejaculated on a note of alarm. "Surely you don't mean it?"
"I do," Arthur affirmed. "That was what I wanted to talk to you about. We settled it all between us this afternoon. It is quite possible that we may both go to-morrow."
Joe Kenyon again sought refuge in his "Good God!" He appeared to be completely staggered for the moment, looked back at the house, down towards the iron gates, then threw back his head and gently blew a thin wreath of cigar smoke into the air. "What you going to live on?" he asked abruptly.
"I'm going into partnership with the man I was working with before I came here," Arthur said. "We shall have about five hundred a year, I expect, to begin with."
[Pg 246]
"Is it possible to live on that, in these days?" his uncle asked.
"Oh, yes! rather. It isn't much, of course," Arthur said.
"Both of you?"
"For a time. I hope to make more—in a year or two."
"Then why doesn't Eleanor wait until you've felt your feet a bit?"
"She won't. She wants to get away quite as much as I do—more, I think."
"But where's she going to—to-morrow? If she goes to-morrow?"
"To the Paynes. The people who brought her over from South America."
"Seem to have worked it all out," Joe Kenyon commented, with a deep sigh. "How long have you been making these plans?"
"Only this afternoon." Arthur said. "But she had written to the Paynes before we—before I said anything to her, you know. She meant to go in any case."
"The old man doesn't know yet, of course," his uncle continued.
"Going to tell him to-morrow morning."
Joe Kenyon considered that thoughtfully for a few seconds before he said, "Can't do anything to you, of course. You may have a pretty stiff time, both of you, but damn it, you're free. He's got no hold on you. Can't do anything—except chuck you out, which is all you're asking for."
"Quite," Arthur agreed, and then added: "This won't affect you in any way, will it, uncle?"
Joe Kenyon pursed his mouth. "Can't put it down to us. Can he?" he inquired. "You'll make that plain enough, between you. What I mean is,
[Pg 247]
 this'll be a knock for him, worst in twenty-five years, and he may be spiteful, work off his annoyance on one of us after you've gone, if there's the least excuse."
"Oh! there can't be the least question of involving any one but our two selves," Arthur assured him.
"Damn it, I wish it hadn't been Eleanor," his uncle grumbled, adding inconsequently, "Pretty stiff coming the day after the other affair. If anything'll upset him this will. He'll put up a devil of a fight for Eleanor. She's damned useful to him. But, Good Lord! what can he do, when it comes to the point? If you're determined to go, there's the end of it. He can't make you stay." He looked apologetically at Arthur as he continued: "It's different for you. You've got a profession, prospects. None of us have. And then we'd been brought up to it. So has Hubert.... All the same, we'd thought you'd stay. We shouldn't have blamed you either if you had. Very glad in a way. Oh, well! Good Lord; I don't know. Honestly, Arthur, how long do you think it's possible he might hang on?"
Arthur shook his head. "You can't tell," he admitted. "He's as sound as a bell physically, and he has got the will to live. And so long as a man has that, you know, and there's nothing organically wrong...."
"Might easily live another ten years?" Joe Kenyon said.
"Quite easily," Arthur replied.
He realised later in the evening that in his conversation his uncle had summarised the family opinion. Their attitude towards himself was
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 marked by that same discretion which had characterised it immediately before his championship of Hubert. They were afraid of the least appearance of complicity; and avoided too direct a reference to the subject that must have been uppermost in their thoughts. Turner's casual, "Hear you're going to take up your work again. Pretty dull for you down here, I suppose, without any settled employment," was a mere acknowledgment of the fact, and manifestly deprecated any further elaboration of the topic. And Hubert contented himself with spasms of melancholy gazing, as if he were trying to intimate as tactfully and safely as possible his personal sorrow and regret. Miss Kenyon was more nearly affable than Arthur had ever known her to be, and talked to him at dinner about his profession with every sign of interest.
The meal had an unprecedented air of informality that night owing to the absence of the head of the house, who dined in his own room. Eleanor, also, was absent from the table—to Arthur's great disappointment. He hoped to have another talk with her before his interview with the old man, and had fully expected to see her in the dining-room and be able to make some appointment with her afterwards.
About half-past nine, however, this particular anxiety was relieved, if none too satisfactorily, by a note that was brought down to him by one of the maids. "No hope this evening," Eleanor had written, "but I will see you upstairs before you go in to him to-morrow. Come up at half-past ten. I have told him about our engagement and he seemed to be pleased—chiefly, I think, because he believes it will give him a greater hold over you. It's rather awful, somehow. I'm not a bit happy
[Pg 249]
 about your seeing him. I'm afraid of something, though I don't in the least know what. Sleep well."
Arthur cherished that little letter for its first sentence. "No hope this evening" thrilled him by its sweet familiarity and its quiet acceptance of the fact that they wanted to be together. It said so much more than any stereotyped term of endearment. Her final note of foreboding did not disturb him. He had no fear for the future, since the only future he saw was life with Eleanor. He had begun to plan the possibility of a small flat somewhere, if one could be found. There was no reason why they should not be married quite soon.
He looked up to find the eye of little Turner fixed upon him with a half-whimsical smile.
"What about a last game?" he asked, making a daring reference to the forbidden topic.
"Rather," Arthur agreed cheerfully.
"I'll come and mark," Hubert volunteered in much the tone he might have used if he had been offering his services as chief mourner.
Arthur found no difficulty in following Eleanor's advice to sleep well. He lay awake for half an hour or so thinking of her, but after that he slept soundly and his sleep was undisturbed. He did not even remember his dreams when he woke. And he had no sinking of the heart, no sick qualms of anticipation the following morning. His waking thoughts were all of Eleanor, the incident of the necessary interview with old Kenyon appeared to him as no more than one of the many necessary steps that he must take before he could enter the Paradise of his life with her. He was, for the time being, obsessed with a single idea, and his one annoyance was the
[Pg 250]
 fact that two and a half hours must elapse before he would see her again.
His uncle misread his evident abstraction when they met in the library after breakfast.
"Worried, Arthur?" he asked in a confidential voice behind the shield of the Times, although there was no one in the room just then but himself and his nephew.
"Worried? Lord, no," Arthur replied frankly. "Quite the contrary."
"All right for you, my boy, but you'll have a rare trouble to make him give up Eleanor," his uncle said.
"He can't keep her if she wants to go," Arthur returned, but Joe Kenyon refused to commit himself any further.
"Oh, well! Wait and see," he said.
Arthur's peace of mind was in no way disturbed by that hint of the possible difficulties ahead of him. His uncle's warning seemed to him nothing more than a symptom of the characteristic Kenyon weakness. They were timid, apprehensive creatures, sapped and enfeebled by their life of comfort and seclusion.
He was, however, suddenly startled into doubt by Eleanor's reception of him in the little ante-room. He had expected to find her as confident and self-reliant as he was himself. He had hoped that their half-hour's talk would be all of their own delightful future. He found her anxious, trembling, on the verge of tears.
"Sit down," she said, when Arthur came in. "I want to talk to you first. It's quite safe. He's in the office, and in any case you can't hear what's said from the next room."
But............