A DAY or two afterwards Godfrey Baltazar, still tied by his maimed leg to Churton Towers, received a letter which caused him to frown and rub his head. It was type-written save for the signature, and was addressed, care of a firm of solicitors in Bedford Row. As soon as Marcelle came to do his morning dressing he handed it to her. “What do you make of this?”
Before replying, she read it through without remark. It ran:
 
Dear Sir,
I have just been visiting Cambridge after many years’ absence abroad, and have learned that the son of my old college friend, John Baltazar, is lying wounded at Churton Towers Convalescent Home. I am writing to you, therefore, to enquire whether one who was very intimately connected with your father in the old days might venture to run down to Godalming and see you, with the double purpose of making the acquaintance of John Baltazar’s son, of whose brilliant academic beginnings the University authorities have informed me, and of paying a stranger Englishman’s tribute to a gallant fellow who has shed his blood for his country. My time being, at your disposal, I shall be happy to keep any appointment you may care to make.
Yours very faithfully,
James Burden
“Seems rather nice of him,” said Marcelle.
“I suppose it is. But who is the old fossil?”
Marcelle smiled. “Probably what he claims to be. An old college friend of your father.”
“He must have been a don of sorts. Not merely an undergraduate friend. Otherwise how could he have got straight to the people who knew all about me? You ever heard of James Burden?”
“No,” replied Marcelle, shaking her head. “How could I know all the fellows of your father’s college? Newnham students in my day were kept far from the madding crowd of dons.”
“Well, what about seeing the sentimental blighter? Oh, of course he’s sentimental. His ‘double purpose’ reeks of it. Rather what before the war we used to call ‘colonial.’ What shall I do? Shall I tell him to come along?”
“Why not? It can do no harm.”
Godfrey reflected for a few moments. Then he said:
“You see, before I met you I would have jumped at the idea of seeing an old friend of my father. But you knew more of him than the whole lot of the others put together. I’ve got my intimate picture of him through you. I’m not so keen to get sidelights, possibly distorting lights, from anybody else. You see what I mean, don’t you?”
“I see,” said Marcelle. “Let us have a look at the foot.”
She plied her nurse’s craft; set him up for the day’s mild activities. When he hobbled an hour later into the hall to attend to his correspondence and resume his study of the late Dr. Routh’s Treatise on Rigid Dynamics, he wrote a polite note to Mr. Burden suggesting an appointment. After all, even in such luxurious quarters as Churton Towers, life was a bit monotonous, and stragglers from the outer world not unwelcome. It was all very well for most of his comrades, who had mothers, fathers, sisters, cousins, girl friends attached and unattached to visit them; but he, Godfrey, had found himself singularly alone. Here and there a representative of the Woodcott crowd had paid him a perfunctory visit. He professed courteous appreciation. But they were not his people. Memories of his pariah boyhood discounted their gush over the one-footed hero with the Military Cross. He was cynical enough to recognize that they took a vast lot of the credit to themselves, to the Family. They went away puffed with pride and promises. He said to Marcelle:
“I’m not taking any.”
A few men friends, chiefly men on leave, wandered down from time to time. But they had the same old tales to tell; of conditions in the sector, of changes in the battalion, of such and such a scrap, of promotions and deaths, a depressing devil of a lot of deaths; the battalion wasn’t what it was when Godfrey left it; he could not imagine the weird creatures in Sam Browne belts that blew in from nowhere, to take command of platoons, things with their mother’s milk wet on their lips, and garters from the Burlington Arcade, their idea of devilry, in their pockets. And the N.C.O.s! My God! Oh, for the good old days of—six months ago!
Godfrey, wise in his generation, laughed at the jeremiads of these callow laudatores temporis acti, and on probing further, satisfied himself that everything was still for the best in the best of all possible armies. He also found that ginger was still hot in the mouths of these friends of his, and that he had not lived until he had seen Betty or Kitty or Elsie So-and-So, or such and such a Revue.
Frankly and boyishly, his appreciated his friends’ entertaining chatter. But they came and went, with the superficial bonhomie of the modern soldier. They touched no depths. If he had died of his gangrened foot, they would have said “Poor old chap!” and thought no more about him. He did not condemn them, for he himself had said and thought the same of many a comrade who had gone West. It was part of the game which he played as scrupulously and as callously as the others. He craved, however, solicitude deeper and more permanent.
Of course there was Dorothy Mackworth. She did not come to Churton Towers; but she had dutifully attended the Carlton when he had summoned her thither to meet Sister Baring, and put on for his benefit her most adorable clothing and behaviour. The lunch had been a meal of delight. The young man glowed over his guests—the two prettiest women, so he declared, in the room. Marcelle in the much-admired hat, her cheeks slightly flushed and her eyes bright, looked absurdly young. The girl, conscious of angelic dealing, carried off her own absurd youth with a conquering air that bewitched him more than ever. She dropped golden words:
“Oh, let us cut out Leopold! I’ve no use for him.”
She had no use for Leopold Doon, his half-brother and rival. He was to be cut out of their happy thoughts. Also:
“I’m not going to have you creep back into civil life and bury yourself at Cambridge. You’d get a hump there you’d never recover from. There’s lots of jobs on the staff for a brainy fellow like him, aren’t there, Miss Baring? I’ll press father’s button and he’ll do the rest.”
Now Dorothy’s father was a Major-General doing things at Whitehall, whose nature was indicated by mystic capital letters after his name.
“You’ll look splendid in red tabs,” she added.
This profession of interest and this air of proprietorship enraptured him. Under the ban of her displeasure Cambridge faded into a dreary, tumbledown desolation. She had but to touch him with her fairy wand and he would break out all over in red tabs. She spoke with assurance in the future tense.
And again, in a low voice, on their winding way out through the tables of the restaurant, Marcelle preceding them by a yard or two:
“Miss Baring’s a real dear. But don’t fall in love with her, for I swear I’m not going to play gooseberry.”
He had protested in a whisper: “Fall in love with anyone but you?”
And she had replied: “I think I’m nice enough,” and had laughed at him over her shoulder and looked exceedingly desirable.
He had never dared till that inspired moment speak to her of love in plain, bald terms; now he had done it and not only remained unfrozen, but basked in the warmth of her approval.
“I think that’s the most beautiful beano I’ve ever had,” he said to Marcelle, on their journey back to Godalming.
Yes. There was Dorothy. She had promised to participate in a similar beano any time he liked. But such bright occurrences must be rare. He longed to plunge into fervid correspondence. Caution restrained him. Elusive and perplexing, Heaven knew what she might say to a violent declaration of passion. It might ruin a state of things both delicate and delicious. Far better carry on his wooing by word of mouth.
In the meanwhile, the days at Churton Towers were long and life lacked variety. So he looked forward to the visit of Mr. James Burden, compound of fossil and sentimental blighter though he might be.
Punctually at three o’clock, the appointed hour, one afternoon, the maid who attended the door came up to Godfrey Baltazar waiting lonely in the great hall, and announced the visitor. With the aid of the now familiar crutch he rose nimbly. He saw advancing towards him in a brisk, brusque way, a still young-looking man in grey tweeds, rather above medium height, thickset, giving an immediate impression of physical strength.
“Are you Mr. Godfrey Baltazar?”
“Yes, sir,” said the boy courteously.
“My name is Burden. It’s good of you to let me come to see you.”
He grasped Godfrey’s hand in a close grip and looked at him keenly out of bright grey eyes. Not much fossil there, thought the young man. On the contrary, a singularly live personality. There was strength in the heavy though clean-cut face, marked by the deep vertical furrow between the brows; strength in the coarse, though well-trimmed, thatch of brown hair unstreaked by grey; strength in his voice.
“Do sit down,” said Godfrey.
Baltazar sat down and, looking at his son, clutched the arm of his chair. Crosby and Sheepshanks were right. A splendid fellow, the ideal of a soldier, clean run, clear eyes; a touch of distinction and breed about him, manifestation of the indomitable old Huguenot strain. By God! A boy to be proud of; and he saw bits of himself in the boy’s features, expression and gesture. A thrill ran through him as he drank in the new joy of parenthood. Yet through the joy pain stabbed him—fierce resentment against Fate, which had cheated him of the wonderful years of the boy’s growth and development. For the first time in his decisive life he felt tongue-tied and embarrassed. He cursed the craftiness that brought him hither under an assumed name. Yet, had he written as John Baltazar, he would have risked a rebuff. What sentimental regard or respect could this young man have for his unknown and unnatural father? At any rate his primary object had been attained. Here he was in his son’s presence, a courteously welcomed guest. He looked at him with yearning eyes; Godfrey met his gaze with cool politeness. Baltazar wiped a perspiring brow. After a few moments Godfrey broke an awkward situation by offering his cigarette case. The cigarettes lit, Baltazar said suddenly:
“It’s an infernal shame!”
“What?” asked Godfrey, startled.
Baltazar pointed downwards. “That,” said he.
“Oh!” Godfrey laughed. “I’m one of the lucky ones. Far better to have stopped it with my foot than my head.”
“But to limp about on crutches all your life—a fellow like you in the pride of youth and strength. It makes one angry.”
“That’s kind of you, sir,” said Godfrey. “But it doesn’t worry me much. They’re wangling a new foot for me, and as soon as I can stick it on, I’ll throw away my crutches, and no one but myself will be a bit the wiser.”
“You take it bravely,” said Baltazar.
“It’s all in the day’s work. What’s the good of grousing? What’s the point of a real foot, anyway, when a faked one will do as well?”
But though Baltazar admired the young fellow’s careless courage, he still glowered at the maimed leg. He resented............