A Knight on Wheels Part 9

"Not too well," said Dill. "In the old days things were simple enough. I asked for the money and I got it. Now the public are bled white either by knaves like this fellow who runs the Kind Hearts, or a parcel of incompetent sentimental old women who waste one half of what they get on expenses and the other half on pauperisation. I have had a deficit each year for three years now."

Uncle Joseph took out a pocket-book, and counted out twenty five-pound notes.

"I can run to a little more this year," he said. "Here you are--fifty for the free dinners and fifty for the toy-distribution. Anonymous, of course, as usual."

Dill gathered up the money.

"Meldrum," he said,--and his voice sounded less like a raven's than usual,--"you are a white man. I say no more."

"Good-morning," said Uncle Joseph.

CHAPTER VI

RENOVARE DOLOREM

THE leaven was working.

One evening after tea Philip took a big breath and addressed his uncle.

"Uncle Joseph," he said, "I was talking to a little girl on Hampstead Heath to-day."

"More fool you," was the genial response. "What were you talking about?"

"You," said Philip, a little unexpectedly.

Uncle Joseph looked up.

"Oh," he said. "Why was I so honoured?"

Philip explained, in his deliberate fas.h.i.+on.

"She was that little girl we pa.s.sed on Sunday," he said, "sitting on a gate. She smiled at me, and you told me it was only an instinct. A prebby--a prebby--"

Uncle Joseph a.s.sisted him.

"--predatory instinct. Well, I met her again one day, and I told her what you said. I explained that you knew all women were dangerous, and were the great stumbling-block to a man's work in life. Also parasites."

Uncle Joseph smiled grimly.

"Well, and what did she say to that?" he enquired.

"She said she would ask her mother about it."

Uncle Joseph nodded.

"They always do," he commented. "And what did Mother say?"

"Her mother said--" Philip hesitated.

"Go on," said Uncle Joseph quietly.

"She said that--that the reason why you thought that all women should be avoided was known only to one woman, and she wouldn't tell."

Colonel Meldrum rose to his feet, and laid his pipe upon the mantelpiece with a slight clatter. Philip eyed him curiously. There was a change in his appearance. He seemed to have grown older during the last ten seconds. The lines of his face were sharper, and his stiff shoulders drooped a little.

Then came a long and deathlike stillness. Uncle Joseph had turned his back, and was gazing into the glowing fire, with his head resting on his arms. Philip, feeling a little frightened, waited.

At last Uncle Joseph spoke.

"How old are you, boy?" he asked.

"Fourteen," said Philip.

There was another silence. Then Uncle Joseph spoke again.

"You should be old enough to understand now. Your friend's mother was right, Phil. Would you like to hear the story?"

"Yes, please," said Philip.

Uncle Joseph turned round.

"Why?" he asked curiously.

Philip replied with characteristic frankness.

"Because," he said, "it might make it easier for me to keep away from all women, like what you told me to do, if I knew the reason why I ought to."

"You are beginning to find it difficult, then?"

Philip, thinking of a blue cotton frock and a pair of brown eyes, nodded.

"Then I will try and make it easier for you," said Uncle Joseph. "It is my plain duty to do so, for if once you get into your head the notion that woman is man's better half and guiding angel, or any sentimental, insidious nonsense of that kind, you are doomed. Your father allowed himself to cherish such beliefs, and he died of a broken heart before he was thirty. You are your father's son."

"Who broke his heart?" asked Philip, looking up quickly. It was the first time that Uncle Joseph had ever mentioned his father to him.

"Your mother," said Uncle Joseph bluntly. "She broke another man's heart later on, but that is another story. Perhaps the other man deserved it, but your father, above all men, did not. Have we read Tennyson together?"

"Yes," said Philip. "'The Idylls of the King.'"

"You remember King Arthur?"

Philip nodded, beginning dimly to comprehend.

"Well, your mother was Guinevere."