The Sailor never went again to the meetings of the Social Debating Society at Crosbie's in the Strand, Somehow he had not the courage. The simple unadorned story of James Thorneycroft had taken complete possession of his mind.

Without making any researches into the subject, some instinct which transcended reason, which transcended experience itself, told him that the Henry Harper of the story was his own father. Moreover, he was prepared to affirm that it was his own presence in that room – unknown as he was to James Thorneycroft to whom he had never spoken a word in his life – which had been responsible for the story's telling.

This clear conviction brought no shame to Henry Harper. No man could have been more amply vindicated in the sight of others than his father had been by him who had given his story with a poignancy which had silenced all criticism of the deductions he had ventured to draw from it.

The feeling uppermost in the mind of Henry Harper was that one world more had been revealed. At various times in his life he had had intimations of the Unseen. There was something beyond himself with which he had been in familiar contact. But up till now he had never thought about it much.

The story he had heard seemed to alter everything. In a subtle way his whole outlook was changed. The fact that his father had died such a death brought with it no sense of ignominy. It was too remote, too far beyond him; besides, the man who had told the story had been careful to show his father's true character.

It was almost inconceivable that he did not apply the logic of this terrible event to his own case. By now it should have been clear that he was literally treading the same path. Perhaps the voice of reason could not argue with the overwhelming forces which now had Henry Harper in their grip. Once they had driven him into an identical position they forced him to act in a similar way. Just as the father had made the disastrous error of setting himself to reform his wife when he had found out what she was, the son was now preparing to repeat it.

He determined upon a great effort to win Cora from drink.

Since the quarrel over the man in the taxi, which had occurred nearly two months ago, they had drifted further apart. Cora had behaved with great unwisdom and she was aware of the fact. But she was not going to risk the loss of the golden eggs if she could possibly help it. She had been shaken more than a little by her own folly, and if Harry had not been a dead-beat fool it must have meant a pretty decisive nail in her coffin. Even as it was, and in spite of the softness for which she despised him, his tone had hardened perceptibly since the incident. Not that she cared very much for that. She did not believe he had it in him to go to extremities. And yet now he had taken this new tone she was not quite sure. Perhaps he was not quite so "soppy" as her friends always declared him to be.

Be that as it may, Cora accepted it in good part when Harry took upon himself to beg her earnestly to check her habit of drinking more than she ought. She was even a little touched; she had not expected a solicitude which she knew she didn't deserve. Instead of "telling him off," as she felt she ought to have done, she promised to do her best to meet his wishes.

He was so grateful that he tried to find a way of helping her. He must let her see that he was ready to assist any effort she might make by every means in his power. Therefore, several evenings a week he accompanied her to the Roc and sometimes they went on, as formerly, to a play or a music hall.

When, after an absence of many months, Henry Harper reappeared in these haunts of fashion, he had to run the gantlet of the girls and the boys. But Cora was secretly gratified to find that he was much better able to take care of himself now. Those months of sequestration, unknown to her, had been a period of very remarkable development. He had been mixing on terms of equality with a class much above hers, he had been enlarging the scope of his observation, he had been deepening his experience. Moreover, he had discovered the letter aitch, and with the help of the indefatigable Madame Sadleir, who was a skillful and conscientious teacher, was now making use of the new knowledge.

Yes, there was a great improvement in Harry. In the opinion of his critics he was much more a man of the world; callow youths and insipid ladies of the town could no longer "come it over him" in the way that had formerly delighted them. Even Miss Bonser and Miss Press had to use discretion. The new knowledge did not make him a prig, but it seemed to give his character an independence and a depth which called for respectful treatment.

He disliked these evenings as much as ever. The Roc and Cora's friends could never have any sort of attraction for Henry Harper. But there was now the sense of duty to sustain him. He was making a heroic effort to save Cora from herself, yet he sometimes felt in his heart that such a woman was hardly worth the saving.

The fact was, it was no use disguising it now, she jarred every nerve in his soul. The more he developed the more hopeless she grew. He knew now that she was very common, sordid clay. It was not in her to rise or to respond. She was crass, heavy-witted, coarse-fibered; his effort had to be made against fearful, and as it seemed with the new perceptions that were coming upon him, ever increasing odds.

By this he had learned from the new and finer world into which his talent had brought him that Cora had but a thin veneer of spurious refinement after all. He knew enough now to see how hopelessly wrong she was in everything, from the heart outwards. It began to hurt him more and more to be in her company in public places. Sometimes he could hardly bear to sit at the same table with her, so alien she was from the people he was meeting now on terms approximating to equality.

Edward Ambrose, realizing how the young man was striving to rise with his fortunes, was doing all that lay in his power to help him. At this time, the name of Mrs. Henry Harper had not been mentioned to him. Several times the Sailor had been at the point of revealing that sinister figure in the background of his life. More than once he had felt that it was the due of this judicious friend that he should know at least of the existence of Cora. But each time he had tried to screw his courage to the task a kind of nausea had overwhelmed him. The truth was Edward Ambrose and Cora stood at opposite poles, and whenever he tried to speak of her it became impossible to do so.

Henry Harper had been present at several of the very agreeable bachelor dinner parties in Bury Street, and on each occasion his host had noted an honorable and increasing effort on the part of the neophyte to rise to the measure of his opportunity. There could be no doubt he was coming on amazingly. The rough edges were being smoothed down and he was always so simple and unaffected that it was hardly possible for liberal-minded men whom fortune had given a place in the stalls at the human comedy to refrain from liking him.

"Henry," said his friend when the young man looked in one afternoon in Pall Mall, "what are you doing tomorrow week, Friday, the twenty-third?"

Henry was doing nothing in particular.

"Then you must come and dine with me," said Edward Ambrose.

"I'll be delighted."

"Wait a minute. That's not the important part. You'll have to take somebody in to dinner. And she's about the nicest girl I know, and she wants very much to meet the author of 'Dick Smith,' and I promised that she should. There will be two or three others … Ellis and his fiancée … I told you Ellis had just got engaged … but we shall not be more than ten all told. Will you face it, Henry, just to oblige a friend?"

A dinner party of ten with ladies was rather a facer for Mr. Henry Harper, in spite of the fact that his social laurels were clustering thicker upon him.

"I suppose I'll have to if you've promised her," he said with not ungracious reluctance.

"I'm sure you'll like her as much as she'll like you," said Edward Ambrose.

That remains to be seen was the mental reservation in the mind of the Sailor.

XXV

Friday week soon came, but very unfortunately it found Cora "in one of her moods."

The first intimation she had of the dinner party was the arrival of a parcel of evening clothes, which Harry had purchased that morning in the Strand. As ladies were to be present, his sense of the fitness of things had led him at last to incur this long-promised expense. Indeed, Cora herself had said that sooner or later this would have to be. But now that the clothes had actually arrived and she insisted upon being told for what purpose they were required, she flew into a tantrum.

In Cora's opinion, there had been too much dining already with this Mr. Ambrose, and now that Harry was being invited to meet ladies, had Mr. Ambrose been a true gentleman she would have been invited as well. It did not occur to her that he was not aware of her existence. But in any case Harry ought not to be going to meet other women without his wife.

Cora became very sulky. And she mingled unamiability with abuse. The sad truth was, and her husband realized it with intense bitterness in the course of that afternoon, she had begun drinking heavily again in spite of all that he could do to check her. It was a failure of the will. There was no doubt life bored her. The restraints she had recently put upon herself, not in regard to drink alone, had become more than she could bear. For a week past she had known that another "break-out" was imminent.

She was now inclined to make this dinner party to which she was not invited a pretext for it.

"I see what it is," she said with ugly eyes. "Your lawful wife is not good enough for my lord Ambrose and his lady friends."

This stung, it was so exactly the truth.

"But don't think for a moment I am going to take it lying down. If you go to this party I'm coming too."

"You can't," said her husband quietly – so quietly that it made her furious.

"Oh, can't I!"

"No, you can't," he said with a finality that offered no salve. He was angry with his own weakness. He knew that it had caused him to drift into a false position. And yet what could he do – with such a wife as that?

"You're ashamed of me," she said, with baffled rage in her voice.

"You've no right to say that." It was a feeble rejoinder, but silence would have been worse.

"I am going to give you fair warning, Harry. If you go to this party and meet other women while I am left at home, I shall…"

"You'll what?" he said, recoiling from her heavy breathing ugliness.

"I shall go a good old blind tonight, I warn you."

She spoke with full knowledge of the effort he had made to help her and all that it had cost him.

"It won't be half a blind, I'm telling you," she said, reading his eyes. "I've done my best for weeks and weeks to please you. I've hardly touched a drop – and this is all the thanks I get. I'm flesh and blood like other people."

She saw with malicious triumph that she had him cornered.

"Look here, Cora," he said, "it's too late to get out of this now. It wouldn't be fair or right for me to break my word to Mr. Ambrose. But I'll promise this. If you will only keep sober tonight, I'll never go to another party without … without your permission."

"Without my permission!"

"Without you, then, if that's what you want me to say."

"Oh, yes! I don't think!"

"I don't ever break my word," he said simply. "You know that. If I say a thing I try my best to act up to it."

"Well, it's not good enough for me, anyhow," she said, with a sudden and jealous knowledge of her own inferiority. "If you leave me tonight, so help me God, I'll get absolutely blind."

She saw the horror in his eyes and was glad. It gave her a sense of power. But it brought its own Nemesis. She forgot just then that he alone stood between her and the gutter.

"Be reasonable, Cora," he said weakly. There did not seem to be anything else he could say.

"I've warned you," she said savagely. "Leave me tonight and you'll see. I'll not be made a mark of by no one, not if I know it."

In great distress he retired to his bedroom in order to think things out. He felt that he was much in the wrong. Somehow he did not seem to be keeping to the terms of the bargain. Up to a point Cora had reason and justice on her side. Yet beyond that point was the duty to his friends.

In a miserable state of mind he sat on the bed. He was desperately unwilling to undo all the good work of the past six weeks, but it was certain that if he left Cora in her present mood something would happen. Twice he almost made up his mind not to go, but each time he was over-powered by the thought of his friend. It was really impossible to leave him in the lurch without a shadow of excuse.

At last, with a sense of acute misery, he came to a decision, or rather the swift passage of time forced it upon him. Suddenly he got off the bed, opened the parcel and spread out the new clothes.

BOOK IV
DISINTEGRATION

I

The process of dressing for Henry Harper's first dinner party was not a very agreeable operation. No man could have undertaken it in a worse state of despair. The new links he had bought could only be persuaded with difficulty into the cuffs of the boiled shirt; further trouble presented itself with the collar, and finally, when all the major operations were complete, he had to solve the problem of a white tie or a black one. In the end he chose a black one on the ground that it would be more modest, although he was not sure that it was right.

When at last he was complete in every detail, he returned to the sitting-room where his wife still was. She was smoking a cigarette.

"Cora," he said quietly and politely, "I am only going because I must. I couldn't look Mr. Ambrose in the face if I let him down without a fair excuse. But I'll promise this. I'll never go to another party without you, and I give you my solemn word I wouldn't go now if there was a way out."

She made no answer. Without looking at him, but with sour rage in her eyes, she threw the end of the cigarette she was smoking into the fire and lit another.

The young man was rather short of time, and remembering a former excursion to Bury Street which was yet quite easy to find from the top of the Avenue, he took a taxi. Driving in solitary state he was very nervous and strangely uncomfortable. The evening clothes felt horribly new and conspicuous, and they didn't seem to fit anywhere. Then again he knew this was an adventure of the first magnitude. The bachelor parties of two or three intimate friends were on a different plane from an affair of this kind. However, he determined to thrust unworthy fears aside. There could be no doubt he was far better equipped than he had been before Madame Sadleir took him in hand. Besides, when all was said, the feeling uppermost in his mind just now, outweighing even the black thought of Cora, was a sense of exhilaration. Somehow he felt, as his swift machine crossed Piccadilly Circus, in spite of Cora, in spite of new clothes, in spite of bitter inexperience, that for the first time in his life he was entering the golden realm whose every door had been double-locked, thrice-bolted against him by the dark and evil machinations of destiny.

Even when the taxi stopped before the now familiar portals in Bury Street and he had paid the driver his fare, he still had a sense of adventure. And this was heightened by what was going on around him. The magic door was open wide to the night, the august form of Portman, the butler, was framed in it, and at that very moment the Fairy Princess was descending from her chariot.

How did he know it was she? Some occult faculty mysteriously told him. She was tall and dark and smiling; a bright blue cloak was round her; he saw a white satin slipper. It was She. Beyond a doubt it was the real Hyde Park lady he was going to take in to dinner.

He hung back by the curb, a whole discreet minute, while Mr. Portman received her. She made some smiling remark that Henry Harper couldn't catch. He could only hear the beautiful notes of her voice. They were those of a siren, a low deep music.

The Sailor came to the door just as another chariot glided up. He greeted Portman, his old friend, of whom he was still rather in awe, and doffed his coat and hat in the entrance hall without flurry, and then went slowly up the stairs where he found that the butler had already preceded him. Moreover, he was just in time to hear him announce: "Miss Pridmore."

The name literally sang through the brain of the Sailor. Where had he heard it? But he had not time then to hunt it down in his memory.

"Mr. Harper." With a feeling of excitement he heard the rolling, unctuous announcement.

For a brief instant the vigorous grip and the laughing face of his host put all further speculation to flight. Edward Ambrose was in great heart and looking as only the Edward Ambroses of the world can look at such moments. But he merely gave Henry Harper time to note, with a little stab of dismay, that the tie he had chosen was the wrong color, when he was almost hurled upon Miss Pridmore.

"This is Mr. Harper, Mary, whom you wanted to meet." And then with that gay note which the Sailor could never sufficiently approve: "I promised him one admirer. He wouldn't have come without."

Where had he heard that name? The question was surging upon the Sailor as he stood looking at her and waiting for her to speak. A moment ago it had been uttered for the first time, yet it was strangely familiar to him. And that face of clear-cut good sense, with eyes of a fathomless gray, where had he seen it?

"I should love to have been a sailor." Those were her first words. That voice, where had he heard it? It seemed to be coming back to him out of the years, out of the measureless Pacific. A Hyde Park lady was speaking in Bury Street, St. James', but at that moment he was not in London, not in England, not in Europe at all. He was on the high seas aboard the Margaret Carey, he was in his bunk in the half-deck. In one hand he held a sputtering candle; in the other a torn fragment of the Brooklyn Eagle. It was Klondyke who was speaking. The Fairy Princess was speaking with the voice of his immortal friend.

"I have a brother who has sailed before the mast."

In a flash he remembered the inscription in Klondyke's Bible: "Jack Pridmore is my name, England is my nation." The mystery was solved. This was Klondyke's sister. There was no mistaking the resemblance of voice, of feature; this was the unforgettable girl he had seen with Klondyke in Hyde Park.

He suddenly remembered that he must say something. It would hardly be proper to stand there all night with his mouth open, yet with not a word coming out of it.

"I think I know your brother," were his first words. They were not the result of deliberate choice. Some new and strange power seemed to have taken complete possession of him.

"You've met my brother Jack?"

"Yes. We were aboard the same craft pretty near two years. We used to call him Klondyke."

A delightful laugh rang in his ears.

"What a perfect name for him! I must tell that to my mother. It was because he had been in the Klondyke, I suppose."

"Yes, that was it. He had been in the Klondyke. He used to yarn about it on the Margaret Carey. We were both berthed for'ard in the half-deck. His bunk was under mine."

"Isn't it odd that we should meet like this!"

"Yes, it's queer. But there are many queer things in the world, ain't there? At least I've seen a goodish few and so has Klondyke. But he was a grand chap."

Mary Pridmore, who felt rather the same about her brother Jack, although he was not a brother to be proud of, but quite the reverse, as the members of his family always made a point of explaining to him whenever they had the chance, was somehow touched by the tone of reverence with which his shipmate spoke of him.

"He's the black sheep of the family, of course you know that," she said, feeling it necessary to take precautions against this delightful young sailorman who had already intrigued her.

"He used to say so," said the Sailor, with the simplicity of his kind. "He used to say his mother was fearfully cut up about him. She thought he was a rolling stone and he would never be any good at anything. But you don't think so, Miss Pridmore, do you?" The eyes of the young man delighted her as they looked directly into hers. "No, I can see you don't. You think Klondyke's all right."

"Why should you think, Mr. Harper, that I think anything of the kind?" The voice was rebuking, but the eyes were laughing, and it was the eyes that mattered.

"You can't deny it!" he said with a charming air of defiance. "And if I was Klondyke's sister I wouldn't want to."

"As long as mother never hears anyone speak of him like that it really doesn't matter what we think of him, you know."

This wonderful creature, who in the sight of the Sailor was perfection from head to heel, whose very voice he could only compare to John Milton whom he had lately discovered, let her hand rest on his arm very lightly, yet with a touch that was almost affectionate. And then they went downstairs to dinner.