BY THE SAME AUTHOR 9 Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. BELLAMY THE MAGNIFICENT "Amazingly well written, and undeniably clever. . . . Distinctly a book to be read, for passing criticism can do no justice to the wit, humour, satire, and keen raillery in which it abounds." DAILY TELEGRAPH. " A brilliant and biting study of the life of pleasure and some of its modern exponents. . . . The book is unbrokenly clever, and few will be able to refrain from taking it at a draught." PALL MALL GAZETTE. "Its dialogue is entertaining and clever. It contains not a single dull page. " ATHENAEUM. " ' Bellamy the Magnificent' is well, magnificent. . . . The characters are excellently realised, some of the scenes are delicately comic, the epigrams are not forced, and the story as a whole is so interesting that its conclusion will provoke no small amount of discussion." OUTLOOK. " Beyond contradiction, a brilliantly clever book." SUNDAY SUN. " Extremely fascinating . . . a really excellent novel." COURT JOURNAL. " One of those extremely clever extravaganzas which, like shot silk, may be looked at in two ways. . . . Admirable ! As deadly in earnest as it is extravagantly amusing. " SCOTSMAN. "A highly successful exercise in flippancy, wittily and audaciously written, and worked out with an ingenious and original plot." MORNING LEADER. "For an evening's unimproving but absolutely entertaining reading it will be ' bad to beat.' "ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE. " One of the maddest and merriest farces we have read." MORNING POST. Crown 8vo, cloth, 35. 6d. ISRAEL RANK ' ' Written with a skill and ruthlessness that put it much above the level of an ordinary novel of crime and criminals. It is cleverly and subtly done. The description of the trial, as written by the murderer himself, compels one's admiration. Indeed, the whole book is written with a sense of character and psychology unusual in work of this kind." TRIBUNE. "While there are a sufficient number of horrible incidents to tickle the palate of those who like such fare, there is sufficient cleverness in their setting forth to free the book from a charge of raw sensationalism. It is a well- conceived study of cultured hedonism and remorseless selfishness. Israel Rank is perhaps an improbable but certainly an interesting personality." MANCHESTER GUARDIAN. 1 ' The narrative is unfolded in the most naively cynical fashion imaginable, and in such a way that, indeed, at times it is difficult to determine whether the book is a tragedy disguised as a comedy or a comedy disguised as a tragedy. So fascinatingly is the story told that the proceedings of the hero-villain even call to mind the career of Barry Lyndon." DAILY NEWS. ' ' The story has a certain grim humour that will make your flesh creep. The hero, who is also the villain of the piece, is a young man of half Jewish descent. Between him and an earldom were six lives, and the young man, whose motto was to live among the rich, determined to remove those lives. This novel should not be issued to any one within a dozen steps of the peerage." DAILY CHRONICLE. LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, in ST. MARTIN'S LANE, W.C. LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET A FAIRY STORY OF TO-DAY BY ROY HORNIMAN AUTHOR OF "THE SIN OF ATLANTIS," "THE LIVING BUDDHA," THAT FAST MISS BLOUNT," "BELLAMY THE MAGNIFICENT, "ISRAEL RANK," ETC. SPECIAL EDITION For sale only in India and the British Colonies LONDON CHATTO fc? WINDUS 1907 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BKCCI ES. Copyright 1907 by Rov HORNIMAN All rights reset ved TO RICHARD LAMBART 2033469 : LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET CHAPTER 1 IDLENESS and vanity were the incentives that had driven Anthony Brooke into the theatrical profes- sion. Indeed, were it not for the idle and the vain the demand for actors would largely exceed the supply. The serious, who think they can act, reckon up the chances and wisely prefer a season ticket to the City. The idle and the vain see their chance and take it. Thus, between the two, acting as an art comes to the ground. If their vanity be flattered by success the idle become a little less idle, and condescend to learn a few words by heart, which they call studying their parts. They make an elaborate pretence of having considered the characterisation, because pretence can be made at all times, and requires little assiduity or concentration. Now and then some of them are galvanised into serious work, but such cases are rare. Anthony Brooke was more vain than idle, for he was quite willing to do something ; in fact, he B 2 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET was bound to do something. He possessed an inexhaustible vitality, and with such a tempera- ment he naturally could not be idle, although he disliked sustained work. He was prepared to show how the perfect life should be led. Even in his teens he had become aware that the art of living had practically died out. People flaunted, and ran hither and thither, screaming at the top of their voices, getting through life at an absurd pace ; but only a civilisation bred by German philosophy out of machinery could call it living. Anthony Brooke had neither relations nor interest on the stage, and because he had an imagination which was apt to take fire at the merest suggestion he believed the legends as to the huge salaries paid to young ladies and gentlemen for doing nothing behind the footlights. He found that if he wanted to earn money imme- diately he must be able to sing or to dance, and of course he could do neither. He was unfortu- nately gifted with just sufficient intellectual weight to feel ridiculous as a dancer, and of singing voice he had none. He had the additional disadvantage of being fair, and it is an admitted fact that fair young men do not suggest the embryo dramatic genius. It is a fixed idea with the theatrical manager that only tall, dark, thin, hungry-looking young men can act, and although Anthony Brooke was slim and graceful and quite extraordinarily good-looking, managers at once showed him that they would as soon think of crediting him with the authorship of Shakespeare's plays as with histrionic ability. It was true that he had often LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 3 looked hungry and thin, but he was not the type which might have stood interchangeably for Romeo and a dispenser of iced poisons to the confiding infants of the London streets. Besides, he had a superior air, and it was instinctively felt that the superiority was not altogether superficial. He had a way of becoming a personality in any company which he joined before he had been in it ten minutes, and the qualities which go to make a theatrical manager not being such as tend to breadth of mind he was seldom engaged twice in the same theatre. Once he had been entrusted with a part by a well-known comedian, whose recommendation to the public was an extraordinary personal proof of the Darwin theory, and who, when he was dressed in skirts, looked like the star performer on a barrel organ. This comedian had engaged him under the impression that he was incompetent. He himself was so undeniably ugly that he had the good sense to secure good-looking, stupid young men as foils. When he found that Anthony Brooke was likely to make something of his part he got rid of him ; that is to say, with that candour and honesty which distinguishes his kind he picked a quarrel with him, and told him that he was ruining the piece. Seeing very plainly that it was not intended that he should appear, Anthony, in professional terms, * threw up his part ; ' which consists in throwing it down, and told the little monster to play it himself. It was rather a pointless remark, but it quite infuriated the manikin. 4 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET " Get out of my theatre ! " he screamed, in shrill cockney. Anthony looked at him loftily. " It's not your theatre. It belongs to that wretched woman you've cheated out of her money." He pointed to an elderly spinster who had been tempted to invest the greater part of her slender capital in the production, under the promise that it would bring her before the London public which it certainly did. " Get out of my theatre ! " reiterated the enraged puppet. Anthony pulled on his gloves leisurely. " I'm going when I'm ready ; but before I go I should like to tell you that you possess a mountebank personality which commands a success as ephe- meral as I venture to say it is undeserved by any true artistic merit whatsoever." The little creature looked at him in amaze- ment, and said, in his high falsetto voice " What a funny boy ! " Anthony walked out, exhilarated by the con- sciousness that he had scored a triumph. He was accustomed to these triumphs, however. He had a tongue like a stiletto, and it is perfectly extraordinary how people object to being stilettoed. Since this auspicious occasion he had not been invited to take part in any theatrical production. Although he had a genius for lounging, it was not the kind of lounging which was likely to get him on in his profession. He was an elegant Bacchanalian, and hated vulgar drinking. The death of his father, who had been able to give him LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 5 a microscopic allowance, which at any rate made him independent enough to sustain his egotism against the world, brought him face to face with the fact that if you wish society to do anything for you, you must to some extent conciliate it. A mental independence involves martyrdom as much as moral unorthodoxy. Fortunate is that individual who finds himself placed by Providence in that walk of life to which his qualities are absolutely fitted. There are such people ; as, for instance, the happy navvy, the happy pork- butcher, or the happy peer, folk who would have been wretched in any other walk of life, whether more exalted or more lowly. How infinitely miserable the lot of, say, a duke who possesses those very qualities which would have made him an ideal railway porter and there are such. He probably does not know what is the matter with him, but he is unhappy because his proclivities and his career are at war. He is unconsciously hankering after sixpenny tips and Gladstone bags, instead of addressing the Upper House on intricate questions of land tenure. There are a great many people whom Providence seems to have created whilst in a state of indecision ; for instance, that Anthony Brooke was created with every gift except that of a large independent fortune was an obvious oversight. Everybody but the saints would like to have money ; but it is by no means necessary for everybody. To Anthony, life without money was a nightmare, and inasmuch as he had never had any his existence had been far from cheerful. The lack of wealth in his case was a palpable 6 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET injustice, as if he lacked a sense, or an organ. It seemed as though he had left the art of wage- earning far behind in some former existence, philosophically the richer for its lessons although its technique was forgotten. The world belongs to the dreamer ; that is to say, from the dreamer's point of view. It might be truer to say that the dreamer is in possession of every world but this. Anthony was quite incapable of earning his living by means of the first thing that came to hand, a faculty natural to the sordid, base materialism of the Jew. If a profession could have been pointed out, entirely original and curious, a calling in which no one had ever been known to earn his livelihood, he might have adopted it with enthusiasm. Thrown on his resources for his daily bread, it looked as if his stock-in-trade were meagre. He found himself sounding the very depths of poverty, and before he realised it his clothes had ceased to be presentable. They would have been considered excellent weekday garments in Brixton, or in a city office, but in the West End they did not look quite right, even in the twilight. He was brilliant and pleasant company enough to have been able to keep afloat on the desolate ocean of impecuniosity as the appanage of some wealthy friend but for one reason : he could not be dominated. He had no particular moral objection to a sycophant's career, and often told himself seriously that he must study the art of pleasing with a view to the state of his pocket. There were so many men willing to lend providing LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 7 they got a sufficient return of attention and flattery. Anthony had had friends of this class, vain, good- natured fellows, who were quite ready to put him up indefinitely, and to give him as much of their wealth as they did not miss. Sooner or later, however, he became explosively brilliant at their expense, and they could not be blamed if they chose another friend who did not even possess a stiletto, much less the inclination to use it. His condition made him morbid, although a certain lightness of touch never deserted him when O dealing with the world. He was an egotist with too much delicate insight to imagine for one moment that the world would love him the better for his misery. A melancholy vanity in its own woes is one of the chief defects of intelligent adoles- cence. Our lovers may be fascinated by us in a tragic moment of temperament, but in the golden season the world expects us to show the elasticity of youth . Attention might be paid to it in our public schools, and there is little doubt that much misery would be avoided. A class of Eton boys being taught to assume gaiety and effervescence on the news of the death of a near relation, or of their fathers having lost all their money would be real progress towards a Spartan education. Anthony had the true, unconquerable pride of the born vagabond, and that pride is a glorious, exhilarating quality which poor, hard-working, conscientious mortals can never even dimly under- stand. In the vagabond's mind it accounts for everything, and places him supremely above the obligations of ordinary mortals, for the word 8 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET vagabond in its true sense means wanderer ; and how small must the man of fixed habitation seem to him who has neither mental nor material resting-place limitations which make the sense of the vagabond ache. To be circumscribed by flesh is bad enough ; to invent further caskets is servile. The vagabond is not antagonistic to money or beautiful clothes ; he only objects to the slow, soul-destroying processes by which civilisation decrees that they shall be obtained. Pity, however disguised under the form of sym- pathy, seemed at all times to Anthony an imperti- nence. If people could not coin themselves into gold, they might at least be ashamed of the fact, and hold their peace. If Anthony felt that con- ditions were too much for him, and that he could not assume the necessary charm denoting high spirits, he kept out of the way ; and as this became more and more difficult every day he was seen less and less by his friends, who, with the best will in the world, could not always conceal the fact that the steady decay of fine linen was unpleasant. He woke every morning with hope, that ever deceitful vulgarian, ready at his bedside to bear him company, at least during the first few hours of the day ; but even she grew a little bored towards evening, and left him to fight his battle with despondency as best he could. CHAPTER II ONE weary evening in August Anthony essayed an overdose of laudanum ; but the chemist, in league no doubt with the world to prolong his woes, must have diluted the poison with some inoffensive, coloured liquid, for he awoke the next morning, as usual, to hear his landlady's voice at the door demanding a parley. He wondered at first if he were dead, and whether his punishment for suicide were not to be an eternity of importunate landladies ; but by degrees he became wide awake, and realised that beyond a little extra drowsiness he was not a whit the worse for the drug. His first sensation, when he was fully awake, was one of acute irritation that he had no means of making his unwilling hostess the slave of his desire, which was for breakfast. The last two mornings the meal had not been forthcoming, but now he almost thought he heard the sound of a tray. He threw into his voice a sleepy weariness which he thought should have been sufficient to soften the heart even of a Pimlico landlady. "What is it?" " I've brought your breakfast, Mr. Brooke. Have you got the money to pay for it, or shall I take it downstairs again ? " io LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET She had played this painful comedy before, but on previous occasions, although no payment had been forthcoming, she had brought the break- fast in and had plumped it down angrily on the dressing-table the only table. To-day, however, there was the sound of another voice cheering the landlady on to battle. As it was a female voice, Anthony concluded that the moral support of a neighbour had been invoked. He wondered whether they would resort to force. The idea of violence frorrftwo women filled him with terror. Indeed, Anthony had little stomach for violence at any time. There was a pause. Evidently the two ladies were waiting for the lodger to take his share in the discussion. As he made no reply, being occupied, indeed, in turning the key in the lock with as little noise as possible, his landlady's ally joined in the battle. "You're too soft-'earted, Mrs. Leech, and your own brother a perlice sergeant, too ! There's no need for you to put up with it. There's a law in the land to prevent lone women from being robbed as some people will find out." Mrs. Leech, thus supported, squealed through the keyhole " I shall take it down again if it ain't paid for ! " At this moment there was a wild, despairing scream from her supporter, followed by a series of bumps executed with extraordinary rapidity. Anthony could guess what had happened. Mrs. Leech had moved back towards the stairs to LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET n carry out her threat, and had thrown her friend off her balance. There was much dismal moaning and lamenta- tion, and it was some time before they returned to the charge. " I said, I shall take it down again, Mr. Brooke " " And I should if I was you," said the voice in the background, now much subdued. Anthony was hungry, desperately hungry, and pride is not the spouse of hunger. "Don't take it away, Mrs. Leech," he said, pleadingly ; " I need it." " I dessay you do but I've got my rent to pay." " Oh, that's silly." " Is it ! You're nothing to me, Mr. Brooke " Here the voice in the background broke in again, and this time with immeasurable scorn " Calls hisself a gentleman, does he ! " " I never said so." A sense of humour was Anthony's weak point in these difficulties. It did not conduce to conciliation. Mrs. Leech was not educated to such delicate badinage. " You'd be the only one as 'ud dare to tell such an untruth, if you did say it," was the retort. They then proceeded to converse about him at the top of their voices, in order that no word of their measureless contempt might be missed. "An' expecks everything done for 'im, my dear. I see through him almost from the first." 12 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET " So you did so you did." " I never trusts them lodgers as begins by asking for a chop with their tea it always means as they haven't got enough to pay for a good meal outside. They'd live on their breakfastses and teas if you'd let 'em." " I'd scorn myself, if I was 'im." " An* a clean shirt three times a week if I'd let 'im." " You don't mean to say as you paid for his laundry ? " interrogated her ally. Mrs. Leech, feeling that such generosity put her on a pedestal as a charitable martyr, began to whimper. " There, my dear, don't give way." But the presence of a sympathiser was not to be wasted, and Mrs. Leech gave way thoroughly. "And don't demean yourself, standing here talking to 'im." Feeling that they had done quite enough to furnish interesting matter for discussion in the lower regions they descended. Anthony sat on the edge of his bed gazing blankly before him. No day need be entirely black which is built on the sure foundation of breakfast. To add to his depression it was rain- ing. This meant that it was impossible for him to make even a pretence of looking for an engagement, a pretence with which he was wont to comfort the mornings of his dreary days. Walking about in the rain was out of the ques- tion, so he would be compelled to make a dash for the nearest public institution. As he dressed LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 13 he debated gloomily the respective merits of the National Gallery or the British Museum. The Tate Gallery was adjacent, but he was quite ashamed to go into it ; he had been there so often of late that the attendants must be perfectly aware that he had nowhere else to go. It may have been his imagination, but the last time he had visited it the official who took the sticks and umbrellas had seemed to look at him reproach- fully, as if to infer that he was really becoming a little obvious and beginning to wear out his welcome. The great thing, however, was to get away from the annoyance of his landlady during the daytime and to return at night with as much hope as possible that the door would not be bolted against him. Suddenly he remem- bered that through force of habit he had put his boots outside. It was an absurd thing to have done, as many a rainy day had come and gone since his landlady had condescended to clean them. If she had taken them downstairs it would involve entering into negotiations for their return, negotiations that must inevitably lead to a further financial discussion. It had really been very thoughtless of him. He opened the door cau- tiously to see if by chance they were still in the same place. They were gone. He was considering the mode of address he should employ in treating for them when he heard them dropped quite gently and respectfully on the mat outside. After waiting a minute to allow for the retirement of the enemy he drew them in, and H LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET at the same time he heard the sound of an alter- cation below. Apparently Mrs. Leech and her ally had fallen out. " And I'll trouble you," Mrs. Leech was saying very loftily, " not to interfere between me and my lodgers." Well, I'm sure ! " " And I dessay you are sure and a great deal too sure, and I think it's much better that neigh- bours should mind their own business." " Well, I never ! To think " Words were apparently insufficient to convey her sense of Mrs. Leech's ingratitude ; and she went out, slamming the area door behind her in high dudgeon. Such a climax could not be otherwise than grateful to Anthony's sense of humour. He looked at his boots. He could have seen his face in them. " I'd sooner have had breakfast," he murmured which was, to say the least, unworthy of him. He tightened his waistband, and prepared for flight ; that is to say, the usual morning manoeuvre of trying to get out of the house before Mrs. Leech could intercept and harangue him. He opened the door of his room with gentle secrecy to find himself face to face with her. Perhaps her difference with her neighbour, or the fact of having been found on the mat, had softened her, for she said, quite civilly "I'll bring your breakfast, sir." Secretly Anthony was much mollified. After all, he reflected, it was unnatural for a woman to LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 15 go to extreme lengths of hostility with a person so charming as he was ; but he drew him- self up, and the corners of his mouth went down. " Thank you, I shall go out to breakfast," he said, conscious of the possession of three halfpence. " Then it's a pity you don't pay your bill," retorted Mrs. Leech, her anger kindled afresh at her advances having been rebuffed. Anthony had nothing left to pawn ; indeed, his last effort in that direction had led to consider- able humiliation. The previous evening he had managed to slip out of his lodgings unobserved, with a large brown-paper parcel containing the remnants of such clothes as he could spare. There was a pawnbroker close by who had obliged him more than once, but had driven a very hard bargain. The entrance to the shop was up a little alley, and, to his annoyance, there were half a dozen females of the lower class at the opening, holding a most interesting discussion on domestic matters. They regarded him with some amusement as with flushed cheeks he passed through them into the evil- smelling little shop. With a feeling of rage against the world generally he entered one of the compartments and handed his parcel across the counter. After a delay, which seemed to him like an intentional impertinence, but which could hardly be avoided if the pawnbroker were to attend to his other customers, the man undid the parcel and inspected Anthony's ultra-fashionable coats and waistcoats. 1 6 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET " Wot are these fancy dress ? " he asked, jocularly. Restraining the temptation to pour forth the vials of his wrath on the presumptuous tradesman, Anthony smiled a sickly smile. The pawnbroker proceeded to roll them up again and put them into the parcel. " No good to me," was the laconic remark. " Can't you lend me ten shillings ? " The man looked at him as if he had asked for a thousand pounds. "They're no good to me." " Five shillings ? " said Anthony, condescend- ing to plead. "No." "Half a crown ?" Without replying the man moved indifferently away to attend to another customer, giving the parcel, however, a final push towards Anthony to show him that he really meant what he said. Anthony realised that he would have to pass the gauntlet of the females outside with the rejected package in his hand. The thought was intolerable. "Do you mind my leaving them here for a little ? " he said. The man looked at him suspiciously. " I'd rather you didn't." Anthony picked up the despised garments and hurried out of the place. As he expected, there was a loud laugh at his expense from the be- aproned, and betousled females outside. Even now, more than twelve hours after, he could not LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 17 recall the incident without turning hot and cold all over. He went out into the quiet little Pimlico street. Luckily the rain had ceased and the sun had come out. He walked briskly for the first half mile. The early morning hour holds a promise all its own, a hopefulness dependent on nothing tangible. His last meal had been after- noon tea at the house of a friend the previous day, and that had followed a lunch of champagne and biscuits paid for by an acquaintance to whom Anthony would not for the world have confessed that he was in sore need of a good meal. Biscuits had for him a most humorous asso- ciation, for once, when calling on a manager at his private house, he had been left alone in the dining room, and had attempted to make good a day's starvation with the contents of a biscuit-box which stood on the sideboard, and the great man had entered and discovered him in the act. As Anthony neared the busier parts his pace slackened. He began to look about him and to take that interest in other people's business pecu- liar to those who have none of their own. The average passer-by would hardly have credited him with being the miserable pauper he was, for if his very smart friends could detect that his clothes spelt, to say the least of it, financial embarrass- ment, the uninitiated would have thought him quite sufficiently smart, and he possessed to per- fection the indescribable art of making the best of his well-cut rags. Suddenly his mood of easy gaiety changed. 1 8 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET His brows contracted. He began to revolve schemes. Something must be done. Luckily he had a dinner invitation for that evening ; not the sort of thing for which it was necessary to dress, but a gathering of three or four shabby elegants in a cheap restaurant in Soho. There was a poet coming ; they would probably drink absinthe, and that would be delightful. Absinthe always gave Anthony an unreal, brutal view of life. Once, he remembered, when under its influence, seeing a woman run over by a cab. The spectacle had left him quite unmoved. He could last out till the evening ; and, after all, this might be the day on which his real career was to commence. He had the consolation of knowing that each succeed- ing day held that possibility. Still, he must go on striving for Anthony was pleased to call the day's hopeless saunter, striving. It was impossible that matters could continue like this. He would turn into the Park and think it out ; it would be quite dry now. He passed in by one of the most unfrequented gates, and, avoiding the fashionable part, in case he should meet anybody whom he knew, made for one of the shady groves towards the north-west and laid himself down in the shade, cursing the supineness of theatrical managers in general, although a disinterested person might reasonably have asked whether the London managers were to know by intuition that he was taking his ease on this particular spot, and to come post-haste up Piccadilly and across the greensward of the Park bearing leading parts in their hands. He was impatient with himself for LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 19 the condition he was in ; it was absurd. He had more brains than most people ; in fact, he in- wardly believed that he had as many as anybody ; and yet he was unable to do such a simple thing as keep himself in food and clothing. It just showed what nonsense it was to say that there is always work for willing hands to do. He should like to know where this work was. He had will- ing hands. He would go into the City. This was a threat which Anthony always felt ought to make Fate pull itself together and do something for him. Gradually he worked himself up to a state of absolute indignation over his wrongs, till, quite exhausted, he sank into a pleasant slumber, the warm summer sun coming through the leaves above his head with just enough power to prove narcotic. He woke feeling hungrier than ever, and as he lay listlessly gazing about him he saw, a little way off, a remarkably new-looking confec- tioner's paper bag. Judging by its shape, Anthony could not help thinking that it must contain something. He went over and took it up. It was quite heavy. He opened it, and tears of joy almost sprang to his eyes when he saw that it contained four delicious fresh Bath buns. Some children, sent into the Park with their lunch, must have dropped them ; or had they been in- tended for the ducks ? No, on second thoughts, they were the sort of buns that children keep for themselves. He looked round, almost expecting to see the owners hurrying back to claim what was to him salvation. Seeing no one, and lest he might be interrupted in his meal, or led away to 20 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET the police station for robbing little children, he removed himself far from the scene of his dis- covery and ate every one of the buns. When he had finished them he threw the bag away in dis- gust. He was furious with himself. He had fed oft stray buns in the Park, and he would never be able to forget it. He felt very much stronger, however, and started to walk towards the Strand. Hope was again firmly enthroned on a basis of four Bath buns, and he felt that he could face a theatrical agent with some degree of confidence. CHAPTER III THE agents shared with the public institutions Anthony's attentions when he had nowhere else to go. He did not usually meet many people whom he knew, for he had seldom been in the provinces, and London actors and actresses do not as a rule require an agent to secure them their irregular engagements. Under the magical effect of his Bath buns, Anthony sprang up the stone staircase that led to the airy and spacious offices where Mr. White held his court. It might be supposed that a theatrical agent is in something of the same relation towards his client as is a lawyer, but the supposition would be grossly inaccurate. The relation of the two parties is one of the strange anomalies of the theatrical profession ; for though the agent condescends to take their money when he can get it the demeanour of his customers much more suggests that he is paying them a salary. To bow the knee to innumerable masters is one of the privileges enjoyed by those who belong to the most erratic and irresponsible pro- fession in the world. Mr. White had been an agent from his youth, and the greater part of his life had been spent in edging importunate mountebanks most of them 22 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET crazy with vanity out of his presence, with the result that even in social intercourse he presented so many promontories that he was at all times a difficult coast to navigate. His offices consisted of three or four rooms leading one into another, and the way in which he could pass through the most determined cluster of young ladies anxious to tell him of their latest success, without being detained one moment, was an absolute miracle. He was not visible when Anthony arrived, and he posed himself negligently in a doorway where he could command the agent's entrances and exits and at the same time get a breath of fresh air, untainted by cheap perfume or cheaper cosmetic. It was not a time of the year when the office was ever very full, but on the seats round the walls was ranged a fairly representative gather- ing. There was the middle-aged man, out-at- elbows, with a soft sombrero hat, questionable linen, and a bibulous-looking nose. Depression was his dominant note, a depression which seemed to be the result of a full knowledge that he was going under as fast as an uncontrollable love of strong drink could carry him. He was struggling for his life in a river of alcohol, and was probably just about to sink for the third time. In one corner there was a dapper little comedian, dressed in large checks, explaining to a tall, heavy-looking man, who obviously devoted himself to the busi- ness side of the profession, the disgraceful conduct of a manager who had had the audacity and ignorance to declare that he was by no means as LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 23 mirth provoking a creature as he had made him- self out to be. There was the usual stage child, prematurely aged, with a prettiness which was anything but that of youth, sitting beside an anaemic-looking mother ; and there were one or two young gentle- men, evidently decently born and genteelly nur- tured if an adverb amazingly descriptive and unjustly shouldered from its legitimate occupation may be used. An obvious stage villain, seated, as was only seemly, in majestic solitude in the darkest corner of the room, glowered on these young gentlemen with a look of bilious dislike. The poor lads had not sixpence between them, and had walked in from their distant suburban homes hoping to carry back with them some justification for having adopted a profession which so far had only made them look supremely ridiculous in the eyes of their friends and rela- tions. But everything is comparative, and the antique tragedian, because they looked gentlemen, regarded them as the trivial and gilded recruits who were ruining the profession and taking the bread not to speak of the drink out of the mouths of serious workers like himself. Anthony surveyed them with the almost un- conscious expression of superiority with which he was wont to look on ordinary mortals. One of the well-dressed young gentlemen knew him slightly, and gave him a genial smile, which was met with a slight and rather bored inclination of the head. The recipient of what Anthony con- sidered a most gracious acknowledgment inwardly 24 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET determined never to give him a second chance of snubbing him, and told his friend that because that chap in the doorway had carried on a banner in London he considered himself too good to speak to a touring actor. Whilst Anthony stood waiting he was nearly carried off his feet by the entrance of a girlish figure of some forty or fifty summers, dressed in the extreme of juvenility, who, casting a hurried glance round, caught sight of the mother and child, flew at them and, having embraced both most affectionately, settled herself between them and, producing a huge puff, powdered her face most audaciously, lingering over her nose as though it were some rare work of art which it most certainly was. The mother asked her whether she had just finished, which question of course did not apply to the powdering, but to the conclusion of a professional engagement. This was exactly what the gifted young lady had wanted, and she burst into a perfect torrent of reminiscences, during which Anthony caught such words as, "Juliet, and Lady Isabel such a suc- cess nothing like it known before it, my dear. Mr. Manning, the Romeo Played it before ? Thousands of times." She kept one eye on Anthony as if he were a gallery. After a time the dulness of the place got on his nerves, and he went on to the next agent's ; and so on, through half a dozen offices, and found himself as usual at about three o'clock in the afternoon with nothing to do, and very hungry. LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 25 He called at the rooms of one or two men he knew in the hope that they might be at home in company with afternoon tea, but as they were not he wended his way wearily towards the Park, where he thought he would rest till the time came to go to dinner. The idea had crossed his mind of asking at one friend's rooms if he might go in and write a note, on the off chance of there being a biscuit-box handy ; but he controlled himself. After all, it was not desirable to get a reputation for biscuit stealing. He was becoming thoroughly depressed again. It was quite obvious that only the unexpected and the miraculous could carry him upward to those heights of prosperity which would satisfy him. In this mood he found him- self passing through Grosvenor Square. He remembered ever afterwards that he had at the time felt a curious consciousness of impending events of importance. Halfway across the square he saw ahead of him a victoria drawn up at the kerb. A tall, aristocratic-looking man, who was hatless, and had evidently just come out of the house, was talking to a lady seated in the carriage. While Anthony was still three or four yards away some one passed him who said to his companion " That is Lord Cammarleigh the Marquis of Cammarleigh." Anthony gazed ahead with added curiosity, for every one is interested in seeing what a marquis is like, whatever some people may pre- tend to the contrary. He knew the Marquis of Cammarleigh by reputation for who did not ? 26 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET He was one of the richest peers in England, a great art collector, and a well-known dilettante. For years he had hovered round the game of politics, but without making any particular mark. Why his name was so prominently before the public it would have been difficult to say, but somehow he had always been a favourite of the Society papers and illustrated weeklies. He was constantly turning up in photographic groups in the centre of a house-party, or slightly to the right or left of Royalty. He was reputed to be one of those people to whom it seems a sheer impossibility not to grow richer and richer. These things Anthony remembered as he drew near and watched the tall figure of the marquis, bending courteously towards the woman in the carriage. As he drew nearer, Anthony noticed the curious restlessness of his eyes. They glanced hither and thither as if he were hunted, and Anthony found himself murmuring " That is a man who is afraid. He is a man with a secret." As Anthony passed, he brushed against him. Lord Cammarleigh turned round with an exclama- tion almost of terror. At that moment the lady in the carriage held out her hand, and an instant later she had driven away. Anthony was not wanting in courage, but in after years he would wonder in amazement whence came the spirit of sublime audacity with which he was animated at that moment. Perhaps if he had LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 27 had time to think, to calculate the possible chances for and against him, the scheme which he carried through would have seemed that of a lunatic, but the idea, together with a complete course of action, rose in his mind like magic. He ran swiftly up the steps, and, just as his lordship was about to enter the house, tapped him on the shoulder. Lord Cammarleigh turned, and their eyes met. " I know your secret," said Anthony, simply. Lord Cammarleigh grew livid and staggered back against the door pillar. They stood thus for some seconds, Anthony looking at his victim with pitiless eyes, Cammar- leigh breathing heavily, returning his gaze with a mute appeal for mercy. " What do you want ? " he asked at length. " I know your secret," repeated Anthony, opening his gray eyes in surprise at the other's question. Then, as he received no answer, and realising that he had gone too far to recede, he said gently " Shall we go inside ? You look upset, and your servants may hear." Poor Lord Cammarleigh could not know how very near his tormentor was at that moment to turning tail and bolting across the Square. Without a word he led the way into the house and down the spacious hall to a room at its extreme end. Anthony followed, bearing him- self with perfect assurance. He had always felt that he should never know real domestic comfort till he was lodged in a palace and fed off gold plate. 28 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET The room they entered was obviously the asylum of a guilty conscience. There was hardly any light, and what there was came through sensuously painted glass, shaded by thick green blinds of woven rushes. The ceiling was hidden by a tented roof of dark blue silk. The colour scheme was dominated everywhere by dark blue and yellow, complementing each other in a hun- dred subtle distinctions of tone. Japanese masks grinned from purple shadows and Chinese hangings embroidered with that subdued brilliance which the West has striven in vain to imitate. The lounges and divans suggested a desire for forgetfulness. On a small table of cedar wood, inlaid with ivory, lay a tiny jewelled pipe beside a miniature coffer of jade with gilt clasps. It was indeed a room in which to drug a conscience, or to reflect its morbid sorrows, which answers the same purpose. Lord Cammarleigh stood aside as Anthony entered. He then closed the door of black ebony, superbly carved to represent the entrance to a gloomy wood. He thrust a heavy silver bolt back into its socket, and drew the portiere of clinging yellow silk. Then he turned to Anthony, who was too well bred to follow his first inclina- tion and sink on to the most comfortable divan in the room, notwithstanding that he was worn out. His sense of humour broke the ice, for at the sight of Lord Cammarleigh's white drawn face staring at him from the yellow background, he broke into a peal of merriment. "Come, let us be friends," he said, still LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 29 laughing. The absolute terror in Lord Cam- marleigh's eyes died away. Anthony's laugh was not only charming, but in this case it was reassuring. It was a curious fact, but from the moment that Anthony entered this historic town mansion he was filled with an easy confidence that every- thing successful and wonderful might be ex- pected to happen. The very atmosphere of the place seemed to intoxicate and exhilarate him, urging him on to perform the impossible. He felt like a brilliant soul which had been wandering in an uncongenial atmosphere of material struggle and had returned to its proper home of splendour and regality. " I haven't a card," he continued, " but I am Anthony Brooke, gentleman." He emphasised the last word as if he wished to make Lord Cam- marleigh thoroughly understand that it would be better not to receive the statement sceptically. His lordship, however, who seemed unable to meet Anthony's frank gaze, gave a short, mirthless laugh of unbelief. " Let me implore you not to do that sort of thing," said Anthony, suavely. "You will con- stantly find yourself upsetting my nerves, and I'm not nearly so nice when my feelings are ruffled." Anthony's spirits were rising. He was ex- periencing the exhilaration of an actor who after years of striving is given a star part in which he can revel. Lord Cammarleigh was growing paler and paler. He rose and crossed the room, and, 30 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET pouring some brandy from a flask of old Flemish design into a glass, drank it. His uninvited guest kept on the alert. He had enough psychological instinct to detect at once that the dominant note of Lord Cammarleigh's character was cowardice, and its subdominant note treachery. " How did you find out ? " asked Lord Cam- marleigh, in a low, unsteady voice. Anthony looked at him and smiled indulgently. " I don't think I'll tell you that. In fact, I don't think it would be quite policy on my part. It's quite sufficient that I did find out." Lord Cammarleigh gulped down another glass of brandy. " What do you want ? " he asked at last, feeling somewhat fortified. A dreamy look came into Anthony's eye a look which was almost pathetic. " I want so many things," he said. " It would be quite dreadful if somebody were to ask me to say at once all the things I wanted I should never be able to remember them." "Do you mind coming to the point ?" said Lord Cammarleigh, with quite a show of courage. " Well, to begin with, I want a drink, although I'm sorry for your sake that that will not be all I shall want." He rose and helped himself to brandy. " May I ask you to ring for some soda- water ? " Lord Cammarleigh made a faint movement which might have meant rebellion ; but he modified LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 31 it to a gesture, and indicated a syphon on a table near. " I saw that," said Anthony, coolly, " but it's seltzer, and I don't care for anything but soda. May I ? " He touched the bell. His lordship rose indignantly, thought better of it, and sat down. When the servant appeared he gave the order. "By the way," said Anthony, as the man was leaving the room, " would you mind asking for some cake ? " He had been about to say "biscuits," but he was a little tired of biscuits. <( I am very fond of cake, except those chocolate things with nothing in them but walnuts as large as paving stones. I like cakes with plenty of currants and lemon peel in them." The shadow of a smile flitted across his face at the grave way in which both Cammarleigh and the servant listened to his dissertation on cake. " Will you bring some plum cake, Waters ? " said Lord Cammarleigh, throwing into the request all the dissimulation of a great actor. " Yes, my lord." Waters left the room. " I believe you are mad," said Lord Cammar- leigh. " I may be mad," answered Anthony ; " but I'm not " " Hush ! " said Lord Cammarleigh, in a terrified voice. " I was about to say * bad,' finished Anthony, imperturbably. He wondered if it were his fancy, or whether the grin on the Japanese mask above Lord Cammarleigh's head had broadened in 32 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET full enjoyment of the joke. "If you understood the philosophy of cake, you would know that it is always possible to trust a man who likes plum cake."' Lord Cammarleigh shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "You mustn't be petulant," said Anthony. " A petulant marquis is absurd. Your demeanour should imply ermine, even if a conventional age dresses you in a frock coat." The servant returned with the plum cake, and Anthony cut himself a thick slice, which he began to munch contentedly. " Have you ever been hungry, Lord Cammar- leigh?" Cammarleigh made no answer. It was quite evident that he was still showing temper ; so Anthony rippled on "Perhaps I should have said ( starving.' I have starved, and I was very nearly starving when your servant brought me this plum cake, a good Samaritan in plush breeches." Anthony, who had eaten his first slice of cake in an incredibly short space of time, cut himself another. " Your room is singularly heavy in tone for a guilty conscience. I should have thought something very light, some- thing to remind you always of simplicity and early spring mornings but then I don't suppose I'm quite a judge ; I've not got a guilty con- science. Still, at the same time, I should have thought simple furniture would have been more antiseptic." Lord Cammarleigh shivered. He stretched LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 33 * out one long, nervous, white hand towards the bell. Anthony gave him full time to ring it if he were so minded ; but the hand fell limply by his side. " I thought not. You were going to ring and have me shown out, weren't you ? How silly ! " He rose and went to the glass to arrange his tie, and whilst doing so kept one eye on the marquis's reflection. He thought he saw the gleam of a revolver. He turned without the least excitement and with a winning smile. " Now you know perfectly well that you would have done that at first if you had dared. One doesn't do that sort of thing in our days. You had better give that revolver to me. The want of it will cure you of theatricals." " Don't drive me too far," said Lord Cammarleigh, with some attempt at looking dangerous. " I'm not going to drive you at all. You are a fairy god-mother ; and you are going to drive me all the way to fortune, and " Anthony corrected himself. " No, not that ; because, frankly speaking, I intend to do without you as soon as ever I can." He finished his third piece of cake, drank his brandy and soda, helped himself to another, and, taking a cigarette from a cedar-wood box near, lighted it. Then he settled himself in the lounge with the air of one who had no present intention of bringing his visit to an end. " I have an appointment at half-past five." D 34 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET " Then perhaps you had better send a telegram before we begin." " Look here ! " spluttered Cammarleigh. "Send the telegram," said Anthony, plain- tively. And the telegram was sent. Whilst Cammarleigh was writing it a small oil painting caught Anthony's eye. It was a copy of the Beatrice Cenci. As Lord Cammarleigh was handing the tele- gram to the servant, Anthony crossed to examine the picture more closely. " Strange," he said, turning round as the door closed, " but I have known men who did not admire that face. You do, of course ? " Lord Cammarleigh, appealed to in his weak point, answered " I think it is the most beautiful face in the whole world." " That is exactly what I think ; but, then, it cannot mean to you what it does to me. With men of your wealth the reign of terror must begin very early." Lord Cammarleigh looked at him question- ingly. " Oh, I don't mean that," said Anthony. " I mean another reign of terror the terror of fulfil- ment." He threw himself again on to the lounge. " Now let me put my case in a nutshell. I am, as 1 said before, Anthony Brooke, gentleman. I have neither fortune nor prospects, but many large fortunes are made by the discovery and patenting of secrets. I patent your secret by keeping it to LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 35 myself. I propose, till I have decided what I wish to be, and how and where I wish to live, to remain here as your private secretary. By the way, have you a private secretary ? " I have." Lord Cammarleigh spoke with emphasis, as it to imply that such being the case Anthony must put the idea out of his head ; but he answered instead " Quite so. Poor young man, he will have to go. Never mind, you can compensate him." Lord Cammarleigh pulled himself together by a supreme effort. He rose and crossed to the fireplace with a quite magnificent display of self- possession. " I must ask you to be careful," he said. " Name your price and go." Anthony laughed. " I haven't decided on that point yet, and I am certainly not going. And don't begin talking like a melodramatic heroine, because, you see, there is nothing of the villain about me." " Mr. Brooke " " You may call me Tony, if you like." " Thank you ; I'd rather call you nothing of the kind." " I don't see why not ; I think it's rather a nice name." " Your price." " If you talk to me in that way I shall at once expose you." It seemed to Lord Cammarleigh that there was a faint suggestion of the wild cat in the young man's appearance as he gathered himself together, 3 6 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET almost crouched on the lounge and looked at him with his eyes a little closer together. " Yes," continued Anthony, " the position of your private secretary will suit me admirably. You shall give me a suite of rooms, and I will draw my salary as I want it." They had arrived at the question of money, and Anthony watched Lord Cammarleigh keenly, and detected at once that he winced. " Oh, I shan't ruin you. I'm really much too clever for that." " A suite of rooms here ? Absurd ! " " You surely don't mean to infer that I should be out of place ? Because that would be absurd. I dare say there's just the least taint of the dis- reputable about me. People of the most irre- proachable style get that when they are very hard up something furtive in the eye a nervous movement of the shoulders. I don't know what it is exactly. Can you explain ? " Lord Cammarleigh could not, and said so. " I wonder whether it is that the cut of one's clothes is in such marked contrast to their shabbi- ness. Now, this was quite a nice suit when it was new. I had it made without any pockets or buttons. I have always wanted to do away with pockets and buttons as much as possible, and perhaps now that I am going to be a personage I shall have some influence." Lord Cammarleigh was trying to persuade himself that his uninvited guest was a lunatic, and that the proper thing to do was to have him turned out at once ; but if he really knew LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 37 and at the thought a cold sweat broke out on Lord Cammarleigh's forehead he was entirely in his power. The mere idea of Anthony's being in possession of his secret filled him with such horror that he found himself working hard to keep him in a good temper. "I should think a very nice suit might be made without buttons or pockets," he said soothingly. "Yes ; but don't say it as if you were talking to a child or a lunatic. I want you to think the matter out. But for the moment let us get back to the suite of rooms." Lord Cammarleigh, who was beginning to see that Anthony had no intention of denouncing him as long as he was given his own way to a certain extent, became quite argumentative, and exerted all his diplomacy to getting him out of the house, at any rate, till he had had time to think the matter over. But Anthony saw exactly what his main object was, and fenced with the greatest enjoyment. " Why don't you go and stay at the Metropole, and come and discuss it in the morning, Mr. Brooke ? " suggested Lord Cammarleigh, suavely. " Because if I went to any hotel at all I should go to Claridge's. You may not believe it, but I have a passion for restraint and the unostentatious." " You will find this house very uncomfortable. I only live in it myself because well, because of old associations," concluded Lord Cammarleigh, weakly. Anthony laughed. "You don't know how 38 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET funny the idea of your doing anything for the sake of sentiment is." He was noticing with amuse- ment the vein of conciliatory restraint that ran through all Cammarleigh's remarks. "You might take a flat. One can get very nice furnished flats." " Ah, but, you see, I want to be identified with you. It is that which is going to be the c Open Sesame * to all the pleasant places of this life. I love beautiful women, and you know so many." " I don't as a rule take my secretary every- where." " No ; but you are going to take me. That's just the point. By the way, where is he ? " " He has gone out of town his mother is ill." " So much the better I mean, so much the better that he is gone out of town. Send his luggage after him, together with a year's salary." " A year's salary ? Nonsense ! " " Oh yes, it must be a year's salary. I'm not mean, if you are. And I'm not going to do a fellow-derelict out of a comfortable home without full compensation." Lord Cammarleigh was silent for a moment, and then he turned round, and said firmly Look here " " I am looking," said Anthony. " I haven't taken my eyes off you since you made that silly scene with the revolver." Cammarleigh rose. " I have decided not to put up with this any longer." " If that is really the case I call it very courageous. How shall we go ? " LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 39 " What do you mean ? " " Well, I don't suppose you want to be taken up by an ordinary policeman, do you ? I think you ought at least to rise to the dignity of a man in plain clothes." Lord Cammarleigh turned green. " You know what you are ? " he hissed. Anthony looked at him pityingly. " I believe you are going to say ( blackmailer,' and I don't want you to say that ; I'd much rather go and look over the house." He moved towards the door. For one moment Cammarleigh considered the feasibility of leaping on his persecutor from behind and throttling him. He was almost in the act of doing so when he remembered that perhaps others might know of his whereabouts. He might be one of a gang. Anthony paused, with his hand on the door. " As far as your servants are concerned you had better tell them at once that I am your new secretary, and you might add that I am likely to have a great deal more authority than my pre- decessors. I don't suppose they'll make much comment ; you are the sort of man who is always having new secretaries." They went out of the room, and Cammarleigh, feeling that it was best to put a pleasant face on the matter, attempted with some difficulty to equal Anthony in light conversation. The house was not unlike many other town mansions of the nobility, frankly hideous outside, very magnificent inside. It was not only in rich- ness that the difference consisted ; there was an 40 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET absolute contrast of style. The splendid marble staircase, branching off to right and left ; the corridors with their arched ceilings, the exquisite bronzes and statuary, had hardly been suggested by the flat, unpretending exterior. The ugliness of the outside and the magnificence of the inside were characteristic of the tendency of wealth to keep everything for itself, coupled with a politic desire to conceal its splendour from the poor. On the landing at the top of the first flight of stairs a magnificent copy in marble of The Laocoon was flooded by the evening sun, which came through painted glass. In the centre of the hall was a fountain from Hadrian's villa with an Antinous brooding over the waters. Two extra- ordinarily fine Turners faced each other from the walls on each side of the Laocoon. They ascended to the first floor. " I suppose there are no bedrooms on this floor ? " " Hardly," said Cammarleigh. " There are nothing but reception rooms here." " I suppose so. I hope," he added, " that I am not making you feel like a landlady trying to secure a good lodger. You can't think what a change all this will be to me. I've been living in one room and a very small room at that." They went over the first floor, through one drawing-room after another. Anthony realised at once what a perfect background they must make for a gathering of distinguished men and beautiful women. The tall windows, with their LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 41 heavy curtains of old rose brocade, the exquisite inlaid floors, the walls, panelled with opulent silks, subdued in tone, responded admirably to the Louis Quinze furniture. Anthony had never been in such a room as this in his life, but he knew that he ought to have been, for he felt sensuously at home. " You know, Cammarleigh," he said pleasantly, " to find oneself in a room like this is to wake out of an ugly dream. I wish you could be poor for a year. It would do you so much good or harm 1 don't quite know which." They went on to the next floor. " I suppose you sleep here ? " Lord Cammarleigh was trying in vain to surmount a very natural sulkiness. He felt that it would be infinitely more dignified to reply to Anthony's light conversation with equal banter. He found it difficult, however. " These are my rooms," he said. " You don't propose to turn me out of them, do you ? " It was a clumsy pleasantry, and Anthony looked quite hurt. "Cammarleigh, don't. You hurt me you really do. Have I done anything which is wanting in taste ? " " I was only joking," answered Cammarleigh, penitently. " I know ; but I shouldn't try to joke just yet, if I were you. You know you don't feel like it. Take me seriously for a time, and you'll feel more like joking afterwards. I should like to see your rooms, though." 42 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET There were four of them : a bathroom, a bedroom, a dressing-room, and a room that a middle-class woman would have called a boudoir. " In case you don't feel like showing up, I suppose, even to the members of your house- hold ? " said Anthony, as he looked round the latter room approvingly. " I breakfast here. I hate meeting people in the early morning." " I'm glad of that. I hope you won't want me to answer your letters at sunrise, or anything of that kind." " You can't very well answer them before the postman comes." " No, of course not. I never thought of that. How clever of you ! " They ascended to the next story. " I think," said Anthony, " it will look more respectful if I sleep on the floor above you." He made for the rooms that were just over Lord Cammarleigh's. " Were these rooms your late secretary's ? " "He slept at the back," said Lord Cammar- leigh, tartly. " Did he ? Poor young man he would ! But I don't think I should like to sleep at the back." " It was good enough for him," answered Cammarleigh, "and he belonged to a younger branch of the family." " Cammarleigh, how vulgar of you ! I don't belong to any particular family, so I at least escape the humiliation of being a poor relation." LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 43 " He slept at the back," answered Lord Cam- marleigh, sulkily. " Ah ; but he didn't know," began Anthony. " S-sh ! " said Cammarleigh, hastily. Any inclination on Anthony's part to expatiate on the dreaded subject was sufficient to make him turn ashen. " Do I sleep in the back or the front ? " asked Anthony, sweetly. " Sleep where you like," answered Cammar- leigh, shortly. Anthony inspected the rooms thoroughly. " I don't think it would look quite respectful," he said, " if I had as many rooms as you, so I'll have one less, and I'll do without a sitting-room. Oh, stay, though, I can call it a workroom, can't I ? And then it won't matter my having four rooms, after all." " I am sure you will find them very nice," said Cammarleigh, hastily. He was evidently anxious to get out of the room, and Anthony's unerring instinct detected why. " If you hadn't been in such a hurry, Cammar- leigh, I might not have noticed that the rooms want redecorating." "They were only done up two years ago," protested the marquis. " Yes, but they were done up for somebody who belonged to a younger branch of the family. Now they are going to be done up for me. Besides, the fashions in decoration move at such a rate. I don't think a preference for living amongst beautiful surroundings is a sign of 44 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET effeminacy, do you ? But of course you don't ; if you did your own rooms would not be in such perfect taste." " I think people should regard what is suitable to their station," said Cammarleigh, with a stiff upper lip and a last attempt to assert his expiring dignity and put Anthony in his place. " Station station ? " said Anthony, vaguely. " You're not thinking of flight, are you Victoria and Waterloo, and all that sort of thing ? " " You know I'm not," said Cammarleigh, pettishly. They went downstairs again, and Cammar- leigh, at Anthony's suggestion, sent for Mr. Gregsbury, the butler, and explained the new secretary's arrival and status. " Another of 'em ? I wonder how long Vll stop ! " was Mr. Gregsbury's reflection. As he was going, Anthony whispered some- thing to Cammarleigh. Cammarleigh had the genius of an aristocrat for making the best of an unpleasant situation, and he addressed Gregsbury as though what he was saying was quite of his own inspiration. " My doctor has advised me, Gregsbury, to concern myself as little as possible with my business affairs. Mr. Brooke will have absolute control over this house." Mr. Gregsbury paused and glanced at An- thony. The latter managed to throw into a sweet smile just enough of the fellow-conspirator to convey to Mr. Gregsbury that so long as he did not interfere with the new secretary, the new LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 45 secretary would not interfere with him. They understood one another, and Mr. Gregsbury withdrew. "And now," said Anthony, "what about money ? " Cammarleigh shivered. It was his weak point. The mere idea that he was to be finan- cially at the mercy of this youth, with an obvious capacity for extravagance, was terrifying. The owner of such a figure would place no limit to the clothes with which he would adorn it. He would probably want a motor-car of his own. Even if he were content with one belonging to his host it would be very inconvenient. The more he looked at Anthony the more nervous he became. He wondered if his knowledge were as complete as he pretended. Anthony saw that he was get- ting feverish, and, being of a sympathetic nature, was disinclined to harry him further for the moment. "Perhaps," he said kindly, "you have had enough for one day. Write me a cheque for two hundred and fifty, and " For one moment Cammarleigh thought that Anthony was going to offer to relieve him of his presence. "And I'll leave the question of finances till to-morrow." Cammarleigh could not help reflecting that if he wanted two hundred and fifty pounds to carry him over till the next morning his demands would amount to something like fifteen hundred a week. He broke out into a cold sweat. 46 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET " By the way, what is your income, Cammar- leigh?" " Incomes are never what they profess to be on paper, you know." Anthony shook his forefinger reprovingly. " Come, come. Don't prevaricate. What is your income ? " " It's supposed to be eighty thousand a year, but what with one expense and another " " I shall deal with it," said Anthony, " as if it were eighty thousand." Lord Cammarleigh groaned. " You are not writing the cheque for two hundred and fifty," said Anthony, gently. " You don't know the terrible charges " " Why anticipate terrible charges ? If they take place it will be entirely your own fault." " I was going to say," continued Cammar- leigh, irritably, " that you don't know the terrible charges there are on my income." Oh ! " " There is my sister, Lady Editha. I have to pay her two thousand a year, and my aunt, the Duchess of Kilburn Kilburn is as rich as he can be ; but, all the same, she takes the money." " Why didn't they get a lump sum down ? " said Anthony. " I don't know, but they didn't. And then there's Cammarleigh Abbey to keep up. It's only fit to be a royal palace." " How nice ! " said Anthony. " I shall like that." " No, you won't," said Cammarleigh, " because LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET 47 I hardly ever open it, and when I do I only open one wing of it." " Well, it's never too late to mend," said Anthony, cheerfully. " And there's " began Cammarleigh. " Cammarleigh, you are not writing that cheque." " Won't a hundred do ? " " No ; I'm afraid it won't." " You can't spend two hundred and fifty between now and to-morrow." " Can't I ? You don't know anything about me. By the way," he added, " the banks are shut ! " " Of course they are." " And I must order some clothes between now and dinner ! Who is your tailor ! " Cammarleigh mentioned a firm of European reputation. " Simply no good to me," said Anthony. " They are the sort of people who would consider it bad form to have one's clothes too well cut. After all, the decadents are the only people who know how to dress. Well, give me the cheque and a few fivers to go on with." Cammarleigh, with a sigh, crossed to his desk, and, unlocking a little drawer, took out a pocket- book. He turned his back on Anthony, so that what he was doing should not be seen, and after some fumbling handed him two five-pound notes. " I am afraid that is all I have about me," he said quite sweetly. 48 LORD CAMMARLEIGH'S SECRET " Strictly speaking, I dare say that's true ; but you've got some more in that drawer." " Have I ? " asked Cammarleigh, weakly.