CHAPTER II

After lunch, on that day of days, with Hail Smiling Joss as my sponsor,
excuse, and loud note of introduction, I “proceeded,” as they say in the
British Navy, to the great house of Brandon Abbas, after so feasting the
excellent dog that it seemed highly probable she would again lose
herself in the direction of High Gables.

Up a few miles of avenue of Norman oaks I tramped, from the Lodge at the
gates guarded by heraldic beasts well known to students of Unnatural
History—the Returning Wanderer straining at the leash and obviously
striving to compose her features to a mask of becoming gravity, tempered
by gladness while chastened by shame.

Arrived at a large square of mossy gravel surrounded by a dense
shrubbery, I beheld a great porch and an open door through which I had,
in passing, a glimpse of a panelled hall, gleaming floor, and suits of
armour. A passing glimpse, because it was clearly obvious that Joss
intended me to pass, and my will was not brought into conflict with
hers, as I heard shouts and peals of laughter from the band of whom I
was in search.

Guided by the now excited dog, I crossed a rose-garden and, by a path
through some great old elms and beeches, reached an open space of turf
which was a view-point overlooking half the county.

As we burst from the gloom of the wood into the sunshine, a hubbub
arose; the four, now augmented by several others, converged upon me,
and, with a shriek of joy, as she sped forward ahead of the rest, the
little girl literally flung herself upon me, threw her arms about my
neck, and kissed me warmly. Truth compels me to add that she promptly
did precisely the same to the errant Joss, who instantly abandoning her
expression, pose, and air of a Misunderstood-but-Hopeful-Dog, stood upon
her hind legs, her paws against her mistress, wagged her tail and her
tongue, and smiled and smiled to the point of laughter.

“Oh, Stout Fella!” cried Beau. “Splendid! Good scout!”

“Put it right there, Mr. Daniel Boone—or are you Kit Carson? Or Buffalo
Bill? Or the Pathfinder?… Anyhow, you’re the Dogfinder,” said Digby,
extending his hand, and wringing mine powerfully…. “A father’s thanks
… The Prodigal Dog … Good mind to _kill_ the fat-headed calf!” and
seizing the dog in his arms, he rolled upon the ground in apparently
terrific combat with the savage beast, who, with horrid growls and
furious barks, worried the throat of her fiercely-stabbing antagonist,
and bloodlessly bit him with all her canine teeth.

“In the end, I die, having saved all your lives from a mad dog, and so
find a hero’s grave,” announced Digby…. “The dog was born mad,” he
added, and lay motionless, while the Andorran Oyster-Hound surveyed her
tooth-work, wagged her tail joyously, and seated herself upon the chest
of her victim.

The youngest brother, meanwhile, having slipped his hand inside my arm,
while he critically watched the progress of the fight, stood by my side
as I waited—holding the grubby little paw which Isobel had thrust into
my hand—and feeling unreasoningly and unreasonably happy.

“I say,” said the boy, “you ought to join the Band. Will you? Would you
like to?”

“Oh _yes_,” chimed in Isobel. “_Do_, American Boy…. Have you ever been
tortured by Indians, or been the Victim of a Cruel Fate, like Mazeppa?
Do you think we might roast you at the stake?… We’ve all got mustangs,
and Joss is quite a good wolf or coyote. She’s being a wolf now, and
she’s not mad at all—not even half-witted.”

“Not nearly half,” agreed Digby, arising. “Er—this is—er—the
Captain—Michael Geste, Captain of the Band. I am Digby Geste,
Lieutenant of the Band. The object on your right hand is John Geste, or
Very Small Geste, or Not-Much-of the Band. The female prisoner is Isobel
Rivers, the Music of the Band. The beautiful woman enthroned yonder is
Claudia, Queen of the Band; and the gentleman at present struck dumb by
toffee-on-the-jaw, is Augustus Brandon, and can’t be helped. I may add
that, as you doubtless suppose, he is not such a fool as he looks. How
could he be?… The small fat boy and girl on the pony are twins,
Marmaduke and—er—Marmaduchess. Marmaduke’s step-mother, who eats
vinegar with a fishhook three times a day, says he is Wholly Bad. We
call him the Wholly of Whollies. Marmaduchess is of course the Roly of
Polies…. These camp followers—scampfollowers—er—no, that won’t do,
as they follow the Captain, are Honorary Members of the Band. In view of
your great services, I have the pleasure …”

“You’ll have the pleasure of bread-and-water and six of the best, if you
don’t take a holiday,” interrupted the Captain of the Band, and
proceeded most warmly to invite me to become an Honorary Member of “Beau
Geste’s Band,” and to take part in all its doings, for so long as the
country was enriched by my presence, and whenever my inclinations
prompted me so to do.

Gratefully accepting the Band’s hospitality, I was initiated and
enrolled, and quickly appointed stage-manager of its activities in its
Western American manifestations, and became its authority upon the dark
ways of Red Indians, Bad Men, Buffalo Bills, Cow-boys, Deadwood Dicks,
and other desperadoes.

I won my spurs (but did not wear them) by finding myself able to catch,
mount, and ride a horse that was loose in the paddock. A horse that had
never been ridden before and apparently intended never to be ridden
again….

After a most delightful tea with these extraordinarily charming young
people, I walked back to High Gables feeling happier, I think, than I
had ever felt in my life. It was a rather wonderful thing to me, a
lonely stranger in a strange land—for there was nobody but my
Grandmother and her servants at High Gables—suddenly to find myself a
member of so attractive a society, a family so friendly, so welcoming,
so uncritically hospitable that, almost on sight, they had admitted me
to membership of their Band, with all the privileges attaching
thereto….

But as I lay awake in bed that night, the picture most vividly before me
was the beautiful face of the darling child who had given me that sweet
spontaneous kiss of gratitude and innocence.

It surely was the nicest thing that had ever happened to me.

§2

I shall be believed when I state that I missed few opportunities of
accepting the warm invitation to “come again soon” which invariably
accompanied the farewells at the end of each of my visits to Brandon
Abbas. The more I saw of the three Gestes, the better I liked them, and
I knew that I could never see too much, nor indeed enough, of Isobel
Rivers—that lovely little fairy; charming and delightful child;
ineffably sweet, and absorbingly interesting, little friend….

Of the boys, I liked John best; for, in addition to all the attributes
which he possessed in common with his brilliant brothers, he was, to me,
slightly pathetic in his dog-like devotion to the twins, who ruled him
with a rod of iron, chastened and chastised him for the good of his
soul, kept him in subjection, and loved him utterly. In return for their
unwavering and undemonstrated love, he gave them worship. They would
have died for him, and he would have died under torture for them.

Yet, at the same time, I like Beau enormously; for his splendour—and it
was nothing less—of mind, body and soul; his unselfish sweetness and
gentleness, and his extraordinary “niceness” to everybody, including
myself. Even when he had occasion to punish a member of his Band, it
appeared to me that the victim of his arbitrary justice rather enjoyed
the honour of being singled out, even for admonition and the laying on
of hands….

But then, again, I liked Digby as much; for his unfailing mirth and
happiness. He was a walking chuckle, and those who walked through life
with him chuckled too. He was merriment personified; his day was a
smile; and if he fell on his head from the top of a tree, the first use
he made of his recovered breath was to laugh at the extraordinarily
amusing funniness of Digby Geste’s falling thirty feet and nearly
breaking his neck…. He was the most genuinely and spontaneously
cheerful person I ever met, and somehow one always laughed when Digby
began to laugh, without waiting for the joke.

Isobel was their pet, their fairy, their mascot, their dear perfect
play-mate; and Claudia was their Queen—“Queen Claudia, of Beau Geste’s
Band”—held in the highest honour and esteem. They loved and obeyed
Claudia; but they petted and adored Isobel.

I suppose Claudia was of an immaculately flawless beauty, charm, and
grace of form and face, even as a young girl—but personally I never
liked her. There was a slight hardness, a self-consciousness and an
element of selfishness in her character, that were evident—to me at any
rate, though not, I think, to the others. Certainly not to Michael
Geste, for she was obviously his _beau idéal_ of girlhood, and he, her
self-constituted paladin and knight-errant. When they played
“tournaments” she was always the Queen of Beauty, and he her Champion,
ready, willing and able, to dispose of all who disputed his (or her)
claim that she was the loveliest damsel in all the world….

Nor could I like Lady Brandon, fascinating as she was to most. She was
kind, gracious and hospitable to me, and I was grateful—but _like_ her
I could not. She was an absolute re-incarnation of “Good” Queen Bess,
and I do not think any living woman could have better impersonated Queen
Elizabeth than she, whether on the stage or off. Although beautiful in
her way, she was astoundingly like the portraits of that great
unscrupulous Queen, and, in my belief, she resembled her in character.
She was imperious, clever, hard, “managing” and capable. She was very
queenly in appearance and style, given to the cherishing of
favourites—Michael and Claudia especially—and extremely jealous. She
was a woman of strong character and could be both ruthless and
unscrupulous. At least, that is the impression I formed of Lady
Brandon—and I am very intuitive, as well as being a student of
physiognomy, and possessed of a distinct gift for reading character.

No, I disliked Lady Brandon and I distrusted her—and I thought that she
and Claudia were not unlike in character…. I was very intrigued when
my Grandmother dryly remarked, “Henry VIII is, I believe the ‘_Rex_’ of
Brandon ‘_Regis_’ ” when, in reply to a question of hers anent Lady
Brandon, I had observed, “She reminds me of Queen Elizabeth….”

She resembled the Queen, too, in her power of inspiring great love in
men, a noble love, worthy of a nobler object….

On one of my visits to the Band, I was scolded for my absence of several
days—I had been to London, on business of my Father’s—and told that I
had missed the chance of a lifetime, a chance of seeing and hearing a
veritable Hero of Romance, a French officer of Spahis, son of a senior
school friend of Lady Brandon’s, who had been week-ending at Brandon
Abbas, and who had for ever endeared himself to the children, by his
realistic and true tales of Desert warfare, and of adventures in
mysterious and romantic Morocco.

Promptly we ceased to be Red Indians, Knights of the Round Table,
Crusaders, Ancient Britons, Big Game Hunters, or anything else but
Spahis and Arabs, and the three Gestes and I spent a portion of our
lives in charging—mounted on two ponies, a donkey and a
carriage-horse—a _douar_ of gorse-bushes stoutly defended by a garrison
of Arabs clad in towels, sheets and night-shirts and armed with
pea-shooters, bows and arrows, lances, swords and spears, toy rifles and
pistols which made more sound than sorrow….

The Band certainly “lived dangerously,” but accidents were few and
slight, and the absolute freedom permitted to the children, as soon as
morning lessons with the Chaplain were finished, was really not abused.
Being trusted, they were trustworthy, and the Captain led the Band not
into temptation irresistible, nor into more than right and reasonable
danger.

This chaplain was a puzzle to me. I felt certain he was essentially
good, honourable and well-meaning; but he struck me, in my youthful
intolerance, as being too weak and feeble in character to be worthy of
the name of man. Certainly he was well-placed in the skirted cassock
that he wore; and that, together with his sweet and gentle face and
manner, seemed to put him in a class apart—neither man nor woman, just
sexless priest. He loved the children devotedly—and was more like a
mother than a father to them. Lady Brandon, he obviously adored. He too,
was one of this queenly and imperious woman’s favourites, and her
handsome face would soften to a great gentleness when she walked and
talked with him upon the terrace.

It was an extraordinarily interesting household, and when the time came
for me to return home and prepare to go to Harvard, I was extremely
sorry.

It was with a slight lump in my throat that I spent my last afternoon
with the Band, and with a miserable turmoil in my heart that I said
good-bye to them. They, too, seemed genuinely sorry that I was going,
and seriously considered John’s proposal that they should accompany me
_en masse_, at least as far as Wyoming, where they might remain and
adopt the profession of cow-puncher.

I think I walked back to High Gables that afternoon as quickly as I had
ever walked in my life, for I was trying to walk away from myself, from
my misery, from the sense of utter loss and desolation.

I was astounded at myself…. Why was I feeling this way? What had
happened to me? I had not felt so wretched, so bereaved, so filled with
a sense of loss and loneliness, since my Mother died…. I was like a
man who, stricken with some sudden mortal pain, strives to account for
it, and cannot do so….

Isobel had put her arms round my neck and kissed me good-bye.

“You _will_ come back soon, nice American Boy?” she had said. And I had
positively been unable to answer anything at all. I could only laugh and
nod my head in assent.

That night, being absolutely unable to sleep, I rose from my bed,
dressed, and, creeping quietly from the house, walked to Brandon Abbas
to see, as I told myself, how that ancient pile looked by the light of
the full moon….

* * * * *

Next day I began my journey, suffering horribly from
home-sickness—sickness for the home of my heart—Brandon Abbas. Each
mile that I was carried, by train and ship and train again, from that
lovely place, increased my misery, and when at length I reached my
Father’s ranch, I had hard work to hide it from my sister Mary, that
dear determined and forceful young woman. My Father—my hard,
overbearing, autocratic Father—was not given to noticing whether others
were wretched or not, and my kid sister, Janey, was too young. Noel, the
eldest of our family, was still “missing,” and my Father professed
neither to know nor to care where he was….

However, I soon began to enjoy my sweet unhappiness, and I lived on
horseback until the day came when I must go East to college, and leave
this free and glorious open-air life behind me.

As a matter of fact, I went willingly enough, for I loved books, and
desired above all things to become a fine scholar…. I considered “My
mind to me a kingdom is,” to be a grand saying if one could say it (to
oneself only, of course) with real truth…. I could never understand
Noel’s flat refusal to study anything but horses, Nature, and the lore
of the Indian and the Plainsman; nor his oft-expressed view that
education is not of books but of life. Nothing, according to Noel, could
educate one for life except life itself; and books and schooling could
but educate one for more schooling and books, the examination-hall, and
the realms of false values. And yet he read the books that he liked, my
wonderful brother Noel—but to school and college he would not go, and
thither not even my dynamic and violent Father could drive him.

“Honour thy father and thy mother” … We could not do otherwise than
honour Mother, as well as love her almost to the point of adoration.

What shall I say of my terrible Father? We did honour him. We respected
him and most certainly we obeyed him—all of us but Noel, that is. Noel
ceased to obey him as soon as he was big and old enough to stand up for
Mother.

His refusal to go to school and college was, I believe, due to his wish,
that he might be near her and take her part. Nor did he leave home until
the day when he found that in his wrath he had pulled his gun on Dad,
and realized that he had to choose between that sort of thing—and
departure.

He departed, and returned after a quarter of a century in such wise as I
shall relate.

My Father was not a bad man. He was a very “good” one. He was not cruel,
vicious, nor vindictive; but he was a terror and a tyrant. He crushed
his wife and broke her spirit, and he turned his children into rebels,
or terrified “suggestibles.”

Noel and Mary were rebels. Janey and I were cowed and terrified.

Of all the marvellous deeds for which, as a child, I worshipped Noel,
his defiance of my Father, was to me by far the most wonderful.

At different times, my Father in his austerity and tenacity reminded me
of Abraham Lincoln; in his rugged and ferocious “piety,” of the prophet
Elijah, John Wesley, Brigham Young, and John Knox. There was something
in him, too, of Mr. Gladstone, of Theodore Roosevelt, and a good deal of
William Jennings Bryan at his most oratorical, most narrow, and most
dogmatic.

And there was undoubtedly something in him of King David of Jerusalem.
Yes, most undoubtedly there were many points of strong resemblance
between my Father and that brave, strong, wily man, that pious and
passionate king.

And a king, in his own wide realm, my father was, brooking scarcely a
suggestion, much less a contradiction, from any man—a king terribly and
unhappily aware of the state of sin in which lived all his subjects,
especially those of his own household.

He believed that the Bible had been dictated—in English of course—by
God, and that to take it other than literally was damnation and death.
He almost flogged Noel _to_ death when, at the age of sixteen or so, the
latter impiously dared to wonder how Noah gathered in both the polar
bears _and_ the kangaroos, for his menagerie, and how he built the
fifty-thousand-ton liner necessary for the accommodation of all the
animals and their food.

This was after Father’s return from a trip to Europe to buy a
twenty-thousand-dollar pedigree prize Hereford bull, and the finest
pure-bred Arab stallion that money could purchase.

During his absence, Noel had caught out the overseer, a pious-seeming
hypocritical rascal, in whom Father firmly believed; had thrashed him,
and run him off the Ranch.

Undoubtedly Noel had saved Father a great deal of money and unmasked an
unmitigated rascal, and for this, I verily believe, Father hated him the
more, and never forgave him.

Yes, Father certainly spoilt Noel’s life and made him the wanderer that
he became.

To this day, when I have a nightmare, and I have a good many, it is
generally of a terrible conflict with my Father, and I awake sweating
and trembling with indignation, rage and horror.

For, in the dream, he always rushes at me, bawling invective, his face
inflamed with rage, and, seizing me by the throat he raises his
cutting-whip to thrash the wickedness out of me, as he so often did in
reality. And, to my horror, I find myself clenching my fist to smash
that mask of mad ferocity, and then I realize that I am about to strike
my own Father, in my indignation that I, a grown man, should be treated
thus.

It sounds nothing, but it is a _dreadful_ dream.

“Honour thy father” … I believe that Mother worshipped him and feared
him, and I believe that I, subconsciously, hated him most bitterly,
while I consciously respected and feared him.

To the world, our little western world, he was a great man—a man of his
word, a strong man, a dangerous man to cross, a good friend and a bad
enemy.

One of Mary’s _obiter dicta_ on the subject of Father sheds a great
light on his strong and complex character.

“Father has never done wrong in his life,” said she, “for whatever
Father does is right—in the sight of Father.”

Mary inherited much of Father’s strength and force of will, as well as
much of Mother’s attractiveness.

She was a girl of character, and what she set her heart on, she got. If
Father’s strength were that of granite, iron and adamant, hers was the
strength of tempered steel, for she was pliant and knew when to bend
that she might not break. She managed Father and refused to be crushed.
Where Noel openly defied and fought him, she secretly defied and
out-manœuvred him.

Father certainly loved her—as men do their daughters—and I think Mary
loved him, up to a point.

§3

Much as I enjoyed everything, from books to base-ball, at glorious
Harvard, I found myself obsessed with the desire to visit England again.
Nor was it wholly due to a yearning to see the fine face of my
kindly-caustic Grandmother Hankinson once more. Greatly I yearned to
revisit Brandon Regis at the earliest opportunity—for Brandon Regis is
but a pleasant walk from Brandon Abbas.

I wanted to see the Geste boys again—and I wanted to see Isobel….
That’s the plain fact of the matter—I wanted to see Isobel. Every
single separate day of my life I wanted to see her.

I do not say that, during my Harvard years, I mooned about in a hopeless
state of calf-love, a ridiculous young sentimentalist, nor that her
lovely little face came ever and ever between me and the printed page,
and was always in my mind, sleeping and waking, playing and working—but
I certainly admit that I thought of her regularly….

It was my practice nightly, on laying my head on the pillow, to project
my mind to the Park of Brandon Abbas, and to enter into a lovely secret
kingdom of my own, and there to dwell, happy, remote, and in lovely
peace, until I fell asleep.

This kingdom was shared by Isobel, and we two—devoted friends—did
delightful things together; had wonderful talks; explored a world of
utter beauty; and walked hand-in-hand in a fairyland of joy and fun and
laughter….

I am not sure but that this was my real life, at that time; this and the
dreams that followed almost invariably, when I fell asleep. Certainly,
it was so real that I looked forward to it each day, and if not
consciously doing so, was always half-aware and semi-conscious of
something delightful that was in store for me, something good and sweet
and precious, something “nice” that was coming to me. And when I
analysed this feeling of joyous promise I found that it was my soul’s
anticipation of its visit to the Kingdom of Enchantment where Isobel
would meet me and we would walk and talk and laugh together in our
Paradise Unlost.

When a sleep-dream followed the consciously induced day-dream, I always
awoke from it to minutes of ineffable happiness, a happiness experienced
at no other time and in no other way…. I felt _good_…. And I
realized how singularly blessed was Otis H. Vanbrugh, above other men.
Nor did the corollary escape me—how incumbent it was upon me to keep
myself fit to enter our lovely secret kingdom, and worthy to meet Isobel
there.

I do not think that what are supposed to be the inevitable and terrible
temptations of wealthy young men at College, existed for me at all. Late
hours would have been hours that made me late for the Secret Garden; the
odour of wine was not one that would mingle favourably with that of the
dewy roses there; nor could one who was daily privileged to commune with
Isobel, find the faintest possible charm or attraction in the halls of
the Paphian dames…. So I filled my days with work, read hard and
played hard, lived dangerously when living in the West, pursued with
ardour there the study of International Law and of the ways of the
mountain lion and of the grizzly bear, and earned the warm approval of
my brave and hardy sister, Mary….

And imagine if you can, the frame of mind in which, at the end of my
College days, I sailed for Europe—on a visit to a life-long friend of
my Father’s, who was then our Ambassador to France—and incidentally to
visit my Grandmother at Brandon Regia….

* * * * *

As I stepped from the Southampton-London boat-train at Waterloo
Terminus, another train was in the act of departure from the opposite
side of the same platform, and gliding forward with slowly increasing
speed. At a window, waving a handkerchief to three young men, was a
girl, and, with a queer constriction of the heart, a rush of blood to
the head, and a slight trembling of the whole body, I realized that the
girl was Isobel Rivers—the child Isobel, grown up to most lovely
girlhood … wonderfully the same and yet different…. She had put her
hair up….

In the baggage-car of my own train were my cabin-trunks and
portmanteaux. In the hands of a porter were already my suit-case and
grip. Without ceremony, I rushed across that broad platform, threading
my way through the crowd like a football-forward in a hurry. As I
reached the now quickly-moving train, seized a door-handle and ran
swiftly while I turned it, an official of some sort made a grab at me
and shouted, “Stand back! You can’t get in there, sir,” in fiercely
indignant remonstrance, not so much at my daring to break my neck as at
my daring to break a railway bye-law.

“Hi! You can’t get in there,” he roared again.

“Watch me,” I replied, eluding him, and swung myself on to the
foot-board as the door came open…. “I won’t hurt your train,” I
shouted back, as he was left gesticulating in sorrow and in anger, at
the end of the platform.

In the compartment that I then entered, were three Englishmen and an
Englishwoman. Not one of them looked up as I took my seat, nor spoke to
me nor to each other during the long hours of non-stop run that
ensued….

Wonderful people, the English!…

And there I sat in that antediluvian non-corridor car through those long
hours, my baggage abandoned, my hotel reservation unclaimed, my
destination unknown; but with the knowledge that Isobel Rivers and I
were in the same train and that I should speak to her just as soon as
that prehistoric Flying Dutchman, or Roaring Rocket, reached its
destination or first stopping-place.

In spite of cold, hunger, disorientation, and a certain slight anxiety
as to the ultimate fate of my baggage, those were, I verily believe,
among the happiest hours of my life; and when the train slowed down—it
must have slowed down, I suppose, though no change of speed was to me
perceptible—to decant its phlegmatic inhabitants at Exeter, I, the last
man into that train, was certainly the first man out.

§4

Isobel, I am most perfectly sure, was really unfeignedly glad to see me,
and Lady Brandon very kindly pretended to be. I knew that Isobel was
glad because, as she recognized me, that wonderful sparkle—a kind of
dancing light, that indescribable lighting-up, as though with an
internal illumination, that always signalized and beautified her
joy—came into her eyes. One reads of people dancing with pleasure and
jumping for joy. Isobel did not do these things, but her eyes did, and
one could always tell when a gift or a jest or any happening had given
her real pleasure, by watching her eyes.

I had often heard John Geste say “_That’ll_ make Isobel’s eyes shine”
when there was something amusing to tell her, or some piece of good
news; and I thought to myself that surely no-one could conceive a more
glorious and wonderful way of spending his life than in bringing this
beautiful light to Isobel’s eyes.

Imagine, if you can, the joy that it gave me to realize that I had been
able to do it now.

“Why,” she said as I approached and raised my hat, “the nice American
boy!… Oh, how lovely!… The boys _will_ be sorry,” and she gave me
both her hands in the most delightful and friendly manner.

Lady Brandon gave me both fingers in a less spontaneous and friendly
manner that was nevertheless quite pleasant, and—God bless her—invited
me to share their compartment in the train to Brandon Abbas and their
carriage which would meet them there. She displayed none of the surprise
that she must certainly have felt on learning that there was no luggage
problem, as I had no luggage. Beneath her half-kindly, half-satirical
gaze, I did my best to conceal the fact that, on catching sight of
Isobel, I had abandoned everything but hope, and dashed from one train
to the other.

I do not know whether selected prophets, such as Elijah, ever found
ecstatic joy in their rides in fiery chariots and similar celestial
vehicles, but I do know that my short ride by train and carriage with
Isobel, was to me the highest summit of ecstatic joy—a pure happiness
utterly indescribable and incommunicable—the higher, the greater, and
the lovelier for its purity. And it was not until I was deposited at
High Gables after leaving Isobel and Lady Brandon at Brandon Abbas, that
my soaring spirit came down to earth, and, it having come to earth, I
was faced with the problem of explaining my unheralded arrival and the
absence of further provision than a walking-stick and one glove. Also,
alas, with the realization that I should not see Isobel again, as she
and Lady Brandon were going to Wales on the morrow, and, later on, to
Scotland on a round of visits. They had been staying in London with the
boys, who were now setting off for a walking-tour in Normandy.

However, _I had seen Isobel_ and received confirmation—if confirmation
were needed—of the fact that not only was she the most marvellous thing
in all the world, but that everything else in the world would be as
nothing in the balance against her.

* * * * *

I have mentioned this trivial and foolish little incident—which ended
next day with my return to London and the pursuit of my baggage—because
it was on this night, as I lay awake, that there came to me the great,
the very greatest, idea of my life—the idea that I might conceivably,
with the help of God and every nerve and fibre of my being, some day,
somehow, contrive to make myself worthy to love Isobel and
then—incredibly—to be loved by Isobel, and actually to devote my life
to doing that of which I had thought when her eyes sparkled and shone at
seeing me.

It is curious and true that the idea had never occurred to me before,
and I had never envisaged the possibility of such a thing as not only
loving her, but being loved by her in return, and of actually walking
hand in hand along the path of life in the spirit of sweet and lovely
companionship, as we did nightly in our Dream Garden…. And there, I
remember, a little chill fell upon my heart and checked my fond
imaginings, as it occurred to me for the first time that the Dream
Garden was a creation of my dreams alone, and not of Isobel’s as well.
There we met and talked and walked and were dear friends, with a reality
as great as that of anything in my real and waking life—but of course,
it was only _my_ dream, and the real Isobel knew nothing of the Dream
Garden.

But did she know nothing? Why should I assume that?

Suppose—only suppose—that she dreamed it, too! Suppose Isobel had this
curious and wonderful double life, as I had, and met me in her dreams
precisely as I met her, night by night! Absurd, of course, but much too
lovely an idea to discard with even pretended contempt. I would ask her
the very next time I saw her. How unutterably wonderful if she could
tell me that it was so!… Moreover, if it _were_ so, it would mean
_that she loved me_—and, at this, even I laughed at my own folly. Still
I would ask her the very next time we met….

But the next time we met, I asked her something else.