Chapter D: Appleton and Company (10)

“Very well then,” said June vexedly, “if you won’t, you won’t. And I shall present that picture to the nation in your name, and then you won’t have a penny to live on and you’ll have to go on working in a shop all your life for a small wage to make other people rich, instead of being able to study and travel and make yourself a great artist.”

She felt sure the half nelson was on him now. Even he, dreamer that he was, must really bend to the force of pure reasoning! Beyond a doubt she had got him. But he was not playing quite fair it seemed. With one of his little dancing blushes that would have been deadly in a girl, he was forced to own that he had not put all his cards on the table.

To June’s sheer amazement he was keeping a little matter of twelve hundred a year or so up his sleeve.

“Didn’t know you had a rich aunt,” said June amazedly.

“Not my rich aunt. Your rich uncle.” The odd creature grew tawnier, more girl-like than ever.

June lacking a clue as yet could only frown. “Come again. I don’t get you.” It was not the Miss Babraham idiom, but with her patience giving out and a new strength and sanity in her veins, she was in danger of forgetting, just for a moment, that she was an honoured guest in the most famous Italian garden in Surrey.

Nevertheless in the very height of the eclipse a light shone. One of the advantages of a mind really practical is, that when it turns to financial matters, it works automatically at very high pressure. June’s brow was cleft with the harrow of thought. “Do you mean to say,” she figured slowly out, “that Uncle Si has left you all his property?”

“His lawyers say so.” The voice of William had a slight tremor.

“If his lawyers say so it is so,” said June with imperious finality.

A pause of which a thrush, a blackbird and an entire orchestra of skylarks took great advantage, came upon these inheritors in spite of themselves; and then June pensively remarked, a little in the manner of “Mr. Leopold” asking the Head Cashier what Consols had opened at this morning, “he must have bought some property very lucky.”

Quite simply William stated that such was the fact. “The lawyers say that in 1895 he bought what they call a block in New Cross Street, including Number 46, and that it’s been going up and up ever since, so that now it’s worth about eight times what he gave for it.”

In sheer incredulity June stared at him. She must be living in fairyland. And then the sun flamed out from the merest apology for a cloud which was all the April sky could boast at that moment and there came an answering gleam from the burnished image before her eyes in which they had lately planted a myrtle.

“Much good it did him,” she said with a heavy sigh.

William never told June the story of the old man lying dead before the Hoodoo, nor had he disclosed his own indirect share in that tragic end. He did not do so now, for this was not the time to enter into such an unhappy matter. Yet without coming to details, June seemed with that power of clairvoyance she had lately acquired, to divine the whole pitiful business. “Miserable old miser,” she said in a voice the birds could not hear. “He must have died like a dog.”

William’s tragic eyes could only be interpreted by his own heart.

A look so forlorn led June to notice the new lines in his face and his smouldering depth of eye. “I believe you were the only living thing he ever cared for, and yet it used to make my blood boil the way he----” The anguish in his eyes brought her up short.

In went the sun, as quickly as it had come out. _La Signora Aprile e volubile_, in England at any rate, whatever her mood in more genial climes. June shivered slightly as if a chill breath in the gentle wind had touched her. She glanced at the new wrist watch, whose acceptance William had craved two days before she left the Hospital. Nearly one o’clock already and it would never do to shew disrespect to Mrs. Chrystal’s famous chicken-broth.

They got up together, yet as they did so they felt that the best of the spring day was fled. Now that the sun had gone in, the Hoodoo yonder was monarch once more of all he looked upon.

What a thing life was! Yet by now both were wise enough not to think too much about it. God knew it could be ugly, but dwelling upon its complexities only made them seem worse.

Besides there was no time for deep thoughts. It was six minutes to one. Luncheon at the House, where William, as became a man of acknowledged genius, was an honoured guest, was sharp at the hour. The honoured guest would only just have time to wash his hands and brush his hair. And so he was not able to accompany June along the rectangular path which led from the main avenue direct to Mrs. Chrystal’s.

Moreover she didn’t want him to. She understood his hurry. Also he understood hers. Besides each craved a moment, after all, to consider life and just where they stood in it.

“I have to rest this afternoon,” said June. “And I suppose you have to get on with the cleaning of the Mathew Thingamy. But if it’s as fine to-morrow morning as it has been to-day, let us meet under this tree about eleven. And then you can put in the last touches while I read “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen that Miss Babraham’s lent me. Seems a bit old-fashioned, but it’s classic of course. I dare say it’ll improve as it gets better.”

Whereon June took the bypath abruptly, and William, his six minutes reduced to four, stepped out towards the House. Life and its complexities did not get therefore, much of a show at the moment, yet both of them must have been giving these high matters some little thought, for as June reached the eucalyptus tree she halted and half-turned and looked just for one instant back. And she found that William, now on a level with the second Cupid on the main gravel, and his four minutes reduced to three and a quarter, had also halted, and half-turned to follow her example.

LXIV

JUNE always maintained that the Idea was William’s. He, on the other hand, always maintained that the Idea was hers. But whatever the truth of the matter in its centrality, there was really no doubt that it was Miss Babraham who thought of the car. To her alone belonged that minor yet still substantial glory. As for the luncheon basket, although that honour was claimed for her as well, it may have owed something to Sir Arthur, for June and William were agreed that the weighty and practical genius of that man of the world was visible in this important detail.

It was just after nine on as promising a morning of early May as the much and justly derided climate of Britain was able to produce for a signal occasion, when Mr. Mitchell the chauffeur in his livery of Robin Hood green, with buff collar and cuffs, arrived at Mrs. Chrystal’s door with Sir Arthur’s touring car. Inside, as if to the manner born, sat William in a fleecy grey ulster which June had no idea he possessed--and for that matter it was Sir Arthur who possessed it--and almost the last word in hats, which if you happened to catch its wearer in profile, as June chanced to do at the moment the car drew up, made him look uncommonly distinguished.

But so much depends, don’t you know, in these little matters upon the angle--etc.

“What time do you expect to be back, Mr. Mitchell?” asked Mrs. Chrystal from her doorstep, as that hero, a wisdom-bitten veteran of the Great War, which had ended before William began--that is to say Class 1920 was never called up--ushered June into the chariot with rare solemnity.

“Back did you say, ma’am?” said Mr. Mitchell closing the door gently upon the travellers. “There you have me. We’ve to go as fur as the heart o’ Suffolk and back again.”

Mrs. Chrystal knew that. Hence the question.

“Accordin’ to this map,” Mr. Mitchell pointed to the canvas back of Road Guide Number 6, Series 14, which was on the vacant seat beside his own, “Crowdham Market may take a bit o’ findin’. Still if the roads are all right, I dessay we’ll be home by the risin’ o’ the moon.”

“My reason for asking is that I’m wondering about the young lady’s supper. However, I’ll expect you when I see you, because as you say Crowdham Market may be a funny place to get at.”

In the opinion of June, who heard this conversation, Mrs. Chrystal was fully justified in thinking so. They were about to start on a journey to Cloud Cuckoo Land.

A very romantic journey it was. Up hill and down dale they went, by devious lanes and unsuspected ways across a noble sweep of country. Zephyrs played gently upon their faces; the sun shone, the birds sang; the smooth-gliding car made little dust and less noise; they sat side by side; it was a royal progress.

The Idea itself was William’s, June always maintained, that they should go to Crowdham Market and find the poor old woman who kept the tumbledown shop, where perhaps as much out of pity as anything, he had given five shillings for the Van Roon. They could well afford to make her comfortable for life with an annuity, the precise amount of which Sir Arthur might be asked to fix if they could not themselves agree upon it. Indeed the whole question of the Van Roon’s fabulous proceeds was still vexed. Neither would move an inch. June still vowed she would not touch the money. William vowed that he would not touch it either, but he had gone so far as to suggest that he should buy the thing back from her with a part of the property her uncle had left him. To this property he somehow felt he had no lawful claim; yet by means of it he would be able to add, free gratis and for nothing, one masterpiece the more to “his treasure house” in Trafalgar Square.

June, with the frankness for which she was famous, did not hesitate to denounce the scheme as crazy. Even the Sir Arthur Babrahams of the world, who were simply rolling in money, thought twice about giving fortunes away. What did he suppose was going to become of his career as an artist if he stripped himself of the means of pursuing it?

That, of course, was where she had him. And as they sat side by side on this golden journey to East Anglia, they divided the forenoon between admiring the scenery and discussing the problem in all its aspects.

“You talk of France and Spain and Italy.” The note of scorn was mellowed considerably by the romance of the occasion. “You talk of studying the pictures in the Louvre and the Prado and the Uffizi Gallery.” She had really got to grips with Culture now. With an indomitable will, an inflexible ambition and a brand new course of memory training to help her; she was not only learning to remember outlandish words, but how and when and in what order to use them. “You talk of Rembrandt and Titian and Velasky, but I’m thinking those foreign landladies’ll get your size before you can say Knife. My opinion is you’ll need somebody _always_ with you to see that they don’t take it off you.”

“Take what off me, Miss June?” inquired His Innocence.

There was a question!

“Your pram, of course, your teddy bear, and your feeding bottle.” She added the opprobrious term “You Gaby!” not however for the ear of this Dreamer, but for the benefit of the pleasant town of Malden, on whose outskirts they were already.

“When you get to Paris and find yourself in the Prado studying Paul Very-uneasy, you’ll be lucky if you get away with as much as a bootlace. Mr. Boultby used to say French landladies were awful.”

“Did he,” said the Dreamer; and then with a sudden animation: “Do you see that water wagtail on the lip of that pool?”

June pointedly ignored the water wagtail.

“You ought to have somebody to look after you when you go to Paris--somebody who understands the value of money.”

“The less value money has for an artist the better,” said William the sententious.

“Mr. Boultby would call that poppycock,” said June, equally sententious.

What William really meant to say was that the less an artist thought about money the better for his art, that an artist painted better for love than for filthy lucre and so on, that the great masters were born poor as a rule and often died poor and that nothing was so likely as money to distract the mind from the quest of beauty.

These, to be sure, were not his exact words. His thoughts were clothed more neatly in the William way. But such was the sum and substance of what they came down to, and June was so pained by his line of argument that the contents of the luncheon basket on the opposite seat were needed to sustain her.

After patiently reasoning with such wrong-headedness, she looked at her watch and found it was one o’clock. As there was never a sign at present of Crowdham Market, they decided to begin on what the gods had provided. Egg and tomato sandwiches were at the top of the basket with a layer of ham underneath, and below that a most authentic cake with almonds in it; all of which were delicious.

The meal, if anything, was even better than the conversation, though that also was on an extremely high level. They were very honourable in their dealings with the luncheon basket. Share and share alike was the order of the day, with a third share of everything religiously laid by for Mr. Mitchell whenever he might feel justified in slowing up to eat it. Even a full third of the basket’s crowning glory was laid by for Mr. Mitchell--to wit, a large vacuum flask of coffee, piping hot.

It was a few minutes after two when they reached Crowdham Market and drew up at the Unicorn Inn. Here, six months ago, William had discussed the great drought with Miss Ferris, the landlady’s daughter, one of those high-coloured girls who June could see at a glance was a minx.

Promising to be back in an hour, which was all that Mr. Mitchell could allow if they were to be home before the rising of the moon, June and William, feeling more romantic than ever before in their lives, set out on a pilgrimage up the High Street. It was the only street in the town which aspired to a sense of importance; the point in fact towards which all meaner streets converged. One of these it was they had now to find.

Alas, from the outset there was a grave doubt in the mind of William in the matter of his bearings. To the best of his recollection the old woman’s shop was either the second or third turning up, then to the left, then across, and then to the left again into an obscure alley of which he had forgotten the name. That was like him. In June’s private opinion, it was also like him, although _lèse-majesté_ of course, to let him know it, to take her to look for a serendipity shop in a bottle of hay.

William knew neither the name of the old woman, nor the byway that had contained her, and in the course of half an hour’s meandering it grew clear to the practical mind of June that she was in serious danger of having to go without her annuity. Having come so far it would be humiliating to return with a tale of total defeat; yet up till now these emotions had been held in check by the romance of the case.

Mr. Mitchell’s hour was all but sped, when William stopped abruptly. Light had come. He had hit the trail.

At the corner of the lane into which for the third time they had penetrated, was an enticing little shop called Middleton’s Dairy. The sight of it brought back to William’s mind a recollection. Immediately the picture had been acquired, he went into that shop to get a bun and a glass of milk. Pausing a moment to wrestle with his sense of locality, he gazed down the street. The old woman’s store would be just opposite.

Only a glance was needed to show that the old woman’s store was not just opposite. The housebreakers had been recently at work and the decrepit block of which her premises formed a part was razed to the ground.

Faced by the problem of what had happened to the old woman the only thing now was to enter Middleton’s Dairy and enquire. They were cordially received by a girl who in June’s opinion showed too many teeth when she smiled to be really good looking; who, also, in June’s opinion, wore corsets that didn’t suit her figure, and whose hair would have looked better had it been bobbed.

Like Miss Ferris, the landlady’s daughter, this girl seemed to remember William quite well, which was rather odd June felt, since he had only been once in the town previously and then for but a few hours. The inference to be drawn from the fact was that William was William, and that in an outlandish one-horse place like Crowdham Market, young men of his quality were necessarily at a premium.

But at the moment that was neither here nor there. And with equal truth the formula applied to the old woman. However, in regard to her it seemed, they were now in the way of getting information.

After William, with a certain particularity had described the old creature and her shop to the girl who kept on showing her teeth while he did so, he was informed that she was known among the neighbours as Mother Stark. And the poor old thing, the girl understood, had been turned out of house and home because she could no longer pay her rates and taxes.

“Half her side of the Lane’s pulled down,” said June, who now came into the conversation on a note of slight asperity.

“Oh, yes,” said Miss Smiler, to William rather than to June, “the site has been bought by a company.”

“Putting a museum on it I suppose,” said June.

“No, not a museum,” said Miss Smiler in a level voice ignoring June’s irony either because she did not see it, or because she did, which in any case perhaps was just as well for her.

“A chicken run?” June surmised with a disdainful eye upon a nice basket of new laid eggs, five for a shilling.

No, the site had not been acquired for a chicken run. Miss Smiler understood they were going to build a picture house.

June gazed solemnly at William. And her gaze was frankly and faithfully returned. A picture house on the spot where a Van Roon had lain hidden and unknown for who knew how many years!

What a world it was! Could Mother Stark but have guessed she would not have needed a Company to take over her premises.

“What’s become of her? Can you tell us?” said June.

“Had to go to the Workhouse, I believe, poor soul,” said the girl, who had a good heart.

June looked at William. William looked at June.

“Is the Workhouse far from here--please can you tell us?” It was William who asked the question.

The Workhouse, it seemed, was not far. In fact it was quite near. To get there you had only to go to the end of the lane, turn to the left, cross the recreation ground and the footbridge over the canal, and keep on bearing to the left and you couldn’t miss it.

“Will it take long?” The question was June’s. And a glance at her wrist accompanied it.

“Not more than five minutes.”

“Thank you very much indeed. We are greatly obliged to you.” William it was who brought the conversation to a climax with a lift of the hat.

LXV

THERE was only one thing to be done now. Mr. Mitchell’s hour was up, but there was no help for it. The Workhouse, as the girl had said--she might, in June’s opinion have had a claim to good looks if she had not suffered from “a rush of teeth to the head”--was not more than five minutes away if you followed her instructions.

As June had the matter in hand, the instructions were followed to the letter and they arrived at the Workhouse without delay. But as the pile, dark and grim, came into view at the far side of the canal, an odd emotion suddenly brought them up with a round turn.

A long moment they gazed at the bleak and frowning thing before their eyes. And then June said with a laugh, “I’m thinking that’s where you’ll be one day, if you don’t find someone who isn’t a genius to look after you.”

The words came from the heart, yet William did not appear to hear them. “Reminds one,” he murmured half to himself, “of that little thing of Duclaux’s called The Poor House.”

June’s puzzlement was revealed by a frown.

“There’s an exhibition of his pictures just now at the Bond Street Gallery. Wonderful line. A great sense of mass effect.”

“You can’t tell me,” said June, “there’s beauty in a thing like that--in that old Workhouse?”

“Duclaux would say so, with that dark cloud cutting across the gable. And that bend of the Canal in the foreground is not without value.” He smiled his rare smile which never had looked so divine. But June was a little afraid of it now. She kept her eyes the other way.

“Canal,” she said with brevity. “Not without value. I should say so. As we say at Blackhampton, ‘where there’s muck there’s money.’”

She glanced at her wrist again. Another ten minutes credited now to Mr. Mitchell’s account.

“Duclaux, I suppose, would see it this way.” The queer fellow stepped back two paces, put up his hand to shade his eyes and adjust his vision to look at the Workhouse.

This was Pure Pottiness, the concentrated essence in tabloid form. However, Miss Babraham had already impressed upon June the deep truth that genius must be allowed a margin.

A little faint of heart she rang the bell of the gloomy and forbidding door. The summons was heeded, tardily and with reluctance, by its janitor, a surly male.

“Can we see Mrs. Stark?” asked June.

“Eh?” said the janitor. He must have been deaf indeed not to have heard the question in its cool clarity. June repeated it; whereon the keeper of the door looked her slowly up and down, turning over the name in his mind as he did so.

“Mother Stark she was called,” said June, for his further enlightenment. “She sold all kinds of old rubbish at a shop that used to be opposite Middleton’s Dairy at the top of Love Lane.”

“Mother Stark you say!” Light was coming to the janitor. “No, you can’t see her.”

“Why not? The matter’s important.”

“She’s been in her grave this two month--that’s why not,” said the janitor.

“Oh,” said June; and then after brief commerce with the eye of William: “Has she any relations or friends?”

The answer was no. Mother Stark had had a parish burial.

William thanked Diogenes with that courtesy which was never-failing and inimitable; and then after one more swift glance at each other, they turned away, feeling somehow, a little overcome, yet upheld by the knowledge of being through at last with the matter of the poor old thing’s annuity.

Returning in their tracks across the canal footbridge, across the recreation ground, up the lane, past the site of the new picture house, past Middleton’s Dairy, they entered the High Street, without haste, in spite of Mr. Mitchell, and with a gravity new and strange, as if they both felt now the hand of destiny upon them.

Heedless of all the Mr. Mitchells in the universe, they walked very slowly to draw out the last exquisite drop of a moment of bliss that, no matter what life had in store, they could never forget. And then for some mystic reason, June’s brain grew incandescent. It became a thing of dew and fire. Ideas formed within it, broke from it, took shape in the ambient air. She might have been treading the upper spaces of Elysium, except that no girl’s feet were ever planted more firmly or more shrewdly upon the pavement of High Street, Crowdham Market.

Four doors from the Unicorn Inn was the most fashionable jeweller’s shop in the town, perhaps for the reason that there was no other; and as they came level with the window a spark flashed from its depths and met an instant answer in the eye of June. Nearly an hour behind the schedule they were now, yet they lingered one moment more, while June drew William’s attention to a coincidence. The vital spark it seemed, owed its being to a gem set in a ring which was almost a replica of the one worn by Miss Babraham in honor of its giver, who of course was a gentleman in the Blues.

“It’s as like Miss Babraham’s engagement ring as one pea is like another pea,” said June in a soft voice.

In the course of their friendship, William had been guilty of many silences of a disgraceful impersonality; and he was now guilty of one more. He glanced at the ring with a wistful eye, sighed a little, and then with slow reluctance moved on. June accompanied him to the very threshold of the Unicorn Inn. And upon its doorstep of all places, within hearing of the Office, wherein lurked Miss Ferris, the landlady’s daughter, he faced about, and then by way of an after-thought, his head apparently still full of Duclaux, began to stammer.

“Miss June if I go back and get that ring will you--will you promise--to--to----?”

Miss Ferris was in the Office; the top of her coiffure was to be seen above the frosted glass. And the Office door was wide open; June, therefore, gave her answer in a very low and gentle voice.

Her answer, for all that, did not lack pith. “If only you’ll cut out the Miss, I’ll wear it like Miss Babraham--on my heart finger.”

LXVI

BACK they went to the jeweller’s four doors up. To the expert eye of William, the ring on inspection was so little like Miss Babraham’s that he seemed to have a qualm about buying it. He had a fancy for moonstones and diamonds, but Crowdham Market’s only jeweller did not run to these. June was firm, besides, that the ring in her hand was cheap at nine guineas, and as no one could call it vulgar, it was quite good enough.

William was sure it was nothing like good enough. “But when we get to London, you shall have moonstones and diamonds.”

“That’ll be lovely,” said June; and a deep thrill ran in her heart as she realized that her dreams were coming true.

William took a wad of Bradburys from his breast pocket. He was now a man of property, with a rent roll of twelve hundred a year, but even a most careful counting would not let them muster more than seven. June, however, as became the lawful owner of an Old Master, whom to acquire for the nation a committee had been lately formed, was equal to the occasion. For she promptly took a wad from the vanity bag which now graced her travels instead of her mother’s old purse, and made up the sum.

In the meantime, the jeweller, a man of ripe experience, had put two and two together.

“Will you wear it, madam, or will you have it packed in the box?”

An unconventional question, no doubt, but places like Crowdham Market are close to nature and get down to bedrock by short cuts.

“I’ll wear it,” June answered. “And I’ll have the box as well. It’ll do for my dressing table to keep pins in.”

The jeweller, one of the old school, bowed to June as he handed her the box and also the change. And then, a jeweller with a fine technique, he smiled at William in a Masonic manner and handed him the ring.

June, as cool as if she was on parade, removed a white kid glove from her left hand. “That’s the heart finger,” she said.

If she blushed a little, the jeweller was too busy writing out the receipt at the other end of the shop to be aware of the fact.

LXVII

THEY decided to ask Miss Ferris, the landlady’s daughter, for a cup of tea, before they set out on the journey home. June felt she could afford to take the risk, since by now the situation was well in hand. Mr. Mitchell raised no objection. Himself an ampler man for a noble lunch, he had been recounting tales of Araby and lands of fair renown in the privacy of the Office. His suit of Robin Hood green and a certain gallantry of bearing had made considerable impact in an amazingly short time, not upon Miss Ferris merely, but upon her widowed mother, the sole proprietress of the Unicorn Inn, who in the words of the local manager of the East Anglia and Overtons Bank “was the warmest woman in Crowdham Market.”

While Mr. Mitchell (Sergeant, R.E., D.C.M. with clasp), and the widow were in the garden admiring the early pansies, June and William sat down to tea in the coffee room. Even there the contiguity of Miss Ferris had rather a tendency to cramp June’s style. High-coloured girl, she was a little inclined to take liberties as she passed around the table. And when June, in her sweetest and best Miss Babraham manner, asked if they might have some crab apple jam, she caught the glint of the ring on June’s heart finger in a way so direct that she murmured something about having to look out for her eyesight--or words equally ill-bred--and nearly dropped the tea pot.

By the time they got under way and the nose of the car was set for the pleasant land of Surrey, a doubt infected the mind of Mr. Mitchell as to whether they would make Homefield before midnight. Neither June nor William seemed to care very much whether they did or whether they didn’t. The car was most comfortable, the sense of romance hot upon them still, the presence of each other vital and delicious in their consciousness. Mile passed upon mile. The endless spool of road continued to unwind itself, a little wind breathed gentle nothings, Mr. Mitchell sat four-square in front, the birds still sang, but the sun was going down.

Saying very little, they lived never-to-be-forgotten hours. Now and again William pointed to a bird or a tree, the fold of a hill, the form of a cloud, the gleam of a distant water. Yet for the most part the nearness of each other was all sufficing. June began to nestle closer; the chill of night came on. Saying less than ever now, moonstones and diamonds stole upon her thoughts. She was haunted by a lovely fear that she could not live up to them. And then softly and more soft, she began to breathe with a rhythmical rise and fall, slowly deepening to a faint crescendo that blended with the motions of the car.

East by west of nowhere came the high moment when the sun was not, and the moon not yet. Somewhere over Surrey a star was dancing. Very shyly and gently he ventured to give her a kiss. She stirred ever so little. A bird spoke from a brake, a note clear and wonderful, yet the month was young for the nightingale. But this was Cloud Cuckoo Land, a divine country in which the nightingale may be heard at odd seasons.

Psyche stirred again. With a reverence chaste and simple he gave her a second kiss, deep and slow. The solemn sacrament was fire to the soul of an artist. And then he gave a little gasp. The high gods in his brain whispered that the moon was coming.

The moon was coming.

Yes, there she was, the sovereign lady! He sat very still, praying, praying that he might surprise some holy secret, hidden even from Duclaux.

She was very wonderful to-night. Her loveliness was more than he could bear. There was a touch of intimacy in her magic; the country over which she shone was elfland. He seemed to hear a faint familiar sound of horns. Or it might have been the swift gliding of the car.

In the quietness of the spirit’s ecstasy he could have wept.

Might it be given to Duclaux to see her, lovely lady, just as he could see her now!

But he mustn’t dare to breathe or the vision would be forever lost.

THE END

NOVELS BY J. C. SNAITH

=THE VAN ROON=

A remarkable novel, human to its very core, which tells of how a painting by an old master, newly discovered, became a cause of love and hate among a curious and delightful group of characters.

=THE COUNCIL OF SEVEN=

International mystery in which seven men come to grips with a war-preaching newspaper-syndicate. The hero, typical Snaith character, fights boldly against strangling intrigue.

=THE UNDEFEATED=

“It is distinctly a big novel--a book of vision and of understanding, of truth and beauty.”--_New York Times._

“The simplest and straightest work imaginable and mightily impressive.”--_Washington Star._

=THE SAILOR=

“It is a book that overwhelms the reader by the poignant and magnificent message that it carries. It is a book that is unforgettable.”--_Springfield Union._

“Interpretative, creative work of a very high order.”--_New York Times._

=THE ADVENTUROUS LADY=

A sparkling social comedy, top-full of delightful situations and characters, seasoned with incomparable humor and youthful buoyancy.

=THE TIME SPIRIT=

“The verbal fencing, sparkling colloquy and keen, swift repartee alone raise the story far above the dead level of society fiction.”--_Philadelphia North American._

=THE COMING=

“Mr. Snaith handles his theme delicately, poetically, with a fine and sensitive reverence.”--_Independent._

“It is a daring performance of impressive and triumphant strength.”--_New York Tribune._