The Arbiter Part 14

"Well, I should not have been there, in any case," said Rendel. "That is where I should have been--look," with something like a sigh.

"You would have been nearer than you are now," said Wentworth. "Upon my word, I haven't patience with you. The idea of throwing up such a chance as you have had!"

"How do you know about it?" Rendel said.

"How do I know?" said Wentworth. "Everybody knows that you were offered it and refused."

"After all," said Rendel, "there are some things one leaves undone in this world. It does not follow that because people are offered a thing they must necessarily accept it."

"I don't say I am not in favour of leaving things undone," Wentworth said, "on occasion."

"So I have observed," said Rendel.

"But really, you know," Wentworth went on, "this is too much. What do you intend to do?"

"What do I intend to do?" Rendel said, with a half smile, then unconsciously imparting a greater steadfastness into his expression, "broadly speaking, I intend to do--everything."

"Oh! well, there's hope for you still," Wentworth said, "if that is your intention. It's rather a large order, though."

"Well, as I have told you before," Rendel said, "I don't see why there should be any limit to one's intentions. The man who intends little is not likely to achieve much."

"That's all very well, and plausible enough, I dare say," said Wentworth, "but the way to achieve is not to begin by refusing all your chances."

"This is too delightful from you," said Rendel, "who never do anything at all."

"Not at all," said Wentworth. "It is on principle that I do nothing, in order to protest against other people doing too much. I wish to have an eight hours' day of elegant leisure, and to go about the world as an example of it. It would be just as inconsistent of me to accept a regular occupation as it is of you to refuse it."

"I have a very simple reason for refusing this," said Rendel more seriously, and he paused. "I am a married man."

"To be sure, my dear fellow," said Wentworth, "I have noticed it."

"My wife didn't want to go to Africa," said Rendel, "and there was an end of it."

"Oh, that was the end of it?" said Wentworth.

"Absolutely," said Rendel. "She did not want to leave her father."

"Ah, is that it?" said Wentworth, feeling that he could not decently advance an urgent plea against Sir William. "Poor old man! I know he's gone to pieces frightfully since his wife died--still, couldn't some one have been found to take care of him?"

"Hardly any one like Rachel," Rendel said.

"Naturally," said Wentworth.

"You know he is living with us?" Rendel said.

"Is he?" said Wentworth surprised. "Upon my word, Frank, you are a good son-in-law."

Rendel ignored the tone of Wentworth's last remark and said quite simply--

"Oh! well, there was nothing else to be done. He's been ill, you know, really rather bad; first he had a chill, and then influenza on the top of it. He's frightfully low altogether."

"But I rather wonder," said Wentworth, "as Mrs. Rendel had her father with her, that you didn't go to Africa without her. Wouldn't that have been possible?"

"No," said Rendel decidedly. "Quite impossible."

"I should have thought," said Wentworth, "that in these enlightened days a husband who could not do without his wife was rather a mistake."

"That may be," said Rendel. "But I think on the whole that the husband who can do without her is a greater mistake still."

"It is a great pity you were not born five hundred years ago," said Wentworth.

"I should have disliked it particularly," said Rendel. "I should have been fighting at Flodden, or Crecy, or somewhere, and I should have been too old to marry Rachel, even in these days of well-preserved centenarians. It is no good, Jack; I am afraid you must leave me to my folly."

"Well, well," said Wentworth, agreeing with the word, and thinking to himself that even the wisest of men looks foolish at times when he has the yoke of matrimony across his shoulders; "after all there is to be said--if we are going to have another war on our hands in Africa, which Heaven forfend, the time of the statesmen over there is hardly come yet."

At this moment the door opened and the two men turned round quickly as Rachel came in.

"Frank," said Rachel. "Should you mind----" Then she stopped as she saw Wentworth. "Oh, how do you do, Mr. Wentworth? I didn't know you were here. Don't let me interrupt you."

"On the contrary," said Wentworth, "it is I who am interrupting your husband."

"I only came to see, Frank, if you were very busy," she said.

"I am not at this moment. Do you want me to do anything?"

"Well, presently, would you play one game of chess with my father? I am not really good enough to be of much use; it doesn't amuse him to play with me."

"Yes," said Rendel. "I have just got one or two letters to write and then I'll come."

"I think it would really be better," said Rachel, "if he came in here.

It is rather a change for him, you know, to come into a different room after having been in the house all day."

"Just as you like," said Rendel, without much enthusiasm, but also without any noticeable want of it.

"Well," said Wentworth, "I'm not going to keep you any longer, Frank. I just came in to--give you my views about things in general."

"Thank you," said Rendel, with a smile. "I am much beholden to you for them."

"Perhaps you would come up and see my father, Mr. Wentworth," said Rachel, "before you go away?"

"I shall be delighted," Wentworth said. His feeling towards Sir William Gore was kindly on the whole, and the kindliness was intensified at this moment by compa.s.sion, although he could not help resenting a little that Gore should have been an indirect cause of Rendel's refusing what Wentworth considered was the chance of his friend's life. He shook hands with Rendel and prepared to follow Rachel. At this moment a loud, double knock resounded upon the hall door with a peremptoriness which must have induced an unusual and startling rapidity in the movements of Thacker, Rendel's butler, for almost instantly afterwards he threw open the study door with a visible perturbation and excitement in his demeanour, saying--

"It's Lord Stamfordham, sir, who wants particularly to see you." And to Rendel's amazement Lord Stamfordham appeared in the doorway. He bowed to Wentworth, whom he knew slightly, and shook hands with Rachel. She then went straight out, followed by Wentworth. As the door closed behind them, Stamfordham, answering Rendel's look of inquiry and without waiting for any interchange of greetings, said hurriedly--

"Rendel, I want you to do me a service."

"Please command me," Rendel said quickly, looking straight at him. He felt his heart beat as Stamfordham paused, put his hat down on the table, took his pocket-book out of his breast pocket and a folded paper out of it.