Jaffery | Page 5

eyes, his head thrown back, and a smile revealing the teeth below his well-trimmed moustache. He had conquered at last. He had put poor old Jaffery and fortune-favoured me in the shade. At one leap he had mounted to planes beyond our dreams. All this his attitude betokened. He removed the hand from my shoulder and flourished it in a happy gesture.
"My fortune's made," he cried.
"But, my dear fellow," I asked, "why have you sprung this surprise on us? I had no idea you were writing a novel."
He laughed. "No one had. Not even Doria. It was on her account I kept it secret. I didn't want to arouse possible false hopes. It's very simple. Besides, I like being a dark horse. It's exciting. Don't you remember how paralysed you all were when I got my First at Cambridge? Everybody thought I hadn't done a stroke of work--but I had sweated like mad all the time."
This was quite true, the sudden brilliance of the end of Adrian's University career had dazzled the whole of his acquaintance. Barbara, impatient of retrospect, came to the all-important point.
"How does Doria take it?"
He turned on her and beamed. He was one of those dapper, slim-built men who can turn with quick grace.
"She's as pleased as Punch. Gave it to old man Jornicroft to read and insisted on his reading it. He's impressed. Never thought I had it in me. Can't see, however, where the commercial value of it comes in."
"Wait till you show him your first thumping cheque," sympathised my wife.
"I'm going to," he exclaimed boyishly. "I might have done it this afternoon. Wittekind was off his head with delight and if I had asked him to give me a bogus cheque for ten thousand to show to old man Jornicroft, he would have written it without a murmur."
"How much did he really write a cheque for this afternoon?" I asked, knowing (as I have said before) my Adrian.
Barbara looked shocked. "Hilary!" she remonstrated.
But Adrian laughed in high good humour. "He gave me a hundred pounds on account."
"That won't impress Mr. Jornicroft at all," said I.
"It impressed my tailor, who cashed it, deducting a quarter of his bill."
"Do you mean to say, my dear Adrian," I questioned, "that you went to your tailor with a cheque for a hundred pounds and said, 'I want to pay you a quarter of what I owe you, will you give me change?'"
"Of course."
"But why didn't you pass the cheque through your banking account and post him your own cheque?"
"Did you ever hear such an innocent?" he cried gaily. "I wanted to impress him, I did. One must do these things with an air. He stuffed my pockets with notes and gold--there has never been any one so all over money as I am at this particular minute--and then I gave him an order for half-a-dozen suits straight away."
"Good God!" I cried aghast. "I've never had six suits of clothes at a time since I was born."
"And more shame for you. Look!" said he, drawing my wife's attention to my comfortable but old and deliberately unfashionable raiment. "I love you, my dear Barbara, but you are to blame."
"Hilary," said my wife, "the next time you go to town you'll order half-a-dozen suits and I'll come with you to see you do it. Who is your tailor, Adrian?"
He gave the address. "The best in London. And if you go to him on my introduction--Good Lord!"--it seemed to amuse him vastly--"I can order half-a-dozen more!"
All this seemed to me, who am not devoid of a sense of humour and an appreciation of the pleasant flippancies of life, somewhat futile and frothy talk, unworthy of the author of "The Diamond Gate" and the lover of Doria Jornicroft. I expressed this opinion and Barbara, for once, agreed with me.
"Yes. Let us be serious. In the first place you oughtn't to allude to Doria's father as 'old man Jornicroft.' It isn't respectful."
"But I don't respect him. Who could? He is bursting with money, but won't give Doria a farthing, won't hear of our marriage, and practically forbids me the house. What possible feeling can one have for an old insect like that?"
"I've never seen any reason," said Barbara, who is a brave little woman, "why Doria shouldn't run away and marry you."
"She would like a shot," cried Adrian; "but I won't let her. How can I allow her to rush to the martyrdom of married misery on four hundred a year, which I don't even earn?"
I looked at my watch. "It's time, my friends," said I, "to dress for dinner. Afterwards we can continue the discussion. In the meanwhile I'll order up some of the '89 Pol Roger so that we can drink to the success of the book."
"The '89 Pol Roger?" cried