Jaffery | Page 5

evening papers which he brandished nervously,
proclaimed "The Diamond Gate" a masterpiece. The book had been
only out a week--(we country mice knew nothing of it)--and already, so
his publisher informed him, repeat orders were coming in from the
libraries and distributing agents.
"Wittekind, my publisher, declares it's going to be the biggest thing in
first novels ever known. And though I say it as shouldn't, dear old
Hilary,"--he clapped me on the shoulder--"it's a damned fine book."
I shall always remember him as he said this, in the pride of his
manhood, a defiant triumph in his 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