The Blotting Book | Page 7

rate where a
youthful misdemeanour was lived down and forgotten. At the time he
remembered being in doubt whether he should not give the offender up
to justice, for the pilfering, petty though it had been, had been
somewhat persistent, but he had taken the more merciful course, and
merely dismissed the boy. He had been in two minds about it before,
wondering whether it would not be better to let Martin have a sharp
lesson, but to-night he was thankful that he had not done so. The mercy
he had shown had come back to bless him also; he felt a glow of
thankfulness that the subject of his clemency had turned out so well.
Punishment often hardens the criminal, was one of his settled
convictions. But Morris--again his thoughts went back to Morris, who
was already standing on the verge of manhood, on the verge, too, he
made no doubt of married life and its joys and responsibilities. Mr.
Taynton was himself a bachelor, and the thought gave him not a
moment of jealousy, but a moment of void that ached a little at the
thought of the common human bliss which he had himself missed. How
charming, too, was the girl Madge Templeton, whom he had met, not
for the first time, that evening. He himself had guessed how things
stood between the two before Morris had confided in him, and it

pleased him that his intuition was confirmed. What a pity, however,
that the two were not going to meet next day, that she was out with her
mother and would not get back till late. It would have been a cooling
thought in the hot office hours of to-morrow to picture them sitting
together in the garden at Falmer, or under one of the cool deep-foliaged
oaks in the park.
Then suddenly his face changed, the smile faded, but came back next
instant and broadened with a laugh. And the man who laughs when he
is by himself may certainly be supposed to have strong cause for
amusement.
Mr. Taynton had come by this time to the West Pier, and a hundred
yards farther would bring him to Montpellier Road. But it was yet early,
as he saw (so bright was the moonlight) when he consulted his watch,
and he retraced his steps some fifty yards, and eventually rang at the
door of a big house of flats facing the sea, where his partner, who for
the most part, looked after the London branch of their business, had his
pied-à-terre. For the firm of Taynton and Mills was one of those
respectable and solid businesses that, beginning in the country, had
eventually been extended to town, and so far from its having its
headquarters in town and its branch in Brighton, had its headquarters
here and its branch in the metropolis. Mr. Godfrey Mills, so he learned
at the door had dined alone, and was in, and without further delay Mr.
Taynton was carried aloft in the gaudy bird-cage of the lift, feeling sure
that his partner would see him.
The flat into which he was ushered with a smile of welcome from the
man who opened the door was furnished with a sort of gross opulence
that never failed to jar on Mr. Taynton's exquisite taste and cultivated
mind. Pictures, chairs, sofas, the patterns of the carpet, and the heavy
gilding of the cornices were all sensuous, a sort of frangipanni to the
eye. The apparent contrast, however, between these things and their
owner, was as great as that between Mr. Taynton and his partner, for
Mr. Godfrey Mills was a thin, spare, dark little man, brisk in movement,
with a look in his eye that betokened a watchfulness and vigilance of
the most alert order. But useful as such a gift undoubtedly is, it was

given to Mr. Godfrey Mills perhaps a shade too obviously. It would be
unlikely that the stupidest or shallowest person would give himself
away when talking to him, for it was so clear that he was always on the
watch for admission or information that might be useful to him. He had,
however, the charm that a very active and vivid mind always possesses,
and though small and slight, he was a figure that would be noticed
anywhere, so keen and wide-awake was his face. Beside him Mr.
Taynton looked like a benevolent country clergyman, more
distinguished for amiable qualities of the heart, than intellectual
qualities of the head. Yet those--there were not many of them--who in
dealings with the latter had tried to conduct their business on these
assumptions, had invariably found it necessary to reconsider their first
impression of him. His partner, however, was always conscious of a
little impatience in talking to him; Taynton, he would have