The Yellow Streak | Page 2

overcoat, Parrish had asked Bude point-blank what wages he was
getting. Bude mentioned the generous remuneration he was receiving
from Sir Herbert Marcobrunner, whereupon Parrish had remarked:
"Come to me and I'll double it. I'll give you a week to think it over. Let
my secretary know!"
After a few discreet enquiries, Bude, faithful to his maxim, had
accepted Parrish's offer. Marcobrunner was furiously angry, but, being
anxious to interest Parrish in a deal, sagely kept his feelings to himself.
And Bude had never regretted the change. He found Parrish an exacting,
but withal a just and a generous master, and he was not long in
realizing that, as long as he kept Harkings, Parrish's country place
where he spent the greater part of his time, running smoothly according
to Parrish's schedule, he could count on a life situation.
The polish of manner, the sober dignity of dress, acquired from years of
acute observation in the service of the nobility, were to be seen as, at
the hour of five, in the twilight of this bleak autumn afternoon, Bude
moved majestically into the lounge-hall of Harkings and leisurely
pounded the gong for tea.
The muffled notes of the gong swelled out brazenly through the silent

house. They echoed down the softly carpeted corridors to the library
where the master of the house sat at his desk. For days he had been
immersed in the figures of the new issue which Hornaway's, the vast
engineering business of his creation, was about to put on the market.
They reverberated up the fine old oak staircase to the luxurious Louis
XV bedroom, where Lady Margaret Trevert lay on her bed idly smiling
through an amusing novel. They crashed through the thickly padded
baize doors leading to the servants' hall, where, at sixpence a hundred,
Parrish's man, Jay, was partnering Lady Margaret's maid against Mrs.
Heever, the housekeeper, and Robert, the chauffeur, at a friendly game
of bridge. And they even boomed distantly into the far-away
billiard-room and broke into the talk which Robin Greve was having
with Mary Trevert.
"Damn!" exclaimed Greve savagely, as the distant gonging came to his
ears.
"It's the gong for tea," said Mary demurely.
She was sitting on one of the big leather sofas lining the long room.
Robin, as he gazed down at her from where he stood with his back
against the edge of the billiard-table, thought what an attractive picture
she made in the half-light.
The lamps over the table were lit, but the rest of the room was almost
dark. In that lighting the thickly waving dark hair brought out the fine
whiteness of the girl's skin. There was love, and a great desire for love,
in her large dark eyes, but the clear-cut features, the well-shaped chin,
and the firm mouth, the lips a little full, spoke of ambition and the love
of power.
"I've been here three whole days," said Robin, "and I've not had two
words with you alone, Mary. And hardly have I got you to myself for a
quiet game of pills when that rotten gong goes ..."
"I'm sorry you're disappointed at missing your game," the girl replied
mischievously, "but I expect you will be able to get a game with
Horace or one of the others after tea ..."

Robin kicked the carpet savagely.
"You know perfectly well I don't want to play billiards ..."
He looked up and caught the girl's eye. For a fraction of a second he
saw in it the expression which every man at least once in his life looks
to see in the eyes of one particular woman. In the girl's dark-blue eyes
fringed with long black lashes he saw the dumb appeal, the mute
surrender, which, as surely as the white flag on the battlements in war,
is the signal of capitulation in woman.
But the expression was gone on the instant. It passed so swiftly that, for
a second, Robin, seeing the gently mocking glance that succeeded it,
wondered whether he had been mistaken.
But he was a man of action--a glance at his long, well-moulded head,
his quick, wide-open eye, and his square jaw would have told you
that--and he spoke.
"It's no use beating about the bush," he said. "Mary, I've got so fond of
you that I'm just miserable when you're away from me ..."
"Oh, Robin, please ..."
Mary Trevert stood up and remained standing, her head turned a little
away from him, a charming silhouette in her heather-blue shooting-suit.
The young man took her listless hand.
"My dear," he said, "you and I have been pals all our lives. It was only
at the front that I began to realize just how much you meant to me. And
now I know I can't do without you.