LITMIR.BIZ

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Now he was going to another little house in a mean street, in Clapham this time, to the same woman, but with how different tidings and how differently they would be received. Fifteen years ago the future had looked very bright to the limited vision of Mr. Edward Povey. He had left the office after his marriage with a light step and hurried across the bridge that would lead him to the villa he had taken. As the years passed, the light step had become a sedate walk, and now it was hard to recognize in the little bowed figure that shuffled each evening across London Bridge the Edward Povey of other days.

      But to-night, curiously enough, the step was not shuffling and the little iron-grey head was more erect. The blow that had fallen when Mr. Schultz had given him the buff envelope which contained his salary and his congé had been deadening, and the feeling had numbed him for the whole day. Then had come the inevitable reaction, the need for movement, for effort, and the heart of Edward Povey was responding nobly to the call, the heart that had lain dormant since the early days of his marriage.

      For Charlotte Povey, estimable woman, cherished fondly the idea that for fifteen years she had been moulding the life, the destinies, and the character of her husband, and he, for the sake of peace, had given himself unresistingly to the potter's thumb. Charlotte's method, however, left much to be desired. With the laudable object of rousing the soul of Edward to further action and endeavour, she let not a day pass without comparing, much to his disparagement, his actions and even his appearance with other men of their acquaintance.

      But instead of this having the desired effect, Edward had gradually come to believe it all; it had been so consistently impressed upon him that he was a poor sort of a chap anyway, and the inevitable result was—the envelope presented to him that morning by Mr. Schultz.

      And now, on this calm autumn evening the chains of fifteen years fell from him and the spirit of Edward Povey underwent a change. He began to think that it was a good, full world—a world in which there were more things and higher possibilities than the evil-smelling counting-house of Kyser, Schultz & Company. He told himself that he had wasted nearly a quarter of a century.

      The city was settling to quietude under a pall of smoky opal. The warehouses and buildings stood out gaunt and grey. The river flowing under the railway arches up-stream was splashed with the glory of the setting sun, little elusive reflections showing blood-red on the muddy water. Edward had crossed London Bridge for many years, but he did not remember ever having seen a sunset there.

      Clapham! The world was bigger than Clapham.—Forty years of age! Why, it was the prime of a man's life, rather before the prime, in fact. Edward stopped, there was no hurry to-night, and leant over the parapet of the bridge. Below him, on the wharf, they were unloading a tramp steamer of boxes of fruit. The men swarming like ants up the long gangways were carrying on their backs light crates. One of these boxes had come apart and lay on the grimy deck shedding a little pool of golden oranges. The clatter of winches, the jangling of cranes, all served to make up a picture of life and movement that appealed strongly to the man who was leaning over the stone balustrade. He could read the name on the stern of the boat, "Isabella—Barcelona."

      There were other boats too, and barges, huddling together as though for warmth like little chickens in an incubator. The bascules of the Tower Bridge, showing dimly in the haze, were being raised to let a white-funneled steamer that was cautiously sidling out into mid-stream slip down to the sea. Two men were working vigorously with long poles, guiding a barge laden with straw out of her way. Edward Povey watched her, telling himself that in a few hours she would be making her way down Channel or breasting the waves in the North Sea. Later she would be in some palm-fringed Southern port, or perhaps amid the romantic islands and fjords of the North.

      He wished that he, too, could go abroad, that he too could slide out of London on the dingy bosom of Father Thames. He longed to breathe the large airs of the ocean, to feel the sting of the salt spray, and to reach the places blazoned so bravely forth in gold letters upon the sterns below him. Barcelona, for instance, spoke of sunny skies and indolence and romance, and he felt a great pity for the surging masses of which he had so lately been one, who pushed past him with never a glance for the river or the sunset, or for the Isabella from Barcelona.

      A light tap on his shoulder brought him out of his reverie, to see the genial face of Mr. Kyser, the other partner of the firm to whom he had been correspondence clerk for so many years. Edward had never had much to do with the junior partner, but what small relations they had had seemed to be touched with more humanity than was the case with Mr. Schultz.

      "——and so you are leaving us, Mr. Povey?" Kyser was saying.

      "Yes, sir, I——"

      "Well, Povey, I'm sorry, yes, I'm sorry; but there, I can't interfere with what Mr. Schultz does, it's his department, you know, but I didn't want to pass you without a handshake. Let me see, you live at Clapham, don't you?"

      Edward Povey nodded.

      "We'll get a taxi, then—or, better still, come and have a chop with me—I want a word with you."

      Edward was delighted. Surely things were far better than they had been for a quarter of a century. Yesterday this same man would have passed him with perhaps a nod, perhaps not even that.

      The change that had come over Edward since his release from bondage was evidently being sustained by events. For fifteen years he had passed the spacious grill-room in Gracechurch Street, with its noble array of chops and parsley in the window, in which he now found himself, on his way to the little eating-house up the court where he had taken his modest midday meal of sandwiches and stout. There was a sense of well-being about his present surroundings that gave him a feeling as though he had set foot in a new world and that he meant to remain in it. The snowy linen, the silver and glass, the little green-curtained alcoves, the obsequious waiters, the flickering and hissing of the grill at the further end of the room, presided over by the white-clad chef, all played their part in the awakening of Edward Povey.

      "It's not much that I wanted to speak to you about, Povey, but I thought you might help me. You'll be looking round for another place, I suppose, but if you can find time to run out to Bushey now and again, you'll be obliging me—personally."

      Edward Povey expressed his willingness to do all that lay in his power.

      "It's only to have a look at my little cottage there, Povey; I've been living there on and off, and now I'm off to Switzerland. My man goes with me, so I want you to run out and see that things are all right. I'll give you the key. Any letters that come you can keep for me until my return. I've got a few decent pictures at the cottage and some old silver that I'm anxious not to leave altogether unattended. Can I count on you?"

      Edward repeated his assurances, but a sense of disappointment had come over him as Kyser had been speaking. The adventure was not panning out as he had hoped. At the same time, he told himself that he would be paid for his services, perhaps liberally, and it might prevent him having to touch the little nest-egg in the Post Office Savings Bank.

      When Edward parted with his late employer and left the grill-room it was with the key of Adderbury Cottage, Bushey Heath, in his pocket, and rather a feeling of resentment against Mr. Kyser and his firm, who did not hesitate to use a servant of twenty-two years' standing as a mere caretaker.

      And resentment was a dangerous thing in the brain of the new Edward Povey.

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

      AT NO. 8, BELITHA VILLAS

      It was nine o'clock when Edward Povey pushed open the little iron gate of No. 8, Belitha Villas, Clapham, thereby announcing his return to the other eleven villas in the same row. For the twelve little iron gates of Belitha Villas had each its own peculiar squeak and clang, a fact that added considerably to the scandal-mongering of the little community, and had caused a certain old reprobate at No. 3 to make liberal use of the oil-can.

      The

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