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This house was one of such homesteads as the genius sang of: a low, old-fashioned, brown-walled, gray-shingled house; with chimneys generous, with green window-shutters less than green and white window-sills less than white; with feudal vines giving to its walls their summery allegiance; not young, not old, but standing in the middle years of its strength and its honors; not needy, not wealthy, but answering Agar's prayer for neither poverty nor riches.
He was engaged to be married to her, and meeting a richer woman he had not the courage to ask to be released from his engagement. It happened that by a mistake he was gazetted 'dead' at the time of the Mutiny. He never contradicted the mistake that was how he got out of his engagement. He played the same trick with Jem Agar's name. I recognised it." Then the last link of the chain was forged.
Agar's that Dora should marry Arthur; firstly, because she would have nearly two thousand pounds a year on the death of her parents; and, secondly, because she was a capable person with plenty of common-sense. These two adjuncts namely, money and common-sense Mrs. Agar wisely looked for in candidates for the flaccid hand of her son. "I will try and find out," said Sister Cecilia after a pause.
"Got out of bed at five, but nothing to be seen in the valley. I feel a bit chippy this morning. If nothing turns up to-day shall begin to feel uneasy. The men seem all right. They are plucky little fellows." There was a self-consciousness about Jem Agar's diary, a selection of the right word, which conveyed nothing to Arthur. But it fell into other hands later on, where it was understood better.
Men came to Arthur Agar's rooms, and brought their friends. Mark well the last item. They brought their friends. There is more in that than meets the eye. There is a subtle difference between the invitation for "Mr. Jones" and the invitation for "Mr. Jones and friends" a difference which he who runs the social race may read. If Jones is worth his salt he will discern the difference in a week.
One afternoon well towards the end of the term Arthur Agar's "gyp" crept in with that valet-like confidential air which seems to be bred of too intimate a knowledge of the extent of one's wardrobe. "There is a gentleman, sir," he said, "as wants to see you. But in no wise will he give his name, which, he says, you don't know it." "Is he selling engravings?" asked Arthur.
He had suspected from the first that Jem Agar's desire that she should know the truth had been a mere matter of sentiment; but the fact of meeting her at this public festivity, gay and in colours, shook this theory from its foundation.
And he had all his powers yet all his marvellous quickness at the mastery of tongues, all the restless energy which had urged him on to overrun the race, to dodge and bore and break his stride instead of holding steadily on the straight course. He it was who had discovered Jem Agar's talent for this rough, peculiar soldiering of the frontier.
It was strange that before honest men and women his glance wavered ever he could never meet honest eyes; but looking at Anna Agar they were as steady as those of a true man. "Wynderton," ho said, "the man whose promotion I stopped, by a report against him for looting." When Nature makes a fool in the guise of a woman she turns out a finished work. Mrs. Agar's eyes actually lighted up.
Arthur Agar's life had been passed in eminently pleasant places. The seamy side of existence had always been carefully hidden from his eyes. He therefore did not recognise this strange sense which had leapt into his being the sense of superhuman, physical, mortal revulsion. He was divided between two instincts. One side of his nature urged him to shriek like a woman.