The stranger's name was Richard Danvers. He lived the other side of Holborn, in Featherstone Buildings, but much of his time came to be spent in the offices of Good Humour.
Peter liked him. "Full of promise," was Peter's opinion. "His criticism of that article of mine on 'The Education of Woman' showed both sense and feeling. A scholar and a thinker."
Flipp, the office-boy (spelt Philip), liked him; and Flipp's attitude, in general, was censorial. "He's all right," pronounced Flipp; "nothing stuck-up about him. He's got plenty of sense, lying hidden away."
Miss Ramsbotham liked him. "The men--the men we think about at all," explained Miss Ramsbotham--"may be divided into two classes: the men we ought to like, but don't; and the men there is no particular reason for our liking, but that we do. Personally I could get very fond of your friend ****. There is nothing whatever attractive about him except himself."
Even Tommy liked him in her way, though at times she was severe with him.
"If you mean a big street," grumbled Tommy, who was going over proofs, "why not say a big street? Why must you always call it a 'main artery'?"
"I am sorry," apologised Danvers. "It is not my own idea. You told me to study the higher-class journals."
"I didn't tell you to select and follow all their faults. Here it is again. Your crowd is always a 'hydra-headed monster'; your tea 'the cup that cheers but not inebriates.'"
"I am afraid I am a deal of trouble to you," suggested the staff.
"I am afraid you are," agreed the sub-editor.
"Don't give me up," pleaded the staff. "I misunderstood you, that is all. I will write English for the future."
"Shall be glad if you will," growled the sub-editor.
**** Danvers rose. "I am so anxious not to get what you call 'the sack' from here."
The sub-editor, mollified, thought the staff need be under no apprehension, provided it showed itself teachable.
"I have been rather a worthless fellow, Miss Hope," confessed **** Danvers. "I was beginning to despair of myself till I came across you and your father. The atmosphere here--I don't mean the material atmosphere of Crane Court--is so invigorating: its simplicity, its sincerity. I used to have ideals. I tried to stifle them. There is a set that sneers at all that sort of thing.
Now I see that they are good. You will help me?"
Every woman is a mother. Tommy felt for the moment that she wanted to take this big boy on her knee and talk to him for his good. He was only an overgrown lad. But so exceedingly overgrown! Tommy had to content herself with holding out her hand. **** Danvers grasped it tightly.
Clodd was the only one who did not approve of him.
"How did you get hold of him?" asked Clodd one afternoon, he and Peter alone in the office.
"He came. He came in the usual way," explained Peter.
"What do you know about him?"
"Nothing. What is there to know? One doesn't ask for a character with a journalist."
"No, I suppose that wouldn't work. Found out anything about him since?"
"Nothing against him. Why so suspicious of everybody?"
"Because you are just a woolly lamb and want a dog to look after you. Who is he? On a first night he gives away his stall and sneaks into the pit. When you send him to a picture-gallery, he dodges the private view and goes on the first shilling day. If an invitation comes to a public dinner, he asks me to go and eat it for him and tell him what it's all about. That doesn't suggest the frank and honest journalist, does it?"
"It is unusual, it certainly is unusual," Peter was bound to admit.
"I distrust the man," said Clodd. "He's not our class. What is he doing here?"
"I will ask him, Clodd; I will ask him straight out."
"And believe whatever he tells you."
"No, I shan't."
"Then what's the good of asking him?"
"Well, what am I to do?" demanded the bewildered Peter.
"Get rid of him," suggested Clodd.
"Get rid of him?"
"Get him away! Don't have him in and out of the office all day long-looking at her with those collie-dog eyes of his, arguing art and poetry with her in that cushat-dove voice of his. Get him clean away--if it isn't too late already."
"Nonsense," said Peter, who had turned white, however. "She's not that sort of girl."
"Not that sort of girl!" Clodd had no patience with Peter Hope, and told him so. "Why are there never inkstains on her fingers now? There used to be. Why does she always keep a lemon in her drawer? When did she last have her hair cut? I'll tell you if you care to know--the week before he came, five months ago. She used to have it cut once a fortnight: said it tickled her neck. Why does she jump on people when they call her Tommy and tell them that her name is Jane? It never used to be Jane. Maybe when you're a bit older you'll begin to notice things for yourself."
Clodd jammed his hat on his head and flung himself down the stairs.
Peter, slipping out a minute later, bought himself an ounce of snuff.
"Fiddle-de-dee!" said Peter as he helped himself to his thirteenth pinch. "Don't believe it. I'll sound her. I shan't say a word--I'll just sound her."
Peter stood with his back to the fire. Tommy sat at her desk, correcting proofs of a fanciful story: The Man Without a Past.
"I shall miss him," said Peter; "I know I shall."
"Miss whom?" demanded Tommy.
"Danvers," sighed Peter. "It always happens so. You get friendly with a man; then he goes away--abroad, back to America, Lord knows where. You never see him again."
Tommy looked up. There was trouble in her face.
"How do you spell 'harassed'?" questioned Tommy! "two r's or one."
"One r," Peter informed her, "two s's."
"I thought so." The trouble passed from Tommy's face.
"You don't ask when he's going, you don't ask where he's going," complained Peter. "You don't seem to be interested in the least."
"I was going to ask, so soon as I had finished correcting this sheet," explained Tommy. "What reason does he give?"
Peter had crossed over and was standing where he could see her face illumined by the lamplight.
"It doesn't upset you--the thought of his going away, of your never seeing him again?"