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.“In a sense that nobody understands he really does take it seriously.And so do I; I take it damned seriously.”“Do you mean my play?” she asked with a smile.“I consented to put on those troubadour togs and act,” he said, “I couldn’t give a greater proof of devotion than that.”“I mean,” she said a little hastily, “what do you mean about taking the King’s part seriously?”“I don’t like Kings,” replied Braintree rather roughly.“I don’t like Knights and nobles and all that parade of armed aristocracy.But that man likes them.He doesn’t only pretend to like them.He is not a snob or a silly flunkey of old Seawood.He is the only man I have ever seen who might really defy democracy and the revolution, I know it simply from the way he strode about that silly stage and spoke–”“And spoke those silly verses, you were going to say,” said the poetess, pointing at him with a finger and laughing with a curious indifference rather rare among poetesses.It almost seemed as if she had found something that interested her more than poetry.But it was one of Braintree’s more virile qualities that he was never easily forced into flippancy; and he went on in his quiet pulverising fashion, a man always meditating with a clenched fist.“I tell you when he was right on top, and seemed to tower over everything, when he said he would chuck away his sceptre and go wandering in the woods again with a spear, I knew–”“Why here he is,” cried Olive hastily and lowering her voice, “and the joke of it is that he is still wandering in the woods with a spear.”For indeed Mr.Herne was still in the theatrical costume of an Outlaw, having apparently forgotten to change his clothes when he drifted to his dressing-room; and the long hunting-spear on which he leaned in his blank verse soliloquies was still grasped unconsciously in his hand.“I say,” exclaimed Braintree, “aren’t you going to get into any other clothes before lunch?”The librarian looked at his legs again and said in a dull voice, “What other clothes?”“I mean your ordinary clothes,” replied Braintree.“Oh never mind now,” said the lady, “you’d better change after lunch now, I should think.”“Yes,” replied the abstracted automaton, in the same wooden voice, and took his long green legs and spear away with him.The lunch was pretty informal anyhow; and though all the others had managed to get out of their theatrical costumes, they had not all thoroughly got back into their conventional ones.Some of them, especially the ladies, were in a transitional state before the full splendours of the afternoon.For there was that afternoon at Seawood Abbey a grand political and social reception eclipsing even that which had attempted the education of Mr.Braintree.Needless to say it contained most of the same unmistakable figures with many more in addition.Sir Howard Pryce was there, wearing if not the white flower of a blameless life at least the white waistcoat of a Victorian merchant, whose life was always assumed to be blameless.He had lately passed equally blamelessly from Soap to Dyes, of which he was a financial pillar and a partner in certain commercial interests of Lord Seawood.Mr.Aubrey Wister was there, wearing his exquisite blend of artistic and fashionable raiment; wearing also his long moustache and melancholy smile.Mr.Hanbury, squire and traveller, was there, wearing nothing that could be noticed in particular and wearing it very well.Lord Eden was there, wearing his single eyeglass and the hair that looked like a yellow wig.Mr.Julian Archer was there, wearing clothes so good that they are hardly ever seen on a living man but only on the ideal beings in tailors’ shops.And Mr.Michael Herne was there, still wearing a suit of green rags suitable to a royal outlaw in exile and quite unsuitable to the present occasion.Braintree was not a conventional person but he was brought up against this walking mystery with an involuntary stare.“You do seem to be dawdling about,” he said.“I thought you’d gone off to dress long ago.”Herne appeared to be rather sulky in his last phase.“Dress as what,” he asked.“Well, dress as yourself, I suppose,” answered the other.“Give your celebrated imitation of Mr.Michael Herne.”Michael Herne lifted his rather hang-dog head with a jerk and stared at the other for a moment with almost blinding concentration; and then moved away towards the house, presumably to perform the belated toilet.And Mr.John Braintree did the only thing he ever did do in these rather uncongenial assemblies; went in search of Miss Olive Ashley
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