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Page 80
Albert, I am happy to say, was thoroughly miserable. The little
brute was suffering torments. He was showering anonymous Advice to
the Lovelorn on Reggie Byng--excellent stuff, culled from the pages
of weekly papers, of which there was a pile in the housekeeper's
room, the property of a sentimental lady's maid--and nothing seemed
to come of it. Every day, sometimes twice and thrice a day, he
would leave on Reggie's dressing-table significant notes similar in
tone to the one which he had placed there on the night of the ball;
but, for all the effect they appeared to exercise on their
recipient, they might have been blank pages.
The choicest quotations from the works of such established writers
as "Aunt Charlotte" of Forget-Me-Not and "Doctor Cupid", the
heart-expert of Home Chat, expended themselves fruitlessly on
Reggie. As far as Albert could ascertain--and he was one of those
boys who ascertain practically everything within a radius of
miles--Reggie positively avoided Maud's society.
And this after reading "Doctor Cupid's" invaluable tip about
"Seeking her company on all occasions" and the dictum of "Aunt
Charlotte" to the effect that "Many a wooer has won his lady by
being persistent"--Albert spelled it "persistuent" but the effect
is the same--"and rendering himself indispensable by constant
little attentions". So far from rendering himself indispensable to
Maud by constant little attentions, Reggie, to the disgust of his
backer and supporter, seemed to spend most of his time with Alice
Faraday. On three separate occasions had Albert been revolted by
the sight of his protege in close association with the Faraday
girl--once in a boat on the lake and twice in his grey car. It was
enough to break a boy's heart; and it completely spoiled Albert's
appetite--a phenomenon attributed, I am glad to say, in the
Servants' Hall to reaction from recent excesses. The moment when
Keggs, the butler, called him a greedy little pig and hoped it
would be a lesson to him not to stuff himself at all hours with
stolen cakes was a bitter moment for Albert.
It is a relief to turn from the contemplation of these tortured
souls to the pleasanter picture presented by Lord Marshmoreton.
Here, undeniably, we have a man without a secret sorrow, a man at
peace with this best of all possible worlds. Since his visit to
George a second youth seems to have come upon Lord Marshmoreton. He
works in his rose-garden with a new vim, whistling or even singing
to himself stray gay snatches of melodies popular in the 'eighties.
Hear him now as he toils. He has a long garden-implement in his
hand, and he is sending up the death-rate in slug circles with a
devastating rapidity.
"Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay
Ta-ra-ra BOOM--"
And the boom is a death-knell. As it rings softly out on the
pleasant spring air, another stout slug has made the Great Change.
It is peculiar, this gaiety. It gives one to think. Others have
noticed it, his lordship's valet amongst them.
"I give you my honest word, Mr. Keggs," says the valet, awed, "this
very morning I 'eard the old devil a-singing in 'is barth!
Chirruping away like a blooming linnet!"
"Lor!" says Keggs, properly impressed.
"And only last night 'e gave me 'arf a box of cigars and said I was
a good, faithful feller! I tell you, there's somethin' happened to
the old buster--you mark my words!"
CHAPTER 18.
Over this complex situation the mind of Keggs, the butler, played
like a searchlight. Keggs was a man of discernment and sagacity. He
had instinct and reasoning power. Instinct told him that Maud, all
unsuspecting the change that had taken place in Albert's attitude
toward her romance, would have continued to use the boy as a link
between herself and George: and reason, added to an intimate
knowledge of Albert, enabled him to see that the latter must
inevitably have betrayed her trust. He was prepared to bet a
hundred pounds that Albert had been given letters to deliver and
had destroyed them. So much was clear to Keggs. It only remained to
settle on some plan of action which would re-establish the broken
connection. Keggs did not conceal a tender heart beneath a rugged
exterior: he did not mourn over the picture of two loving fellow
human beings separated by a misunderstanding; but he did want to
win that sweepstake.
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