Aglow with satisfaction at what he had been able to do for the wounded soldiers, Mr. Lavender sat down in his study to drink the tea which he found there. “There is nothing in life,” he thought, “which gives one such satisfaction as friendliness and being able to do something for others. Moon-cat!”
The moon-cat, who, since Mr. Lavender had given her milk, abode in his castle, awaiting her confinement, purred loudly, regarding him with burning eyes, as was her fashion when she wanted milk, Mr. Lavender put down the saucer and continued his meditations. “Everything is vain; the world is full of ghosts and shadows; but in friendliness and the purring of a little cat there is solidity.”
“A lady has called, sir.”
Looking up, Mr. Lavender became aware of Mrs. Petty.
“How very agreeable!
“I don't know, sir,” returned his housekeeper in her decisive voice; “but she wants to see you. Name of Pullbody.”
“Pullbody,” repeated Mr. Lavender dreamily; “I don't seem——Ask her in, Mrs. Petty, ask her in.”
“It's on your head, sir,” said Mrs. Petty, and went out.
Mr. Lavender was immediately conscious of a presence in dark green silk, with a long upper lip, a loose lower lip, and a fixed and faintly raddled air, moving stealthily towards him.
“Sit down, madam, I beg. Will you have some tea?”
The lady sat down. “Thank you, I have had tea. It was on the recommendation of your next-door neighbour, Miss Isabel Scarlet——”
“Indeed,” replied Mr. Lavender, whose heart began to beat; “command me, for I am entirely at her service.”
“I have come to see you,” began the lady with a peculiar sinuous smile, “as a public man and a patriot.”
Mr. Lavender bowed, and the lady went on: “I am in very great trouble. The fact is, my sister's husband's sister is married to a German.”
“Is it possible, madam?” murmured Mr. Lavender, crossing his knees, and joining the tips of his fingers.
“Yes,” resumed the lady, “and what's more, he is still at large.”
Mr. Lavender, into whose mind there had instantly rushed a flood of public utterances, stood gazing at her haggard face in silent sympathy.
“You may imagine my distress, sir, and the condition of my conscience,” pursued the lady, “when I tell you that my sister's husband's sister is a very old friend of mine—and, indeed, so was this German. The two are a very attached young couple, and, being childless, are quite wrapped up in each other. I have come to you, feeling it my duty to secure his internment.”
Mr. Lavender, moved by the human element in her words, was about to say, “But why, madam?” when the lady continued:
“I have not myself precisely heard him speak well of his country. But the sister of a friend of mine who was having tea in their house distinctly heard him say that there were two sides to every question, and that he could not believe all that was said in the English papers.
“Dear me!” said Mr. Lavender, troubled; “that is serious.”
“Yes,” went on the lady; “and on another occasion my sister's husband himself heard him remark that a man could not help loving his country and hoping that it would win.”
“But that is natural,” began Mr. Lavender.
“What!” said the lady, nearly rising, “when that country is Germany?”
The word revived Mr. Lavender's sense of proportion.
“True,” he said, “true. I was forgetting for the moment. It is extraordinary how irresponsible one's thoughts are sometimes. Have you reason to suppose that he is dangerous?”
“I should have thought that what I have said might have convinced you,” replied the lady reproachfully; “but I don't wish you to act without satisfying yourself. It is not as if you knew him, of course. I have easily been able to get up an agitation among his friends, but I should not expect an outsider—so I thought if I gave you his address you could form your own opinion.”
“Yes,” murmured Mr. Lavender, “yes. It is in the last degree undesirable that any man of German origin should remain free to work possible harm to our country. There is no question in this of hatred or of mere rabid patriotism,” he went on, in a voice growing more and more far-away; “it is largely the A. B. C. of common prudence.”
“I ought to say,” interrupted his visitor, “that we all thought him, of course, an honourable man until this war, or we should not have been his friends. He is a dentist,” she added, “and, I suppose, may be said to be doing useful work, which makes it difficult. I suggest that you go to him to have a tooth out.”
Mr. Lavender quivered, and insensibly felt his teeth.
“Thank you,” he said, “I will see if I can find one. It is certainly a matter which cannot be left to chance. We public men, madam, often have to do very hard and even inhumane things for no apparent reason. Our consciences alone support us. An impression, I am told, sometimes gets abroad that we yield to clamour. Those alone who know us realize how unfounded that aspersion is.”
“This is his address,” said the lady, rising, and handing him an envelope. “I shall not feel at rest until he is safely interned. You will not mention my name, of course. It is tragic to be obliged to work against one's friends in the dark. Your young neighbour spoke in enthusiastic terms of your zeal, and I am sure that in choosing you for my public man she was not pulling—er—was not making a mistake.”
Mr. Lavender bowed.
“I hope not, madam, he said humbly I try to do my duty.”
The lady smiled her sinuous smile and moved towards the door, leaving on the air a faint odour of vinegar and sandalwood.
When she was gone Mr. Lavender sat down on the edge of his chair before the tea-tray and extracted his teeth while Blink, taking them for a bone, gazed at them lustrously, and the moon-cat between his feet purred from repletion. “There is reason in all things,” he thought, running his finger over what was left in his mouth, “but not in patriotism, for that would prevent us from consummating the destruction of our common enemies. It behoves us public men ever to set an extreme example. Which one can I spare, I wonder?” And he fixed upon a large rambling tooth on the left wing of his lower jaw. “It will hurt horribly, I'm afraid; and if I have an anaesthetic there will be someone else present; and not improbably I shall feel ill afterwards, and be unable to form a clear judgment. I must steel myself. Blink!”
For Blink was making tremulous advances to the teeth. “How pleasant to be a dog!” thought Mr. Lavender, “and know nothing of Germans and teeth. I shall be very unhappy till this is out; but Aurora recommended me, and I must not complain, but rather consider myself the most fortunate of public men.” And, ruffling his hair till it stood up all over his head, while his loose eyebrow worked up and down, he gazed at the moon-cat.
“Moon-cat,” he said suddenly, “we are but creatures of chance, unable to tell from one day to another what Fate has in store for us. My tooth is beginning to ache already. That is, perhaps, as it should be, for I shall not forget which one it is.” So musing he resumed his teeth; and, going to his bookcase, sought fortitude and inspiration in the records of a Parliamentary debate on enemy aliens.
It was not without considerable trepidation, however, on the following afternoon that he made his way up Welkin Street, and rang at the number on the envelope in his hand.
“Yes sir, doctor is at home,” said the maid.
Mr. Lavender's heart was about to fail him when, conjuring up the vision of Aurora, he said in a faint voice: “I wish to see him professionally.” And, while the maid departed up the stairs, he waited in the narrow hall, alternately taking his hat off and putting it on again, so great was his spiritual confusion.
“Doctor will see you at once, sir.”
Putting his hat on hastily, Mr. Lavender followed her upstairs, feeling at his tooth to make quite sure that he remembered which it was. His courage mounted as he came nearer to his fate, and he marched into the room behind the maid holding his hat on firmly with one hand and his tooth in firmly with the other. There, beside a red velvet dentist's chair, he saw a youngish man dressed in a white coat, with round eyes and a domestic face, who said in good English:
“What can I do for you, my dear sir? I fear you are in bain.”
“In great pain,” replied Mr. Lavender faintly, “in great pain.” And, indeed, he was; for the nervous crisis from which he was suffering had settled in the tooth, on which he still pressed a finger through his cheek.
“Sit down, sir, sit down,” said the young man, “and perhaps it would be better if you should remove your hat. We shall not hurd you—no, no, we shall not hurd you.”
At those words, which seemed to cast doubt on his courage, Mr. Lavender recovered all his presence of mind. He took off his hat, advanced resolutely to the chair, sat down in it, and, looking up, said:
“Do to me what you will; I shall not flinch, nor depart in any way from the behaviour of those whose duty it is to set an example to others.”
So saying, he removed his teeth, and placing them in a bowl on the little swinging table which he perceived on his left hand, he closed his eyes, put his finger in his mouth, and articulated:
“'Ith one.”
“Excuse me, sir,” said the young German, “but do you wish a dooth oud?”
“'At ish my deshire,” said Mr. Lavender, keeping his finger on his tooth, and his eyes closed. “'At one.”
“I cannot give you gas without my anaesthedist.”
“I dow,” said Mr. Lavender; “be wick.”
And, feeling the little cold spy-glass begin to touch his gums, he clenched his hands and thought: “This is the moment to prove that I, too, can die for a good cause. If I am not man enough to bear for my country so small a woe I can never again look Aurora in the face.”
The voice of the young dentist dragged him rudely from the depth of his resignation.
“Excuse me, but which dooth did you say?”
Mr. Lavender again inserted his finger, and opened his eyes.
The dentist shook his head. “Imbossible,” he said; “that dooth is perfectly sound. The other two are rotten. But they do not ache?”
Mr. Lavender shook his head and repeated:
“At one.”
“You are my first client this week, sir,” said the young German calmly, “but I cannot that dooth dake out.”
At those words Mr. Lavender experienced a sensation as if his soul were creeping back up his legs; he spoke as it reached his stomach.
“Noc?” he said.
“No,” replied the young German. It is nod the dooth which causes you the bain.
Mr. Lavender, suddenly conscious that he had no pain, took his finger out.
“Sir,” he said, “I perceive that you are an honourable man. There is something sublime in your abnegation if, indeed, you have had no other client this week.
“No fear,” said the young German. “Haf I, Cicely?”
Mr. Lavender became conscious for the first time of a young woman leaning up against the wall, with a pair of tweezers in her hand.
“Take it out, Otto,” she said in a low voice, “if he wants it.”
“No no,” said Mr. Lavender sharply, resuming his teeth; “I would not for the world burden your conscience.”
“My clients are all batriots,” said the young dentist, “and my bractice is Kaput. We are in a bad way, sir,” he added, with a smile, “but we try to do the correct ting.”
Mr. Lavender saw the young woman move the tweezers in a manner which caused his blood to run a little cold.
“We must live,” he heard her say.
“Young madam,” he said, “I honour the impulse which makes you desire to extend your husband's practice. Indeed, I perceive you both to be so honourable that I cannot but make you a confession. My tooth is indeed sound, though, since I have been pretending that it isn't, it has caused me much discomfort. I came here largely to form an opinion of your husband's character, with a view to securing his internment.”
At that word the two young people shrank together till they were standing side by side, staring at Mr Lavender with eyes full of anxiety and wonder. Their hands, which still held the implements of dentistry, insensibly sought each other.
“Be under no apprehension,” cried Mr. Lavender, much moved; “I can see that you are greatly attached, and even though your husband is a German, he is still a man, and I could never bring myself to separate him from you.”
“Who are you?” said the young woman in a frightened voice, putting her arm round her husband's waist.
“Just a public man,” answered Mr. Lavender.
“I came here from a sense of duty; nothing more, assure you.”
“Who put you up to it?”
“That,” said Mr. Lavender, bowing as best he could from the angle he was in, “I am not at liberty to disclose. But, believe me, you have nothing to fear from this visit; I shall never do anything to distress a woman. And please charge me as if the tooth had been extracted.”
The young German smiled, and shook his head.
“Sir,” he said, “I am grateful to you for coming, for it shows us what danger we are in. The hardest ting to bear has been the uncertainty of our bosition, and the feeling that our friends were working behind our backs. Now we know that this is so we shall vordify our souls to bear the worst. But, tell me,” he went on, “when you came here, surely you must have subbosed that to tear me away from my wife would be very bainful to her and to myself. You say now you never could do that, how was it, then, you came?”
“Ah, sir!” cried Mr. Lavender, running his hands through his hair and staring at the ceiling, “I feared this might seem inconsistent to your logical German mind. But there are many things we public men would never do if we could see them being done. Fortunately, as a rule we cannot. Believe me, when I leave you I shall do my best to save you from a fate which I perceive to be unnecessary.”
So saying, he rose from the chair, and, picking up his hat, backed towards the door.
“I will not offer you my hand,” he said, “for I am acutely conscious that my position is neither dignified nor decent. I owe you a tooth that I shall not readily forget. Good-bye!”
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