onus on to Jaffery. But
again, what could we do? Doria put her pistol at our heads and demanded
Adrian's original manuscripts. She had every reason to believe in their
existence. Wittekind had never seen them. Vandal and Goth and every kind
of Barbarian that she considered Jaffery to be, it was inconceivable
that he had deliberately destroyed them. It was equally inconceivable
that he had sold the precious things for vulgar money. They remained
therefore in his possession. Why did he lie? We could supply no
satisfactory answer; and the more solutions we offered the more did we
confirm in her mind the suspicion of dark and nefarious dealings. If it
were only to gain time in order to think and consult, we had to refer
her to the absent Jaffery.

"My dear," said I to Barbara, when we were alone, "we're in a deuce of a
mess."

"I'm afraid we are."

"Henceforward," said I, "we're going to live like selfish pigs, with no
thought about anybody but ourselves and our own little pig and about
anything outside our nice comfortable sty."

"We'll do nothing of the kind," said Barbara.

"You'll see," said I. "I'm a lion of egotism when I'm roused."

We dined and had a pleasant evening. Doria did not raise the disastrous
topic, but talked of Marienbad and her visits, and discussed the modern
tendencies of the drama. She prided herself on being in the forefront of
progress, and found no dramatic salvation outside the most advanced
productions of the Incorporated Stage Society. I pleaded for beauty,
which she called wedding-cake. She pleaded for courage and truth in the
presentation of actual life, which I called dull and stupid photography
which any dismal fool could do. We had quite an exciting and entirely
profitless argument.

"I'm not going to listen any longer," she cried at last, "to your silly
old early Victorian platitudes!"

"And I," I retorted, "am not going to be browbeaten in my own home by
one-foot-nothing of crankiness and chiffon."

So, laughingly, we parted for the night, the best of friends. If only, I
thought, she could sweep her head clear of Adrian, what a fascinating
little person she might be. And I understood how it had come to pass
that our hulking old ogre had fallen in love with her so desperately.

The next morning I was in the garden, superintending the planting of
some roses in a new, bed, when Doria, in hat and furs, came through my
library window, and sang out a good-bye. I hurried to her.