Page:Across the Stream.djvu/260

250 easier than any other. I should have had to pump up indignation. But he was rather rude, wasn't he? Isn't it lucky that one doesn't feel like that?"

Archie drew in a long breath of the vigorous night-air. To himself it seemed that he drew in a long breath of the inspiration that had come to him last night.

"Jessie, I'm going to save father," he said. "We had an awfully nice talk this morning, and it was so pathetic. He has been a heavy drinker for years, you know. His father was so before him. So one mustn't think it is his fault, any more than it was my fault that I had consumption when I was little. It isn't a vice, it's a disease. Well, I've made a compact with him. I found that he had got it into his head—God knows how—that I—I know you'll laugh—was beginning to take to that beastly muck too. So I saw my opportunity. He's fond of me, you know; he really is, and it had seriously occurred to him that I was getting the habit. So I took advantage of that. I said I wouldn't have any more whiskies and cocktails if he wouldn't. We made a bargain about it. Without swagger, it was rather a good piece of work, don't you think?"

Jessie knew exactly what she honestly felt, and what she honestly felt she could not possibly say. For though it was a good bargain on Archie's part, the virtue of it would affect not only Lord Tintagel, but Archie himself. But the knowledge of this added to the sincerity of her reply.

"Oh, Archie," she said, "that was brilliant of you. Do you—do you think your father will keep to it?"

"He can't help it," said Archie triumphantly. "I'm going to be down here, except when I go up to town for Helena's wedding, and I'm always in and out of his room. I should know if he doesn't keep to it."

He paused, thinking out further checks on his father.

"There's William, too," he said. "William's devoted to me, simply, as far as I can tell, because he saved my