By good fortune seeing one of the gardeners in the near distance, I
hailed him and shouted the necessary orders. That is the one
disadvantage of summer: during the whole of that otherwise happy season,
Barbara expects me to be something between a scene-shifter and a
Furniture Removing Van.
The chairs were fetched from a far-off summer house and we settled down.
Jaffery lit his pipe, smiled at Doria, and met a very wistful look. He
held her eyes for a space, and laid his great hand very gently on hers.
"I know what you're thinking of," he said, with an arresting tenderness
in his deep voice. "You won't have to wait much longer."
"Is it at the printer's?"
"It's printed."
Barbara and I gave each a little start--we looked at Jaffery, who was
taking no notice of us, and then questioningly at each other. What on
earth did the man mean?
"From to-morrow onwards, till publication, the press will be flooded
with paragraphs about Adrian Boldero's new book. I fixed it up with
Wittekind, as a sort of welcome home to you."
"That was very kind, Jaffery," said Doria; "but was it necessary? I
mean, couldn't Wittekind have done it before?"
"It was necessary in a way," said Jaffery. "We wanted you to pass the
proofs."
Doria smiled proudly. "Pass Adrian's proofs? I? I wouldn't presume to do
such a thing."
"Well, here they are, anyway," said Jaffery.
And to the bewilderment of Barbara and myself, he snapped open the hasps
of his suit-case and drew out a great thick clump of galley-proofs
fastened by a clip at the left hand top corner, which he deposited on
Doria's lap. She closed her eyes and her eyelids fluttered as she
fingered the precious thing. For a moment we thought she was going to
faint. There was breathless silence. Even Susan, who had been left out
in the cold, let the black kitten leap from her knee, and aware that
something out of the ordinary was happening, fixed her wondering eyes on
Doria. Her mother and I wondered even more than Susan, for we had more
reason. Of what manuscript, in heaven's name, were these the printed
proofs? Was it possible that I had been mistaken and that Jaffery, in
the assiduity of love, had made coherence out of Adrian's farrago of
despair?
Jaffery touched Doria's hand with his finger tips. She opened her eyes
and smiled wanly, and looked at the front slip of the long proofs. At
once she sat bolt upright.
"'_The Greater Glory_.' But that wasn't Adrian's title. His title was
'_God_.' Who has dared to change it?"
[Illustration: He drew out a great thick clump of galley-proofs.]
Her eyes flashed; her little body quivered. She flamed an incarnate
indignation. For some reason or other she turned accusingly on me.
"I knew nothing of the change," said I, "but I'm very glad to hear of it
now."
Many times before had I been forced to disclaim knowledge of what
Jaffery had been doing with the book.