"She forbade me to--but all the same I did. I behaved like an idiot, of
course. Lost my temper and all that sort of thing. He was as cool as a
cucumber. He denied nothing and admitted nothing. He pretended to think
I had been drinking, and that enraged me the more. I was fool enough
to strike him. He got all the best of it. He picked himself up smiling
sweetly and said that nothing could induce him to resent anything
addressed by a person in whom Miss Ottley was interested. The inference
was that he loved her in an infinitely superior way to me. I felt like
choking him for a bit. And would you believe it--he actually offered to
shake hands." "A dangerous man, my lad. Beware of him." "He gives me the creeps," said the Captain. "But let's talk of
something else pleasanter." We talked of Miss Ottley, or rather he did, while I listened, till
midnight. Then he strolled with me to Bruton Street and we parted at
Dixon Hubbard's doorstep as the clocks were striking one. I found Hubbard seated before the fire, smoking, and staring dreamily
up at a portrait of his wife that rested on the mantel. "I've found out why I married her, Pinsent," he said slowly. "It was
to benefit a Jew named Maurice Levi--the most awful bounder in London. She had been borrowing from him at twenty-five per cent. to pay some of
her brother's gambling debts. Levi wanted to marry her, and would have,
too, if I had not stepped in to save him. She is the dearest little
woman in the world. She shed some tears. They cost me about a thousand
pounds apiece." "Good-night, Dixon," I said gently. "Tears, idle tears," he murmured. "The poet, mark you, did not speak of
woman's tears." Then he closed his eyes and heaved a deep sigh. "You
find me changed, Pinsent?" "A little." "For better or worse? Be frank with me." "For the better. This afternoon for the first time in our acquaintance
I beheld you in a lady's drawing-room. You are growing tolerant of your
kind." "I am no longer a misanthrope, but I am rapidly becoming a misogynist. Yes, I am altered, old friend, greatly altered. At the bottom of my
former misanthropy was a diseased conviction born of vanity that I was
the only person in the world really worth thinking badly about. But
marriage has compelled me to think more badly still of somebody else. The less selfish outlook thus induced has broadened my mind. I begin to
look forward to a time when my perversion will be complete and I shall
be able without blushing to look any woman in the face and acknowledge
her superiority in innate viciousness." "I begin to pity your wife, Dixon." "A waste of sentiment. She has married five and twenty thousand pounds
per annum, and she would be the last to tell you that the institution
is a failure. Few women contrive to dispose as advantageously of the
sort of goods they have to sell. Lady Helen would have made a fortune
as a bagman. But there, I do not want to prejudice you against her. She
likes you, I believe. Perhaps--who knows--but there--good-night." I was glad to get away. Chapter XIV

The Pushful Man


A day or two afterwards, while spending an hour in the rooms of the
Egyptology Society I was introduced to a new Fellow, who had been
appointed during my absence from England. His name was Louis Coen. He
was in private life a broker, but his heart and soul were wrapped in
the Cause. He evidently spelt it with a capital, in sympathy, perhaps,
with the vast sums in cash he had already put at the disposal of the
Society for exploration work. He was intensely entertaining. He took me
aside and confided that it was his ambition to transform the Society
into a sort of club. We needed a liquor license and more commodious
premises, it seemed. Then we would _boom_. He offered to provide all
the money requisite and he begged me to use my influence with other
members to get his views adopted. He was one of those men whose
mission in life is to "run" every concern into which they can manage
to insinuate themselves. I was afraid I disappointed him, although I
did my best to be polite. But he was nothing daunted. He declared he
would galvanise the "old fogies" into fresh activity and make us see
things from his point of view or die in the attempt. We might be as
serious as we pleased, but he would force us to be sociable. He had a
nose like a parrot, and was already on the committee of management. He
even proposed to change our name. The Royal Egyptian Club seemed to
him a "real smart monniker." He saved me from an impending mental and
physical collapse by mentioning the name of Sir Robert Ottley. Ottley,
it appeared, was his latest convert. Ottley agreed with him that we
wanted new blood, that our methods were too conservative. Ottley
thought it was ridiculous that everything a member did or discovered
should have to be reported to, and judged about, by a lot of old
fossils. What right had those old "stick-at-homes" to appropriate the
credit of the exertions of the energetic? "Would you believe it," cried
Mr. Coen, "they have had the impudence to demand from him an account
of his recent find--the tomb of an old johnny named Ptahmes--which he
unearthed at his own expense entirely! They have had the 'hide' to
insist that he shall immediately hand over the mummy to the British
Museum and place the papyri before them--them--them--for the purpose of
translation, et-cetera! I never heard a more cheeky proposition in my
life. My friend Ottley would act rightly if he told them to go to the
deuce!" "What has he told them?" I inquired. "Oh, he is temporising. He has written to say that he will place his
discoveries at their disposal when he has satisfied himself of their
authenticity, et-cetera. Of course that's all '_gyver_.' The mummy is
genuine enough, so are the papyri. But he naturally wants to have first
'go' at them, and he is fighting for time. Meanwhile, I am organising
the progressives. We can never hope to get this show properly on the
move till we shake things up and reform on sound commercial lines. I
tell you, sir, before I've done with it, I'll make this Society a power
in the land. I'm going to take it up in both hands and chuck it right
in the eyes of the B. P., that means the British Public. And you take
it from me, it's going to stay there. Good-day to you. I'm glad to have
met you. You are a bit antiquated in your notions; but you're a young
man yet, and you'll find you'll have to join my crowd. S'long!" He shook my hand very energetically and bustled off. I sank into a
chair and began to fan myself. A moment later the president, Lord
Ballantine, entered the room. The poor old gentleman was purple in the
face, spluttering: "Has-has-has that man Coen been can-can-canvassing
you?" he thundered. I nodded. "I-I-I'll resign--by God!" cried Lord Ballantine. "It-it-it's too much. I-I-I," he stopped----gasping for a word, the picture of impotent rage
and misery. But I felt no sympathy for him. "Why did you let him in?" I asked. "We-we-we were short of funds." "And now?"