He liked to be listened to with respect when he spoke of Botticelli, Rossetti, and those early Italian artists whom he called ‘The Primitives.’ Tietjens had seen him there. And he didn’t disapprove.

For, if they weren’t, these gatherings, Society, they formed a stage on the long and careful road to a career in a first-class Government office. And, utterly careless as Tietjens imagined himself of careers or offices, he was, if sardonically, quite sympathetic towards his friend’s ambitiousnesses. It was an odd friendship, but the oddnesses of friendships are a frequent guarantee of their lasting texture.

The youngest son of a Yorkshire country gentleman, Tietjens himself was entitled to the best – the best that first-class public offices and first-class people could afford. He was without ambition, but these things would come to him as they do in England. So he could afford to be negligent of his attire, of the company he kept, of the opinions he uttered. He had a little private income under his mother’s settlement; a little income from the Imperial Department of Statistics; he had married a woman of means, and he was, in the Tory manner, sufficiently a master of flouts and jeers to be listened to when he spoke. He was twenty-six; but, very big, in a fair, untidy, Yorkshire way, he carried more weight than his age warranted. His chief, Sir Reginald Ingleby, when Tietjens chose to talk of public tendencies which influenced statistics, would listen with attention. Sometimes Sir Reginald would say: ‘You’re a perfect encyclopædia of exact material knowledge, Tietjens,’ and Tietjens thought that that was his due, and he would accept the tribute in silence.

At a word from Sir Reginald, Macmaster, on the other hand, would murmur: ‘You’re very good, Sir Reginald!’ and Tietjens thought that perfectly proper.

Macmaster was a little the senior in the service as he was probably a little the senior in age. For, as to his roommate’s years, or as to his exact origins, there was a certain blank in Tietjens’ knowledge. Macmaster was obviously Scotch by birth, and you accepted him as what was called a son of the manse. No doubt he was really the son of a grocer in Cupar or a railway porter in Edinburgh. It does not matter with the Scotch, and as he was very properly reticent as to his ancestry, having accepted him, you didn’t, even mentally, make any enquiries.

Tietjens always had accepted Macmaster – at Clifton, at Cambridge, in Chancery Lane and in their rooms at Gray’s Inn. So for Macmaster he had a very deep affection – even a gratitude. And Macmaster might be considered as returning these feelings. Certainly he had always done his best to be of service to Tietjens. Already at the Treasury and attached as private secretary to Sir Reginald Ingleby, whilst Tietjens was still at Cambridge, Macmaster had brought to the notice of Sir Reginald Tietjens’ many great natural gifts, and Sir Reginald, being on the lookout for young men for his ewe lamb, his newly-found department, had very readily accepted Tietjens as his third in command. On the other hand, it had been Tietjens’ father who had recommended Macmaster to the notice of Sir Thomas Block at the Treasury itself. And indeed, the Tietjens family had provided a little money – that was Tietjens’ mother really – to get Macmaster through Cambridge and install him in Town. He had repaid the small sum – paying it partly by finding room in his chambers for Tietjens when in turn he came to Town.

With a Scots young man such a position had been perfectly possible. Tietjens had been able to go to his fair, ample, saintly mother in her morning-room and say:

‘Look here, mother, that fellow Macmaster! He’ll need a little money to get through the University,’ and his mother would answer:

‘Yes, my dear. How much?’

With an English young man of the lower orders that would have left a sense of class obligation. With Macmaster it just didn’t.

During Tietjens’ late trouble – for four months before Tietjens’ wife had left him to go abroad with another man – Macmaster had filled a place that no other man could have filled. For the basis of Christopher Tietjens’ emotional existence was a complete taciturnity – at any rate as to his emotions. As Tietjens saw the world, you didn’t ‘talk’. Perhaps you didn’t even think about how you felt.

And, indeed, his wife’s flight had left him almost completely without emotions that he could realise, and he had not spoken more than twenty words at most about the event. Those had been mostly to his father, who, very tall, very largely built, silver-haired and erect, had drifted, as it were, into Macmaster’s drawing-room in Gray’s Inn, and after five minutes of silence had said:

‘You will divorce?’

Christopher had answered:

‘No! No one but a blackguard would ever submit a woman to the ordeal of divorce.’

Mr. Tietjens had suggested that, and after an interval had asked:

‘You will permit her to divorce you?’

He had answered:

‘If she wishes it. There’s the child to be considered.’

Mr.