When the stairs had finished creaking under the descent of Mrs Codleyn’s righteous fury, Mr Duncalf whistled sharply twice. Two whistles meant Denry. Denry picked up his shorthand note-book and obeyed the summons.

‘Take this down!’ said his master, rudely and angrily.

Just as though Denry had abetted Mrs Codleyn! Just as though Denry was not a personage of high importance in the town, the friend of countesses, and a shorthand clerk only on the surface.

‘Do you hear?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘MADAM’ – hitherto it had always been ‘Dear Madam’, or ‘Dear Mrs Codleyn’ – ‘MADAM, – Of course I need hardly say that if, after our interview this morning, and your extraordinary remarks, you wish to place your interests in other hands, I shall be most happy to hand over all the papers, on payment of my costs. Yours truly … To Mrs Codleyn.’

Denry reflected: ‘Ass! Why doesn’t he let her cool down?’ Also: ‘He’s got “hands” and “hand” in the same sentence. Very ugly. Shows what a temper he’s in!’ Shorthand clerks are always like that – hypercritical. Also: ‘Well, I jolly well hope she does chuck him! Then I shan’t have those rents to collect.’ Every Monday, and often on Tuesday, too, Denry collected the rents of Mrs Codleyn’s cottages – an odious task for Denry. Mr Duncalf, though not affected by its odiousness, deducted 7½ per cent for the job from the rents.

‘That’ll do,’ said Mr Duncalf.

But as Denry was leaving the room Mr Duncalf called with formidable brusqueness –

‘Machin!’

‘Yes, sir?’

In a flash Denry knew what was coming. He felt sickly that a crisis had supervened with the suddenness of a tidal wave. And for one little second it seemed to him that to have danced with a countess while the flower of Bursley’s chivalry watched in envious wonder was not, after all, the key to the door of success throughout life.

Undoubtedly he had practised fraud in sending to himself an invitation to the ball. Undoubtedly he had practised fraud in sending invitations to his tailor and his dancing-mistress. On the day after the ball, beneath his great glory, he had trembled to meet Mr Duncalf’s eye, lest Mr Duncalf should ask him: ‘Machin, what were you doing at the Town Hall last night, behaving as if you were the Shah of Persia, the Prince of Wales, and Henry Irving?’ But Mr Duncalf had said nothing, and Mr Duncalf’s eye had said nothing, and Denry thought that the danger was past.

Now it surged up.

‘Who invited you to the Mayor’s ball?’ demanded Mr Duncalf like thunder.

Yes, there it was! And a very difficult question.

‘I did, sir,’ he blundered out. Transparent veracity. He simply could not think of a lie.

‘Why?’

‘I thought you’d perhaps forgotten to put my name down on the list of invitations, sir.’

‘Oh!’ This grimly. ‘And I suppose you thought I’d also forgotten to put down that tailor chap, Shillitoe?’

So it was all out! Shillitoe must have been chattering. Denry remembered that the classic established tailor of the town, Hatterton, whose trade Shillitoe was getting, was a particular friend of Mr Duncalf’s. He saw the whole thing.

‘Well?’ persisted Mr Duncalf, after a judicious silence from Denry.

Denry, sheltered in the castle of his silence, was not to be tempted out.

‘I suppose you rather fancy yourself dancing with your betters?’ growled Mr Duncalf, menacingly.

‘Yes,’ said Denry. ‘Do you?’

He had not meant to say it. The question slipped out of his mouth. He had recently formed the habit of retorting swiftly upon people who put queries to him: ‘Yes, are you?’ or ‘No, do you?’ The trick of speech had been enormously effective with Shillitoe, for instance, and with the Countess. He was in process of acquiring renown for it. Certainly it was effective now. Mr Duncalf’s dance with the Countess had come to an ignominious conclusion in the middle, Mr Duncalf preferring to dance on skirts rather than on the floor, and the fact was notorious.

‘You can take a week’s notice,’ said Mr Duncalf, pompously.

It was no argument. But employers are so unscrupulous in an altercation.

‘Oh, very well,’ said Denry; and to himself he said: ‘Something must turn up, now.’

He felt dizzy at being thus thrown upon the world – he who had been meditating the propriety of getting himself elected to the stylish and newly-established Sports Club at Hillport! He felt enraged, for Mr Duncalf had only been venting on Denry the annoyance induced in him by Mrs Codleyn. But it is remarkable that he was not depressed at all. No! he went about with songs and whistling, though he had no prospects except starvation or living on his mother. He traversed the streets in his grand, new manner, and his thoughts ran: ‘What on earth can I do to live up to my reputation?’ However, he possessed intact the five-pound note won from Harold Etches in the matter of the dance.

II

Every life is a series of coincidences. Nothing happens that is not rooted in coincidence. All great changes find their cause in coincidence. Therefore I shall not mince the fact that the next change in Denry’s career was due to an enormous and complicated coincidence. On the following morning both Mrs Codleyn and Denry were late for service at St Luke’s Church – Mrs Codleyn by accident and obesity, Denry by design. Denry was later than Mrs Codleyn, whom he discovered waiting in the porch. That Mrs Codleyn was waiting is an essential part of the coincidence. Now Mrs Codleyn would not have been waiting, if her pew had not been right at the front of the church, near the choir.