Mr. Justice Raffles

So we began rather well; and that was a mercy in the light of poor Mr. Garland's cynically prompt departure; but we did not go on quite as well as we had begun. I do not say that Miss Belsize was in a bad temper, but emphatically she was not pleased, and I for one had the utmost sympathy with her displeasure. She was simply but exquisitely dressed, with unostentatious touches of Cambridge blue and a picture hat that really was a picture. Yet on a perfect stranger in a humid rockery she was wasting what had been meant for mankind at Lord's. The only consolation I could suggest was that by this time Lord's would be more humid still.

"And so there's something to be said for being bored to tears under shelter, Miss Belsize." Miss Belsize did not deny that she was bored.

"But there's plenty of shelter there," said she.

"Packed with draggled dresses and squelching shoes! You might swim for it before they admitted you to that Pavilion, you know."

"But if the ground's under water, how can they play to-day?"

"They can't, Miss Belsize, I don't mind betting."

That was a rash remark.

"Then why doesn't Teddy come back?"

"Oh, well, you know," I hedged, "you can never be quite absolutely sure.

It might clear up. They're bound to give it a chance until the afternoon.

And the players can't leave till stumps are drawn."

"I should have thought Teddy could have come home to lunch," said Miss

Belsize, "even if he had to go back afterwards."

"I shouldn't wonder if he did come," said I, conceiving the bare possibility: "and A.J. with him."

"Do you mean Mr. Raffles?"

"Yes, Miss Belsize; he's the only A.J. that counts!"

Camilla Belsize turned slightly in the basket-chair to which she had confided her delicate frock, and our eyes met almost for the first time. Certainly we had not exchanged so long a look before, for she had been watching the torpid goldfish in the rockery pool, and I admiring her bold profile and the querulous poise of a fine head as I tried to argue her out of all desire for Lord's. Suddenly our eyes met, as I say, and hers dazzled me; they were soft and yet brilliant, tender and yet cynical, calmly reckless, audaciously sentimental—all that and more as I see them now on looking back; but at the time I was merely dazzled.

"So you and Mr. Raffles are great friends?" said Miss Belsize, harking back to a remark of Mr. Garland's in introducing us.

"Rather!" I replied.

"Are you as great a friend of his as Teddy is?"

I liked that, but simply said I was an older friend. "Raffles and I were at school together," I added loftily.

"Really? I should have thought he was before your time."

"No, only senior to me. I happened to be his fag."

"And what sort of a schoolboy was Mr. Raffles?" inquired Miss Belsize, not by any means in the tone of a devotee. But I reflected that her own devotion was bespoke, and not improbably tainted with some little jealousy of Raffles.

"He was the most Admirable Crichton who was ever at the school," said I: "captain of the eleven, the fastest man in the fifteen, athletic champion, and an ornament of the Upper Sixth."

"And you worshipped him, I suppose?"

"Absolutely."

My companion had been taking renewed interest in the goldfish; now she looked at me again with the cynical light full on in her eyes.

"You must be rather disappointed in him now!"

"Disappointed! Why?" I asked with much outward amusement. But I was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

"Of course I don't know much about him," remarked Miss Belsize as though she cared less.

"But does anybody know anything of Mr. Raffles except as a cricketer?"

"I do," said I, with injudicious alacrity.

"Well," said Miss Belsize, "what else is he?"

"The best fellow in the world, among other things."

"But what other things?"

"Ask Teddy!" I said unluckily.

"I have," replied Miss Belsize. "But Teddy doesn't know. He often wonders how Mr. Raffles can afford to play so much cricket without doing any work."

"Does he, indeed!"

"Many people do."

"And what do they say about him?"

Miss Belsize hesitated, watching me for a moment and the goldfish rather longer. The rain sounded louder, and the fountain as though it had been turned on again, before she answered:

"More than their prayers, no doubt!"

"Do you mean," I almost gasped, "as to the way Raffles gets his living?"

"Yes."

"You might tell me the kind of things they say, Miss Belsize!"

"But if there's no truth in them?"

"I'll soon tell you if there is or not."

"But suppose I don't care either way?" said Miss Belsize with a brilliant smile.

"Then I care so much that I should be extremely grateful to you."

"Mind, I don't believe it myself, Mr. Manders."

"You don't believe—"

"That Mr. Raffles lives by his wits and—his cricket!"

I jumped to my feet.

"Is that all they say about him?" I cried.

"Isn't it enough?" asked Miss Belsize, astonished in her turn at my demeanour.

"Oh, quite enough, quite enough!" said I. "It's only the most scandalously unfair and utterly untrue report that ever got about—that's all!"