The Making of a Soul | Page 2

minutes ago. Come and have something to eat." They were in the sitting-room by now. "There's not much, but I hadn't time to kill the fatted calf."
"Looks like it." Owen's eyes roamed over the cheerful little supper-table. "Barry, you're a fraud. Chicken, apple-pie--what more can man desire? But I confess I am hungry, though I didn't come for a meal."
"Well, sit down and let's begin," said Barry practically. "I dined at my aunt's to-night, and as usual I couldn't get much to eat! She asked me so many questions about ..." he coloured and hurried on "... about everything, that by the time I'd finished answering them dinner was over!"
"I see." Owen accepted the plate Barry handed him. "Well, you're looking very fit, Barry. How's things?"
"Oh, fair." Barry paused in the act of pouring out a whisky-and-soda. "That's to say, I'm still with old Joliffe, and got a rise of screw last quarter."
"Did you! Well, wait till we get the review going, and see if I don't tempt you away from that dictatorial old boss of yours!"
"Oh, I'll come to you all right," said Barry gaily. "But in the meantime I'd better hang on in the House of Rimmon, hadn't I? You see ..." He broke off, the colour mounting to his face.
"Of course. You're thinking of Olive. Quite right, too. How is she, Barry? Well?"
"A 1." Barry fell to on his supper with renewed zest. "Longing to see you, old chap. By the way"--he slid rather dexterously away from the subject--"you promised her a skin or something, didn't you? Have any luck?"
"Luck! Rather! I bagged one tiger who was really magnificent--he'll make a grand hearthrug for you and Olive. He was a splendid brute and I was lucky to get him. Of course, I've had luck all the way through. By gad, Barry, there's nothing like big-game shooting to make one fit! You know what I was like when I set out--and look at me now!"
Thus invited, Barry looked; and he was bound to admit that his friend was right.
Eighteen months previous to this wet night of January, Owen Rose had been so severely injured in a motor-accident that his life had been despaired of; and although he had eventually recovered, he had been left so unlike himself that a return to the normal round was impossible.
There was only one prescription, his doctors agreed, and that was the agreeable, if expensive, one of travel. Only by gaining complete change of scene, complete change, also, of life and routine, could he hope to recapture his old splendid vitality and abundant health; and since luckily Owen was by no means a poor man, the prescription was not so hard to carry out as might have been the case with another patient.
True, this break in his life interfered with several cherished projects. In the first--and most important--place, his marriage must be delayed; and although Miss Vivian Rees was only twenty, and might be considered fully young to be a bride, the delay, to the ardent lover, was vexatious, at the least.
Then the review, to which he had alluded in his conversation with Barry, had perforce to be shelved; and although there was plenty of time for the production of such a literary newcomer, he had felt, at the moment, as though called upon to abandon altogether a beloved ideal.
But the fiat had gone forth; and indeed he had agreed entirely with the medical verdict which pronounced him unfit to shoulder fresh tasks until his old strength should be regained. Therefore, unwillingly, but none the less unflinchingly, he had made preparations to leave England for a year's leisurely travel in the East, starting, as it were, from Bombay and journeying onwards wherever the fancy took him.
It happened that during his travels he fell in with a couple of old schoolfellows who were on the verge of a sporting expedition; and Owen, who by that time was tired of his loafing method of travel, jumped with alacrity at an invitation to join the party.
They had glorious sport; and in the excitement and vigour of the chase Owen regained all his old bodily strength and added thereto a quite fresh store of health and spirits. When at length he turned his face homewards he knew himself to be in such condition as he had never before experienced; and as he sat opposite his host to-night, eating and drinking gaily in this quiet room, he presented to Barry a picture of such perfect health as is rarely met with in the streets of London.
"Yes." Barry brought his leisurely survey to a close. "You do look uncommonly fit, I suppose you've had a gorgeous time."
Thus invited, Owen launched forth into an account of some of his most thrilling adventures, and the time flew as he recounted the