It was while the Australian was telling Amber the story which had interested her so greatly that Ernest Clifton was listening to something that Josephine had to say to him—something that caused him a good deal of spare thought all the time he was driving to his rooms in St. James’s Street, and even after he had settled himself in his chair with a small tumbler half filled with Apollinaris on a table at his elbow.
The words that she had spoken to him at that time of soft sounds and lights and garden scents were not such as he had been accustomed to hear from her; though he could not but acknowledge to himself—he now and again acknowledged something to himself; never to any one else—that he had noticed signs of readiness on her part to say those very words. It had needed all his adroitness—and he had usually a pretty fair share at his command—to prevent her from saying them long ago.
“I wonder if you know how great a strain it is upon me to adhere to the compact which we made last year.”
Those were the words that she had spoken in his ear when the Terrace had become almost deserted, only Amber and Pierce Win wood remaining in the seats they had occupied while drinking their coffee, and she had spoken in so low a tone that, even with the band playing so soft and low as it was, no word could be heard by any one passing their chairs.
He had been slightly startled by her words—he thought now that he had time to think over the matter, that perhaps he should have seemed when in her presence to have been more startled than he actually was. But the fact was that he had been so startled as to be unable to discriminate exactly how startled he should seem.
It required a trained intelligence such as his to appreciate so delicate a train of thought as this. He felt that it would have been more flattering to her if he had seemed more surprised when she had spoken. It would have allowed her to feel that his confidence in her fidelity was absolute and therefore—the logic was his—she would have felt flattered. When a young woman has secretly promised eventually to marry, and in the meantime to love, a certain man, and when in the cool of the evening of a delightful day and a tranquillising dinner she confesses to him that the keeping of the “meantime” clause in her compact subjects her to a great strain, the man should of course seem greatly surprised. If he were to seem otherwise, he would in effect be saying to the girl, “I took it for granted that the strain upon you would be great.”
He could not accuse himself of any deficiency of cleverness in his attitude towards her after she had spoken that surprising sentence. He knew that there was a proper amount of feeling in the way he breathed a sibilant “H’sh—h’sh!” while turning wondering eyes upon her—their expression of surprise being not without a certain element of pain.
“H’sh—for heaven’s sake—my dearest! Oh, Josephine! But... ah, you cannot mean that—that...”
He reflected now that those jerked-out words—those unfinished sentences could scarcely have been surpassed in effect. He hoped that she felt that the hand which he had then laid upon hers, was trembling. He had meant that it should tremble. And yet now when he came to think over it, he was not quite sure that his hand should have trembled. It was just possible that a girl after speaking as she had spoken, would have been more impressed by a thoroughly firm hand touching hers—a hand whose firmness would have given her confidence, compelling her to realise the confidence which he had—well, in himself.
(He was certainly a man of exquisite judgment in subtle shades of expression.)
She had, however, not withdrawn her hand for some seconds—several seconds: the dusk had cast its friendly and fascinating shade over them: the seeming incaution of his attitude was purely imaginary. No one could see the direction taken by his hand or hers.
“I tell you, it is the truth,” she had said, withdrawing her hand. “It is a great strain that you have put upon me, Ernest. I sometimes feel like a criminal—exactly like a criminal—in the presence of my father and my mother.”
“Ah, I thought that you saw with my eyes,” he said, and the pained expression in his voice increased. “I thought that we agreed that it would be madness—your father—he would never give his consent—you yourself said so.”
“I said so—I admit; but—please don’t think that I want to—to—break it off—oh, no; I only mean to say that—that—well, I have said all that I mean to say—it is a great strain upon me and I sometimes feel very miserable about it. You can understand that it should be so, Ernest.”
“I can understand, dearest—heaven knows that I feel how——”
“I don’t know how I ever came to agree to—to all that you put upon me—I really don’t.” She had actually interrupted him with her vehemence. It seemed as if she had not heard that he had begun to speak.
And her eyes were turned, he could see, in the direction of Pierce Winwood—the man who had sat beside her at dinner and who was now sitting beside Amber Severn.
“You agreed to my suggestion because—well, because you knew what you still know—that is, that you loved a man whose hope it is to become worthy of you, Josephine. I admit that I had no right to ask you to listen to me—to hear me tell you that I loved you—when I had nothing to offer you—nothing but years of waiting—years of struggle—years of hope. And now... Josephine, do you wish to be released from your part in the compact which we made a year ago?”
“No, no; I do not wish to be released. What, can it be possible that you have so misunderstood me—that you fancy I am the sort of woman who does not know her own mind—her own heart from one day to another?”
“I know that you are steadfastness itself—only—if I have placed you in an equivocal position—if you feel that the years of waiting... what I feel exactly, my dearest, is that it would be better for both of us to separate now than for——”
“You cannot understand much of my nature if you think for a moment that, after giving you my promise, I would ask you to free me from all that the giving of that promise entailed. But I was thinking that it might be better for us to be frank.”
“Have I ever kept anything from you?”
“I mean that it might be better if you had gone to my father and told him what were your hopes—your prospects—told him that I had given you my promise, and that we meant that nothing should come between us.”
“That would have separated us in a moment—you agreed with me.”
“It might have prevented our meeting and corresponding; but if we were sure of ourselves, would it have separated us in reality? The only separation possible would be brought about by either of us loving some one else; and that we know would be impossible.”
“Dearest, that is the confession which comes from my heart daily—hourly—giving me strength to annihilate time and space, so that the years of our waiting seem no more than hours.”
“Oh, I know my own heart, Ernest; and that is why I feel that what I say is true: even though my father should refuse to listen to us, we should still not be separated. In fact I really feel that there would not be so great a barrier between us as there is now when we meet.”
“I think I know how you feel,” he said; but he had not the smallest notion of how she felt. Barrier? What barrier was she thinking of? He had not the smallest notion of what was in her mind—or for that matter, her heart.
And it seemed that she knew this for she made an attempt to explain herself.
“I mean that the secret which we share together forms a barrier between us—a sort of barrier. I feel every time that I see you, with my mother sitting by not knowing the compact which we have made—every one else too sitting by, having no idea that we are otherwise than free—I feel that I am treating them badly—that I am mean—underhanded—deceitful.”
“Ah, my Josephine... Do you fancy that any one suspects?—your friend, Miss Severn?—she is clever—she has been saying something that has frightened you?”
“Oh, cannot you even see that it would be a positive relief if any one was to suspect anything—if any one were to speak out?”
“Good heavens! What a state of nervousness you must have allowed yourself to fall into when you would feel ruin to be a relief to you.”
“Ruin?”
“Ruin, I say; because I know that in such a case I should have no chance of getting your father’s consent—yes, and not only so: when he came to learn the truth—to be made aware of my presumption he would turn his party against me, and my career would be ruined. Do you think that I am not capable of doing something in the world, Josephine, that you would stand by and see my career ruined?”
“I have every belief in your ability, only—I am not sure that a man should think so much of his career—no, I don’t mean that—I only mean that prudence and—and a career may be bought too dearly.”
“Prudence—bought too dear?”
“I wonder if, after all, I am so very different from other women in thinking that love is more to be preferred than a career.”
“Of course it is, my dearest; but—heavens above, Josephine, would you do me the injustice to believe that I would ask you to make what all the world would call an idiotic match—well, at least an imprudent match?”
“Imprudence? Who is there that can say what is a prudent marriage or what is an imprudent! If people love each other truly... psha! I have actually fallen into the strain of that detestable person—the Other Woman. I dare say that you are right and I am wrong. You see, you are a man and can reason these things out—prudent marriages and so forth; whereas I am only a woman—I cannot reason—I cannot even think—I can only feel.”
“Thank heaven for that, Josephine. Ah, believe me, I have looked at this matter from every standpoint, and I long ago came to see that there was nothing for it but to do as we are doing. Believe me, my dear girl, if you were content to marry me to-morrow just as I am, I would not be content to accept such a sacrifice on your part. And for heaven’s sake, dearest, do not let any one suspect that there exists between us this—this understanding. Ah, Josephine, you will agree with me in thinking that prudence is everything.”
“Everything?”
“Everything—next, of course, to love. But above all, no one must be led to have the least suspicion——”
“Oh, have I not been prudence itself up to the present?” There was a suspicion in her voice—a suspicion of scorn,—he remembered that distinctly as he sat in his rooms recalling the whole scene an hour after it had been enacted. With that note—that half tone of scorn—their little chat ceased, for Guy Overton had come up and after him Lady Severn and Mr. Shirley, so that all that remained for him to do was to give a tender pressure with a look of courteous carelessness that was meant to prevent the possibility of any one with eyes fancying that there was tenderness in his pressure of Miss West’s fingers.
And now he was asking himself the question:
“Who is the Other Man?”
Ernest Clifton had a pretty good working acquaintance with the motives of men and women—not perhaps, quite so complete an acquaintance with these motives as he fancied he had, but still a very fair knowledge; and therefore he was asking himself that question:
“Who is the Other Man?”
He had had a good deal of trouble persuading Josephine during the preceding autumn to agree to engage herself to marry him. It had not been done in a minute. He had never before had such difficulty persuading a girl to give him such a promise. She was what physicians call “an obstinate case.” Hers was psychologically an obstinate case; but she had yielded at last to his treatment, and had given him her promise.
He flattered himself that it was his own cleverness—his own cleverness of argument—his own personality, for was not cleverness part of his personality?—that had brought her to perceive that she would be doing well to promise to marry him and at the same time to keep that promise a secret from her own father and mother and all the world besides. He remembered how he had impressed her by his story of his early struggles. He had appealed to her imagination by telling her how humble his career had been in its beginning—how, being the third son of a doctor in a village in Warwickshire, he had been thrown on the world to shift for himself when he was sixteen years of age—how he had, while working as a reporter on the staff of a Birmingham newspaper, starved himself in order to have money enough to pass University examinations and take a degree and, later on, to get called to the Bar. He told her how he had given up much of his time when practically behind the scenes at Birmingham to the study of the political machinery of a great party, with the result that he had worked himself into the position of the Secretary of the Organisation, becoming a power in his political party—a man with whom in critical times, the Head of the Cabinet had conferred before venturing upon legislation that might have a tendency to alienate a considerable proportion of his friends.
And Josephine had listened to him, and had fully appreciated his contention that for such a man as he hoped to become, the choice of a wife was a matter of supreme importance. He had given her to understand that his ideal woman was one to whom her husband would apply for counsel when he needed it—one who would be her husband’s right hand in all matters. He had seen enough, he said, to make him aware of the fact that those men who were willing to relegate their wives to a purely domestic position were the men who were themselves eventually relegated by their party to a purely domestic position: they became the domestics of their party mainly, he believed, because they had been foolish enough—conceited enough, for there is no such fool as your conceited politician—to fancy that nowadays—nay, that at any time in the history of the country, the wife of the political leader should occupy a humbler place than the political leader himself.
He had prevailed upon her, first, by stimulating her interest in himself, and secondly, by stimulating her ambition—he knew that she had ambition—and she had agreed, but only after considerable difficulty on his part, to accept his assurance that for some time at least, it would be well for their engagement to remain a secret, even from her father and mother. He had reason for knowing, he told her, that her father was antagonistic to him, on account of his alleged interference—“interference” was the word that Mr. West had freely employed at the time—with the constituency which he represented at a rather critical time. He knew, he said, that it would require time to clear the recollection of this unhappy incident from her father’s mind, so that to ask him for his consent to their engagement would be hopeless.
Well, she had, after great demur, consented to give him her promise, and to preserve the matter a secret.
And now he was sitting in his chair asking himself the question:
“Who is the Other Man?”
He was unable to answer the question; all that he could do was to keep his eyes open.
But as this was the normal state of his eyes he knew that he was not subjecting them to any condition that threatened astygia.
While Mr. Ernest Clifton was thinking over the question, the answer to which he believed to be vital to his interests, Amber Severn was hanging on the arm of her father as they strolled together about their rose-garden under the cool stars of the summer night. She was keeping the promise she had made to Pierce Winwood and was telling him the story—it struck her as being curious—which Pierce Winwood had told to her.
It seemed too that she had not overestimated the element of the curious which it contained, for before she had gone very far with it her father who had been, when she begun the narrative, stooping down every now and again to smell the roses as he moved from bed to bed, was standing still, quite as engrossed in hearing the story from her as she had been in hearing it from the Australian.
When she came to the end, he put his hands in his pockets, and drew a long breath, gazing, not at her face, but in an abstracted way, over her head into the distance of the shrubbery. There was a silence of considerable duration before he said,—and once again he seemed to draw a long breath:
“What did you say is the name of the man—the Australian—I was paying so little attention to you, I regret to say, when you began your story, I have actually forgotten it?”
“Pierce Winwood,” replied Amber. “I mentioned the name to you a few days ago when I told you that I had met him. You said you did not recollect hearing it before, but I now see that you recall it.”
“You are wrong, my dear; I do not recall anyone of that name,” said her father. And then he turned away from her, looking up to the topmost windows of the house, which were glowing one by one, as the servants switched on the lights in turn, preparing the rooms for the night.
Amber was a little struck at his way of taking the story. It appeared to her that he must have heard it all before, for he had not given any exclamation of surprise while she dwelt on some of the details that seemed to her rather marvellous. His attitude on hearing it to its close, was, she thought, that of a person whose distant memories have been awakened.
“What did he say was the name of the man—the man to whom the thing happened?” he asked, after another and a longer pause.
“He was unable to give me any name—either the name of the man who was falsely imprisoned or the one who allowed himself to be saved by the falsehood,” replied Amber.
“Ah... I wonder if he is anxious to find out either of those names.”
“He said nothing about that. He only told me the story because we had been talking about the romance of the colonies,” said Amber.
“Ah...”
“But now that I come to think of the way he dwelt on some of the details in the story he must take a more than ordinary amount of interest in the people of that little drama—the story would make a very good play, I think.”
“That is just what I have been thinking—a very good play. You really fancy that he took a personal interest in some of the details?”
“Well, it did not seem so to me at the moment, I must confess; but as I said just now, the more I think of it the more I feel... but perhaps I exaggerate... I can only tell you what is my impression now.”
“That is almost certain to be accurate, my dear. I am sure that you have been led to believe that I heard the story before. Of course I heard it before. What surprised me was becoming aware of the fact that I was not alone in my acquaintance with the details of the story—the man who was innocent suffering for the one who was guilty.”
“The strangest part seems to me to be that of the guilty man being content to see the innocent suffer. Is it possible that such a man could exist?”
“There are few men in existence possessing sufficient strength of mind to stand silently by while some one else—their closest friend—is suffering in their place.”
“Strength of mind? Strength of—well, they may have strength of mind,—but what about their hearts? Oh, such men could have no hearts.”
“When men set out in life with a determination that their ambition shall be realised they find that their best ally is that process of nature known as atrophy, my dear: they get rid of their hearts to make way for their ambition. At the same time you should remember that atrophy is as much a process of nature as those other processes which we associate with the action of the heart.”
“Oh, yes; I acknowledge that; and our abhorrence of the man with the atrophied heart is quite as natural as the process known as atrophy.”
Sir Creighton laughed.
“And you will be able to tell Mr. Winwood the names of the people—the two men: the man with the heart and the man with the ambition?” continued Amber.
“I could tell him both names; but I am not certain that I should tell him so much as one of them,” said her father. “At any rate, you are going to ask him to dinner. By the way, who did you say sat with him at the little feast to-night—you said he told you the story after dinner?”
“Josephine sat beside him. I think mother mentioned it when we returned,” said Amber.
“Of course she did,” said her father. “I had forgotten for the moment. And I suppose one may take it for granted that Josephine and he got on all right?”
“I’m sure they did. I hadn’t a chance of asking her. Oh, of course, they got on all right; Joe isn’t the girl to let a stranger feel ‘heavy and ill at ease,’ as the song says.”
“That occurred to me. And the man—would he tell her the story too? Oh, I don’t suppose that he would have the chance at the dinner table. He isn’t in the position of the Ancient Mariner.”
“I don’t suppose he would have told me if we hadn’t begun to talk about Australian romances. He had a groom who used to play polo at Ranelagh—and a stock rider too. Funny, isn’t it?”
“Very funny. You came to the conclusion that he was a good sort of chap?”
“You mean Mr. Winwood? Oh, yes, he is very nice.”
“I think you might ask Josephine to come on whatever night you invite him. Make it a small party, Amber.”
“I’ll make it as small as you please, if you want to talk to him afterwards. Why should not I ask him to drop in to lunch? that will be more informal, and besides, we really haven’t a spare evening for three weeks to come.”
“A capital idea! Yes, ask him to lunch. Only he may not have a spare morning for as many weeks. Don’t forget Josephine: meantime we’ll go to our beds and have a sleep or two. Who sat beside you at dinner?”
“Lord Lullworth. A nice—no, he might be nice only that he’s pig-headed. He ridiculed the school.”
They had walked towards the house, and now they were standing together at the foot of the flight of steps leading to the door by which they meant to enter.
“He ridiculed the school, did he? Well, your friend Willie Bateman will tell us that he could not do more for the school than that. By the way, did this Mr. Winwood bind you down to secrecy in regard to his story?”
“On the contrary he asked me to tell it to you; but now that I come to think of it he said he would rather that I didn’t tell it to Mr. Richmond: you see I suggested before he told it to me that it would serve—possibly—as an exercise for one of the classes.”
“I think he was right. I would advise you to refrain from telling it to Mr. Richmond or in fact to any one. I would even go the length of refraining from telling it to Josephine.”
“What! oh, he did not tell me to keep it such a secret as all that. Why shouldn’t I tell it to Joe?”
“Why should you tell it to her. It may concern this Mr. Winwood more closely than you think. You remember what the knowing man says in one of Angler’s comedies?—‘When any one tells me a story of what happened to a friend of his, I know pretty well who that friend is.’”
“You mean to say that it is—that it was——”
“I mean to say nothing more, and I would advise you to follow my example. Good-night, my dear. Don’t give too much of your thought to the question of who Mr. Winwood’s friend is—or was. He told you he was dead, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he said that he was dead and that he didn’t even know what his name was.”
“Ah, well, I have the better of him there. Goodnight.”
He kissed her, and she suffered herself to be kissed by him, but was too far lost in thought to be able to return his valediction.
She went to her dressing-room; but she heard her father go down the corridor to his study before she had reached the first lobby. She could not, however, hear the way he paced the floor of his study for some minutes before throwing himself upon his sofa, or she might have come to the conclusion that the story which she had repeated to him concerned him much more closely than it did.
But he was a scientific man and his methods of thought were scientific.
“A coincidence—a coincidence!” he muttered. “Yes, one of those coincidences that are carefully arranged for. He never would have told her the story but for the fact of his hearing that I knew all about it. It would have been a coincidence if he had told her the story without knowing who she was.”
He resumed his pacing of the room for some minutes longer, but then, with an impatient word, he extinguished the lights.
“Psha!” he said. “What does it amount to after all? Not much, only I never thought it possible that all that old business would ever be revived. I fancied that it was dead and buried long ago. It’s a pity—a great pity. Yes, that’s what I think now. But...”
He remained for a minute or two in the dark, but whatever his thoughts were he did not utter them. He went silently upstairs to his room.
When Amber saw Josephine a couple of days later and asked her to drop in to lunch on the following Friday, Josephine said she would be delighted; but when Amber mentioned immediately afterwards, that Pierce Winwood would probably be the only stranger of the party she was rather surprised to notice a little flush upon Josephine’s face followed by a little drawing down of the corners of her mouth, and the airiest shadow of a frown—perhaps a pout.
“Did you say Friday?” Josephine asked in a tone that suggested a vocal sequence to the tiny frown that might have been a pout.
“Yes, I said Friday and you said you would come. Don’t try to make out now that you misunderstood me,” cried Amber.
“I’m not going to try. Only——”
“Only what? Why should you dislike meeting Mr. Winwood? Did you expect me to ask Guy Overton or Mr. Richmond—or was it Arthur you had set your heart on? Didn’t you find Mr. Win-wood entertaining?”
“Entertaining? Entertaining?” Josephine looked at her strangely for a few moments and then gave a laugh. “Entertaining?” she said again. “I really never gave a thought to the question as to whether he was entertaining or the reverse. The men who entertain one are not always the people one wants to meet again. I think that there’s hardly any one so dull as the man who tries to be entertaining.”
“Then what have you against Mr. Winwood?” asked Amber.
“Did I say that I had somewhat against him?” cried Josephine quickly and with quite unnecessary vehemence. “Now, don’t say that I suggested to you that I disliked this Mr. Winwood. I was only—only surprised. Why should you ask me to meet him again? There was no need for me ever to meet him again. People come together at dinner or at a dance and separate and—and—that’s all right. Why shouldn’t this Mr. Winwood be allowed to drift away after this comfortable and accommodating manner?”
Amber stared at her. Her face was almost flushed with the vehemence of her words, and there was a strange sparkle in her eyes. Amber stared at this inexplicable display of feeling. She wondered what on earth had come over her friend Josephine, and had opened her mouth to say so, when Josephine prevented her speaking.
“Now, don’t say—what you’re going to say,” she cried, lifting up both her hands in an exaggerated attitude of protest which, however, but imperfectly concealed the increased flush upon her face. “Don’t say that I’m an idiot, my beloved girl, because I happen to have—to have taken an unaccountable dislike to your Mr. Winwood. I haven’t—I give you my word I haven’t in reality—as a matter of fact I think that I could almost like him, if I did not—that is to say,ifI did not—do the other thing. There you are now.”
“What’s the other thing?” asked Amber.
“Good gracious! what’s the opposite to liking a man?”
“Loving a man,” cried Amber.
Josephine’s flush vanished. It was her turn to stare. She stared as a cold search-light stares.
Then she said coldly:
“I dislike your Mr. Winwood—I—I—I wonder if I don’t actually hate him. Yes, I feel that I must actually hate him or I shouldn’t be looking forward to meeting him so eagerly as I do. That’s the truth for you, my dear Amber—the truth—whatever that may mean.”
“I wish you were not coming on Friday,” said Amber, after a long, thoughtful and embarrassing pause.
“So do I. But I swear to you that nothing shall prevent my lunching with you on Friday,” cried Josephine.
And then after a moment of gravity which Amber thought might be simulated in a kind of spirit of parody of her own gravity, Josephine burst out laughing and then hurried away.
Amber felt completely puzzled by her attitude. She did not know what to make of her flushing—of her frowning—of her pouting—least of all of her outburst of laughter.
She thought over what Josephine had said; but, of course, that was no assistance to her.
If one cannot arrive at any satisfactory interpretation of a girl’s flushing and frowning and laughing one is not helped forward to any appreciable extent by recalling her words.
Amber wished with all her heart that her father had not suggested to her the asking of Josephine to this confidential little lunch which he had projected.
If Josephine came with great reluctance to lunch with her dearest friend because of her precipitate dislike to Mr. Winwood, she was of course sufficiently a woman of the world to avoid betraying in any way that might cause her friend to feel uncomfortable, her antipathy to him—perhaps antipathy was too strong a word tothink, Amber thought; but she felt that if she did Josephine an injustice in letting so strong a word come into her mind in this connection, the mystic manner—the absurd and inexplicable contradictoriness of Josephine was alone accountable for it.
Amber felt a little nervous in observing the attitude of Mr. Winwood in respect of Josephine. If he were to give any sign of returning Josephine’s—well, not antipathy—uncongeniality would be a better word, Amber felt that she should have just cause for annoyance.
The result of her observation of him was to relieve her mind of its burden of doubt. He looked more than pleased when he found himself face to face with Miss West.
And then it was that Amber first came to perceive that Pierce Winwood was a very good-looking man. He had a frank way of standing in front of one that somehow suggested a schoolboy thirsting for information from his betters.
“I thought that London was a place where one never found out the name of one’s next door neighbour and never met the same person twice, but I am glad to discover my mistake,” said he when Josephine had shaken hands with him.
And then Amber breathed freely.
And Josephine treated him with positive cordiality—“How amazingly well a woman can conceal her real feelings,” was Amber’s thought when she noticed how pleasantly her friend smiled looking straight into Mr. Winwood’s face while she said:
“I think our life here quite delightful: we need only meet a second time the people whom we like. In the country one is compelled to take the goats with the sheep: one has no choice in the matter.”
“A second time?” said he. “What about a third time? Is a third time possible?”
“Almost inevitable—if one passes the second time,” said Josephine.
“You are building up my hopes,” he said, turning away from her.
She was petting the Persian cat, Shagpat by name.
And at this moment Sir Creighton entered the room and his daughter noticed the quick scrutiny that he gave to the face of the younger man. She also noticed the return of that nervous awkwardness which the younger man had displayed on meeting her on the Sunday afternoon. It never occurred to her that the man who called himself Pierce Winwood and who said that his father had once known hers might be an impostor.
Sir Creighton shook hands with him and said he was glad that he was able to come.
“There are so many things going on just now, are there not?” he said. “And I suppose you are anxious to attend everything, Mr. Winwood.”
“One must lunch somewhere,” said Amber. “Lunch is a sort of postscript to one’s breakfast in London town,” said Sir Creighton. “I don’t suppose that any one except we working men can get over breakfast before eleven. What time does your father breakfast on the morning after a late sitting of the House, Josephine?”
“He is invariably the first one of the household to be in the breakfast room,” said Josephine.
“I find people in London the earliest to bed and the earliest to rise of any I have ever known,” remarked Winwood. “I was led into Bohemia the other evening. I found it the most orderly and certainly the earliest of communities. The greater number of the revellers drank nothing but Apollinaris and hurried off to catch suburban trains.”
“I heard some one say the other day that the Underground Railway has done more to advance the cause of temperance than all the lecturers in the world,” said Lady Severn.
“I am afraid that even the once potent magic-lantern must take a second place as a reforming agent,” said Sir Creighton.
“I believe that there is still one real Bohemian alive in London to-day,” said Josephine. “He is one of the aborigines and he is as carefully looked after as if he were a Maori or a Pitcairn Islander.”
“He was pointed out to me,” said Winwood. “He is, I hear, the sole survivor of a once dilapidated community. He forms an excellent example to those who may fancy that there was anything fascinating in mediocrity combined with potations.” And all this time Amber perceived that her father was scrutinising the face of Pierce Winwood, but giving no indication that he recalled in the face of the son any of the features of the father, whom her father was supposed to know.
The conversation which was being eked out until the meal should be announced became too attenuated even to serve this purpose, but just at the right moment the relief came; and of course when the little party had settled down at the table topics were not wanting, and also as a matter of course every topic had to be general: there was no possibility of Sir Creighton and Winwood discussing between themselves any matter that they might have to discuss. Amber, who gave herself up to observing everything, came to the conclusion that on the whole her father was favourably impressed by the personality of the Australian; but somehow the latter did not succeed in inducing Josephine to talk as she usually could talk. She was not so silent as to call for remark; but there was at the table none of that “forced draught” conversation which Sir Creighton usually found so stimulating.
When the two men were left together, and had lighted cigars, the younger did not wait for his host to lead up to the question of his identity.
“I have been wondering, with some anxiety, Sir Creighton, if I have yet suggested any person to your memory.”
“I am a scientific man, and therefore not quite so liable as most people to accept fancies on the same basis as real evidence,” said Sir Creighton. “It would be impossible for me to say that your features suggested to me those of any man with whom I was acquainted years ago—how many years ago?”
Winwood shook his head.
“I cannot say how many years ago it was that you were acquainted with my father,” he said. “I thought that perhaps—no one has ever suggested a likeness between my father and myself, still I thought—well, one often sees transmitted some personal trait—some mannerism that recalls an individuality. That is a scientific truth, is it not, Sir Creighton?”
“It is highly scientific,” said Sir Creighton with a laugh. “Yes, on that basis, I admit that—once or twice, perhaps—a recollection seemed to be awakened; but—what is in my mind at this moment, is the imitation of well-known actors to which one is treated in unguarded moments by popular entertainers. I dare say that you have noticed also that it is only when the entertainer has announced the name of the well-known actor whom he imitates that the imitation becomes plausible. Now, although I occasionally boast of being influenced only by scientific methods, still I fancy that if I knew the name of your father I should have less difficulty recalling the man whose personalities—that is some of them—a few—are echoed by you. I knew no one bearing the name Winwood.”
“You ask me the question which I was in hopes you could answer, Sir Creighton,” said Winwood. “I had no idea that the name by which my father was known during the forty years or so that he lived in the colony was an assumed one. I never found out what was his real one. To say the truth, it is only recently that my curiosity on this point has been aroused. In a young colony there is a good deal of uncertainty with regard to names.”
“I dare say. You told my daughter a curious and an almost incredible story, however, and she repeated it to me,” said Sir Creighton.
“You will not tell me that you never heard that story before,” cried the younger man, half rising from his seat. “If you tell me so, I shall feel uncommonly like an impostor.”
“Oh, no; I heard all the details of that story long ago,” replied Sir Creighton. “Only, as it was told to me I fail to see what bearing it has upon your identity.”
“The man who suffered in the place of his friend was my father, Sir Creighton,” said Winwood. “Now you know the name of the original actor of whose personality I have been giving you imitations—faint imitations, I dare say.”
“Yes, now I know; and I admit that I see the original much more clearly,” said Sir Creighton laughing. But his listener was not laughing. He was leaning his head on his hand, his elbow being on the table, and seemed to be lost in thought. There was no elation in his expression at Sir Creighton’s admission.
Sir Creighton became equally grave in a moment.
“It was the cruellest thing and the most heroic thing ever done in the world,” said he in a low voice. “It was to me your father told the truth about that confession of his, and he did so only on my promising in the most solemn way that I would keep the matter a secret. I often wonder if I was justified in adhering to my promise.”
“When he told me the story he rather prided himself on his judgment in selecting you as his confidant,” said Winwood. “Yes; he said that he knew he could trust you to keep his secret.”
“I don’t think that I would have kept it if he had entrusted it to me before he had suffered his imprisonment,” said Sir Creighton. “He did not do so, however, until his release and when he was on the point of sailing for South America—it was for South America he sailed, not Australia.”
“He remained for nearly five years in Rio Janeiro,” said Winwood. “The training which we received at the engineering works he was able to turn to good account at Rio, and so far as I could gather he made enough money to give him a start in Australia. He succeeded and I think he was happy. It was not until he had reached his last year that he told me the story.”
“He did so without any bitterness in regard to the other man, I am sure,” said Sir Creighton.
“Without a single word of reproach,” said Win-wood. “He really felt glad that the other man had prospered—he told me that he had prospered and that he had reached a high position in the world.”
“You see your father rightly thought of himself as having saved the man from destruction; not merely from the disgrace which would have been the direct result of his forgery being discovered, but from the contemptible life which he was leading. I don’t know if your father told you that one of the conditions of the strange compact between them was that he would change his life; and for once the man fulfilled that part of his compact. Your father saved him.”
Winwood nodded in assent, while he still allowed his head to rest on his hand, as if he were lost in thought.
Suddenly he turned his eyes upon Sir Creighton, then drew his chair closer to him, and leaning forward, said:
“Sir Creighton, will you tell me what is the name of that man?”
Sir Creighton was awaiting this question. He had been considering for the previous two days what answer he should return to this question, and yet he felt taken somewhat unawares for he did not expect that his conversation with Winwood would lead to a view of his father’s act from the standpoint from which it now seemed that he regarded it.
“It appears to me that your father had his own reasons—very excellent reasons too—for refraining from telling you either his own name or the name of the man whom he saved from destruction,” he said. “I wonder if I have any right to make you acquainted with what he withheld. What is your opinion on this matter?”
“I asked you to tell me the man’s name, Sir Creighton,” replied Winwood.
“I have no doubt that you are intensely interested in the search for his name,” said Sir Creighton. “But do you really think that I should be justified in telling you what your father clearly meant to remain a secret? Just at present I feel very strongly that I have no right to do this. If any one would be happier for my telling you the man’s name I dare say that I might, at least, be tempted to do so; but no one would be the happier for it. On the contrary, you yourself would, I know, be sorry that I told you the name of the man, and as for the man—as I am acquainted with him to-day and have some respect for him——”
“Some respect?”
“Some respect—in fact, in spite of my knowing all that I do, a good deal of respect—as, I repeat, I have no desire to make him unhappy, I shall not tell you what is his name—I shall not tell him that the son of the man whom he allowed to suffer for his crime, is alive and anxious to know all about him.”
“You mean that you will not tell me—-just yet.”
“That is exactly what is in my mind at this moment. I should have added those words of yours ‘just yet,’ to what I said regarding both you—and the man. I may think it due to you to tell you some day; and I may also think it due to—the man to tell him. Meantime—not just yet—I hope you are not unsatisfied, my boy?”
Sir Creighton put out his hand with more than cordiality—absolute tenderness, and the younger man took it, and was deeply affected.
“I am satisfied—more than satisfied,” he said in a low voice. “I shall try to be worthy of such a father as I had.”
“You are worthy, my boy—I know it now,” said Sir Creighton. “You do not shrink from self-sacrifice. I hoped to find that my old friend had such a son as you. I may be able to do something for you—to help you in a way that—that—oh, we need not lay plans for the future; it is only such plans that are never realised. Now I think we can face the drawing-room.”