Wolfenden was evidently absolutely unprepared to see the girl whom he found occupying his own particular easy chair in his study. The light was only a dim one, and as she did not move or turn round at his entrance he did not recognise her until he was standing on the hearthrug by her side. Then he started with a little exclamation.
“Miss Merton! Why, what on earth——”
He stopped in the middle of his question and looked intently at her. Her head was thrown back amongst the cushions of the chair, and she was fast asleep. Her hat was a little crushed and a little curl of fair hair had escaped and was hanging down over her forehead. There were undoubtedly tear stains upon her pretty face. Her plain, black jacket was half undone, and the gloves which she had taken off lay in her lap. Wolfenden’s anger subsided at once. No wonder Selby had been perplexed. But Selby’s perplexity was nothing to his own.
She woke up suddenly and saw him standing there, traces of his amazement still lingering on his face. She looked at him, half-frightened, half-wistfully. The colour came and went in her cheeks—her eyes grew soft with tears. He felt himself a brute. Surely it was not possible that she could be acting! He spoke to her more kindly than he had intended.
“What on earth has brought you up to town—and here—atthis time of night? Is anything wrong at Deringham?”
She sat up in the chair and looked at him with quivering lips.
“N—no, nothing particular; only I have left.”
“You have left!”
“Yes; I have been turned away,” she added, piteously.
He looked at her blankly.
“Turned away! Why, what for? Do you mean to say that you have left for good?”
She nodded, and commenced to dry her eyes with a little lace handkerchief.
“Yes—your mother—Lady Deringham has been very horrid—as though the silly papers were of any use to me or any one else in the world! I have not copied them. I am not deceitful! It is all an excuse to get rid of me because of—of you.”
She looked up at him and suddenly dropped her eyes. Wolfenden began to see some glimmerings of light. He was still, however, bewildered.
“Look here,” he said kindly, “why you are here I cannot for the life of me imagine, but you had better just tell me all about it.”
She rose up suddenly and caught her gloves from the table.
“I think I will go away,” she said. “I was very stupid to come; please forget it and—— Goodbye.”
He caught her by the wrist as she passed.
“Nonsense,” he exclaimed, “you mustn’t go like this.”
She looked steadfastly away from him and tried to withdraw her arm.
“You are angry with me for coming,” she said. “I am very, very sorry; I will go away. Please don’t stop me.”
He held her wrist firmly.
“Miss Merton!”
“Miss Merton!” She repeated his words reproachfully, lifting her eyes suddenly to his, that he might see the tears gathering there. Wolfenden began to feel exceedingly uncomfortable.
“Well, Blanche, then,” he said slowly. “Is that better?”
She answered nothing, but looked at him again. Her hand remained in his. She suffered him to lead her back to the chair.
“It’s all nonsense your going away, you know,” he said a little awkwardly. “You can’t wonder that I am surprised. Perhaps you don’t know that it is a little late—after midnight, in fact. Where should you go to if you ran away like that? Do you know any one in London?”
“I—don’t think so,” she admitted.
“Well, do be reasonable then. First of all tell me all about it.”
She nodded, and began at once, now and then lifting her eyes to his, mostly gazing fixedly at the gloves which she was smoothing carefully out upon her knee.
“I think,” she said, “that Lord Deringham is not so well. What he has been writing has become more and more incoherent, and it has been very difficult to copy it at all. I have done my best but he has never seemed satisfied; and he has taken to watch me in an odd sort of way, just as though I was doing something wrong all the time. You know he fancies that the work he is putting together is of immense importance. Of course I don’t know that it isn’t. All I do know is that it sounds and reads like absolute rubbish, and it’s awfully difficult to copy. He writes very quickly and uses all manner of abbreviations, and if I make a single mistake in typing it he gets horribly cross.”
Wolfenden laughed softly.
“Poor little girl! Go on.”
She smiled too, and continued with less constraint in her tone.
“I didn’t really mind that so much, as of course I have been getting a lot of money for the work, and one can’t have everything. But just lately he seems to have got the idea that I have been making two copies of this rubbish and keeping one back. He has kept on coming into the room unexpectedly, and has sat for hours watching me in a most unpleasant manner. I have not been allowed to leave the house, and all my letters have been looked over; it has been perfectly horrid.”
“I am very sorry,” Wolfenden said. “Of course you knew though that it was going to be rather difficult to please my father, didn’t you? The doctors differ a little as to his precise mental condition, but we are all aware that he is at any rate a trifle peculiar.”
She smiled a little bitterly.
“Oh! I am not complaining,” she said. “I should have stood it somehow for the sake of the money; but I haven’t told you everything yet. The worst part, so far as I am concerned, is to come.”
“I am very sorry,” he said; “please go on.”
“This morning your father came very early into the study and found a sheet of carbon paper on my desk and two copies of one page of the work I was doing. As a matter of fact I had never used it before, but I wanted to try it for practice. There was no harm in it—I should have destroyed the second sheet in a minute or two, and in any case it was so badly done that it was absolutely worthless. But directly Lord Deringham saw it he went quite white, and I thought he was going to have a fit. I can’t tell you all he said. He was brutal. The end of it was that my boxes were all turned out and my desk and everything belonging to me searched as though I were a house-maid suspected of theft, and all the time I was kept locked up. When they had finished, I was told to put my hat on and go. I—I had nowhere to go to, for Muriel—youremember I told you about my sister—went to America last week. I hadn’t the least idea what to do—and so—I—you were the only person who had ever been kind to me,” she concluded, suddenly leaning over towards him, a little sob in her throat, and her eyes swimming with tears.
There are certain situations in life when an honest man is at an obvious disadvantage. Wolfenden felt awkward and desperately ill at ease. He evaded the embrace which her movement and eyes had palpably invited, and compromised matters by taking her hands and holding them tightly in his. Even then he felt far from comfortable.
“But my mother,” he exclaimed. “Lady Deringham surely took your part?”
She shook her head vigorously.
“Lady Deringham did nothing of the sort,” she replied. “Do you remember last time when you were down you took me for a walk once or twice and you talked to me in the evenings, and—but perhaps you have forgotten. Have you?”
She was looking at him so eagerly that there was only one answer possible for him. He hastened to make it. There was a certain lack of enthusiasm in his avowal, however, which brought a look of reproach into her face. She sighed and looked away into the fire.
“Well,” she continued, “Lady Deringham has never been the same since then to me. It didn’t matter while you were there, but after you left it was very wretched. I wrote to you, but you never answered my letter.”
He was very well aware of it. He had never asked her to write, and her note had seemed to him a trifle too ingenuous. He had never meant to answer it.
“I so seldom write letters,” he said. “I thought, too, that it must have been your fancy. My mother is generally considered a very good-hearted woman.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Oh, one does not fancy those things,” she said. “Lady Deringham has been coldly civil to me ever since, and nothing more. This morning she seemed absolutely pleased to have an excuse for sending me away. She knows quite well, of course, that Lord Deringham is—not himself; but she took everything he said for gospel, and turned me out of the house. There, now you know everything. Perhaps after all it was idiotic to come to you. Well, I’m only a girl, and girls are idiots; I haven’t a friend in the world, and if I were alone I should die of loneliness in a week. You won’t send me away? You are not angry with me?”
She made a movement towards him, but he held her hands tightly. For the first time he began to see his way before him. A certain ingenuousness in her speech and in that little half-forgotten note—an ingenuousness, by the bye, of which he had some doubts—was his salvation. He would accept it as absolutely genuine. She was a child who had come to him, because he had been kind to her.
“Of course I am not angry with you,” he said, quite emphatically. “I am very glad indeed that you came. It is only right that I should help you when my people seem to have treated you so wretchedly. Let me think for a moment.”
She watched him very anxiously, and moved a little closer to him.
“Tell me,” she murmured, “what are you thinking about?”
“I have it,” he answered, standing suddenly up and touching the bell. “It is an excellent idea.”
“What is it?” she asked quickly.
He did not appear to hear her question. Selby was standing upon the threshold. Wolfenden spoke to him.
“Selby, are your wife’s rooms still vacant?”
Selby believed that they were.
“That’s all right then. Put on your hat and coat at once. I want you to take this young lady round there.”
“Very good, my lord.”
“Her luggage has been lost and may not arrive until to-morrow. Be sure you tell Mrs. Selby to do all in her power to make things comfortable.”
The girl had gone very pale. Wolfenden, watching her closely, was surprised at her expression.
“I think,” he said, “that you will find Mrs. Selby a very decent sort of a person. If I may, I will come and see you to-morrow, and you shall tell me how I can help you. I am very glad indeed that you came to me.”
She shot a single glance at him, partly of anger, partly reproach.
“You are very, very kind,” she said slowly, “and very considerate,” she added, after a moment’s pause. “I shall not forget it.”
She looked him then straight in the eyes. He was more glad than he would have liked to confess even to himself to hear Selby’s knock at the door.
“You have nothing to thank me for yet at any rate,” he said, taking her hand. “I shall be only too glad if you will let me be of service to you.”
He led her out to the carriage and watched it drive away, with Selby on the box seat. Her last glance, as she leaned back amongst the cushions, was a tender one; her lips were quivering, and her little fingers more than returned his pressure. But Wolfenden walked back to his study with all the pleasurable feelings of a man who has extricated himself with tact from an awkward situation.
“The frankness,” he remarked to himself, as he lit a pipe and stretched himself out for a final smoke, “was a trifle, just a trifle, overdone. She gave the whole show away with that last glance. I should like very much to know what it all means.”
Wolfenden, for an idler, was a young man of fairly precise habits. By ten o’clock next morning he had breakfasted, and before eleven he was riding in the Park. Perhaps he had some faint hope of seeing there something of the two people in whom he was now greatly interested. If so he was certainly disappointed. He looked with a new curiosity into the faces of the girls who galloped past him, and he was careful even to take particular notice of the few promenaders. But he did not see anything of Mr. Sabin or his companion.
At twelve o’clock he returned to his rooms and exchanged his riding-clothes for the ordinary garb of the West End. He even looked on his hall-table as he passed out again, to see if there were any note or card for him.
“He could scarcely look me up just yet, at any rate,” he reflected, as he walked slowly along Piccadilly, “for he did not even ask me for my address. He took the whole thing so coolly that perhaps he does not mean even to call.”
Nevertheless, he looked in the rack at his club to see if there was anything against his name, and tore into pieces the few unimportant notes he found there, with an impatience which they scarcely deserved. Of the few acquaintances whom he met there, he inquired casually whether they knew anything of a man named “Sabin.” No oneseemed to have heard the name before. He even consulted a directory in the hall, but without success. At one o’clock, in a fit of restlessness, he went out, and taking a hansom drove over to Westminster, to Harcutt’s rooms. Harcutt was in, and with him Densham. At Wolfenden’s entrance the three men looked at one another, and there was a simultaneous laugh.
“Here comes the hero,” Densham remarked. “He will be able to tell us everything.”
“I came to gather information, not to impart it,” Wolfenden answered, selecting a cigarette, and taking an easy chair. “I know precisely as much as I knew last night.”
“Mr. Sabin has not been to pour out his gratitude yet, then?” Densham asked.
Wolfenden shook his head.
“Not yet. On the whole, I am inclined to think that he will not come at all. He doubtless considers that he has done all that is necessary in the way of thanks. He did not even ask for my card, and giving me his was only a matter of form, for there was no address upon it.”
“But he knew your name,” Harcutt reminded him. “I noticed that.”
“Yes. I suppose he could find me if he wished to,” Wolfenden admitted. “If he had been very keen about it, though, I should think he would have said something more. His one idea seemed to be to get away before there was a row.”
“I do not think,” Harcutt said, “that you will find him overburdened with gratitude. He does not seem that sort of man.”
“I do not want any gratitude from him,” Wolfenden answered, deliberately. “So far as the man himself is concerned I should rather prefer never to see him again. By the bye, did either of you fellows follow them home last night?”
Harcutt and Densham exchanged quick glances. Wolfenden had asked his question quietly, but it was evidently what he had come to know.
“Yes,” Harcutt said, “we both did. They are evidently people of some consequence. They went first to the house of the Russian Ambassador, Prince Lobenski.”
Wolfenden swore to himself softly. He could have been there. He made a mental note to leave a card at the Embassy that afternoon.
“And afterwards?”
“Afterwards they drove to a house in Chilton Gardens, Kensington, where they remained.”
“The presumption being, then——” Wolfenden began.
“That they live there,” Harcutt put in. “In fact, I may say that we ascertained that definitely. The man’s name is ‘Sabin,’ and the girl is reputed to be his niece. Now you know as much as we do. The relationship, however, is little more than a surmise.”
“Did either of you go to the reception?” Wolfenden asked.
“We both did,” Harcutt answered.
Wolfenden raised his eyebrows.
“You were there! Then why didn’t you make their acquaintance?”
Densham laughed shortly.
“I asked for an introduction to the girl,” he said, “and was politely declined. She was under the special charge of the Princess, and was presented to no one.”
“And Mr. Sabin?” Wolfenden asked.
“He was talking all the time to Baron von Knigenstein, the German Ambassador. They did not stay long.”
Wolfenden smiled.
“It seems to me,” he said, “that you had an excellent opportunity and let it go.”
Harcutt threw his cigarette into the fire with an impatient gesture.
“You may think so,” he said. “All I can say is, that if you had been there yourself, you could have done no more. At any rate, we have no particular difficulty now in finding out who this mysterious Mr. Sabin and the girl are. We may assume that there is a relationship,” he added, “or they would scarcely have been at the Embassy, where, as a rule, the guests make up in respectability what they lack in brilliancy.”
“As to the relationship,” Wolfenden said, “I am quite prepared to take that for granted. I, for one, never doubted it.”
“That,” Harcutt remarked, “is because you are young, and a little quixotic. When you have lived as long as I have you will doubt everything. You will take nothing for granted unless you desire to live for ever amongst the ruins of your shattered enthusiasms. If you are wise, you will always assume that your swans are geese until you have proved them to be swans.”
“That is very cheap cynicism,” Wolfenden remarked equably. “I am surprised at you, Harcutt. I thought that you were more in touch with the times. Don’t you know that to-day nobody is cynical except schoolboys and dyspeptics? Pessimism went out with sack overcoats. Your remarks remind me of the morning odour of patchouli and stale smoke in a cheap Quartier Latin dancing-room. To be in the fashion of to-day, you must cultivate a gentle, almost arcadian enthusiasm, you must wear rose-coloured spectacles and pretend that you like them. Didn’t you hear what Flaskett said last week? There is an epidemic of morality in the air. We are all going to be very good.”
“Some of us,” Densham remarked, “are going to be very uncomfortable, then.”
“Great changes always bring small discomforts,” Wolfendenrejoined. “But after all I didn’t come here to talk nonsense. I came to ask you both something. I want to know whether you fellows are bent upon seeing this thing through?”
Densham and Harcutt exchanged glances. There was a moment’s silence. Densham became spokesman.
“So far as finding out who they are and all about them,” he said, “I shall not rest until I have done it.”
“And you, Harcutt?”
Harcutt nodded gravely.
“I am with Densham,” he said. “At the same time I may as well tell you that I am quite as much, if not more, interested in the man than in the girl. The girl is beautiful, and of course I admire her, as every one must. But that is all. The man appeals to my journalistic instincts. There is copy in him. I am convinced that he is a personage. You may, in fact, regard me, both of you, as an ally rather than as a rival.”
“If you had your choice, then, of an hour’s conversation with either of them——” Wolfenden began.
“I should choose the man without a second’s hesitation,” Harcutt declared. “The girl is lovely enough, I admit. I do not wonder at you fellows—Densham, who is a worshipper of beauty; you, Wolfenden, who are an idler—being struck with her! But as regards myself it is different. The man appeals to my professional instincts in very much the same way as the girl appeals to the artistic sense in Densham. He is a conundrum which I have set myself to solve.”
Wolfenden rose to his feet.
“Look here, you fellows,” he said, “I have a proposition to make. We are all three in the same boat. Shall we pull together or separately?”
Harcutt dropped his eyeglass and smiled quietly.
“Quixotic as usual, Wolf, old chap,” he said. “Wecan’t, our interests are opposed; at least yours and Densham’s are. You will scarcely want to help one another under the circumstances.”
Wolfenden drew on his gloves.
“I have not explained myself yet,” he said. “The thing must have its limitations, of course, but for a step or two even Densham and I can walk together. Let us form an alliance so far as direct information is concerned. Afterwards it must be every man for himself, of course. I suppose we each have some idea as to how and where to set about making inquiries concerning these people. Very well. Let us each go our own way and share up the information to-night.”
“I am quite willing,” Densham said, “only let this be distinctly understood—we are allies only so far as the collection and sharing of information is concerned. Afterwards, and in other ways, it is each man for himself. If one of us succeeds in establishing a definite acquaintance with them, the thing ends. There is no need for either of us to do anything with regard to the others, which might militate against his own chances.”
“I am agreeable to that,” Harcutt said. “From Densham’s very elaborate provisoes I think we may gather that he has a plan.”
“I agree too,” Wolfenden said, “and I specially endorse Densham’s limit. It is an alliance so far as regards information only. Suppose we go and have some lunch together now.”
“I never lunch out, and I have a better idea,” said Harcutt. “Let us meet at the ‘Milan’ to-night for supper at the same time. We can then exchange information, supposing either of us has been fortunate enough to acquire any. What do you say, Wolfenden?”
“I am quite willing,” Wolfenden said.
“And I,” echoed Densham. “At half-past eleven, then,” Harcutt concluded.
Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell was not at home to ordinary callers. Nevertheless when a discreet servant brought her Mr. Francis Densham’s card she gave orders for his admittance without hesitation.
That he was a privileged person it was easy to see. Mrs. Satchell received him with the most charming of smiles.
“My dear Francis,” she exclaimed, “I do hope that you have lost that wretched headache! You looked perfectly miserable last night. I was so sorry for you.”
Densham drew an easy chair to her side and accepted a cup of tea.
“I am quite well again,” he said. “It was very bad indeed for a little time, but it did not last long. Still I felt that it made me so utterly stupid that I was half afraid you would have written me off your visitors’ list altogether as a dull person. I was immensely relieved to be told that you were at home.”
Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell laughed gaily. She was a bright, blonde little woman with an exquisite figure and piquante face. She had a husband whom no one knew, and gave excellent parties to which every one went. In her way she was something of a celebrity. She and Densham had known each other for many years.
“I am not sure,” she said, “that you did not deserve it;but then, you see, you are too old a friend to be so summarily dealt with.”
She raised her blue eyes to his and dropped them, smiling softly.
Densham looked steadily away into the fire, wondering how to broach the subject which had so suddenly taken the foremost place in his thoughts. He had not come to make even the idlest of love this afternoon. The time when he had been content to do so seemed very far away just now. Somehow this dainty little woman with her Watteau-like grace and delicate mannerisms had, for the present, at any rate, lost all her attractiveness for him, and he was able to meet the flash of her bright eyes and feel the touch of her soft fingers without any corresponding thrill.
“You are very good to me,” he said, thoughtfully. “May I have some more tea?”
Now Densham was no strategist. He had come to ask a question, and he was dying to ask it. He knew very well that it would not do to hurry matters—that he must put it as casually as possible towards the close of his visit. But at the same time, the period of probation, during which he should have been more than usually entertaining, was scarcely a success, and his manner was restless and constrained. Every now and then there were long and unusual pauses, and he continuously and with obvious effort kept bringing back the conversation to the reception last night, in the hope that some remark from her might make the way easier for him. But nothing of the sort happened. The reception had not interested her in the slightest, and she had nothing to say about it, and his pre-occupation at last became manifest. She looked at him curiously after one of those awkward pauses to which she was quite unaccustomed, and his thoughts were evidently far away. As a matter of fact, he was at that moment actually framing the question which he had come to ask.
“My dear Francis,” she said, quietly, “why don’t you tell me what is the matter with you? You are not amusing. You have something on your mind. Is it anything you wish to ask of me?”
“Yes,” he said, boldly, “I have come to ask you a favour.”
She smiled at him encouragingly.
“Well, do ask it,” she said, “and get rid of your woebegone face. You ought to know that if it is anything within my power I shall not hesitate.”
“I want,” he said, “to paint your portrait for next year’s Academy.”
This was a master stroke. To have Densham paint her picture was just at that moment the height of Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell’s ambition. A flush of pleasure came into her cheeks, and her eyes were very bright.
“Do you really mean it?” she exclaimed, leaning over towards him. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I mean it,” he answered. “If only I can do you justice, I think it ought to be the portrait of the year. I have been studying you for a long time in an indefinite sort of way, and I think that I have some good ideas.”
Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell laughed softly. Densham, although not a great artist, was the most fashionable portrait painter of the minute, and he had the knack of giving achictouch to his women—of investing them with a certain style without the sacrifice of similitude. He refused quite as many commissions as he accepted, and he could scarcely have flattered Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell more than by his request. She was delightfully amiable.
“You are a dear old thing,” she said, beaming upon him. “What shall I wear? That yellow satin gown that you like, or say you like, so much?”
He discussed the question with her gravely. It was notuntil he rose to go that he actually broached the question which had been engrossing all his thoughts.
“By the bye,” he said, “I wanted to ask you something. You know Harcutt?”
She nodded. Of course she knew Harcutt. Were her first suspicions correct! Had he some other reason for this visit of his?
“Well,” Densham went on, “he is immensely interested in some people who were at that stupid reception last night. He tried to get an introduction but he couldn’t find any one who knew them, and he doesn’t know the Princess well enough to ask her. He thought that he saw you speaking to the man, so I promised that when I saw you I would ask about them.”
“I spoke to a good many men,” she said. “What is his name?”
“Sabin—Mr. Sabin; and there is a girl, his daughter, or niece, I suppose.”
Was it Densham’s fancy or had she indeed turned a shade paler. The little be-jewelled hand, which had been resting close to his, suddenly buried itself in the cushions. Densham, who was watching her closely, was conscious of a hardness about her mouth which he had never noticed before. She was silent some time before she answered him.
“I am sorry,” she said, slowly, “but I can tell you scarcely anything about them. I only met him once in India many years ago, and I have not the slightest idea as to who he is or where he came from. I am quite sure that I should not have recollected him last night but for his deformity.”
Densham tried very hard to hide his disappointment.
“So you met him in India,” he remarked. “Do you know what he was doing there? He was not in the service at all, I suppose.”
“I really do not know,” she answered, “but I think not.I believe that he is, or was, very wealthy. I remember hearing a few things about him—nothing of much importance. But if Mr. Harcutt is your friend,” she added, looking at him fixedly, “you can give him some excellent advice.”
“Harcutt is a very decent fellow,” Densham said, “and I know that he will be glad of it.”
“Tell him to have nothing whatever to do with Mr. Sabin.”
Densham looked at her keenly.
“Then you do know something about him,” he exclaimed.
She moved her chair back a little to where the light no longer played upon her face, and she answered him without looking up.
“Very little. It was so long ago and my memory is not what it used to be. Never mind that. The advice is good anyhow. If,” she continued, looking steadily up at Densham, “if it were not Mr. Harcutt who was interested in these people, if it were any one, Francis, for whose welfare I had a greater care, who was really my friend, I would make that advice, if I could, a thousand times stronger. I would implore him to have nothing whatever to do with this man or any of his creatures.”
Densham laughed—not very easily. His disappointment was great, but his interest was stimulated.
“At any rate,” he said, “the girl is harmless. She cannot have left school a year.”
“A year with that man,” she answered, bitterly, “is a liberal education in corruption. Don’t misunderstand me. I have no personal grievance against him. We have never come together, thank God! But there were stories—I cannot remember them now—I do not wish to remember them, but the impression they made still remains. If a little of what people said about him is true he is a prince of wickedness.”
“The girl herself——?”
“I know nothing of,” she admitted.
Densham determined upon a bold stroke.
“Look here,” he said, “do me this favour—you shall never regret it. You and the Princess are intimate, I know: order your carriage and go and see her this afternoon. Ask her what she knows about that girl. Get her to tell you everything. Then let me know. Don’t ask me to explain just now—simply remember that we are old friends and that I ask you to do this thing for me.”
She rang the bell.
“My victoria at once,” she told the servant. Then she turned to Densham. “I will do exactly what you ask,” she said. “You can come with me and wait while I see the Princess—if she is at home. You see I am doing for you what I would do for no one else in the world. Don’t trouble about thanking me now. Do you mind waiting while I get my things on? I shall only be a minute or two.”
Her minute or two was half an hour. Densham waited impatiently. He scarcely knew whether to be satisfied with the result of his mission or not. He had learnt a very little—he was probably going to learn a little more, but he was quite aware that he had not conducted the negotiations with any particular skill, and the bribe which he had offered was a heavy one. He was still uncertain about it when Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell reappeared. She had changed her indoor gown for a soft petunia-coloured costume trimmed with sable, and she held out her hands towards him with a delightful smile.
“Céleste is wretchedly awkward with gloves,” she said, “so I have left them for you. Do you like my gown?”
“You look charming,” he said, bending over his task, “and you know it.”
“I always wear my smartest clothes when I am going tosee my particular friends,” she declared. “They quiz one so! Besides, I do not always have an escort! Come!”
She talked to him gaily on the stairs, as he handed her into the carriage, and all the way to their destination, yet he was conscious all the time of a subtle change in her demeanour towards him. She was a proud little woman, and she had received a shock. Densham was making use of her—Densham, of all men, was making use of her, of all women. He had been perfectly correct in those vague fears of his. She did not believe that he had come to her for his friend’s sake. She never doubted but that it was he himself who was interested in this girl, and she looked upon his visit and his request to her as something very nearly approaching brutality. He must be interested in the girl, very deeply interested, or he would never have resorted to such means of gaining information about her. She was suddenly silent and turned a little pale as the carriage turned into the square. Her errand was not a pleasant one to her.
Densham was left alone in the carriage for nearly an hour. He was impatient, and yet her prolonged absence pleased him. She had found the Princess in, she would bring him the information he desired. He sat gazing idly into the faces of the passers-by with his thoughts very far away. How that girl’s face had taken hold of his fancy; had excited in some strange way his whole artistic temperament! She was the exquisite embodiment of a new type of girlhood, from which was excluded all that was crude and unpleasing and unfinished. She seemed to him to combine in some mysterious manner all the dainty freshness of youth with the delicate grace andsavoir faireof a Frenchwoman of the best period. He scarcely fancied himself in love with her; at any rate if it had been suggested to him he would have denied it. Her beauty had certainly taken a singular hold of him. His imagination was touched.He was immensely attracted, but as to anything serious—well, he would not have admitted it even to himself. Liberty meant so much to him, he had told himself over and over again that, for many years at least, his art must be his sole mistress. Besides, he was no boy to lose his heart, as certainly Wolfenden had done, to a girl with whom he had never even spoken. It was ridiculous, andyet——
A soft voice in his ear suddenly recalled him to the present. Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell was standing upon the pavement. The slight pallor had gone from her cheeks and the light had come back to her eyes. He looked at her, irresistibly attracted. She had never appeared more charming.
She stepped into the carriage, and the soft folds of her gown spread themselves out over the cushions. She drew them on one side to make room for him.
“Come,” she said, “let us have one turn in the Park. It is quite early, although I am afraid that I have been a very long time.”
He stepped in at once and they drove off. Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell laughingly repeated some story which the Princess had just told her. Evidently she was in high spirits. The strained look had gone from her face. Her gaiety was no longer forced.
“You want to know the result of my mission, I suppose,” she remarked, pleasantly. “Well, I am afraid you will call it a failure. The moment I mentioned the man’s name the Princess stopped me.
“‘You mustn’t talk to me about that man,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask why, only you must not talk about him.’
“‘I don’t want to,’ I assured her; ‘but the girl.’”
“What did she say about the girl?” Densham asked.
“Well she did tell me something about her,” Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell said, slowly, “but, unfortunately, it will not help your friend. She only told me when I had promised unconditionallyand upon my honour to keep her information a profound secret. So I am sorry, Francis, but even toyou——”
“Of course, you must not repeat it,” Densham said, hastily. “I would not ask you for the world; but is there not a single scrap of information about the man or the girl, who he is, what he is, of what family or nationality the girl is—anything at all which I can take to Harcutt?”
Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell looked straight at him with a faint smile at the corners of her lips.
“Yes, there is one thing which you can tell Mr. Harcutt,” she said.
Densham drew a little breath. At last, then!
“You can tell him this,” Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell said, slowly and impressively, “that if it is the girl, as I suppose it is, in whom he is interested, that the very best thing he can do is to forget that he has ever seen her. I cannot tell you who she is or what, although I know. But we are old friends, Francis, and I know that my word will be sufficient for you. You can take this from me as the solemn truth. Your friend had better hope for the love of the Sphinx, or fix his heart upon the statue of Diana, as think of that girl.”
Densham was looking straight ahead along the stream of vehicles. His eyes were set, but he saw nothing. He did not doubt her word for a moment. He knew that she had spoken the truth. The atmosphere seemed suddenly grey and sunless. He shivered a little—he was positively chilled. Just for a moment he saw the girl’s face, heard the swirl of her skirts as she had passed their table and the sound of her voice as she had bent over the great cluster of white roses whose faint perfume reached even to where they were sitting. Then he half closed his eyes. He had come very near making a terrible mistake.
“Thank you,” he said. “I will tell Harcutt.”
Wolfenden returned to his rooms to lunch, intending to go round to see his last night’s visitor immediately afterwards. He had scarcely taken off his coat, however, before Selby met him in the hall, a note in his hand.
“From the young lady, my lord,” he announced. “My wife has just sent it round.”
Wolfenden tore the envelope open and read it.
“Thursday morning.“Dear Lord Wolfenden,—Of course I made a mistake in coming to you last night. I am very sorry indeed—more sorry than you will ever know. A woman does not forget these things readily, and the lesson you have taught me it will not be difficult for me to remember all my life. I cannot consent to remain your debtor, and I am leaving here at once. I shall have gone long before you receive this note. Do not try to find me. I shall not want for friends if I choose to seek them. Apart from this, I do not want to see you again. I mean it, and I trust to your honour to respect my wishes. I think that I may at least ask you to grant me this for the sake of those days at Deringham, which it is now my fervent wish to utterly forget.—I am, yours sincerely,“Blanche Merton.”
“Thursday morning.
“Dear Lord Wolfenden,—Of course I made a mistake in coming to you last night. I am very sorry indeed—more sorry than you will ever know. A woman does not forget these things readily, and the lesson you have taught me it will not be difficult for me to remember all my life. I cannot consent to remain your debtor, and I am leaving here at once. I shall have gone long before you receive this note. Do not try to find me. I shall not want for friends if I choose to seek them. Apart from this, I do not want to see you again. I mean it, and I trust to your honour to respect my wishes. I think that I may at least ask you to grant me this for the sake of those days at Deringham, which it is now my fervent wish to utterly forget.—I am, yours sincerely,
“Blanche Merton.”
“The young lady, my lord,” Selby remarked, “left early this morning. She expressed herself as altogether satisfied with the attention she had received, but she had decided to make other arrangements.”
Wolfenden nodded, and walked into his dining-room with the note crushed up in his hand.
“For the sake of those days at Deringham,” he repeated softly to himself. Was the girl a fool, or only an adventuress? It was true that there had been something like a very mild flirtation between them at Deringham, but it had been altogether harmless, and certainly more of her seeking than his. They had met in the grounds once or twice and walked together; he had talked to her a little after dinner, feeling a certain sympathy for her isolation, and perhaps a little admiration for her undoubted prettiness; yet all the time he had had a slightly uneasy feeling with regard to her. Her ingenuousness had become a matter of doubt to him. It was so now more than ever, yet he could not understand her going away like this and the tone of her note. So far as he was concerned, it was the most satisfactory thing that could have happened. It relieved him of a responsibility which he scarcely knew how to deal with. In the face of her dismissal from Deringham, any assistance which she might have accepted from him would naturally have been open to misapprehension. But that she should have gone away and have written to him in such a strain was directly contrary to his anticipations. Unless she was really hurt and disappointed by his reception of her, he could not see what she had to gain by it. He was puzzled a little, but his thoughts were too deeply engrossed elsewhere for him to take her disappearance very seriously. By the time he had finished lunch he had come to the conclusion that what had happened was for the best, and that he would take her at her word.
He left his rooms again about three o’clock, and at precisely the hour at which Densham had rung the bell of Mrs. Thorpe-Satchell’s house in Mayfair he experienced a very great piece of good fortune.
Coming out of Scott’s, where more from habit than necessity he had turned in to have his hat ironed, he came face to face, a few yards up Bond Street, with the two people whom, more than any one else in the world, he had desired to meet. They were walking together, the girl talking, the man listening with an air of half-amused deference. Suddenly she broke off and welcomed Wolfenden with a delightful smile of recognition. The man looked up quickly. Wolfenden was standing before them on the pavement, hat in hand, his pleasure at this unexpected meeting very plainly evidenced in his face. Mr. Sabin’s greeting, if devoid of any special cordiality, was courteous and even genial. Wolfenden never quite knew whence he got the impression, which certainly came to him with all the strength and absoluteness of an original inspiration, that this encounter was not altogether pleasant to him.
“How strange that we should meet you!” the girl said. “Do you know that this is the first walk that I have ever had in London?”
She spoke rather softly and rather slowly. Her voice possessed a sibilant and musical intonation; there was perhaps the faintest suggestion of an accent. As she stood there smiling upon him in a deep blue gown, trimmed with a silvery fur, in the making of which no English dressmaker had been concerned, Wolfenden’s subjection was absolute and complete. He was aware that his answer was a little flurried. He was less at his ease than he could have wished. Afterwards he thought of a hundred things he would have liked to have said, but the surprise of seeing them so suddenly had cost him a little of his usual self-possession. Mr. Sabin took up the conversation.
“My infirmity,” he said, glancing downwards, “makes walking, especially on stone pavements, rather a painful undertaking. However, London is one of those cities which can only be seen on foot, and my niece has all the curiosity of her age.”
She laughed out frankly. She wore no veil, and a tinge of colour had found its way into her cheeks, relieving that delicate but not unhealthy pallor, which to Densham had seemed so exquisite.
“I think shopping is delightful. Is it not?” she exclaimed.
Wolfenden was absolutely sure of it. He was, indeed, needlessly emphatic. Mr. Sabin smiled faintly.
“I am glad to have met you again, Lord Wolfenden,” he said, “if only to thank you for your aid last night. I was anxious to get away before any fuss was made, or I would have expressed my gratitude at the time in a more seemly fashion.”
“I hope,” Wolfenden said, “that you will not think it necessary to say anything more about it. I did what any one in my place would have done without a moment’s hesitation.”
“I am not quite so sure of that,” Mr. Sabin said. “But by the bye, can you tell me what became of the fellow? Did any one go after him?”
“There was some sort of pursuit, I believe,” Wolfenden said slowly, “but he was not caught.”
“I am glad to hear it,” Mr. Sabin said.
Wolfenden looked at him in some surprise. He could not make up his mind whether it was his duty to disclose the name of the man who had made this strange attempt.
“Your assailant was, I suppose, a stranger to you?” he said slowly.
Mr. Sabin shook his head.
“By no means. I recognised him directly. So, I believe, did you.”
Wolfenden was honestly amazed.
“He was your guest, I believe,” Mr. Sabin continued, “until I entered the room. I saw him leave, and I was half-prepared for something of the sort.”
“He was my guest, it is true, but none the less, he was a stranger to me,” Wolfenden explained. “He brought a letter from my cousin, who seems to have considered him a decent sort of fellow.”
“There is,” Mr. Sabin said dryly, “nothing whatever the matter with him, except that he is mad.”
“On the whole, I cannot say that I am surprised to hear it,” Wolfenden remarked; “but I certainly think that, considering the form his madness takes, you ought to protect yourself in some way.”
Mr. Sabin shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.
“He can never hurt me. I carry a talisman which is proof against any attempt that he can make; but none the less, I must confess that your aid last night was very welcome.”
“I was very pleased to be of any service,” Wolfenden said, “especially,” he added, glancing toward Mr. Sabin’s niece, “since it has given me the pleasure of your acquaintance.”
A little thrill passed through him. Her delicately-curved lips were quivering as though with amusement, and her eyes had fallen; she had blushed slightly at that unwitting, ardent look of his. Mr. Sabin’s cold voice recalled him to himself.
“I believe,” he said, “that I overheard your name correctly. It is Wolfenden, is it not?”
Wolfenden assented.
“I am sorry that I haven’t a card,” he said. “That is my name.”
Mr. Sabin looked at him curiously.
“Wolfenden is, I believe, the family name of the Deringhams? May I ask, are you any relation to Admiral Lord Deringham?”
Wolfenden was suddenly grave.
“Yes,” he answered; “he is my father. Did you ever meet him?”
Mr. Sabin shook his head.
“No, I have heard of him abroad; also, I believe, of the Countess of Deringham, your mother. It is many years ago. I trust that I have notinadvertently——”
“Not at all,” Wolfenden declared. “My father is still alive, although he is in very delicate health. I wonder, would you and your niece do me the honour of having some tea with me? It is Ladies’ Day at the ‘Geranium Club,’ and I should be delighted to take you there if you would allow me.”
Mr. Sabin shook his head.
Wolfenden had the satisfaction of seeing the girl look disappointed.
“We are very much obliged to you,” Mr. Sabin said, “but I have an appointment which is already overdue. You must not mind, Helène, if we ride the rest of the way.”
He turned and hailed a passing hansom, which drew up immediately at the kerb by their side. Mr. Sabin handed his niece in, and stood for a moment on the pavement with Wolfenden.
“I hope that we may meet again before long, Lord Wolfenden,” he said. “In the meantime let me assure you once more of my sincere gratitude.”
The girl leaned forward over the apron of the cab.
“And may I not add mine too?” she said. “I almost wish that we were not going to the ‘Milan’ again to-night. I am afraid that I shall be nervous.”
She looked straight at Wolfenden. He was ridiculously happy.
“I can promise,” he said, “that no harm shall come to Mr. Sabin to-night, at any rate. I shall be at the ‘Milan’ myself, and I will keep a very close look out.”
“How reassuring!” she exclaimed, with a brilliant smile. “Lord Wolfenden is going to be at the ‘Milan’ to-night,” she added, turning to Mr. Sabin. “Why don’t you ask him to join us? I shall feel so much more comfortable.”
There was a faint but distinct frown on Mr. Sabin’s face—a distinct hesitation before he spoke. But Wolfenden would notice neither. He was looking over Mr. Sabin’s shoulder, and his instructions were very clear.
“If you will have supper with us we shall be very pleased,” Mr. Sabin said stiffly; “but no doubt you have already made your party. Supper is an institution which one seldom contemplates alone.”
“I am quite free, and I shall be delighted,” Wolfenden said without hesitation. “About eleven, I suppose?”
“A quarter past,” Mr. Sabin said, stepping into the cab. “We may go to the theatre.”
The hansom drove off, and Wolfenden stood on the pavement, hat in hand. What fortune! He could scarcely believe in it. Then, just as he turned to move on, something lying at his feet almost at the edge of the kerbstone attracted his attention. He looked at it more closely. It was a ribbon—a little delicate strip of deep blue ribbon. He knew quite well whence it must have come. It had fallen from her gown as she had stepped into the hansom. He looked up and down the street. It was full, but he saw no one whom he knew. The thing could be done in a minute. He stooped quickly down and picked it up crushing it in his gloved hand, and walking on at once with heightened colour and a general sense of having made a fool of himself. For a moment or two he was especiallycareful to look neither to the right or to the left; then a sense that some one from the other side of the road was watching him drew his eyes in that direction. A young man was standing upon the edge of the pavement, a peculiar smile parting his lips and a cigarette between his fingers. For a moment Wolfenden was furiously angry; then the eyes of the two men met across the street, and Wolfenden forgot his anger. He recognised him at once, notwithstanding his appearance in an afternoon toilette as carefully chosen as his own. It was Felix, Mr. Sabin’s assailant.
Wolfenden forgot his anger at once. He hesitated for a moment, then he crossed the street and stood side by side with Felix upon the pavement.
“I am glad to see that you are looking a sane man again,” Wolfenden said, after they had exchanged the usual greetings. “You might have been in a much more uncomfortable place, after your last night’s escapade.”
Felix shrugged his shoulders.
“I think,” he said, “that if I had succeeded a little discomfort would only have amused me. It is not pleasant to fail.”
Wolfenden stood squarely upon his feet, and laid his hand lightly upon the other’s shoulder.
“Look here,” he said, “it won’t do for you to go following a man about London like this, watching for an opportunity to murder him. I don’t like interfering in other people’s business, but willingly or unwillingly I seem to have got mixed up in this, and I have a word or two to say about it. Unless you give me your promise, upon your honour, to make no further attempt upon that man’s life, I shall go to the police, tell them what I know, and have you watched.”
“You shall have,” Felix said quietly, “my promise. A greater power than the threat of your English police has tied my hands; for the present I have abandoned my purpose.”
“I am bound to believe you,” Wolfenden said, “and you look as though you were speaking the truth; yet you must forgive my asking why, in that case, you are following the man about? You must have a motive.”
Felix shook his head.
“As it happened,” he said, “I am here by the merest accident. It may seem strange to you, but it is perfectly true. I have just come out of Waldorf’s, above there, and I saw you all three upon the pavement.”
“I am glad to hear it,” Wolfenden said.
“More glad,” Felix said, “than I was to see you with them. Can you not believe what I tell you? shall I give you proof? will you be convinced then? Every moment you spend with that man is an evil one for you. You may have thought me inclined to be melodramatic last night. Perhaps I was! All the same the man is a fiend. Will you not be warned? I tell you that he is a fiend.”
“Perhaps he is,” Wolfenden said indifferently. “I am not interested in him.”
“But you are interested—in his companion.”
Wolfenden frowned.
“I think,” he said, “that we will leave the lady out of the conversation.”
Felix sighed.
“You are a good fellow,” he said; “but, forgive me, like all your countrymen, you carry chivalry just a thought too far—even to simplicity. You do not understand such people and their ways.”
Wolfenden was getting angry, but he held himself in check.
“You know nothing against her,” he said slowly.
“It is true,” Felix answered. “I know nothing against her. It is not necessary. She is his creature. That is apparent. The shadow of his wickedness is enough.”
Wolfenden checked himself in the middle of a hot reply.He was suddenly conscious of the absurdity of losing his temper in the open street with a man so obviously ill-balanced—possessed, too, of such strange and wild impulses.
“Let us talk,” he said, “of something else, or say good-morning. Which way were you going?”
“To the Russian Embassy,” Felix said, “I have some work to do this afternoon.”
Wolfenden looked at him curiously.
“Our ways, then, are the same for a short distance,” he said. “Let us walk together. Forgive me, but you are really, then, attached to the Embassy?”
Felix nodded, and glanced at his companion with a smile.
“I am not what you call a fraud altogether,” he said. “I am junior secretary to Prince Lobenski. You, I think, are not a politician, are you?”
Wolfenden shook his head.
“I take no interest in politics,” he said. “I shall probably have to sit in the House of Lords some day, but I shall be sorry indeed when the time comes.”
Felix sighed, and was silent for a moment.
“You are perhaps fortunate,” he said. “The ways of the politician are not exactly rose-strewn. You represent a class which in my country does not exist. There we are all either in the army, or interested in statecraft. Perhaps the secure position of your country does not require such ardent service?”
“You are—of what nationality, may I ask?” Wolfenden inquired.
Felix hesitated.
“Perhaps,” he said, “you had better not know. The less you know of me the better. The time may come when it will be to your benefit to be ignorant.”
Wolfenden took no pains to hide his incredulity.
“It is easy to see that you are a stranger in this country,”he remarked. “We are not in Russia or in South America. I can assure you that we scarcely know the meaning of the word ‘intrigue’ here. We are the most matter-of-fact and perhaps the most commonplace nation in the world. You will find it out for yourself in time. Whilst you are with us you must perforce fall to our level.”
“I, too, must become commonplace,” Felix said, smiling. “Is that what you mean?”
“In a certain sense, yes,” Wolfenden answered. “You will not be able to help it. It will be the natural result of your environment. In your own country, wherever that may be, I can imagine that you might be a person jealously watched by the police; your comings and goings made a note of; your intrigues—I take it for granted that you are concerned in some—the object of the most jealous and unceasing suspicion. Here there is nothing of that. You could not intrigue if you wanted to. There is nothing to intrigue about.”
They were crossing a crowded thoroughfare, and Felix did not reply until they were safe on the opposite pavement. Then he took Wolfenden’s arm, and, leaning over, almost whispered in his ear—
“You speak,” he said, “what nine-tenths of your countrymen believe. Yet you are wrong. Wherever there are international questions which bring great powers such as yours into antagonism, or the reverse, with other great countries, the soil is laid ready for intrigue, and the seed is never long wanted. Yes; I know that, to all appearance, you are the smuggest and most respectable nation ever evolved in this world’s history. Yet if you tell me that your’s is a nation free from intrigue, I correct you; you are wrong, you do not know—that is all! That very man, whose life last night you so inopportunely saved, is at this moment deeply involved in an intrigue against your country.”
“Mr. Sabin!” Wolfenden exclaimed.
“Yes, Mr. Sabin! Mind, I know this by chance only. I am not concerned one way or the other. My quarrel with him is a private one. I am robbed for the present of my vengeance by a power to which I am forced to yield implicit obedience. So, for the present, I have forgotten that he is my enemy. He is safe from me, yet if last night I had struck home, I should have ridded your country of a great and menacing danger. Perhaps—who can tell—he is a man who succeeds—I might even have saved England from conquest and ruin.”
They had reached the top of Piccadilly, and downward towards the Park flowed the great afternoon stream of foot-people and carriages. Wolfenden, on whom his companion’s words, charged as they were with an almost passionate earnestness, could scarcely fail to leave some impression, was silent for a moment.
“Do you really believe,” he said, “that ours is a country which could possibly stand in any such danger? We are outside all Continental alliances! We are pledged to support neither the dual or the triple alliance. How could we possibly become embroiled?”
“I will tell you one thing which you may not readily believe,” Felix said. “There is no country in the world so hated by all the great powers as England.”
Wolfenden shrugged his shoulders.
“Russia,” he remarked, “is perhaps jealous of our hold on Asia, but——”
“Russia,” Felix interrupted, “of all the countries in the world, except perhaps Italy, is the most friendly disposed towards you.”
Wolfenden laughed.
“Come,” he said, “you forget Germany.”
“Germany!” Felix exclaimed scornfully. “Believe it or not as you choose, but Germany detests you. I willtell you a thing which you can think of when you are an old man, and there are great changes and events for you to look back upon. A war between Germany and England is only a matter of time—of a few short years, perhaps even months. In the Cabinet at Berlin a war with you to-day would be more popular than a war with France.”
“You take my breath away,” Wolfenden exclaimed, laughing.
Felix was very much in earnest.
“In the little world of diplomacy,” he said, “in the innermost councils these things are known. The outside public knows nothing of the awful responsibilities of those who govern. Two, at least, of your ministers have realised the position. You read this morning in the papers of more warships and strengthened fortifications—already there have been whispers of the conscription. It is not against Russia or against France that you are slowly arming yourselves, it is against Germany!”
“Germany would be mad to fight us,” Wolfenden declared.
“Under certain conditions,” Felix said slowly. “Don’t be angry—Germany must beat you.”
Wolfenden, looking across the street, saw Harcutt on the steps of his club, and beckoned to him.
“There is Harcutt,” he exclaimed, pointing him out to Felix. “He is a journalist, you know, and in search of a sensation. Let us hear what he has to say about these things.”
But Felix unlinked his arm from Wolfenden’s hastily.
“You must excuse me,” he said. “Harcutt would recognise me, and I do not wish to be pointed out everywhere as a would-be assassin. Remember what I have said, and avoid Sabin and his parasites as you would the devil.”
Felix hurried away. Wolfenden remained for a momentstanding in the middle of the pavement looking blankly along Piccadilly. Harcutt crossed over to him.
“You look,” he remarked to Wolfenden, “like a man who needs a drink.”
Wolfenden turned with him into the club.
“I believe that I do,” he said. “I have had rather an eventful hour.”