“The world will not believe a man repents.And this wise world of ours is mainly right.”
“Then you are of opinion, my dear White, that one cannot well refuse to meet these—er—persons?”
“Not,” replied Major White to Lord Ferriby, whose hand rested on his stout arm as they walked with dignity in the shade of the trees that border the Vyver—that quaint old fish-pond of The Hague—“not without running the risk of being called a d——d swindler.”
For the major was a lamentably plain-spoken man, who said but little, and said that little strong. Lord Ferriby's affectionate grasp of the soldier's arm relaxed imperceptibly. One must, he reflected, be prepared to meet unpleasantness in the good cause of charity—but there are words hardly applicable to the peerage, and Major White had made use of one of these.
“Public opinion,” observed the major, after some minutes of deep thought, “is a difficult thing to deal with—'cos you cannot thump the public.”
“It is notably hard,” said his lordship, firing off one of his pet platform platitudes, “to induce the public to form a correct estimate, or what one takes to be a correct estimate.”
“Especially of one's self,” added the major, looking across the water towards the Binnenhof in his vacant way.
Then they turned and walked back again beneath the heavy shade of the trees. The conversation, and indeed this dignified promenade on the Vyverberg, had been brought about by a letter which his lordship had received that same morning inviting him to attend a meeting of paper-makers and others interested in the malgamite trade to consider the position of the malgamite charity, and the advisability of taking legal proceedings to close the works on the dunes at Scheveningen. The meeting was to be held at the Hôtel des Indes, at three in the afternoon, and the conveners hinted pretty plainly that the proceedings would be of a decisive nature. The letter left Lord Ferriby with a vague feeling of discomfort. His position was somewhat isolated. A coldness had for some time been in existence between himself and his nephew, Tony Cornish. Of Mr. Wade, Lord Ferriby was slightly distrustful.
“These commercial men,” he often said, “are apt to hold such narrow views.”
And, indeed, to steer a straight course through life, one must not look to one side or the other.
There remained Major White, of whom Lord Ferriby had thought more highly since Fortune had called this plain soldier to take a seat among the gods of the British public. For no man is proof against the satisfaction of being able to call a celebrated person by his Christian name. The major had long admired Joan, in his stupid way from, as one might say, the other side of the room. But neither Lord nor Lady Ferriby had encouraged this silent suit. Joan was theoretically one of those of whom it is said that “she might marry anybody,” and who, as the keen observer may see for himself, often finishes by failing to marry at all. She was pretty and popular, and had, moreover, theentréeto the best houses. White had been useful to Lord Ferriby ever since the inauguration of the Malgamite scheme. He was not uncomfortably clever, like Tony Cornish. He was an excellent buffer at jarring periods. Since the arrival of Joan and her father at The Hague, the major had been almost a necessity in their daily life, and now, quite suddenly, Lord Ferriby found that this was the only person to whom he could turn for advice or support.
“One cannot suppose,” he said, in the full conviction that words will meet any emergency—“One cannot suppose that Von Holzen will act in direct opposition to the voice of the majority.”
“Von Holzen,” replied the major, “plays a doocid good game.”
After luncheon they walked across the Toornoifeld to the Hôtel des Indes, and there, in a smallsalon, found a number of gentlemen seated round a table. Mr. Wade was conspicuous by his absence. They had, indeed, left him in the hotel garden, sitting at the consumption of an excellent cigar.
“Join the jocund dance?” the major had inquired, with a jerk of the head towards the Hôtel des Indes. But Mr. Wade was going for a drive with Marguerite.
Tony Cornish was, however, seated at the table, and the major recognized two paper-makers whom he had seen before. One was an aggressive, red-headed man, of square shoulders and a dogged appearance, who had “radical” written all over him. The other was a mild-mannered person, with a thin, ash-colored moustache. The major nodded affably. He distinctly remembered offering to fight these two gentlemen either together or one after the other on the landing of the little malgamite office in Westminster. And there was a faint twinkle behind the major's eyeglass as he saluted them.
“Good morning, Thompson,” he said. “How do, MacHewlett?” For he never forgot a face or a name.
“A'hm thinking——” Mr. MacHewlett was observing, but his thoughts died a natural death at the sight of a real lord, and he rose and bowed. Mr. Thompson remained seated and made that posture as aggressive and obvious as possible. The remainder of the company were of varied nationality and appearance, while one, a Frenchman of keen dark eyes and a trim beard—seemed by tacit understanding to be the acknowledged leader. Even the pushing Mr. Thompson silently deferred to him by a gesture that served at once to introduce Lord Ferriby and invite the Frenchman to up and smite him.
Lord Ferriby took the seat that had been left vacant for him at thehead of the table. He looked around upon faces not too friendly.“We were saying, my lord,” said the Frenchman, in perfect English andwith that graceful tact which belongs to France alone, “that we haveall been the victims of an unfortunate chain of misunderstandings.Had the organizers of this great charity consulted a few paper-makersbefore inaugurating the works at Scheveningen, much unpleasantnessmight have been averted, many lives might, alas, have been spared.But—well—such mundane persons as ourselves were probably unknown toyou and unthought-of; the milk is spilt, is it not so? Let us ratherthink of the future.”
Lord Ferriby bowed graciously, and Mr. Thompson moved impatiently on his chair. The suave method had no attractions for him.
“A'hm thinking,” began Mr. MacHewlett, in his most plaintive voice, and commanded so sudden and universal an attention as to be obviously disconcerted, “his lordship'll need plainer speech than that,” he muttered hastily, and subsided, with an uneasy glance in the direction of that man of action, Major White.
“One misunderstanding has, however, been happily dispelled,” said the Frenchman, “by our friend—if monsieur will permit the word—our friend, Mr. Cornish. From this gentleman we have learned that the executive of the Malgamite Charity are not by any means in harmony with the executive of the malgamite works at Scheveningen; that, indeed, the charity repudiates the action of its servants in manufacturing malgamite by a dangerous process tacitly and humanely set aside by makers up to this time; that the administrators of the fund are no party to the 'corner' which has been established in the product; do not desire to secure a monopoly, and disapprove of the sale of malgamite at a price which has already closed one or two of the smaller mills, and is paralyzing the paper trade of the world.”
The speaker finished with a bow towards Cornish, and resumed his seat. All were watching Lord Ferriby's face, except Major White, who examined a quill pen with short-sighted absorption. Lord Ferriby looked across the table at Cornish.
“Lord Ferriby,” said Cornish, without rising from his seat, and meeting his uncle's glance steadily, “will now no doubt confirm all that Monsieur Creil has said.”
Lord Ferriby had, in truth, come to the meeting with no such intention. He had, with all his vast experience, no knowledge of a purely commercial assembly such as this. His public had hitherto been a drawing-room public. He was accustomed to a flower-decked platform, from which to deliver his flowing periods to the emotional of both sexes. There were no flowers in this room at the Hôtel des Indes, and the men before him were not of the emotional school. They were, on the contrary, plain, hard-headed men of business, who had come from different parts of the world at Cornish's bidding to meet a crisis in a plain, hard-headed way. They had only thoughts of their balance-sheets, and not of the fact that they held in the hollow of their hands the lives of hundreds, nay, of thousands, of men, women, and children. Monsieur Creil alone, the keen-eyed Frenchman, had absolute control of over three thousand employees—married men with children—but he did not think of mentioning the fact. And it is a weight to carry about with one—to go to sleep with and to awake with in the morning—the charge of, say, nine thousand human lives.
For a few moments Lord Ferriby was silent. Cornish watched him across the table. He knew that his uncle was no fool, although his wisdom amounted to little more than the wisdom of the worldly. Would Lord Ferriby recognize the situation in time? There was a wavering look in the great man's eye that made his nephew suddenly anxious. Then Lord Ferriby rose slowly, to make the shortest speech that he had ever made in his life.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I beg to confirm what has just been said.”
As he sat down again, Cornish gave a sharp sigh of relief. In a moment Mr. Thompson was on his feet, his red face alight with democratic anger.
“This won't do,” he cried. “Let's have done with palavering and talk. Let's get to plain speaking.”
And it was not Lord Ferriby, but Tony Cornish, who rose to meet the attack.
“If you will sit down,” he said, “and keep your temper, you shall have plain speaking, and we can get to business. But if you do neither, I shall turn you out of the room.”
“You?”
“Yes,” answered Tony. And something which Mr. Thompson did not understand made him resume his seat in silence. The Frenchman smiled, and took up his speech where he had left it.
“Mr. Cornish,” he said, “speaks with authority. We are, gentlemen, in the hands of Mr. Cornish, and in good hands. He has this matter at the tips of his fingers. He has devoted himself to it for many months past, at considerable risk, as I suspect, to his own safety. We and the thousands of employees whom we represent cannot do better than entrust the situation to him, and give him a free hand. For once, capital and labour have a common interest——”
He was again interrupted by Mr. Thompson, who spoke more quietly now.
“It seems to me,” he said, “that we may well consider the past for a few minutes before passing on to the future. There's more than a million pounds profit, at the lowest reckoning, on the last few months' manufacture. Question is, where is that profit? Is this a charity, or is it not? Mr. Cornish is all very well in his way. But we're not fools. We're men of business, and as such can only presume that Mr. Cornish, like the rest of 'em, has had his share. Question is, where are the profits?”
Major White rose slowly. He was seated beside Mr. Thompson, and, standing up, towered above him. He looked down at the irate red face with a calm and wondering eye.
“Question is,” he said gravely, “where the deuce you will be in a few minutes if you don't shut up.”
Whereupon Mr. Thompson once more resumed his seat. He had the satisfaction, however, of perceiving that his shaft had reached its mark; for Lord Ferriby looked disconcerted and angry. The chairman of many charities looked, moreover, a little puzzled, as if the situation was beyond his comprehension. The Frenchman's pleasant voice again broke in, soothingly and yet authoritatively.
“Mr. Cornish and a certain number of us have, for some time, been in correspondence,” he said. “It is unnecessary for me to suggest to my present hearers that in dealing with a large industry—in handling, as it were, the lives of a number of persons—it is impossible to proceed too cautiously. One must look as far ahead as human foresight may perceive—one must give grave and serious thought to every possible outcome of action or inaction. Gentlemen, we have done our best. We are now in a position to say to the administrators of the Malgamite Fund, close your works and we will do the rest. And this means that we shall provide for the survivors of this great commercial catastrophe, that we shall care for the widows and children of the victims, that we shall supply ourselves with malgamite of our own manufacture, produced only by a process which is known to be harmless, that we shall make it impossible that such a monopoly may again be declared. We have, so far as lies in our power, provided for every emergency. We have approached the two men who, from their retreat on the dunes of Scheveningen, have swayed one of the large industries of the world. We have offered them a fortune. We have tried threats and money, but we have failed to close them but one alternative, and that is—war. We are prepared in every way. We can to-morrow take over the manufacture of malgamite for the whole world—but we must have the works on the dunes at Scheveningen. We must have the absolute control of the Malgamite Fund and of the works. We propose, gentlemen, to seize this control, and invest the supreme command in the one man who is capable of exercising it—Mr. Anthony Cornish.”
The Frenchman sat down, looked across the table, and shrugged his shoulders impatiently; for the irrepressible Thompson was already on his feet. It must be remembered that Mr. Thompson worked on commission, and had been hard hit.
“Then,” he cried, pointing a shaking forefinger into Lord Ferriby's face, “that man has no business to be sitting there. We're honest here—if we're nothing else. We all know your history, my fine gentleman; we know that you cannot wipe out the past, so you're trying to whitewash it over with good works. That's an old trick, and it won't go down here. Do you think we don't see through you and your palavering speeches? Why have you refused to take action against Roden and Von Holzen? Because they've paid you. Look at him, gentlemen! He has taken money from those men at Scheveningen—blood money. He has had his share. I propose that Lord Ferriby explains his position.”
Mr. Thompson banged his fist on the table, and at the same moment sat down with extreme precipitation, urged thereto by Major White's hand on his collar.
“This is not a vestry meeting,” said the major, sternly.
Lord Ferriby had risen to his feet. “My position, gentlemen,” he began, and then faltered, with his hand at his watch-chain. “My position——” He stopped with a gulp. His face was the colour of ashes. He turned in a dazed way towards his nephew; for at the beginning and the end of life blood is thicker than water. “Anthony,” said his lordship, and sat down heavily.
All rose to their feet in confusion. Major White seemed somehow to be quicker than the rest, and caught Lord Ferriby in his arms—but Lord Ferriby was dead.
“Some man holdeth his tongue, because he hath not to answer:and some keepeth silence, knowing his time.”
Those who live for themselves alone must at least have the consolatory thought that when they die the world will soon console itself. For it has been decreed that he who takes no heed of others shall himself be taken no heed of. We soon learn to do without those who are indifferent to us and useless to us. Lord Ferriby had so long and so carefully studied theculteof self that even those nearest to him had ceased to give him any thought, knowing that in his own he was in excellent hands—that he would always ask for what he wanted. It was Lord Ferriby's business to make the discovery (which all selfish people must sooner or later achieve) that the best things in this world are precisely those which may not be given on demand, and for which, indeed, one may in nowise ask.
When Major White and Cornish were left alone in the privatesalonof the Hôtel des Indes—when the doctor had come and gone, when the blinds had been decently lowered, and the great man silently laid upon the sofa—they looked at each other without speaking. The grimmest silence is surely that which arises from the thought that of the dead one may only say what is good.
“Would you like me,” said Cornish, “to go across and tell Joan?”
And Major White, whose god was discipline, replied, “She's your cousin. It is for you to say.”
“I shall be glad if you will go,” said Cornish, “and leave me to make the other arrangements. Take her home tomorrow, or tonight if she wants to, and leave us—me—to follow.”
So Major White quitted the Hôtel des Indes, and walked slowly down the length of the Toornoifeld, leaving Cornish alone with Lord Ferriby, whose death made his nephew suddenly a richer man.
The Wades had gone out for a drive in the wood. Major White knew that he would find Joan alone at the hotel. Bad news has a strange trick of clearing the way before it. The major went to thesalonon the ground floor overlooking the corner of the Vyverberg. Joan was writing a letter at the window.
“Ah!” she said, turning, pen in hand, “you are soon back. Have you quarrelled?”
White went stolidly across the room towards her. There was a chair by the writing-table, and here he sat down. Joan was looking uneasily into his face. Perhaps she saw more in that immovable countenance than the world was pleased to perceive.
“Your father was taken suddenly ill,” he said, “during the meeting.” Joan half rose from her chair, but the major laid his protecting hand over hers. It was a large, quiet hand—like himself, somewhat suggestive of a buffer. And it may, after all, be no meanrôleto act as a buffer between one woman and the world all one's life.
“You can do nothing,” said White. “Tony is with him.”
Joan looked into his face in speechless inquiry.
“Yes,” he answered, “your father is dead.”
Then he sat there in a silence which may have been intensely stupid or very wise. For silence is usually cleverer than speech, and always more interesting. Joan was dry-eyed. Well may the children of the selfish arise and bless their parents for (albeit unwittingly) alleviating one of the necessary sorrows of life.
After a silence, Major White told Joan how the calamity had occurred, in a curt military way, as of one who had rubbed shoulders with death before, who had gone out, moreover, to meet him with a quiet mind, and had told others of the dealings of the destroyer. For Major White was deemed a lucky man by his comrades, who had a habit of giving him messages for their friends before they went into the field. Perhaps, moreover, the major was of the opinion of those ancient writers who seemed to deem it more important to consider how a man lives than how he dies.
“It was some heart trouble,” he concluded, “brought on by worry or sudden excitement.”
“The Malgamite,” answered Joan. “It has always been a source of uneasiness to him. He never quite understood it.”
“No,” answered the major, very deliberately, “he never quite understood it.” And he looked out of the window with a thoughtful noncommitting face.
“Neither do I—understand it,” said Joan, doubtfully.
And the major looked suddenly dense. He had, as usual, no explanation to offer.
“Was father deceived by some one?” Joan asked, after a pause. “One hears such strange rumours about the Malgamite Fund. I suppose father was deceived?”
She spoke of the dead man with that hushed voice which death, with a singular impartiality to race or creed, seems to demand of the survivors wheresoever he passes.
White met her earnest gaze with a grave nod. “Yes,” he answered. “He was deceived.”
“He said before he went out that he did not want to go to the meeting at all,” went on Joan, in a tone of tender reminiscence, “but that he had always made a point of sacrificing his inclination to his sense of duty. Poor father!”
“Yes,” said the major, looking out of the window. And he bore Joan's steady, searching glance like a man.
“Tell me,” she said suddenly. “Were you and Tony deceived also?”
Major White reflected for a moment. It is unwise to tell even the smallest lie in haste.
“No,” he answered at length. “Not so entirely as your father.”
He uncrossed his legs, and made a feeble attempt to divert her thoughts.
But Joan was on the trail as it were of a half-formed idea in her own mind, and she would not have been a woman if she had relinquished the quest so easily.
“But you were deceived at first?” she inquired, rather anxiously. “I know Tony was. I am sure of it. Perhaps he found out later; but you—”
She drew her hand from under his rather hastily, having just found out that it was in that equivocal position.
“You were never deceived,” she said, with a suspicion of resentment.
“Well—perhaps not,” admitted the major, reluctantly. And he looked regretfully at the hand she had withdrawn. “Don't know much about charities,” he continued, after a pause. “Don't quite look at them in the right light, perhaps. Seems to me that you ought to be more business-like in charities than in anything else; and we're not business men—not even you.”
He looked at her very solemnly and wisely, as if the thoughts in his mind would be of immense value if he could only express them; but he was without facilities in that direction. If one cannot be wise, the next best thing is to have a wise look. He rose, for he had caught sight of Tony Cornish crossing the Toornoifeld in the shade of the trees. Perhaps the major had forgotten for the moment that a great man was dead; that there were letters to be written and telegrams to be despatched; that the world must know of it, and the insatiable maw of the public be closed by a few scraps of news. For the public mind must have its daily food, and the wise are they who tell it only that which it is expedient for it to know.
Lord Ferriby's life was, moreover, one that needed careful obituary treatment. Everybody's life may for domestic purposes be described as a hash; but Lord Ferriby's was a hash which in the hands of a cheap democratic press might easily be served up so daintily as to be very savoury in the nostrils of the world. Some of its component parts were indeed exceedingly ancient, and, so to speak, gamey, while the Malgamite scheme alone might easily be magnified into a very passable scandal.
Tony came into the room, keen and capable. He did not show much feeling. Perhaps Joan and he understood each other without any such display. For they had known each other many years, and had understood other and more subtle matters without verbal explanation. For the world had been pleased to say that Joan and Tony must in the end inevitably marry. And they had never explained, never contradicted, and never married.
While the three were still talking, a carriage rattled up to the door of the hotel, and then another. There began, in a word, that hushed confusion—that running to and fro as of ants upon a disturbed ant-hill—which follows hard upon the footsteps of the grim messenger, who himself is content to come so quietly and unobtrusively. Roden arrived to make inquiries, and Mrs. Vansittart, and a messenger from more than one embassy. Then the Wades came, brought hurriedly back by a messenger sent after them by Tony Cornish.
Marguerite, with characteristic energy, came into the room first, slim and bright-eyed. She looked from one face to the other, and then crossed the room and stood beside Joan without speaking. She was smiling—a little hard smile with close-set lips, showing the world a face that meant to take life open-eyed, as it is, and make the best of it.
Before long the two girls quitted the room, leaving the three men to their hushed discussion. Tony had already provided himself with pen and paper. In twelve hours that which the world must know about Lord Ferriby should be in print. There was just time to cable it to theTimesand the news agencies. And in these hurried days it is the first word which, after all, goes farthest and carries most weight. A contradiction is at all times a poor expedient.
“I have silenced the paper-makers,” said Cornish, sitting down to write. “Even that ass Thompson, by striking while the iron was hot.”
“And Roden won't open his lips,” added Mr. Wade, who, as he drove up, had seen that brilliant financier uneasily strolling under the trees of the Toornoifeld, looking towards the hotel, for Lord Ferriby's death was a link in the crooked malgamite chain which even Von Holzen had failed to foresee.
Indeed, Lord Ferriby must have been gratified could he have seen the posthumous pother that he made by dying at this juncture. For in life he had only been important in his own eyes, and the world had taken little heed of him. This same keen-sighted world would not regret him much now and would assuredly mete out to that miserly old screw, his widow, only as much sympathy as the occasion deserved. Lady Ferriby would, the world suspected, sell off his lordship's fancy waistcoats, and proceed to save money to her heart's content. Even the thought of his club subscriptions, now necessarily to be discontinued, must have assuaged a large part of the widow's grief. Such, at least, was the opinion of the clubs themselves, when the news was posted up among the weather reports and the latest tapes from the House that same evening.
While Lord Ferriby's friends were comfortably endowing him with a few compensating virtues over their tea and hot buttered toast in Pall Mall and St. James's Street, Mr. Wade, Tony, and White dined together at the Hotel of the Old Shooting Gallery at The Hague. The hour was an early one, and had never been countenanced by Lord Ferriby, but the three men in whose hands he had literally left his good name did not attach supreme importance to this matter. Indeed, the banker thought kindly of six-thirty as an hour at which in earlier days he had been endowed with a better appetite than he ever possessed now at eight o'clock or later. While they were at table a telegram was handed to Cornish. It was from Lord Ferriby's solicitor in London, and contained the advice that Tony Cornish had been appointed sole executor of his lordship's will.
“Thank God!” said Tony, with a little laugh, as he read the message and handed it across to Mr. Wade, who looked at it gravely without comment. “And now,” said Cornish, “not even Joan need know.”
For Cornish, having perceived Percy Roden under the trees of the Toornoifeld, had gone out there to speak to him, and in answer to a plain question had received a plain answer as to the price that Lord Ferriby had been paid for the use of his name in the Malgamite Fund transactions.
Joan had elected to remain in her own rooms, with Marguerite to keep her company, until the evening, when, under White's escort, she was to set out for England. The major had in a minimum of words expressed himself ready to do anything at any time, provided that the service did not require an abnormal conversational effort.
“I shall be home twenty-four hours after you,” said Cornish, as he bade Joan good-bye at the station. “And you need believe no rumours and fear no gossip. If people ask impertinent questions, refer them to White.”
“And I'll thump them,” added the major, who indeed looked capable of rendering that practical service.
They were favoured by a full moon and a perfect night for their passage from the Hook of Holland to Harwich. Joan expressed a desire to remain on deck, at all events, until the lights of the Maas had been left behind. Major White procured two deck chairs, and found a corner of the upper deck which was free alike from too much wind and too many people. There they sat in the shadow of a boat, and Joan seemed fully occupied with her own thoughts, for she did not speak while the steamer ploughed steadily onwards through the smooth water.
“I wonder if it is my duty to continue to take an active part in the Malgamite Fund,” she said at length.
And the major, who had been permitted to smoke, looked attentively at the lighted end of his cigar, and said nothing.
“I am afraid it must be,” continued Joan, whose earnest endeavours to find out what was her duty, and do it, occupied the larger part of her time and attention.
“Why?” asked Major White.
“Because I don't want to.”
The major thought about the matter for a long time—almost half through a cigar. It was wonderful how so much thought could result in so few words, especially in these days, which are essentially days of many words and few thoughts. During this period of meditation, Joan sat looking out to sea, and the moon shining down upon her face showed it to be puckered with anxiety. Like many of her contemporaries, she was troubled by an intense desire to do her duty, coupled with an unfortunate lack of duties to perform.
“I wish you would tell me what you think,” she said.
“Seems to me,” said White, “that your duty is clear enough.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. Drop the Malgamiters and the Haberdashers and all that, and—marry me.”
But Joan only shook her head sadly. “That cannot be my duty,” she said.
“Why? 'Cos it isn't unpleasant enough?”
“No,” answered Joan, after a pause, in the deepest earnestness—“no—that's just it.”
Out of which ambiguous observation the major seemed to gather some meaning, for he looked up at the moon with one of his most vacant smiles.
“Whom the gods mean to destroy, they blind.”
Mrs. Vansittart had passed the age of blind love. She had not the incentive of a healthy competition. She had not that more dangerous incentive of middle-aged vanity, which draws the finger of derision so often in the direction of widows. And yet she took a certain pleasure in playing a half-careless and wholly cynical Juliet to Percy Roden'sgaucheRomeo. She had no intention of marrying him, and yet she continued to encourage him even now that open war was declared between Cornish and the malgamite makers. Cornish had indeed thanked Mrs. Vansittart for her assistance in the past in such a manner as to convey to her that she could hardly be of use to him in the future. He had magnified her good offices, and had warned her to beware of arousing Von Holzen's anger. Indeed, her use of Percy Roden was at an end, and yet she would not let him go. Cornish was puzzled, and so was Dorothy. Percy Roden was gratified, and read the riddle by the light of his own vanity. Mrs. Vansittart was not, perhaps, the first woman to puzzle her neighbours by refusing to relinquish that which she did not want. She was not the first, perhaps, to nurse a subtle desire to play some part in the world rather than be left idle in the wings. So she played the part that came first and easiest to her hand—a woman's natural part, of stirring up strife between men.
She was, therefore, gratified when Von Holzen made his way slowly towards her through the crowd on the Kursaal terrace one afternoon on the occasion of a Thursday concert. She was sitting alone in a far corner of the terrace, protected by a glass screen from the wind which ever blows at Scheveningen. She never mingled with the summer visitors at this popular Dutch resort—indeed, knew none of them. Von Holzen seemed to be similarly situated; but Mrs. Vansittart knew that he did not seek her out on that account. He was not a man to do anything—much less be sociable—out of idleness. He only dealt with his fellow-beings when he had a use for them.
She returned his grave bow with an almost imperceptible movement of the head, and for a moment they looked hard at each other.
“Madame still lingers at The Hague,” he said.
“As you see.”
“And is the game worth the candle?”
He laid his hand tentatively on a chair, and looked towards her with an interrogative glance. He would not, it appeared, sit down without her permission. And, womanlike, she gave it, with a shrug of one shoulder. A woman rarely refuses a challenge. “And is the game worth the candle?” he repeated.
“One can only tell when it is played out,” was the reply; and Herr von Holzen glanced quickly at the lady who made it.
He turned away and listened to the music. An occasional concert was the one diversion he allowed himself at this time from his most absorbing occupation of making a fortune. He had probably a real love of music, which is not by any means given to the good only, or the virtuous. Indeed, it is the art most commonly allied to vice.
“By the way,” said Von Holzen, after a pause, “that paper which it pleased madame's fantasy to possess at one time—is destroyed. Its teaching exists only in my unworthy brain.”
He turned and looked at her with his slow smile, his measuring eyes.
“Ah!”
“Yes; so madame need give the question no more thought, and may turn her full attention to her new—fancy.”
Mrs. Vansittart was studying her programme, and did not look up or display the slightest interest in what he was saying.
“Every event seems but to serve to strengthen our position,” went on Von Holzen, still half listening to the music. “Even the untimely death of Lord Ferriby—which might at first have appeared acontretemps. Cornish takes home the coffin by tonight's mail, I understand. Men may come, madame, and men may go—but we go on for ever. We are still prosperous—despite our friends. And Cornish is nonplussed. He does not know what to do next, and fate seems to be against him. He has no luck. We are manufacturing—day and night.”
“You are interested in Mr. Cornish,” observed Mrs. Vansittart, coolly; and she saw a sudden gleam in Von Holzen's eyes.
After all, the man had a passion over which his control was insecure—the last, the longest of the passions—hatred. He shrugged his shoulders.
“He has forced himself upon our notice—unnecessarily as the result has proved—only to find out that there is no stopping us.”
He could scarcely control his voice as he spoke of Cornish, and looked away as if fearing to show the expression of his eyes.
Mrs. Vansittart watched him with a cool little smile. Von Holzen had not come here to talk of Cornish. He had come on purpose to say something which he had not succeeded in saying yet, and she was not ignorant of this. She was going to make it as difficult as possible for him, so that when he at last said what he had come to say, she should know it, and perhaps divine his motives.
“Even now,” he continued, “we have succeeded beyond our expectations. We are rich men, so that madame—need delay no longer.” He turned and looked her straight in the eyes.
“I?” she inquired, with raised eyebrows. “Need delay no longer—in what?”
“In consummating the happiness of my partner, Percy Roden,” he was clever enough to say without being impertinent. “He—and his banking account—are really worth the attention of any lady.”
Mrs. Vansittart laughed, and, before answering, acknowledged stiffly the stiff salutation of a passer.
“Then it is suggested that I am waiting for Mr. Roden to be rich enough in order to marry him?”
“It is the talk of gossips and servants.”
Mrs. Vansittart looked at him with an amused smile. Did he really know so little of the world as to take his information from gossips and servants?
“Ah,” she said, and that was all. She rose and made a little signal with her parasol to her coachman, who was waiting in the shadow of the Kursaal. As she drove home, she wondered why Von Holzen was afraid that she should marry Percy Roden, who, as it happened, was coming to tea in Park Straat that evening. Mrs. Vansittart had not exactly invited him—not, at all events, that he was aware of. He was under the impression that he had himself proposed the visit.
She remembered that he was coming, but gave no further thought to him. All her mind was, indeed, absorbed with thoughts of Von Holzen, whom she hated with the dull and deadly hatred of the helpless. The sight of him, the sound of his voice, stirred something within her that vibrated for hours, so that she could think of nothing else—could not even give her attention to the little incidents of daily life. She pretended to herself that she sought retribution—that she wished on principle to check a scoundrel in his successful career. The heart, however, knows no principles; for these are created by and belong to the mind. Which explains why many women seem to have no principles and many virtuous persons no heart.
Mrs. Vansittart went home to make a careful toilet pending the arrival of Percy Roden. She came down to the drawing-room, and stood idly at the window.
“The talk of gossips and servants,” she repeated bitterly to herself. One of Von Holzen's shafts had, at all events, gone home. And Percy Roden came into the room a few minutes afterwards. His manner had more assurance than when he had first made Mrs. Vansittart's acquaintance. He had, perhaps, a trifle less respect for the room and its occupant. Mrs. Vansittart had allowed him to come nearer to her; and when a woman allows a man of whom she has a low opinion to come near to her, she trifles with her own self-respect, and does harm which, perhaps, may never be repaired.
“I was too busy to go to the concert this afternoon,” he said, sitting down in his loose-limbed way.
His assumption that his absence had been noticed rather nettled his hearer.
“Ah! Were you not there?” she inquired.
He turned and looked at her with his curt laugh. “If I had been there you would have known it,” he said.
It was just one of those remarks—delivered in the half-mocking voice assumed in self-protection—which Mrs. Vansittart had hitherto allowed to pass unchallenged. And now, quite suddenly, she resented the manner and the speech.
“Indeed,” she said, with a subtle inflection of tone which should have warned him.
But he was engaged in drawing down his cuffs. Many young men would know more of the world if they had no cuffs or collars to distract them.
“Yes,” answered Roden; “if I had gone to the concert it would not have been for the music.”
Percy Roden's method of making love was essentially modern. He threw to Mrs. Vansittart certain scraps of patronage and admiration, which she could pick up seriously and keep if she cared to. But he was not going to risk a wound to his vanity by taking the initiative too earnestly. Mrs. Vansittart, who was busy at the tea-table, set down a cup which she had in her hand and crossed the room towards him.
“What do you mean, Mr. Roden?” she asked slowly.
He looked up with wavering eyes, and visibly lost colour under her gaze.
“What do I mean?”
“Yes. What do you mean when you say that, if you had gone to the concert, it would not have been for the music; that if you had been there, I should have known of your presence, and a hundred other—impertinences?”
At first Roden thought that the way was being made easy for him as it is in books, as, indeed, it sometimes is in life, when it happens to be a way that is not worth the treading; but the last word stung him like a lash—as it was meant to sting. It was, perhaps, that one word that made him rise from his chair.
“If you meant to object to anything that I may say, you should have done so long ago,” he said. “Who was the first to speak at the hotel when I came to The Hague? Which of us was it that kept the friendship up and cultivated it? I am not blind. I could hardly be anything else, if I had failed to see what you have meant all along.”
“What have I meant all along?” she asked, with a strange little smile.
“Why, you have meant me to say such things as I have said, and perhaps more.”
“More—what can you mean?”
She looked at him still with a smile, which he did not understand. And, like many men, he allowed his vanity to explain things which his comprehension failed to elucidate.
“Well,” he said, after a moment's hesitation, “will you marry me? There!”
“No, Mr. Roden, I will not,” she answered promptly; and then suddenly her eyes flashed, at some recollection, perhaps—at some thought connected with her happy past contrasted with this sordid, ignoble present.
“You!” she cried. “Marry you!”
“Why,” he asked, with a bitter little laugh, “what is there wrong with me?”
“I do not know what there is wrong with you. And I am not interested to inquire. But, so far as I am concerned, there is nothing right.”
A woman's answer after all, and one of those reasons which are no reasons, and yet rule the world.
Roden looked at her, completely puzzled. In a flash of thought he recalled Dorothy's warning, and her incomprehensible foresight.
“Then,” he said, lapsing in his self-forgetfulness into the terse language of his everyday life and thought, “what on earth have you been driving at all along?”
“I have been driving at Herr von Holzen and the Malgamite scheme. I have been helping Tony Cornish,” she answered.
So Percy Roden quitted the house at the corner of Park Straat a wiser man, and perhaps he left a wiser woman in it.
“My dear,” said Mrs. Vansittart to Marguerite Wade, long afterwards, when a sort of friendship had sprung up and ripened between them—“my dear, never let a man ask you to marry him unless you mean to say yes. It will do neither of you any good.”
And Marguerite, who never allowed another the last word, gave a shrewd little nod before she answered—“I always say no—before they ask me.”