What was Elaine to do with her life?
In those weary days of the sick-room at Nîmes, and on the long railway journey through Lyons, Besançon and Strasburg to Wiesbaden, Elaine had turned over and over, in feverishly restless search for hope, the possibilities that lay before her.
Her total capital was comprised in a few hundred pounds and the furniture of the flat she shared in Paris with a girl friend—a student at the Conservatoire. The money would see her through the expenses of Dr Hegelmann's nursing home and for a few months afterwards—a year at the outside. After that she must inevitably be dependent on the charity of friends or on some charitable institution.
The thought of the time when her capital would be gone was like an icy hand gripping at her heart. "Money is terribly useless," she had said to Rivière, but there were times when she wished passionately that she had the money with which to buy comforts for a life of blindness. Those were craven moments, however—moments which she despised when they were past. Of what use to her would be the silken-padded cage she had longed to buy, when life held for her no work, no love?
Rivière she had thought of a thousand times. His every action and word in the days of their first acquaintanceship came back to her with the wonderful inner clarity of sight and hearing that belongs to those who have no outer vision.
She saw him at the arena of Arles, standing on the topmost tier a few yards distant from her, watching the red ball of the sun sink down into the mists of the grey Camargue. He was aloof and cold—icy, unapproachable, masked in reserve.
She saw him in theruelleof Arles, with the light from the shuttered window falling on him in bars of yellow and black, fighting with Berserk fury against the bare knife of the Provençal youth. Here he was primitive man unchained—a Rodin figure with muscles knotted in a riot of hot-blooded passion. He was battling for her.
No, not for her, but for the duty that a man owes to womankind. "I didn't even know it was you," he had said curtly. That had hurt her at the time, but now it seared into her. The rescue had meant nothing—it had brought him no nearer to her. He was still cold and aloof.
She saw him in the Jardin de la Fontaine, lifting his hat with formal politeness and making to move on. Still aloof, still encased in cold reserve.
With deliberate intent she had set herself to melt him, and she had succeeded. By the arbour of the Villa Clémentine she saw him, chatting animatedly in keen enjoyment of her frank camaraderie. But that was only casual friendship. Still aloof in what now mattered vitally to her.
She saw him seeking her out by the Maison Carrée, standing to watch her sketch and passing to her the compliment of candid praise. Then he had come nearer, but by such a little!
She saw him silvered in the moonlight by the Druids' Tower, standing at her easel. Here he would surely have revealed himself if he had had thoughts to utter of inner feelings. But he had remained silent.
Then there rang in her ears his passionate declaration of the sick-room: "Elaine! Elaine! You have me by your side! I ask you to let me devote my life to you!"
She weighed it scrupulously in the balance of reason, and judged it Pity. It was the hasty word of a chivalrous man torn by the sight of her helplessness. If it had been love, he would not have been stopped by her refusal. Love is insistent, headstrong, ruthless of obstacles. Love would have forced his offer upon her again and again. Love would have divined the doubt in her mind. Love would have drowned it in kisses.
It was not Love but Pity that Rivière felt for her. And while she silently thanked him for it, it was not enough. She would not encumber the life of a man who felt merely Pity for her. That would be degradation worse than the acceptance of public charity.
Out of all the turmoil of her fevered thoughts there came this one conclusion: when her last money had been spent, when there only remained for her the bitter bread of charity, she would passquietly out of life to a world where the outer sight would matter nothing.
Meanwhile, every casual word of Rivière's was weighed and re-weighed, tested and assayed by her for the gold that might be hidden within.
There are two sides to Wiesbaden. The one is with the gay, cosmopolitan life that saunters along the Wilhelmstrasse and dallies with the allurements of the most enticing shops in Germany; suns itself in the gardens of the Kursaal or on the wind-sheltered slopes of the Neroberg; listens to an orchestra of master-artists in the open or to a prima donna in the brilliance of the opera-house; dines, wines, gambles, dissipates, burns the lamp of life under forced draught.
The other side is with the life behind the curtains of the nursing homes, where dim flickers of life and health are jealously watched and tended. Wiesbaden is both a Bond Street and a Harley Street. Specialists in medicine and surgery have their consulting rooms a few doors away from those of specialists in jewellery, flowers or confectionery. Their names and their specialities are prominent on door-plates almost as though they were competing against the lures of the traders.
But Dr Hegelmann had no need to cry his services in the market-place. His consulting rooms and nursing home were hidden amongst the evergreens of a cool, restful garden well away from the flaunting life of the Wilhelmstrasse. By the door his nameand titles were inscribed in inconspicuous lettering on a small black marble tablet. His specialty needed no proclaiming.
Rivière found the great surgeon curiously uncouth in appearance. His brown, grey-streaked beard was longer than customary and ragged in outline; his eyebrows projected like a sea-captain's; his almost bald head seemed to be stretched tight over a framework of knobs and bumps; his clothes were baggy and shapeless. But all these unessentials faded away from sight when Dr Hegelmann spoke. His voice was wonderfully compelling—a voice tuned to a sympathy all-embracing. His voice could make even German sound musical. And his hands were the hands of a musician.
Before bringing Elaine into the consulting-room, Rivière explained the facts of the vitriol outrage, gave into his hands the letter of advice from the doctor at Nîmes, and then broached the subject of payment. They spoke in German, because Dr Hegelmann had steadfastly refused to learn any language beyond his own. All his energies of learning had been focused on his one specialty.
"I want to explain," said Rivière, "that Fraülein Verney is not well-to-do. She is, I believe, practically dependent on her profession."
"Then we shall adjust the scale of payment to whatever she can afford," answered the doctor readily. "I value my rich patients only because they can pay me for my poorer patients."
"Many thanks. But that was not quite my meaning. I want to ask you to charge her at the lowest rate, and allow me to make up the difference."
"Without letting her know it."
"Precisely."
"That shall be as you wish. I appreciate your motives." His voice was full of sympathy, giving a treble value to the most ordinary words. "That is the action of a true friend."
Rivière brought Elaine into the consulting-room, and left her in the great specialist's gentle hands. An assistant surgeon was there to act as interpreter.
The verdict came quickly. For a week Elaine was to be in the surgical home receiving preliminary treatment, and then Dr Hegelmann was to operate on her right eye. For the left eye there was no hope.
During the week of waiting, Rivière came twice a day to Elaine's bedside, to chat and read to her.
One day he told her that he had arranged for the use of a bench at a private biological laboratory at Wiesbaden belonging to one of the medical specialists.
"That will enable me to begin my research while you're recovering from the operation. You'll have no need to think that you might be keeping me here away from my work."
"I'm glad. It's very good to have a friend by one, but I should have worried at keeping you from your work. Now I'm relieved.... Is the laboratory here well equipped?"
"Quite sufficiently for my purposes. Of course I'm sending to Paris for my own microscope—it's a Zeiss, with a one-twelfth oil immersion—and I'll have my own rocker microtome sent over also.There's a microtome in the laboratory here, but I might take weeks to get on terms with it. If you'd ever worked with the instrument, you'd know how curiously human it is in its moods and whims. If a microtome takes a liking to you, she'll work herself to the bone while you merely rest your hand on the lever. But if she has some secret objection to you, she'll pout and sulk, and jib and rear, and generally try to drive you distracted."
Elaine smiled. "I notice that man always applies the feminine gender to anything unreliable in the way of machinery. If it's sober and steady-going, you label it masculine, like Big Ben. But if it's uncertain in action, like a motor-boat, you call it Fifi or Lolo or Vivienne."
"That's a true bill," confessed Rivière. "Henceforth I'll keep to the strictly neutral 'it' when I mention a microtome."
"I want to know the nature of your research work. You've never yet told me except in vague, general terms."
Rivière hesitated. It seemed to him scarcely a subject to discuss with one who herself was in the hands of the surgeon.
"Wouldn't you prefer a more cheerful topic?" he ventured.
Elaine appreciated the reason for his hesitation, and answered: "I want to hear of the spirit behind your technicalities. It won't depress me in the least. Please go on."
Rivière began to explain to her the big idea which he was hoping to develop in the coming years. He avoided any details that might seem to haveeven a remote personal bearing. He spoke with enthusiasm—his voice became aglow with inner fire. And it was clear from her attitude and from the questions she interjected from time to time that she realized the value of his idea, appreciated his motives, and was whole-heartedly interested in what he was telling her.
As Elaine listened, a tiny voice within her was whispering: "Here is your rival." And she felt glad that her rival was one of high purpose. The call of science and a high, impersonal aim, touched her as something sacred.
Rivière had brought with him a daily paper—the Frankfort edition of theEurope Chronicle—in order to read it to her. Thinking that she might be getting wearied of his personal affairs, he broke off presently, and with her agreement, opened the paper at the news pages, calling out the headlines until she intimated a wish to hear a fuller reading.
He had finished the news pages for her, and was about to put the paper aside, when the instinct of long habit made him glance at the headlines of the financial page.
Elaine heard a sudden decisive rustle of the paper as he folded it quickly, and then came a minute of silence which carried to her sensitive brain a strange sensation of tenseness.
"What is it?" she asked. "Won't you read it out?"
Rivière's voice had altered completely when he answered her. There was now a reserved, constrained note in it. "An item of news which touches me personally," he said.
"Am I not to hear it?"
"I would rather you didn't ask me."
There was silence again. Rivière sat stiff with rigid muscles while he thought out the bearings of the news item he had just read. Then he asked her to excuse him on a matter of immediate urgency.
At the post office he managed after some waiting to get telephonic communication with the Frankfort office of theEurope Chronicle.
"Tell the financial editor that Mr John Rivière wants to speak to him," he said authoritatively. "Please put me through quickly. I'm on a trunk wire."
After a pause the stereotyped reply came that the financial editor was out. His assistant was now speaking, and would take any message. Clifford Matheson would not have had such an answer made to him, but Rivière was an unknown name. He realized that he must now cool his heels in anterooms, and communicate with chiefs through the medium of their subordinates.
"You have an item in to-day's paper regarding the forthcoming notation of Hudson Bay Transport, Ltd. Mr Clifford Matheson's name is mentioned as Chairman. I should very much like to know if you have had confirmation of that item, and from where it was obtained."
"Hold the line, please. I'll make enquiries."
Presently the answer came. "Why do you wish to know?"
"Mr Matheson is my half-brother, and though I'm in close touch with him, I've had no intimation of any such move on his part."
"Hold the line, please."
Another pause ensued, followed by the formal statement. "The news came to us last night from our Paris office. We believe it to be correct. Do we understand that you wish to deny it?"
"No; I want to get confirmation of it. Thanks—good-bye."
Then he asked the post-office for a trunk call to Paris, and after an hour's wait he was put in touch with the headquarters of theEurope Chronicle. The second 'phone conversation proved as unsatisfactory as the first. A financial editor of a responsible journal does not talk freely with any unknown man who rings him up on a hasty trunk call. The reply came that the information in question reached the paper from a perfectly reliable source. If Mr Rivière cared to call at the office, they would give him proof of the accuracy of their statement. They could not discuss such a matter over the 'phone.
Rivière urged that he was speaking from Wiesbaden.
They were sorry, but they did not care to discuss the matter over the 'phone. He must either take their word for it that the information was correct, or else call in person at the Paris office.
It was clear to Rivière that he must make the journey to Paris if he were to unravel the mystery of that astounding statement. The dead Clifford Matheson mentioned authoritatively as Chairman of the new company! Why should such an impossible story be set afloat, and what was the "reliable source" spoken of? He knew that theEuropeChroniclethough a sensational paper, would not print self-invented fiction on its financial page.
"I have an urgent call to Paris," he told Elaine. "I hope you will excuse my running away so brusquely? I'll be back before the day of your operation."
"Of course, I excuse you," she replied readily. "I know that something very important is calling you. And in any case, what right would I have to say yes or no to a private decision of your own?"
There leapt in her a sudden hope that he would answer from the heart. But his reply held nothing beyond a bare statement. "This matter is extremely urgent. I propose to catch a night train to Paris and be back by to-morrow evening. Is there anything I can do for you before I go?"
"I have everything ... but my sight."
"And that, Dr Hegelmann will give you within the month!" he affirmed.
In Paris early the next morning, Rivière sought out the financial editor of theEurope Chronicle. At a face-to-face interview, Rivière's personality impressed, and the newspaper man showed himself quite willing to prove thebona fidesof his journal.
"If you will step into the adjoining room," he said, "I'll send you the reporter who brought us the information. Ask him any questions you like. I've perfect confidence in him, and I stand by any statement of his we print. I don't think people realize how careful we are on financial matters—they seem to think that a popular paper will print any sort ofcanardoffhand."
There followed Rivière into the next room a tubby rosy-faced little man, brisk and smiling. "Well,sir, what can I do for you?" he rattled off cheerfully. "The financial editor tells me that I'm to preach to you the gospel of the infallibility of theChronicle. What's the particular text you're heaving bricks at?"
Jimmy Martin's infectious good-humour brought an answering smile from Rivière. "I'm not casting doubts on the modern-day Bible," he replied. "I'm seeking information. I want to know who told you that Clifford Matheson, my half-brother, is to head the Board of Hudson Bay Transport, Ltd."
"I have it straight from the stable—from Lars Larssen."
Rivière's face did not move a muscle—he was still smiling pleasantly.
"Larssen and I are old pals," continued Martin briskly. "So when he was passing through Paris the other day he 'phoned me to the effect of come and crack a bottle with me, come and let's reminisce together over the good old days. I went; and he gave me the juicy little piece of news you saw in yesterday's rag. We saved up some of it for to-day—have you seen? Clifford Matheson heads the festal board, and the other revellers at the guinea-feast are the Right Hon. Lord St Aubyn, Sir Francis Letchmere, Bart., and G. Lowndes Hawley Carleton-Wingate, M.P. Lars Larssen sits below the salt—to wit, joins the Board after allotment. The capital is to be a cool five million, and if I were a prophet I'd tell you whether they'll get it or not."
"Thanks—that's just what I wanted to know."
"You withdraw the bricks?"
"Unreservedly.... By the way, do you know where my brother is at the moment?"
"Vague idea he's in Canada. Don't know where I get it from. Those sort of things are floating in the air."
"Where is Larssen?"
"He was going on to London—dear old foggy, fried-fishy London! Ever notice that London is ringed around with the smell of fried fish and naphtha of an evening? The City smells of caretakers; and Piccadilly of patchouli; and the West End of petrol; but the smell of fish fried in tenth-rate oil in little side-streets rings them around and bottles them up. In Paris it's wood-smoke and roast coffee, and I daresay heaps healthier, but I sigh me for the downright odours of old England! Imitaciong poetry—excuse this display of emotion."
When Rivière left the office of the journal on the Boulevard des Italiens, he made his way rapidly to No. 8 Rue Laffitte, second floor. There he inquired for Clifford Matheson, and was informed that the financier was in Winnipeg.
"You're certain of that?" asked Rivière.
"Quite, sir!" answered the clerk in surprise. "We get cables from him giving addresses to send letters to. If you'd like anything forwarded, sir, leave it here and we shall attend to it."
It was now clear beyond doubt that Lars Larssen was playing a game of unparalleled audacity. He had somehow arranged to impersonate the "dead" Clifford Matheson, and was using the impersonation to float the Hudson Bay scheme on his own lines.
Rivière flushed with anger at the realization of how Lars Larssen was using his name.
But that was a trifle compared with the main issue. When he had fought Lars Larssen, it was not a mere petty squabble over a division of loot. The Hudson Bay scheme was no mere commercial machine for grinding out a ten per cent. profit. If successful, it meant an entire re-organization of the wheat traffic between Canada and Great Britain. It meant, in kernel, the control of Britain's bread-supply. It affected directly fifty millions of his fellow-countrymen.
For that reason Rivière had refused to lend his name to a scheme under which Lars Larssen would hold the reins of control. He knew the ruthlessness of the man and his overweening lust of power, which had passed the bounds of ordinary ambition and had become a Napoleonic egomania.
In refusing to act on the Board, Rivière had made an altruistic decision. But now the same problem confronted him again in a different guise. If he remained silent, the scheme would in all probability be floated in his name to a successful issue. If he remained silent, he would be betraying fifty millions of his fellow-countrymen.
He had thought to strike out from the whirlpool into peaceful waters, but the whirlpool was sucking him back.
Weighing duty against duty, he saw clearly that he must at once confront Larssen and crumple up his daring scheme. And so he wired to Elaine:
"An urgent affair calls me to London. Shall return to you at the earliest possible moment. Address, Avon Hotel, Lincoln's Inn Fields."
In the train Calaiswards, Rivière felt as though he had just plunged into an ice-cold lake fed by torrents from the snow-peaks, and had emerged tingling in every fibre with the glow of health.
The course before him was straight; the issue clean-cut. He had only to confront Lars Larssen to bring the latter to his knees. If there were opposition, the threat of a public prosecution would brush it aside.
He must resume the personality of Clifford Matheson; return to Olive; settle a generous income on Elaine. He must wind up his financial affairs and devote himself to the scientific research he had planned.
A straight, clean course.
He looked forward eagerly to the moment when he would walk into Larssen's private office and smash a fist through his hoped-for control of Hudson Bay. Until that moment, he would keep outwardly to the identity of John Rivière. But already he was feeling himself back in the personality of Clifford Matheson—the hard, firm lines had set again around his mouth, the look of masterfulness was in his eye.
The Channel was in its sullen mood.
Overhead, skies were grey with ragged, shapeless cloud; below, the waters were the colour of slag and slapping angrily against the plates of the starboard bow under the drive of a wind from the north-east. The ashen cliffs of Dover came to meet the packet reluctant and inhospitable. By the harbour-entrance, a petulant squall of rain beat upon them as though to shoo them away. The landing-stage was slippery and slimy with rain, soot, and petrol drippings from the motor-cars shipped to and fro. Customs-house officers eyed them with tired suspicion; porters took their money and hastened away with the curtest of acknowledgments; an engine panted sullenly as it waited for never-ending mail-bags to be hauled up from the bowels of the packets and dumped into the mail-van.
England had no welcome for Rivière at her front door.
Through the Weald of Kent, where spring comes early, this April afternoon showed the land still naked and cold. On the coppices, dispirited catkins drooped their tassels from the wet branches of the undergrowth, but the young leaves lurked within their brown coverings as though they shivered at the thought of venturing out into the bleak air. On the oaks, dead leaves from the past autumn clung obstinately to their mother-branches. The hop-lands were a dreary drab; hop-poles huddled against one another for warmth; streams ran swollen and muddy and rebellious.
"The Garden of England" had no welcome for Rivière.
They swerved through Tonbridge Junction, glistening sootily under a drizzle of rain, and dived into the yawning tunnel of River Hill as though into refuge from the bleakness of the open country. Two fellow-travellers with Rivière were discussing the gloomy outlook of a threatened railway strike which rumbled through the daily papers like distant thunder. Fragment of talk came to his ears:—
"Minimum wage.... Damned insolence.... Tie up the whole country.... Have them all flogged to work.... Not a statesman in the House.... Weak-kneed set of vote-snatchers.... If I had my way...."
The train ran them roof-high through endless vistas of the mean grey streets of south-east London, where the street-lamps were beginning to throw out a yellow haze against the murky drizzle of the late afternoon; slowed to a crawl in obedience to the raised arms of imperious signals; stopped over viaducts for long wearisome minutes while flaunting sky-signs drummed into the passengers the superabundant merits of Somebody's Whisky or Somebodyelse's Soap.
Half-an-hour late at the terminus, Rivière had his valise sent to the Avon Hotel, hailed a taxi, and told the man to drive as fast as possible to Leadenhall Street. In that narrow canon of commerce was a large, substantial building bearing the simple sign—a sign ostentatious in its simplicity—of "Lars Larssen—Shipping."
"Tell Mr Larssen that Mr John Rivière wishes to see him," he said to a clerk at the inquiry desk.
"I'm sorry, sir, but Mr Larssen left the office not ten minutes ago."
"Can you tell me where he went to?"
"If you'll wait a moment, sir, I'll send up an inquiry to his secretary. What name did you say?"
"Rivière—John Rivière. The brother of Mr Clifford Matheson."
Presently the answer came down the house 'phone that Mr Larssen had gone to his home in Hampstead.
Rivière re-entered the taxi and gave an address on the Heath. He wanted to thrash out the matter with Larssen with the least possible delay. He would have preferred to confront the shipowner in his office, but since that plan had miscarried, he would seek him out in his private house.
Near King's Cross another taxi coming out from a cross-street skidded as it swerved around the corner, and jolted into his own with a crash of glass and a crumple of mudguards. Delay followed while the two chauffeurs upbraided one another with crimson epithets, and gave rival versions of the incident to a gravely impartial policeman. When Rivière at length reached Hampstead Heath, it was to find that the shipowner had just left the house.
Rivière explained to the butler that it was very important he should reach Larssen without delay, and his personality impressed the servant as that of a visitor of standing. He therefore told Rivière what he knew.
"Mr Larssen changed into evening dress, sir, and went off in his small covered car. I don't know where he's gone, sir, but he told me if anythingimportant arose I was to ring him up at P. O. Richmond, 2882."
That telephone number happened to be quite familiar to Rivière. It was the number of his own house at Roehampton.
He jumped into the waiting taxi once again, and ordered the chauffeur to drive across London to Barnes Common and Roehampton. If he could not confront Larssen at office or house, he would run him to earth that evening in his own home. No doubt Larssen was going there to talk business with Sir Francis.
Roehampton is a country village held within the octopus arms of Greater London. Round it are a number of large houses with fine, spacious grounds—country estates they were when Queen Victoria ascended the throne of England. At Olive's special choice, her husband had purchased one of the mansions and had it re-decorated for her in modern style. She liked its nearness to London proper—it gave her touch with Bond Street and theatreland in half-an-hour by fast car. She liked its spacious lawns and its terraced Italian garden—they were so admirable for garden parties and open-air theatricals. She liked the useless size of the house—it ministered to her love of opulence.
Rivière had grown to hate it in the last few years.
The name of the estate was "Thornton Chase." The approach lay through a winding drive bordered by giant beeches, and passed one of the box-hedged lawns to curl before a front door on the further side of the house.
When at the very gates another delay in that evening of delays occurred. This time it was a tyre-burst. Rivière, impatient of further waste of time, paid off the chauffeur and started on foot along the entrance drive. The drizzle of the afternoon had ceased, and a few stars shone halfheartedly through rents in the ragged curtain of cloud, as though performing a duty against their will.
When passing through the box-hedged lawn as a short cut to the front door, one of the curtains of the lighted drawing-room was suddenly thrown back, and the broad figure of man stood framed in a golden panel of light. It was Lars Larssen.
Rivière stopped involuntarily. It was as though his antagonist had divined his presence and had come boldly forward to meet him. And, indeed, that was not far from the fact. Larssen, waiting alone in the drawing-room, had had one of his strange intuitive impulses to throw wide the curtain and look out into the night. Such an impulse he never opposed. He had learnt by long experience that there were centres of perception within him, uncharted by science, which gathered impressions too vague to put a name to, and yet vitally real. He always gave rein to his intuition and let it lead him where it chose.
Looking out into the night, the shipowner could not see Rivière, who had stopped motionless in the shadow of a giant box clipped to the shape of a peacock standing on a broad pedestal.
Rivière waited.
Presently Larssen turned abruptly as thoughsomeone had entered the room. A smile of welcome was on his lips. Olive swept in, close-gowned in black with silvery scales. She offered her hand with a radiant smile, and Larssen took it masterfully and raised it to his lips. Rivière noted that it was not the shipowner who had moved forward to meet Olive, but Olive who had come gladly to him.
They stood by the fireplace, and Olive chatted animatedly to her guest. Rivière scarcely recognized his wife in this transformation of spirit. With him she was cold and abrupt, and captious, eyes half-lidded and cheeks white and mask-like. Now her eyes flashed and sparkled, and there was warm colour in her cheeks.
Of what Olive and Larssen said to one another, no word came to Rivière. But attitude and gesture told him more than words could have done. It was as though he were a spectator of a bioscope drama, standing in darkness while a scene was being pictured for him in remorseless detail behind the lighted window. That Olive's feeling for Larssen had grown beyond mere friendship was plain beyond question. She was infatuated with the man; and he was playing with her infatuation.
For a moment Rivière's fist clenched; then his fingers loosened, and he watched without stirring. Larssen must, in view of his action on the Hudson Bay coup, believe Matheson to be dead. To him, Olive was now a widow. Therefore Rivière had no quarrel with the shipowner on the ground of what he was now witnessing. His desire to crumple Larssen in the hollow of his hand and fling him into the mud at his feet was based on very different grounds.
On the other hand, Olive must believe Matheson to be alive. Larssen would have told her that her husband was away in Canada on business for a few weeks, and he would keep up the fiction until the Hudson Bay scheme were floated to a public issue.
That Rivière could watch the scene pictured before him without stirring—could watch in silence the spectacle of his wife's infatuation for another man—might seem superficially as the height of cynical cold-bloodedness. Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. Rivière was a man of very deep and very strong feelings held habitually under a rigid control. Self-control is very often mistaken superficially for cold-bloodedness, just as heartiness is mistaken for big-heartedness.
He was balanced enough to hold no blame for Olive. Within two years of marriage he had plumbed her to the depths. It was not in her to be more than a reckless spender of other people's money and other people's lives. She was born to waste just as another is born to create. The way in which she was throwing herself at Larssen during his absence for a few weeks was typical of her inborn character, which nothing could uproot.
It was clear beyond doubt that Olive did not want him back. She preferred him out of her way. If he could disappear for ever, leaving his fortune in her hands, she would unquestionably be glad of it. What he had in fact brought about by taking up the personality of John Rivière was what she seemed most to desire.
He was coming home as an intruder. Even in hisown house there would be no welcome for him.He was not wanted.
There was a sudden stiffening on the part of Olive, as though she heard someone about to enter the room. Sir Francis came in, shook hands cordially with Larssen, and all three made their way to dinner.
Rivière was left looking into an empty room. With sudden decision he made his way out of the grounds of Thornton Chase. He would see the shipowner to-morrow in his office at Leadenhall Street rather than thrash out the coming quarrel in front of Olive and Sir Francis.
His duty lay in taking up once more the role of Clifford Matheson and returning to Olive's side. Though what he had seen that evening made the duty trebly distasteful, he must carry it out to the end. Yet to himself he was glad of the short respite. For one night more he would breathe freedom as John Rivière.
Only one night more!
For the moment, time was no object to him, and he proceeded on foot through Roehampton village and by the sodden coppices of Putney Heath to the Portsmouth high road and the railway station of East Putney.
He waited at the station until an underground train snaked its way in like a giant blindworm, and went with it to the Temple and so to the quiet hotel he had chosen in Lincoln's Inn Fields. On his way, he sent off a telegram to the shipowner stating that John Rivière would call at Leadenhall Street at eleven o'clock in the morning.
In the coffee-room of the Avon Hotel he sat down to write a long letter to Elaine which would explain all that had been hidden from her. Without sparing himself one jot he told her of the circumstances of his life since the crucial night of March 14th, and of the deception he carried out with her as well as with the rest of the world. It was long past midnight before he put to the letter the signature of "Clifford Matheson."
And then with a stab of pain he remembered that Elaine could not read it. There were passages in the letter which must not be read to her by any outside person. It was evident that what he had to tell her would have to be said by word of mouth.
Rivière tore up his letter into small fragments and burnt them carefully in the grate.
Dinner was over at Thornton Chase, and the three were back in the drawing-room—Olive, Larssen, and Sir Francis. The men smoked at Olive's request; and she herself lighted one of a special brand of cigarettes which she had made for her by Antonides.
"I hate to have my drawing-room smelling of afternoon-tea and feminine chit-chat," she explained. "The two Carleton-Wingate frumps called on me this afternoon for a couple of solid hours' boring, which they dignify to themselves as a duty call. Please smoke away the remembrance of them."
"The Carleton-Wingates are a useful crowd," said Larssen. "There's an M.P., a major-general and a minister plenipotentiary amongst them."
"Give me those to deal with, and you entertain the twin frumps," answered Olive. "Twins are always hateful in a room, because they sit together and chorus their comments together, just as if they were one mind with two bodies. You feel as if you ought to split yourself in two and devote half to each, so as not to cause jealousy. But twin old maids are especially hateful."
"A very old family," was Letchmere's comment. "They go back to Henry VII."
"What's the entertainment for to-night?" asked Olive of Larssen.
"I propose to take you to the new Cabaret," said he.
"First-rate!"
"But it doesn't start until ten-thirty. We've plenty of time. First, I want you to play to me."
Olive went over to the piano, and Larssen followed to light the candles and turn back the case of polished rosewood inlaid with ivory.
She laid her fingers on the keys and looked up at him expectantly.
"Something lively," he ordered, and she rattled into the latest success of the musical comedy stage. Such as it was, she played it brilliantly. To-night she was in that morphia mood of the terrace of Monte Carlo when she had first told him of her contempt for her husband.
Under cover of the playing, while Sir Francis was reading a novel of turf life, Olive whispered: "Can't we have a few moments together by ourselves?"
"I'll arrange it," answered Larssen.
"How?"
"Suppose we drop your father at the Cabaret while we go on to see my offices?"
"Offices—at night-time!" she exclaimed.
"My staff work all night there—I have a night-shift as well as a day-shift. In fact, the offices are busier at night-time than in the day-time."
"Isn't that a very unusual arrangement?"
"Yes. It enables me to deal with routine-workwhile the other fellow's asleep. That's always been one of my business principles: get to-morrow's work done to-day; get a twelve hours' start of the other man."
"How typical of you!"
"My place is thoroughly worth seeing. Suppose I show you over it?"
Larssen's pride in his office was fully justified. There was nothing in London, nothing in England to match it as a perfect business machine. And there was no private office in Europe which could compare in impressiveness with Larssen's own.
Things went as he arranged, and from the busy hive of industry on the ground and first floors he took Olive to his private room on the second. It was a room some thirty yards long and broad in proportion, with a central dome reaching above the roof. A few broad tables were almost lost in its immensity. Round the walls were maps dotted with flag-pins telling of the position of ships. At the further end was Larssen's own work-table—a horseshoe-shaped desk. Above and behind it hung a portrait of his little boy by Sargent.
"It's almost a throne-room!" was Olive's exclamation of wonder.
Larssen smiled his pleasure. Itwasa throne-room. He had designed it as such. His private house at Hampstead mattered little to him. His house on Riverside Drive, New York, and his great forest estate in the Adirondacks mattered almost as little. His real home was at the office.
"In my New York office, and in every one of my other offices round the world, there's a room likethis. I alone use it. When I'm away, it stands for me. It's my sign."
"Above there," he continued, pointing to the central dome, "is the wireless apparatus which keeps me in touch with my ships. From ship to ship and office to office I can send my orders round the world. I'm independent of the wires and the cables."
"That's epic!" she said, using the word she had used before when he spoke to her of his early career. No other word fitted Lars Larssen so closely.
"Heard from Clifford lately?" he queried.
"Only a brief cable from Winnipeg."
"I had a letter telling me things are going well, but not as quickly as he expected. That letter would be a week old by now. Every moment I'm expecting to hear that his work is put through and sealed up tight."
"I'm not anxious to have him back. If you only could realize how he bores me to extinction."
She waited for an expression of sympathy.
"You've borne with it very bravely," he said, knowing that to a woman like Olive no compliment is dearer than to be called "brave."
"Not that I want to say a word against Clifford," he added quickly. "He's a very clever man of business, and I admire him for it. But a woman wants more than cleverness."
"How well you understand!" said Olive. "So few know me as I really am. If only we had met before——"
She stopped abruptly as a door opened at the farther end of the room. Morris Sylvester entered briskly with a telegram in his hand. As confidentialsecretary, it was his duty to open all telegrams and most of the letters addressed to his chief. Sylvester passed the open telegram to Larssen, saying:
"Excuse my interruption. This telegram just arrived seems important. I thought you would like to see it."
"Thanks." Larssen glanced over it. "No answer necessary."
Sylvester withdrew.
"It's a wire from your gay brother-in-law," said Larssen to Olive.
"From John Rivière! Where is he?"
"In London. He proposes to call on me to-morrow morning at eleven."
"I wonder what he has to say."
"I'm completely in the dark."
"I'd like to meet him."
"Shall I send him on to Roehampton after he's seen me?"
Olive reflected that Rivière might not want to see her, in view of the way he had avoided her so far. She answered: "Ring me up on the 'phone when he's in your office. I'll speak to him over the wire."
"Right—I'll remember.... By the way, about the Hudson Bay company, did I tell you that the underwriting negotiations are going through fine? Inside a week we ought to be ready for flotation."
Larssen proceeded to enlarge on the subject, and the broken thread of Olive's avowal was not taken up again. They left the offices, and drove back to the Cabaret to rejoin Sir Francis.
At eleven o'clock the next morning, the shipowner was at the horseshoe desk in his throne-room, fingering the snapshot of Rivière which Sylvester had secured at Nîmes. He had seen in it the picture of a man very like Clifford Matheson, but not for a moment had he thought of it as the portrait of the financier himself. The shaven lip, the scar across the forehead, the differences of hair and collar and tie and dress had combined to make a thorough disguise.
Yet when the visitor entered by the farther door of the throne-room and came striding resolutely down the thirty yards of carpet, Lars Larssen knew him. The carriage and walk were Matheson's.
For a moment hot rage possessed him. Not at Matheson, but at himself. He ought to have guessed before. This was the one possibility he had completely overlooked. Matheson had tricked him by shamming death. He ought not to have let himself be tricked. That was inexcusable.
A moment later he had regained mastery of himself, and a succession of plans flashed past his mental vision, to be considered with lightning speed. The financier held the whip-hand—and the whip must be torn from him ... somehow.
"Sit down, Matheson," said the shipowner calmly, when his antagonist had reached the horseshoe desk.
Neither man offered to shake hands.
Matheson took the seat indicated, and waited for Larssen to begin.
Larssen knew the value of silence, however, and Matheson was forced to open.
"You thought me dead?" he asked.
"I knew you had disappeared for private reasons of your own. I discovered those reasons, and so I respected your privacy," was the calm reply.
"You had the cool intention of using my name in the Hudson Bay prospectus as though I had given you sanction for it."
"You did give me sanction."
"Written?"
"No; your word."
"When?"
"At our last interview at your Paris office. You passed your word—an Englishman's word—and I took it."
Matheson ignored the cool lie. "Let's get down to business," he said.
"With pleasure. What do you want?"
"When we last met," continued Matheson slowly, "I wanted you to assign half of your four million Deferred Shares to Lord ——, to be held in trust for the general body of shareholders. Well, now—now—I want the whole four million assigned."
"And you propose that I should give them up for nothing?" queried Larssen ironically.
"For £200,000 in ordinary shares. The monetaryvalue is the same. The difference would be that you'll have two hundred thousand with your own money, not the British public's."
There was silence while the two men eyed one another relentlessly. At the side of Larssen's forehead, under the temple, a tiny vein throbbed and jerked. That was the only outward sign of the feelings of murder which lay in his heart.
"You have your nerve!" he commented.
"I'm offering you easy terms."
"Offermeterms!"
"Easy terms," repeated Matheson. "I could, if I chose, step from here to my lawyers' and have you indicted for conspiracy. I could get you seven to ten years. I could have you breaking stones at Portland."
"Then why don't you?"
"I have my private reasons."
"One of them being that you haven't a shred of evidence," was the cool reply.
"Who sends cables in my name to my managers?" demanded Matheson.
"I know nothing of that."
"Youdoknow it. One of your employees sends them."
"Have you such a cable with you?"
Matheson ignored the retort. "You've told my wife and my father-in-law that I was alive."
"I knew youwerealive. Is that your idea of fraud?"
"I'm not going to quibble over words. Believing me to be dead, you had me impersonated, planning to use my name on the Hudson Bay scheme."
"I've not used your name."
"You used it to induce St Aubyn and Carleton-Wingate to come on the Board."
"If you're thinking to prove that, you merely waste your time. The negotiations were carried out by your father-in-law."
"You used my name to a reporter on theEurope Chronicle."
"Have you written evidence of that?"
"Martin will swear to it, if necessary."
Larssen laughed harshly. "An out-of-elbows reporter on a sensational yellow journal! Do you dream for one instant that his word would stand against mine in a court of law? See here, Matheson, you'd better go back and read over your brief with the man who's instructing you. He's muddled up the facts."
"Then what are the facts?" challenged Matheson.
Lars Larssen took a deep breath before he leaned forward across the horseshoe desk to answer. At the same time he moved a hidden lever under the desk. This was a device allowing any conversation of his to be heard telephonically in the adjoining room where his private secretary worked. It was useful occasionally when he needed an unseen listener to a business interview of his; and now he particularly wanted Sylvester to hear what he and Matheson were saying to one another. It would give Sylvester his cue if he were to be called in at any point.
"Matheson," said the shipowner, "the facts of your case don't make a very edifying story. Ifyou're sure you want to hear them as you'd hear them in a court of law, I'll spare another five minutes to tell you. You're quite certain you'd like to hear the outside view of your actions this past three weeks?"
"I'm listening."
With brutal directness Larssen proceeded: "On the night of March 14th, you decided you were tired of your wife. Thought you'd like a change of bedfellow. You left your coat and stick about a quarter-mile down the left bank of the Seine from Neuilly bridge, so that people would think you dead. You cut a knife-slit in the ribs of your coat to make a neater story of it. Then, as I guessed you would, you went honeymooning with the other woman. Away to the sunny South. I had you followed.
"You registered together at the Hotel du Forum at Arles, taking the names of John Rivière and Elaine Verney. A man doesn't change his name unless he's got some shady reason for it. Every court of law knows that. You dallied for a day or two at Arles, getting this woman to write a lying letter to your wife saying that you were down with fever. We have that letter."
"We!"
"Yes,we. We have that letter. I advised your wife to let me keep it for possible emergencies. I have it in this office along with the other evidence. I don't bluff—shall I ring and have my secretary show it to you?"
"Get on."
"Then you moved to Nîmes, staying for shame's sake at different houses. Hers was the Hotel deProvence, and yours was the Villa Clémentine. You went lovemaking with this woman in the moonlight, up to a quiet place on the hillside, and there you nearly got what was coming to you from a peasant called Crau. Then you had this Verney woman stay with you in your Villa Clémentine, and finally you took her off to Wiesbaden."
Larssen ostentatiously pressed an electric bell.
"I'll give you chapter and verse," he said.
Morris Sylvester came in quietly from his room close by, a slow smile under his heavy dark moustache, and nodded greeting to Matheson. He had heard by the telephone device all of his chief's case against Matheson, and was quite ready to take up his cue.
"Sylvester, you recognize this man?" said Larssen.
"Yes. He is the Mr John Rivière I shadowed at Arles and Nîmes."
Larssen turned to the financier. "Want to ask him any questions? Ask anything you like."
"No."
"Sure?"
"Quite," answered Matheson. There was nothing to be gained at this stage by cross-examining the secretary.
"That will do, Sylvester."
The secretary left the room.
Larssen leant forward across the desk once more and snarled: "There's the facts of the case as they'll go before the divorce court."
"Do you know that Miss Verney is blind?"There was a hoarseness in Matheson's voice; he cleared his throat to relieve it.
"That's no defence in a divorce court."
"Blind and undergoing an operation this very morning? Do you know that it's doubtful if she will ever recover any of her sight?"
Larssen's mouth tightened a shade more. At last he found the heel of Achilles. He could get at Matheson through Elaine. Ruthlessly he answered: "That's no concern of mine. I'm stating facts to you. These facts are not all in your wife's possession. Do you want me to put them there?"
"Your facts are a chain of lies. There's one sound link: that I changed my name. The rest are poisonous lies—provable lies."
"Whatever they may be, do you want them put before your wife?" He reached for a swinging telephone by his desk and called to the house operator: "Get me P. O. Richmond, 2822. Name, Mrs Matheson."
While he was waiting for the connection to be made, Sylvester entered the room and silently showed a visiting-card to his chief. It was Olive's card. Acting on a sudden impulse, she had motored to the office to see this mysterious John Rivière before he should evade her. She knew that the interview was to be at eleven o'clock, and by thus calling in person, she would make certain of meeting him.
Larssen said aloud to his secretary: "Show her up when I ring next."
Then to Matheson: "There's no need to 'phone. Your wife is waiting below."
Sylvester left the room.
As the shipowner's hand hovered over the button of the electric bell, waiting for a yes or no from his antagonist, a great temptation lay before Matheson.
The recital of the events of the past three weeks, as given in the brutal wording of the shipowner, had torn at his nerves like the pincers of an inquisitor. He saw now how the world would judge the relations between Elaine and himself. The change of name, the meeting at the same hotel at Arles, the second meeting, the companionship of that fateful week at Nîmes—the world would put only one interpretation on it all. Elaine, lying helpless in her close-curtained room at the nursing home in Wiesbaden, would be fouled with the imaginings of the prurient. Not only had he brought blindness to her, but now he was to bring her to the pillory with the scarlet letter fixed upon her.
Yet he could avoid it if he chose. A choice lay open to him. Larssen would be ready to exchange silence for silence. If Matheson would stand aside and let the Hudson Bay scheme go through, no doubt Larssen would play fair in the matter of Elaine. That in effect was what he offered as his hand hovered over the electric bell.
The shipowner, though an easy smile of triumph masked his feelings as he lay back in his chair, knew that he was at the critical point of his career. If Matheson decided to let Olive be shown in, then Olive would have in her hands the judgment between the two men. To be dependent on a woman's mood, a woman's whim, would be Larssen's position. It galled him to the quick. The seconds thatslipped by while Matheson considered were minute-long to him.
If only Matheson would weaken and propose compromise!
Larssen uttered no word of persuasion one way or another. He knew that, if his desire could be attained, it would be attained through silence.
Presently Matheson stirred in his chair.
"Ring!" said he firmly.
The fight had begun again.
Larssen pressed the bell without a moment's hesitation. His bluff had to be carried through with absolute decisiveness. He could not gauge how far his threat of the divorce court had intimidated Matheson. Beyond that, he was not at all sure that Olive would side with him in the matter. She was unstable, unreliable.
But on the outside no trace of his doubts appeared. He was perfectly cool, entirely master of himself. As he waited for Sylvester to fetch Mrs Matheson, he took out a pocket-knife and began to trim his nails lightly.
Olive's appearance as she entered the throne-room was greatly changed from that of the evening before. The transient effect of the drug had worn off. Her features were now heavy and listless, and there were dark shadows under the eyes.
Both men rose to offer a seat.
"I came along to catch Mr Rivière before he left you," she explained to Larssen, and turned with a set smile towards the visitor.
For a moment or two she stared at Matheson in amazement. Then:
"Why, it's Clifford! What have you been doing to yourself? Why have you changed your appearance? Why are you here? What's the meaning of all this?"
"It's a long story," cut in Larssen, and "there are two versions to it. Which will you hear first, your husband's or mine?"
She hesitated to answer, her mind buzzing with surprise, resentment, and anger. She hated to be caught at a disadvantage, as in this case. She was uncertain as to what her attitude ought to be.
Had Clifford, suspecting her feelings towards Larssen, returned hurriedly in order to trap her? What did he know? What did he guess?
Evidently she ought to be on her guard.
"Of course I will hear my husband first," she answered coldly, and Larssen took it as an ill omen. He offered her a chair again, and seated himself so as to command them both.
Matheson, who remained standing, waved his hand towards the shipowner. "Let him speak first."
"I'm not anxious to," countered Larssen. "Fire away with your own version."
"I hate all this mystery!" snapped Olive irritably. "Mr Larssen, you tell me what it all means."
"Very well.Thisis Mr John Rivière."
"Rivière?"
"Yes; that's your husband'snom de discrétion."
"I thought it was Dean."
"No—Rivière."
"Why is he back from Canada so soon?"
"He never went to Canada."
"You don't mean to say that the letter I received from Arles was written by Clifford himself?"
"At his dictation."
"Who wrote it?"
Larssen turned to Matheson. "Do you wish me to explain who wrote it, or will you do it yourself?"
"It was written at my dictation by a Miss Verney—a lady whom I met for the first time on my visit to Arles. Her relation to myself is that of a mere tourist acquaintanceship."
"Why were you at Arles? Why was she at Arles?"
"Miss Verney is—was—a professional scene-painter. She was making a brief tour in Provence to collect material for a Roman drama for which she was commissioned to design the scenery."
"How old is she?"
"I don't know—what does it matter?"
"I want to know."
"About twenty-five, I should say."
"And what were you doing at Arles?"
Matheson found it very difficult to frame his reasons under this remorseless cross-examination. He felt as though he were in the witness-box at a divorce trial, replying to hostile counsel.
"When I left Paris," he answered, "it was to take a quiet holiday for a couple of months before settling down to my new work."
"What new work?"
"I'll explain in detail later. Scientific research, in brief."
Larssen scraped his chair scornfully. He would not comment with words at the present juncture.Matheson was convicting himself out of his own mouth—the revelation was unfolding excellently.
"You went to Arles for research?" pursued Olive.
"No; for a holiday."
"A holiday from what—from whom?"
"From financial matters."
"Why did you take the name of John Rivière?"
"Because I intended to take that name permanently."
Olive was startled. "You meant to leave me!" she exclaimed.
"I meant to disappear and give you your freedom and the greater part of my property," answered Matheson steadily.
"How freedom?"
"On the night of March 14th, the night I said good-bye to you at the Gare de Lyon, I made a sudden decision to take up my brother's work and live his life. He has been dead a couple of years. I happened to be attacked by a couple ofapaches, and that gave me the opportunity. I contrived evidence of a violent death, and then cut loose entirely from the name of Clifford Matheson. You would be given leave by the courts to presume death, on the evidence of my coat and stick left by the river-bank at Neuilly. You would come into my money and property, and you would be free to marry again if you chose."
Olive had become very thoughtful. Her chin was buried in her hand. When she spoke again after a few moments' pause, it was in a strangely altered tone.
"Why did you come back?" she said.
"Because Larssen was using my name in a way I won't countenance. I was forced to return in order to put a stop to it."
"Was that the only reason that made you return?"
"Yes, that was it."
"You came back because Mr Larssen called you back?"
"Because I found that he was having me impersonated, and using my name illicitly."
Olive turned on the shipowner with a sudden wild fury, her eyes shooting fire and her lips quivering. "Why did you have Clifford impersonated?" she hissed out.
Larssen was taken aback at this utterly unexpected onslaught. "That'shisversion!" he retorted.
"My husband says so—that's sufficient for me!"
"Then I can't argue."
"Do you deny it?"
"Emphatically!"
"You told me Clifford was in Canada, when all the time you knew he was at Arles. Didn't you tell me that?"
"To save his face."
"How?"
"Obviously because I knew he was dallying at Arles and Nîmes with this Verney woman. You haven't heard one-tenth of the facts yet. You haven't heard that he stayed in the same hotel with her at Arles. Went with her to Nîmes when the hotel people began to object. At Nîmes, fordecency's sake, they stayed at different houses, but he had her hanging around his villa. Went lovemaking with her in the moonlight up to a quiet place on the hillside. Then, had her live with him in the Villa Clémentine. Finally, took her to Wiesbaden. These are all facts for which I can bring you irrefutable evidence. I had my secretary shadowing him from the moment he left Paris."
Olive turned on her husband with another lightning change of mood.
"Is she so very beautiful, this enchantress of yours?" she queried with the velvety softness of a cat.
"She is blind," answered Matheson with a quiver in his words. "Blinded for life while trying to warn me of a vitriol attack. Olive, I want you to listen without interruption while I tell you on my word of honour what are the facts underneath that vile story of Larssen's. I want you to believe and have pity.
"We had never seen one another before Arles. There we met as casual tourists. It happened that I was able to defend her from the assault of a half-drunken peasant. After that we parted as the merest acquaintances. By pure chance we met again at Nîmes. She came to Nîmes to gather further material for her scene-painting. For scene purposes she had to make a sketch at night-time, and I went with her as escort as I would have done with any other woman. We were followed by the peasant Crau. He was about to throw vitriol on me when Miss Verney intervened. She receivedthe acid full in her eyes. She is, I believe, blinded for life. Even now, as I speak, she lies on the operating table.... Olive, there has been nothing between us!"
His voice rang out in passionate sincerity.
"I don't believe it," she replied icily.
"Youmustbelieve it! I give you my word of honour!"
"I don't believe it! It's against human nature. You're in love with her—that's plain. You had opportunity enough. I know sufficient of human nature to put two and two together. I shall certainly sue for a divorce!"
"Against a blind girl?"
"I don't care a straw whether she's blinded or not!"
And then, for the first time in all that long interview, Matheson blazed into open anger.
"You know human nature?" he cried. "By God, you know your own, and you measure every other woman by yourself! Behind my back you throw yourself at this damned scoundrel!" He flung out his hand toward Larssen.
There was no answering anger in Larssen. He knew too well the value of keeping cool. He merely put in a word to egg Matheson on to a further outburst.
"That's a chivalrous accusation to make," said he.