"She is the dearest of girls I confess,Her milliners' bills are a sight to see;Dearest of girls in the matter of dress,Dearest of girls in the world to me.I lost my heart, but I lost my gold,And hearts without gold are romantic trash;Her love was a thing to be bought and sold,But I couldn't purchase for want of cash."Now she is spouse to an aged man,He's eighty-five and a trifle frail;Soon he'll finish his life's brief span,Then she'll look for another male.Ah! but love comes not twice in our life,Cupid for ever has passed us by;So if she asked me to make her my wife,I would not marry her, no not I."
"She is the dearest of girls I confess,
Her milliners' bills are a sight to see;
Dearest of girls in the matter of dress,
Dearest of girls in the world to me.
I lost my heart, but I lost my gold,
And hearts without gold are romantic trash;
Her love was a thing to be bought and sold,
But I couldn't purchase for want of cash.
"Now she is spouse to an aged man,
He's eighty-five and a trifle frail;
Soon he'll finish his life's brief span,
Then she'll look for another male.
Ah! but love comes not twice in our life,
Cupid for ever has passed us by;
So if she asked me to make her my wife,
I would not marry her, no not I."
"Oh!" said Tommy, when the song was ended, "so that's your idea of a woman's love."
"Not mine--the world's."
"And what about the love which cannot be bought?" asked Kaituna.
"Is there such a love?"
"Yes, cynic," growled Maxwell in disgust; "true love is not a saleable article. The woman who truly loves a man," here his eye rested on Kaituna, "lets nothing stand in the way of that love. She gives up rank, fortune, everything for his sake."
"And what does she receive in return?" demanded Miss Pethram, innocently.
"The true joy which arises from the union of two loving hearts."
"Very pastoral indeed," said Toby, lightly. "Chloe and Corydon in Arcadia. It once existed, indeed, but now----"
"But now," finished Kaituna, rather tired of the discussion, "it is time to retire."
Both the gentlemen protested at the ladies going away so early, but Kaituna remained firm, and was supported by Tommy, who said she felt very tired.
"Not of us, I hope!" said Toby, meekly.
"Thyself hath said it," she replied, holding out her hand. "Good-night."
When they were leaving the room, Maxwell, who was escorting Kaituna, bent over and whispered in her ear--
"I won't go to South America."
"South America," she repeated, with a pretended look of surprise, "Oh! yes, of course. I forgot all about it, I assure you. Good-night."
She was gone before he could say a word, leaving him overcome with anger at the flippant manner in which she spoke. Was she in jest or earnest. He could not tell. Perhaps she said one thing and meant another. He could not tell. Perchance--oh, women were all alike, they liked to put their victim on a sharp hook and watch him wriggle painfully to be free.
"She's a coquette!"
"Who? Miss Valpy?" asked Toby, overhearing.
"No, Miss Pethram; but I dare say her friend's no better."
"I'm afraid not!" sighed Mr. Clendon, dismally; "it's six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. But what ails my Archibald? His brow is overcast."
"Oh! rubbish," growled Archibald, rudely; "come and smoke."
The smoking-room was quite empty, so the young men established themselves in two comfortable armchairs, and devoted their energies to the consumption of tobacco. Clendon preferred the frivolous cigarette, but Archie produced with loving care a well coloured meerschaum, which had been his companion for many years.
"This is a travelled pipe," he said to his friend when the blue smoke was rolling in clouds from his mouth, "a very Ulysses of pipes. It has been in far countries and knoweth the ways of the stranger."
"Good idea for a story," observed Toby, who was always on the look-out for copy. "'The Tale of a Pipe in ten Fills.' Egad! I think it ought to go capitally. It's so difficult to get an idea nowadays."
Maxwell, luxuriating in his pipe, grunted in a manner which might have meant anything, so Toby promptly attacked him on his want of manners.
"You might speak to a fellow when a fellow speaks to you! I tell you what, Archie, you've changed for the worse since we were at school together. Then you were a gregarious animal, and now you are an unsociable beast."
"Don't call names, my good man! I can't help being quiet. My thoughts are far away."
"Pish! not so very far."
"Well, perhaps not."
"Have you asked her to marry you?"
"Hardly! I've only known her a fortnight, and besides, I've got no money."
"No; but she has!"
"I don't want to live on my wife. I'm going away to South America."
"Never to see her again, I suppose," said Toby, ironically; "don't talk nonsense, Archie. You're madly in love with Miss Pethram and don't want to lose sight of her."
"True! but I must when she goes away from here."
"Not a bit of it. Listen, I will be your good angel."
Maxwell laughed grimly at the idea.
"I will be your good angel," repeated Toby, imperturbably, "and take you down with me to Deswarth."
"To your father's house? I thought you weren't friends with your governor."
"I am not," acknowledged Clendon with touching candour; "he wanted me to become a churchman, and I didn't care about it. We had words and parted. Now, however, I've won a success in literature, I'll go back and ask the pater to kill the domestic veal. You I will bring with me to the banquet, and as Miss Pethram lives near you will be able to see her, woo her, wed her, and be happy ever afterwards."
Archie made no reply, but smoked furiously; and Toby, having delivered himself of what he had to say, also subsided into silence.
After a pause said Maxwell--
"Toby."
"Yes."
"I'll come."
"What about South America?"
"D---- South America."
You are a snake,For the sly beast liesCoiled in the brakeOf your sleepy eyes,Lo, at your glances my weak soul dies.Woman you areWith a face so fair;But the snake must marAll the woman there.Your eyes affright, but your smiles ensnare.
You are a snake,
For the sly beast lies
Coiled in the brake
Of your sleepy eyes,
Lo, at your glances my weak soul dies.
Woman you are
With a face so fair;
But the snake must mar
All the woman there.
Your eyes affright, but your smiles ensnare.
Such a poor room it was, with a well-worn carpet, shabby furniture, a dingy mirror over the fireplace, and a mean sordid look everywhere. The bright sunshine, pouring in through the dirty windows, showed up the weak points of the apartment in the most relentless manner. Great folding-doors at one side half open, showing an untidy bedroom beyond, and on the other side the many-paned windows, veiled by ragged curtains, looked out into Jepple Street, Bloomsbury.
There was a shaky round table in the centre of the apartment, on which was spread a doubtfully clean cloth, and on it the remains of a very poor breakfast. An egg half eaten, a teacup half filled, and a portion of bread on the plate showed that the person for whom this meal was provided had not finished, and, indeed, she was leaning on the table with her elbows, looking at a copy of theDaily Telegraph.
A noticeable woman this, frowning down on the newspaper with tightly closed lips, and one whom it would be unwise to offend.. After a pause she pushed the paper away, arose to her feet, and marching across to the dingy mirror, surveyed herself long and anxiously. The face that looked out at her from the glass was a remarkable one.
Dark, very dark, with fierce black eyes under strongly marked eyebrows, masses of rough dark hair carelessly twisted up into a heavy coil, a thin-lipped, flexible mouth and a general contour of face not at all English. She had slender brown hands, which looked powerful in spite of their delicacy, and a good figure, though just now it was concealed by a loose dressing-gown of pale yellow silk much discoloured and stained. With her strange barbaric face, her gaudy dress, Mrs. Belswin was certainly a study for a painter.
Mrs. Belswin, so she called herself; but she looked more like a savage queen than a civilised woman. She should have been decked with coloured beads, with fantastic feathers, with barbaric bracelets, with strangely striped skins, as it was she was an anomaly, an incongruity, in the poor room of poor lodging-house, staring at her fierce face in the dingy mirror.
Mrs. Munser, who kept the establishment, acknowledged to her intimate friend, Mrs. Pegs, that the sight of this lady had given her a turn; and certainly no one could blame cockney Mrs. Munser, for of all the strange people that might be seen in London, this lithe, savage-looking woman was surely the strangest. Indian jungles, African forests, South American pampas, she would have been at home there, having all the appearance and fire of a woman of the tropics; but to see her in dull, smoky London--it was extraordinary.
After scrutinising herself for a time, she began to talk aloud in a rich full voice, which was broken every now and then by a guttural note which betrayed the savage; yet she chose her words well, she spoke easily, and rolled her words in a soft labial manner suggestive of the Italian language. Yet she was not an Italian.
"Twenty years ago," she muttered savagely, "nearly twenty years ago, and I have hardly ever seen her. I must do so now, when Providence has put this chance into my hands. They can't keep a mother from her child. God's laws are stronger than those of man. Rupert would put the ocean between us if he could, but now he's in New Zealand, so for a time I will be able to see her, to speak to her, to hold her in my arms; not as her mother,--no, not as her mother,--but as her paid servant."
She turned away from the mirror with a savage gesture, and walked slowly up and down the room with the soft sinuous movement of a panther. Her soft silk dress rustled as she walked, and her splendid hair, released by her sudden movement, fell like a black veil over her shoulders. She thrust the tresses back from her temples with impatient hands, and her face looked forth from the cloud of hair, dark, sombre, and savage, with a flash of the fierce eyes and vicious click of the strong white teeth.
"Curses on the man who took me away from her. I did not care for him, with his yellow hair and pink face. Why did I go? Why was I such a fool? I left her, my own child, for him, and went out into the world an outcast, for his sake. God! God! Why are women such fools?"
For a moment she stood with uplifted hands, as if awaiting an answer; but none came, so, letting her arms fall, she walked back to her chair, and lighting a cigarette, placed it in her mouth.
"I daren't use a pipe here," she said, with a discordant laugh, "it would not be respectable. But Spanish women smoke cigarettes, Russian women smoke cigarettes, so why should not the Maori woman smoke them also. Respectable, eh! Well, I'm going to be respectable now, when I've answered this."
This was an advertisement in the paper, which read as follows--
"Wanted, a companion for a young lady. Apply by letter, Dombrain, 13, Chintler Lane, City."
"Apply by letter," muttered Mrs. Belswin, with a sneer. "Indeed I won't, Alfred Dombrain. I'll apply in person, and I think I'll obtain the situation. I'll hold it, too--hold it till Rupert returns, and then--and then----"
She sprang to her feet and blew a cloud of smoke with a mocking laugh. "And then, my husband, I'll match myself against you."
"Salve dimora casta e pura."
The singer was coming slowly upstairs, and, as he finished the line, knocked at the door.
"Stephano," said Mrs. Belswin, with a frown, glancing at the clock; "what can he want so early? Avanti."
The door opened and Stephano, the singer, a tall, lithe Italian, with a beaming smile, presented himself and burst out into a torrent of greeting.
"Buon Giorno cara mia! Ah, my beautiful Lucrezia! my splendid Norma! how like an angel you look this morning. Gran dio che grazia. Signora, I kiss your hand."
He dropped on one knee in an affectedly theatrical manner and pressed his lips to Mrs. Belswin's hand, upon which she twitched it away with a frown, and spoke roughly to her adorer.
"What do you want, Ferrari?"
"Niente! niente! but to pay a visit of ceremony."
"It's not customary to pay visits of ceremony at ten o'clock in the morning. I wish you would go away. I'm busy."
"Che donna," said the Italian. With a gesture of admiration, and taking off his hat, sat down on the sofa.
Stephano Ferrari was a handsome man in a wicked way. He was tall and slender, with a dark, expressive face, white teeth, which gleamed under his heavy black moustache, wonderfully fine eyes, and a bland, ingratiating manner. English he spoke remarkably well, having been for many years away from his native land, but had a habit of interlarding his conversation with Italian ejaculations, which, in conjunction with his carefully-learnt English, had a somewhat curious effect. Being the tenor of an opera company in New York, he had become acquainted with Mrs. Belswin, who was also in the profession, and had fallen violently in love with this splendid-looking woman, who had so many of the characteristics of his countrywomen. Mrs. Belswin did not reciprocate this passion, and treated him with marked discourtesy; but this only added fuel to the fire of his love, much to her annoyance, as Ferrari had all the ardour and violence of his race strongly developed, and was likely to prove dangerous if she did not return his passion, a thing she felt by no means inclined to do.
At present he sat smiling on the sofa before her, adjusted his bright red tie, ran his fingers through his curly hair, and then twisted the ends of his moustache with peculiarly aggravating complacency.
"Don't you hear what I say?" said Mrs. Belswin, stamping her foot angrily. "I'm busy. Go away."
"Bid me not fly from those star-like eyes," sang the Signor, rolling a cigarette with deft fingers. "Ah, che bella musica. If the words were but my beautiful Italian instead of this harsh English. Dio! It hurts the throat, your speaking--fog-voiced pigs that you are."
"Take your abuse and yourself somewhere else," replied Mrs. Belswin, bringing her hand down sharply on the table. "I tell you I'm busy. You never leave me alone, Stephano. You followed me over from America, and now you stay beside me all day. Why do you make such a fool of yourself?"
"Because I love thee, carissima. Let me light this; not at thine eyes--stelle radiante--but from thy cigarette. Grazia!"
Mrs. Belswin knew of old that when Ferrari was in this humour nothing reasonable could be expected from him; so, resigned to the inevitable, she let him light his cigarette as he wished, then, flinging herself down on her chair, looked moodily at him.
"How long is this foolery going to last?" she demanded caustically.
"Till you become the Signora Ferrari."
"That will never be."
"Nay, angela mia--it will be some day."
"Was there ever such a man?" burst out Mrs. Belswin, viciously. "He won't take no for an answer."
"Not from thee, Donna Lucrezia."
"Don't call me Donna Lucrezia.
"Perchè?"
"Because I'm tired of opera. I'm tired of you. I'm tired of everything. I'm going to leave all the old life and become respectable."
"The life of a singer is always respectable," declared Ferrari, mendaciously. "You mean to leave me, Signora?"
"Yes, I do."
"Ebbene! we shall see."
"What claim have you on me? None. I met you in America two years ago. We nag together for a time, and because of that you persecute me with you ridiculous attentions."
"I love thee."
"I don't want your love."
"Veramente!"
"No!"
She spoke defiantly, and folding her arms stared steadily at her persistent lover. The Italian, however, was not at all annoyed. He simply threw his half-smoked cigarette into the teacup, and rising from his seat stood before her smiling and bland as ever.
"Non e vero, Signora? Ebbene. I am the same. We met in San Francisco two years ago. I was a singer of opera. I obtained for you engagements. I loved you. Carissima, I love thee still! You are cold, cruel, you stone-woman, bella demonia. For long time I have been your slave. You have given me the kicks of a dog. Pazienza, I finish soon. I have told you all of myself. You have told me all of yourself. I come to this fog land with you, and now you say, 'Addio.' Bellissima, Signora, but I am not to be talked to like a child. I love you! and I marry you. Ecco! You will be Signora Ferrari. Senza dubbio!"
Having thus delivered himself of his determination with many smiles and gesticulations, Signor Ferrari bowed in his best stage manner, sat down in his chair and began to roll another cigarette. Mrs. Belswin heard him in silence, the clenching of her hands alone betraying her anger, but having had two years' experience of the Italian's character, she knew what to do, and controlling herself with an effort, began to temporise in a highly diplomatic manner.
"I suppose no woman could be indifferent to such love as you profess, Stephano, and some day I may be able to answer you as you wish--but not now, not now."
"And why, cara mia?"
"Because I am going to see my daughter again."
"Your daughter?"
"Yes! You know I told you all my past life. I was a fool to do so, as it gives you a certain hold over me. But I am a lonely--woman. Your manner was sympathetic, and so--well it's only natural I should wish to confide in some one."
"So you confided in me. Per l'amor di Dio, Signora. Do not be sorry, I am simpatica! I feel for you. Ah, Dio! It was a terrible story of your husband, and the parting in anger. Basta! Basta! Think of it no more."
"I must! Do you think I can forget the past by a simple effort of will? Happy for me, happy for all, if such a thing could be. But--I have forgotten nothing. That is my punishment!"
"And now, cara?"
"Now I am going to see my dear daughter again."
"She is in London, then? Ah, che gioja."
"Yes! she is in--in England."
"And il marito?"
"He is at the other end of the world."
"Bene. Let him say there!"
Mrs. Belswin nodded her head in savage approval, then began to walk to and fro, talking rapidly.
"While he is away I have a plan. In the paper there is a notice requiring a companion for my daughter."
"How do you know?"
"Because it is put in by a Mr. Dombrain. He is Rupert Pethram's solicitor. Oh, I know him, better than he thinks. All these years I have been away from my child I have watched over her. Ah, yes! I know all of her life in New Zealand. I have good friends there. I found out when her father brought her to England, and that is why I came over here so quickly. I intended to see her again--to speak to her--but without revealing I was her unhappy mother. But--I was afraid of Pethram. Yes, you may smile, Stephano, but you do not know him. I do."
"E incrédibile. You who fear no one."
"I do not fear him physically," she said proudly, with a savage flash from her fierce eyes. "I fear no man in that way. But I am afraid because of my daughter. She thinks I am dead. It is better than that she should know I am a divorced, disgraced woman. If Sir Rupert were angry he might tell her all, and then--and then--oh, God! I could not bear to see her again. She would despise me. She would look on me with scorn. My own child. Ah, I should die--I should die!"
The tears actually came into her eyes, and for a moment softened their fierceness. This woman, hard and undisciplined, with savage instincts derived from a savage mother, yet felt the strong maternal instinct implanted in the breast of every woman, and quailed with terror as she thought of the power her former husband had to lower her in the eyes of her daughter. Ferrari, of course, could not understand this, having been always accustomed to think of Mrs. Belswin as an untamed tigress, but now she had a touch of feminine softness about her which puzzled him.
"Ah! the strangeness of women," he said philosophically. "Ebbene, now il marito is away, what will you do?"
"I'm going to see Mr. Dombrain, and obtain the situation of companion to my own daughter."
"Not so fast, Signora! She will know you."
"No; she will not know me," replied Mrs. Belswin softly; "she does not remember me. When I left her she was a little child. She thinks I am dead. I go to her as a stranger. It is hard; it is terribly hard. I will see her. I will speak to her. I will perhaps kiss her; but I dare not say, 'child, I am your mother!' Ah, it is cruel--but it is my punishment."
"It is a good plan for you, cara mia! But about me, you forget your faithful Stephano!"
"No, I do not," she said coaxingly, for she was afraid he would spoil all, knowing what he did; "but you must wait. I want to see my daughter--to live with her for a time. When my husband returns he will know me, so I must leave before he sees me. Then I will come back to thee, carissima."
"Basta!" replied Ferrari, with great reluctance. "I do not wish to keep you from the child. I am not jealous of il marito."
"You've no cause to be--I hate him."
"Look, then, the love I bear you, carissima mia. Though all your life I know. Though you have had husband and lover, yet I wish to make you mine."
"It is strange," said Mrs. Belswin, indifferently. "I am not a young woman; my good looks are going; my past life is not that of a saint; and yet you would marry me."
"Because I love thee, carissima," said Ferrari, taking her hand. "I have loved many before, but none like thee, bella demonia. Ah, Dio, thou hast the fierceness of the tiger within thee. The hot blood of Italy burns in thy veins, my Lucrezia Borgia. I am weary of tame women who weep and sigh ever. I am no cold Englishman, thou knowest. The lion seeks but the lioness, and so I come to thee for thy love, stella adorata."
He caressed her softly as he spoke these words in his musical voice, and the woman softened under his caress with feline grace. All the treachery and sleepiness of the panther was observable in this woman; but under the smoothness of her manner lay the fierceness of her savage nature, which was now being controlled by the master hand of the Italian.
"You will let me go to my daughter, then," she said in a soft, languid voice, her fierce eyes dulling under the mesmeric influence of his gaze.
"As you will. I can deny thee nothing, regina del mia vita."
"The deeds we do, though done in heedless ways,May have the shaping of our future lives;And, stretching forth their long arms from the past,May alter this and that in such strange fashionThat we become as puppets in their hands,To play the game of life by old events."
"The deeds we do, though done in heedless ways,May have the shaping of our future lives;And, stretching forth their long arms from the past,May alter this and that in such strange fashionThat we become as puppets in their hands,To play the game of life by old events."
Mr. Dombrain's office, situate in Chintle Lane, was a shabby little place consisting of three rooms. One where his clients waited, another occupied by three clerks constantly writing, and a third where Mr. Dombrain himself sat, like a crafty spider in his web waiting for silly flies. The three rooms were all bad, but Mr. Dombrain's was the worst; a square, low-roofed apartment like a box, with a dim twilight atmosphere, which filtered in through a dirty skylight in the roof. This being the case, Dombrain's desk was lighted by a gas-jet with a green shade, fed by a snaky-looking india-rubber tube attached to the iron gas-pipe projecting from the wall above his head.
The heavy yellow light flaring from under this green shade revealed the room in a half-hearted sort of fashion, illuminating the desk, but quite unable to penetrate into the dark corners of the place. On the writing-table were piles of papers, mostly tied into bundles with red tape, a glass inkstand, a pad of pink blotting-paper, three or four pens, all of which were arranged on a dingy ink-stained green cloth in front of a row of pigeon holes, full of loose letters and legal-looking documents.
In front of this table sat Mr. Dombrain in a heavy horsehair-covered chair, and near him were two other chairs of slender construction for the use of clients. Along the walls more pigeon holes crammed with papers, a tall bookshelf filled with hard-looking law books, which had a second-hand look of having been picked up cheap, a ragged carpet on the well-worn floor, and dust everywhere. Indeed, so thickly lay the dust on books, on floor, on papers, on desk, that the whole room looked as if it had just been opened after the lapse of years. The chamber of the Sleeping Beauty, perhaps, and Mr. Dombrain--well no, he was not a beauty, and he never was sleeping, so the comparison holds not. Indeed he was a singularly ugly man in a coarse fashion. A large bullet-shaped head covered with rough red hair, cut so remarkably short that it stood up stiffly in a stubbly fashion, a freckled face with a coarse red beard clipped short, cunning little grey eyes, rather bleared by the constant glare of the gaslight in which he worked, and large crimson ears. Dressed in a neat suit of black broadcloth, he appeared singularly ill at ease in it, and with his large stumpy-fingered hands, with clubbed nails, his awkward manner, his habit of stealthily glancing out of his bleared eyes, Mr. Dombrain was about as unsuited a person for a lawyer as one could find. There was nothing suave about him to invite confidence, and he looked as if he would have been more at home working as a navvy than sitting behind this desk, with his large red hands clumsily moving the papers about.
Three o'clock in the afternoon it was by Mr. Dombrain's fat-faced silver watch lying on the table in front of him, and as the lawyer noted the fact in his usual stealthy fashion, a timid-looking clerk glided into the room.
"Yes?" said Dombrain interrogatively, without looking up.
"If you please--if you please, sir, a lady," stammered the timid clerk, washing his hands with invisible soap and water, "a lady about--about the situation, sir."
"Humph! I said the application was to be by letter."
"But--but the lady, sir?"
Mr. Dombrain looked complacently at his nails, but said nothing.
"But--but the lady, sir?" repeated the timid clerk again.
"I said the application was to be by letter."
The clerk, seeing that this was the answer he was expected to deliver, went sliding out of the room; but at the door encountered the lady in question, dressed in black, and closely veiled.
"Madam," he stammered, growing red, "the application was to be by letter."
"I preferred to come personally."
As she spoke, low though her voice was, Mr. Dombrain looked up suddenly with a startled look on his face.
"Can you see me, Mr. Dombrain?"
He arose slowly to his feet, as if in obedience to some nervous impulse, and with his grey eyes looking straight at the veiled woman, still kept silence.
"Can you see me, Mr. Alfred Dombrain?"
The lawyer's red face had turned pale, and looked yellow in the gaslight. The hot atmosphere of the room evidently made him gasp, used as he was to it, for he opened his mouth as if to speak, then, closing it again, signed to the clerk to leave the room.
Left alone with his visitor, Dombrain, still maintaining the same position, stood watching her with a mesmeric stare as she glided into one of the chairs beside the table.
"Won't you sit down, Mr. Alfred Dombrain?"
His face was suddenly suffused with a rush of blood, and he sat down heavily.
"Madam! who are you?"
"Don't you know? Ah! what a pity; and you have such a good memory for voices."
"I--memory--voices," he stammered, moving restlessly.
"Yes; why not, Mr. Damberton?"
"Hush! For God's sake, hush! Who are you? Who are you?"
The woman flung back her veil, and he recoiled from the sight of her face with a hoarse, strangled cry.
"Jezebel Pethram!"
"Once Jezebel Pethram, now Miriam Belswin. I see you remember faces as well as voices--and names also. Ah! what an excellent memory."
Mr. DombrainaliasDamberton collected his scattered senses together, and, going over to a small iron safe set in the wall, produced a tumbler and a bottle of whisky. Mrs. Belswin looked at him approvingly as he drank off half a glass of the spirit neat.
"That's right; you'll need all your Dutch courage."
Quite forgetting the demands of hospitality, Dombrain replaced the bottle and glass in the respectable safe, and resumed his seat at the table with his ordinary bullying nature quite restored to him by the potent spirit.
"Now, then, Mrs. Pethram, or Belswin, or whatever you like to call yourself," he said, in a harsh, angry tone, "what do you want here?"
"I want you."
"Ho, ho! The feeling isn't reciprocal. Leave my office."
"When I choose."
"Perhaps a policeman will make you go quicker," growled Dombrain, rising.
"Perhaps he will," retorted Mrs. Belswin, composedly; "and perhaps he'll take you along with him."
"Infernal nonsense."
"Is it! We'll try the experiment, if you like."
Mr. Dombrain resumed his seat with a malediction on all women in general, and Mrs. Belswin in particular. Then he bit his nails, and looked at her defiantly, only to quail before the fierce look in her eyes.
"It's no use beating about the bush with a fiend like you," he growled sulkily, making a clumsy attempt to appear at his ease.
"Not a bit."
"I wish you'd go away," whined Dombrain, with a sudden change of front. "I'm quite respectable now. I haven't seen you for twenty years. Why do you come now and badger me? It isn't fair to pull a man down when he's up."
"Do you call this up?" sneered Mrs. Belswin, looking round the dingy office.
"It's up enough for me."
The woman grinned in a disagreeable manner, finding Mr. Dombrain's manner very amusing. She glanced rapidly at him with her fierce eyes, and he wriggled uneasily in his chair.
"Don't look at me like that, you witch," he muttered, covering his face with his large hands. "You've got the evil eye, confound you."
Mrs. Belswin, leaning forward, held up her forefinger and shook it gently at the lawyer.
"It won't do, my friend; I tell you it won't do. You've tried bullying, you've tried whining; neither of them go down with me. If you have any business to do you've got to put it aside for me. If you have to see clients you can't and won't see them till I choose. Do you hear what I say, you legal Caliban? I've come here for a purpose, Mr. Dombrain--that, I believe, is your present name--for a purpose, sir. Do you hear?"
"Yes, I hear. What is your purpose?"
She laughed; but not mirthfully.
"To tell you a story."
"I don't want stories. Go to a publisher."
"Certainly. I'll go to the Scotland Yard firm. Hold your tongue, sir. Sneering doesn't come well from an animal like you. I have no time to waste."
"Neither have I."
"That being the case with both of us, sit still."
Mr. Dombrain stopped his wriggling and became as a stone statue of an Egyptian king, with his hands resting on his knees.
"Now I'll tell you my story."
"Can't you do without that?"
"No, my good man, I can't. To make you understand what I want I must tell you all my story. Some of it you know, some of it you don't know. Be easy. It's short and not sweet. Listen."
And Mr. Dombrain did listen, not because he wanted to, but because this woman with the fierce eyes had an influence over him which he, bully, coarse-minded man as he was, could not resist. When he recollected what she knew and what she could tell, and would tell if she chose, a cold sweat broke out all over him, and he felt nerveless as a little child. Therefore, for these and divers other reasons, Mr. Dombrain listened--with manifest reluctance, it is true, but still he listened.
"We will commence the story in New Zealand twenty years--say twenty-two years ago. One Rupert Pethram, the younger son of a good family, come out there to make his fortune. He made it by the simple process of marrying a Maori half-caste, called Jezebel Manners. You see I don't scruple to tell everything about myself, dear friend. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Pethram got on very well together for a time, but she grew tired of being married to a fool. He was a fool, wasn't he?"
She waited for a reply, so Dombrain, against his will, was forced to give her one.
"Yes, he was a fool--to marry you."
"The wisest thing he ever did in his life, seeing what a lot of property I brought him. But I couldn't get on with him. My mother was a pure-blooded Maori. I am only half a white, and I hated his cold phlegmatic disposition, his supercilious manners. I was--I am hot-blooded, ardent, quick-tempered. Fancy a woman like me tied to a cold-blooded fish like Rupert Pethram. Bah! it was madness. I hated him before my child was born; afterwards I hated him more than ever. Then the other man came along."
"There always is another man!"
"Naturally! What would become of the Divorce Court if there wasn't? Yes, the other man did come along. A pink and white fool. My husband was a god compared to Silas Oates."
"Then why did you run away with Oates?"
"Why indeed! He attracted me in some way, I suppose, or I was sick of my humdrum married life. I don't know why I left even Rupert Pethram for such a fool as Silas. I did so, however. I gave up my name, my child, my money, all for what?--for a man that tired of me in less than six months, and left me to starve in San Francisco."
"You didn't starve, however."
"It is not my nature to act foolishly all my life. No, I did not starve. I had a good voice, which I managed to get trained. I had also a good idea of acting, so I made a success on the operatic stage as Madame Tagni."
"Oh! are you the celebrated Madame Tagni?"
"I was. Now I am Mrs. Belswin, of no occupation in particular. I sang in the States; I sang in New Zealand----"
"You didn't sing in Dunedin?"
"No, because my husband was there. Do you know why I came to New Zealand--a divorced, dishonoured woman? No, of course you don't. I came to see my child. I did see her, unknown to Rupert or to the child herself. I was in New Zealand a long time watching over my darling. Then I went again to the States, but I left friends behind me--good friends, who kept me posted up in all the news of my child Kaituna. Since I left her twenty years ago like a fool, I have known everything about her. I heard in New York how Rupert had lost all his money, owing to the decrease in the value of property. I heard his elder brother had died, and that he had come in for the title. He is Sir Rupert Pethram; I ought to be Lady Pethram."
"But you're not," sneered Dombrain, unable to resist the opportunity.
She flashed a savage glance at him and replied quietly.
"No, I am Mrs. Belswin, that's enough for me at present. But to go on with my story. I heard how my husband had brought our child home to the old country, and leaving her there had returned to New Zealand on business. When this news reached me, I made up my mind at once and came over here. I found out--how, it matters not--that my husband's legal adviser was an old friend of mine, one Alfred Damberton----"
"Hush! not that name here!"
"Ah, I forgot. You are the respectable Mr. Alfred Dombrain now. But it was curious that I should find an old friend in a position so likely to be of use to me."
"Use to you?" groaned Dombrain, savagely.
"Yes; I have seen your advertisement in the paper for a companion for a young lady. Well, I have come to apply for the situation."
"You?"
"Yes. Personally, and not by letter as you suggested in print."
Mr. Dombrain felt that he was in a fix, and therefore lied, with clumsy malignity.
"That advertisement doesn't refer to your daughter."
"Doesn't it?" said Mrs. Belswin sharply. "Then, why refer to my daughter at all just now?"
"Because!--oh, because----"
"Because you couldn't think of a better lie, I suppose," she finished, contemptuously. "It won't do, my friend, I tell you it won't do. I'm not the kind of woman to be played fast and loose with. You say it is not my daughter that requires a chaperon."
"I do! yes I do!"
"Then you lie. What do you think private detectives are made for? Did you think I came here without having everything necessary to meet an unscrupulous wretch like you!"
"I thought nothing about you. I thought you were dead."
"And wished it, I daresay. But I'm not! I'm alive enough to do you an injury--to have your name struck off the roll of English solicitors."
"You can't!" he retorted defiantly, growing pale again. "I defy you."
"You'd better not, Mr. Damberton! I'm one too many for you. I can tell a little thing about your past career which would considerably spoil the respectable position you now hold."
"No one would believe you against me. A respectable solicitor's word is worth a dozen of a divorced woman."
"If you insult me I'll put a knife in you, you miserable wretch!" said Mrs. Belswin, breathing hard. "I tell you I'm a desperate woman. I know that you have advertised for a chaperon for my daughter, and I--her mother--intend to have the situation under the name of Mrs. Belswin."
"But your husband will recognise you."
"My husband is out in New Zealand, and will be there for the next few months. When he returns I will deal with him, not you. This matter of the chaperon is in your hands, and you are going to give the situation to me. You hear, gaol-bird--to me!"
Dombrain winced at the term applied to him, and jumped up with a furious look of rage.
"I defy you! I defy you!" he said in a low harsh voice, the veins in his forehead swelling with intense passion. "You outcast! You Jezebel! Ah, how the name suits you! I know what you are going to say. That twenty years ago I was in gaol in New Zealand for embezzlement. Well, I own it--I was. I was a friend of your lover, Silas Oates--your lover who cast you off to starve. I lost money betting. I embezzled a large sum. I was convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. Well, I worked out my term! I left the colony where, as Alfred Damberton, I was too well known to get a chance of honest employment, and came to England through America. I met you again in America. I was fool enough to think Silas Oates might help me for old time's sake. I found he had left you--left you alone in 'Frisco. You were little better than a vile creature on the streets; I was a gaol-bird. Oh, a nice pair we were! Outcasts, both you and I."
He passed his handkerchief over his dry lips as he paused, but Mrs. Belswin made no sign in any way, but simply sat looking at him with a sneer.
"When I left you," resumed Dombrain, hurriedly, "I came to England--to my father. He was a lawyer in the country. He received me well--took me into his office and admitted me into partnership. When he died I came up to London, and have prospered since. I have changed my name to Alfred Dombrain, and am respected everywhere. Your husband does not know my story. He was recommended to me by a friend, and he has employed me for some years. I have his confidence in every way. I am a respectable man! I have forgotten the past, and now you come with your bitter tongue and spiteful mind to tear me down from the position I have so hardly won."
He dropped down exhausted into a chair; but Mrs. Belswin, still smiling, still sneering, pointed to the safe.
"Take some more whiskey. You will need it."
"Woman, leave me!"
"Not till I leave as chaperon to my child."
"That you shall never have."
"Oh yes, I shall!"
"I say you shall not! You can go and tell my story where you please; I shall tell yours; and we'll see who will be believed--Alfred Dombrain, the respectable, trusted lawyer, or Mrs. Belswin, the divorced woman! Bah! You can't frighten me with slanders. There is nothing to connect Dombrain the solicitor with Damberton, the convict."
"Indeed! What about this?"
She held up a photograph which she had taken out of her pocket--a photograph resembling Mr. Dombrain, but which had written under it--