Mr. John Lambert Mangan of Lincoln's Inn gazed at the card which a junior clerk had just presented in blank astonishment, an astonishment which became speedily blended with dismay.
“Good God, do you see this, Harrison?” he exclaimed, passing it over to his manager, with whom he had been in consultation. “Dominey—Sir Everard Dominey—back here in England!”
The head clerk glanced at the narrow piece of pasteboard and sighed.
“I'm afraid you will find him rather a troublesome client, sir,” he remarked.
His employer frowned. “Of course I shall,” he answered testily. “There isn't an extra penny to be had out of the estates—you know that, Harrison. The last two quarters' allowance which we sent to Africa came out of the timber. Why the mischief didn't he stay where he was!”
“What shall I tell the gentleman, sir?” the boy enquired.
“Oh, show him in!” Mr. Mangan directed ill-temperedly. “I suppose I shall have to see him sooner or later. I'll finish these affidavits after lunch, Harrison.”
The solicitor composed his features to welcome a client who, however troublesome his affairs had become, still represented a family who had been valued patrons of the firm for several generations. He was prepared to greet a seedy-looking and degenerate individual, looking older than his years. Instead, he found himself extending his hand to one of the best turned out and handsomest men who had ever crossed the threshold of his not very inviting office. For a moment he stared at his visitor, speechless. Then certain points of familiarity—the well-shaped nose, the rather deep-set grey eyes—presented themselves. This surprise enabled him to infuse a little real heartiness into his welcome.
“My dear Sir Everard!” he exclaimed. “This is a most unexpected pleasure—most unexpected! Such a pity, too, that we only posted a draft for your allowance a few days ago. Dear me—you'll forgive my saying so—how well you look!”
Dominey smiled as he accepted an easy chair.
“Africa's a wonderful country, Mangan,” he remarked, with just that faint note of patronage in his tone which took his listener back to the days of his present client's father.
“It—pardon my remarking it—has done wonderful things for you, Sir Everard. Let me see, it must be eleven years since we met.”
Sir Everard tapped the toes of his carefully polished brown shoes with the end of his walking stick.
“I left London,” he murmured reminiscently, “in April, nineteen hundred and two. Yes, eleven years, Mr. Mangan. It seems queer to find myself in London again, as I dare say you can understand.”
“Precisely,” the lawyer murmured. “I was just wondering—I think that last remittance we sent to you could be stopped. I have no doubt you will be glad of a little ready money,” he added, with a confident smile.
“Thanks, I don't think I need any just at present,” was the amazing answer. “We'll talk about financial affairs a little later on.”
Mr. Mangan metaphorically pinched himself. He had known his present client even during his school days, had received a great many visits from him at different times, and could not remember one in which the question of finance had been dismissed in so casual a manner.
“I trust,” he observed chiefly for the sake of saying something, “that you are thinking of settling down here for a time now?”
“I have finished with Africa, if that is what you mean,” was the somewhat grave reply. “As to settling down here, well, that depends a little upon what you have to tell me.”
The lawyer nodded.
“I think,” he said, “that you may make yourself quite easy as regards the matter of Roger Unthank. Nothing has ever been heard of him since the day you left England.”
“His—body has not been found?”
“Nor any trace of it.”
There was a brief silence. The lawyer looked hard at Dominey, and Dominey searchingly back again at the lawyer.
“And Lady Dominey?” the former asked at length.
“Her ladyship's condition is, I believe, unchanged,” was the somewhat guarded reply.
“If the circumstances are favourable,” Dominey continued, after another moment's pause, “I think it very likely that I may decide to settle down at Dominey Hall.”
The lawyer appeared doubtful.
“I am afraid,” he said, “you will be very disappointed in the condition of the estate, Sir Everard. As I have repeatedly told you in our correspondence, the rent roll, after deducting your settlement upon Lady Dominey, has at no time reached the interest on the mortgages, and we have had to make up the difference and send you your allowance out of the proceeds of the outlying timber.”
“That is a pity,” Dominey replied, with a frown. “I ought, perhaps, to have taken you more into my confidence. By the by,” he added, “when—er—about when did you receive my last letter?”
“Your last letter?” Mr. Mangan repeated. “We have not had the privilege of hearing from you, Sir Everard, for over four years. The only intimation we had that our payments had reached you was the exceedingly prompt debit of the South African bank.”
“I have certainly been to blame,” this unexpected visitor confessed. “On the other hand, I have been very much absorbed. If you haven't happened to hear any South African gossip lately, Mangan, I suppose it will be a surprise to you to hear that I have been making a good deal of money.”
“Making money?” the lawyer gasped. “You making money, Sir Everard?”
“I thought you'd be surprised,” Dominey observed coolly. “However, that's neither here nor there. The business object of my visit to you this morning is to ask you to make arrangements as quickly as possible for paying off the mortgages on the Dominey estates.”
Mr. Mangan was a lawyer of the new-fashioned school,—Harrow and Cambridge, the Bath Club, racquets and fives, rather than golf and lawn tennis. Instead of saying “God bless my soul!” he exclaimed “Great Scott!” dropped a very modern-looking eyeglass from his left eye, and leaned back in his chair with his hands in his pockets.
“I have had three or four years of good luck,” his client continued. “I have made money in gold mines, in diamond mines and in land. I am afraid that if I had stayed out another year, I should have descended altogether to the commonplace and come back a millionaire.”
“My heartiest congratulations!” Mr. Mangan found breath to murmur. “You'll forgive my being so astonished, but you are the first Dominey I ever knew who has ever made a penny of money in any sort of way, and from what I remember of you in England—I'm sure you'll forgive my being so frank—I should never have expected you to have even attempted such a thing.”
Dominey smiled good-humouredly.
“Well,” he said, “if you inquire at the United Bank of Africa, you will find that I have a credit balance there of something over a hundred thousand pounds. Then I have also—well, let us say a trifle more, invested in first-class mines. Do me the favour of lunching with me, Mr. Mangan, and although Africa will never be a favourite topic of conversation with me, I will tell you about some of my speculations.”
The solicitor groped around for his hat.
“I will send the boy for a taxi,” he faltered.
“I have a car outside,” this astonishing client told him. “Before we leave, could you instruct your clerk to have a list of the Dominey mortgages made out, with the terminable dates and redemption values?”
“I will leave instructions,” Mr. Mangan promised. “I think that the total amount is under eighty thousand pounds.”
Dominey sauntered through the office, an object of much interest to the little staff of clerks. The lawyer joined him on the pavement in a few minutes.
“Where shall we lunch?” Dominey asked. “I'm afraid my clubs are a little out of date. I am staying at the Carlton.”
“The Carlton grill room is quite excellent,” Mr. Mangan suggested.
“They are keeping me a table until half-past one,” Dominey replied. “We will lunch there, by all means.”
They drove off together, the returned traveller gazing all the time out of the window into the crowded streets, the lawyer a little thoughtful.
“While I think of it, Sir Everard,” the latter said, as they drew near their destination. “I should be glad of a short conversation with you before you go down to Dominey.”
“With regard to anything in particular?”
“With regard to Lady Dominey,” the lawyer told him a little gravely.
A shadow rested on his companion's face.
“Is her ladyship very much changed?”
“Physically, she is in excellent health, I believe. Mentally I believe that there is no change. She has unfortunately the same rather violent prejudice which I am afraid influenced your departure from England.”
“In plain words,” Dominey said bitterly, “she has sworn to take my life if ever I sleep under the same roof.”
“She will need, I am afraid, to be strictly watched,” the lawyer answered evasively. “Still, I think you ought to be told that time does not seem to have lessened her tragical antipathy.”
“She regards me still as the murderer of Roger Unthank?” Dominey asked, in a measured tone.
“I am afraid she does.”
“And I suppose that every one else has the same idea?”
“The mystery,” Mr. Mangan admitted, “has never been cleared up. It is well known, you see, that you fought in the park and that you staggered home almost senseless. Roger Unthank has never been seen from that day to this.”
“If I had killed him,” Dominey pointed out, “why was his body not found?”
The lawyer shook his head.
“There are all sorts of theories, of course,” he said, “but for one superstition you may as well be prepared. There is scarcely a man or a woman for miles around Dominey who doesn't believe that the ghost of Roger Unthank still haunts the Black Wood near where you fought.”
“Let us be quite clear about this,” Dominey insisted. “If the body should ever be found, am I liable, after all these years, to be indicted for manslaughter?”
“I think you may make your mind quite at ease,” the lawyer assured him. “In the first place, I don't think you would ever be indicted.”
“And in the second?”
“There isn't a human being in that part of Norfolk would ever believe that the body of man or beast, left within the shadow of the Black Wood, would ever be seen or heard of again!”
Mr. Mangan, on their way into the grill room, loitered for a few minutes in the small reception room, chatting with some acquaintances, whilst his host, having spoken to themaître d'hôteland ordered a cocktail from a passing waiter, stood with his hands behind his back, watching the inflow of men and women with all that interest which one might be supposed to feel in one's fellows after a prolonged absence. He had moved a little to one side to allow a party of young people to make their way through the crowded chamber, when he was conscious of a woman standing alone on the topmost of the three thickly carpeted stairs. Their eyes met, and hers, which had been wandering around the room as though in search of some acquaintance, seemed instantly and fervently held. To the few loungers about the room, ignorant of any special significance in that studied contemplation of the man on the part of the woman, their two personalities presented an agreeable, almost a fascinating study. Dominey was six feet two in height and had to its fullest extent the natural distinction of his class, together with the half military, half athletic bearing which seemed to have been so marvellously restored to him. His complexion was no more than becomingly tanned; his slight moustache, trimmed very close to the upper lip, was of the same ruddy brown shade as his sleekly brushed hair. The woman, who had commenced now to move slowly towards him, save that her cheeks, at that moment, at any rate, were almost unnaturally pale, was of the same colouring. Her red-gold hair gleamed beneath her black hat. She was tall, a Grecian type of figure, large without being coarse, majestic though still young. She carried a little dog under one arm and a plain black silk bag, on which was a coronet in platinum and diamonds, in the other hand. The major-domo who presided over the room, watching her approach, bowed with more than his usual urbanity. Her eyes, however, were still fixed upon the person who had engaged so large a share of her attention. She came towards him, her lips a little parted.
“Leopold!” she faltered. “The Holy Saints, why did you not let me know!”
Dominey bowed very slightly. His words seemed to have a cut and dried flavour.
“I am so sorry,” he replied, “but I fear that you make a mistake. My name is not Leopold.”
She stood quite still, looking at him with the air of not having heard a word of his polite disclaimer.
“In London, of all places,” she murmured. “Tell me, what does it mean?”
“I can only repeat, madam,” he said, “that to my very great regret I have not the honour of your acquaintance.”
She was puzzled, but absolutely unconvinced.
“You mean to deny that you are Leopold Von Ragastein?” she asked incredulously. “You do not know me?”
“Madam,” he answered, “it is not my great pleasure. My name is Dominey—Everard Dominey.”
She seemed for a moment to be struggling with some embarrassment which approached emotion. Then she laid her fingers upon his sleeve and drew him to a more retired corner of the little apartment.
“Leopold,” she whispered, “nothing can make it wrong or indiscreet for you to visit me. My address is 17, Belgrave Square. I desire to see you to-night at seven o'clock.”
“But, my dear lady,” Dominey began—
Her eyes suddenly glowed with a new light.
“I will not be trifled with,” she insisted. “If you wish to succeed in whatever scheme you have on hand, you must not make an enemy of me. I shall expect you at seven o'clock.”
She passed away from him into the restaurant. Mr. Mangan, now freed from his friends, rejoined his host, and the two men took their places at the side table to which they were ushered with many signs of attention.
“Wasn't that the Princess Eiderstrom with whom you were talking?” the solicitor asked curiously.
“A lady addressed me by mistake,” Dominey explained. “She mistook me, curiously enough, for a man who used to be called my double at Oxford. Sigismund Devinter he was then, although I think he came into a title later on.”
“The Princess is quite a famous personage,” Mr. Mangan remarked, “one of the richest widows in Europe. Her husband was killed in a duel some six or seven years ago.”
Dominey ordered the luncheon with care, slipping into a word or two of German once to assist the waiter, who spoke English with difficulty. His companion smiled.
“I see that you have not forgotten your languages out there in the wilds.”
“I had no chance to,” Dominey answered. “I spent five years on the borders of German East Africa, and I traded with some of the fellows there regularly.”
“By the by,” Mr. Mangan enquired, “what sort of terms are we on with the Germans out there?”
“Excellent, I should think,” was the careless reply. “I never had any trouble.”
“Of course,” the lawyer continued, “this will all be new to you, but during the last few years Englishmen have become divided into two classes—the people who believe that the Germans wish to go to war and crush us, and those who don't.”
“Then since my return the number of the 'don'ts' has been increased by one.”
“I am amongst the doubtfuls myself,” Mr. Mangan remarked. “All the same, I can't quite see what Germany wants with such an immense army, and why she is continually adding to her fleet.”
Dominey paused for a moment to discuss the matter of a sauce with the head waiter. He returned to the subject a few minutes later on, however.
“Of course,” he pointed out, “my opinions can only come from a study of the newspapers and from conversations with such Germans as I have met out in Africa, but so far as her army is concerned, I should have said that Russia and France were responsible for that, and the more powerful it is, the less chance of any European conflagration. Russia might at any time come to the conclusion that a war is her only salvation against a revolution, and you know the feeling in France about Alsace-Lorraine as well as I do. The Germans themselves say that there is more interest in military matters and more progress being made in Russia to-day than ever before.”
“I have no doubt that you are right,” agreed Mr. Mangan. “It is a matter which is being a great deal discussed just now, however. Let us speak of your personal plans. What do you intend to do for the next few weeks, say? Have you been to see any of your relatives yet?”
“Not one,” Dominey replied. “I am afraid that I am not altogether keen about making advances.”
Mr. Mangan coughed. “You must remember that during the period of your last residence in London,” he said, “you were in a state of chronic impecuniosity. No doubt that rather affected the attitude of some of those who would otherwise have been more friendly.”
“I should be perfectly content never to see one of them again,” declared Dominey, with perfect truth.
“That, of course, is impossible,” the lawyer protested. “You must go and see the Duchess, at any rate. She was always your champion.”
“The Duchess was always very kind to me,” Dominey admitted doubtfully, “but I am afraid she was rather fed up before I left England.”
Mr. Mangan smiled. He was enjoying a very excellent lunch, which it seemed hard to believe was ordered by a man just home from the wilds of Africa, and he thoroughly enjoyed talking about duchesses.
“Her Grace,” he began—
“Well?”
The lawyer had paused, with his eyes glued upon the couple at a neighbouring table. He leaned across towards his companion.
“The Duchess herself, Sir Everard, just behind you, with Lord St. Omar.”
“This place must certainly be the rendezvous of all the world,” Dominey declared, as he held out his hand to a man who had approached their table. “Seaman, my friend, welcome! Let me introduce you to my friend and legal adviser, Mr. Mangan—Mr. Seaman.”
Mr. Seaman was a short, fat man, immaculately dressed in most conventional morning attire. He was almost bald, except for a little tuft on either side, and a few long, fair hairs carefully brushed back over a shining scalp. His face was extraordinarily round except towards his chin, where it came to a point; his eyes bright and keen, his mouth the mouth of a professional humourist. He shook hands with the lawyer with anempressementwhich was scarcely English.
“Within the space of half an hour,” Dominey continued, “I find a princess who desires to claim my acquaintance; a cousin,” he dropped his voice a little, “who lunches only a few tables away, and the man of whom I have seen the most during the last ten years amidst scenes a little different from these, eh, Seaman?”
Seaman accepted the chair which the waiter had brought and sat down. The lawyer was immediately interested.
“Do I understand, then,” he asked, addressing the newcomer, “that you knew Sir Everard in Africa?”
Seaman beamed. “Knew him?” he repeated, and with the first words of his speech the fact of his foreign nationality was established. “There was no one of whom I knew so much. We did business together—a great deal of business—and when we were not partners, Sir Everard generally got the best of it.”
Dominey laughed. “Luck generally comes to a man either early or late in life. My luck came late. I think, Seaman, that you must have been my mascot. Nothing went wrong with me during the years that we did business together.”
Seaman was a little excited. He brushed upright with the palm of his hand one of those little tufts of hair left on the side of his head, and he laid his plump fingers upon the lawyer's shoulder.
“Mr. Mangan,” he said, “you listen to me. I sell this man the controlling interests in a mine, shares which I have held for four and a half years and never drew a penny dividend. I sell them to him, I say, at par. Well, I need the money and it seems to me that I had given the shares a fair chance. Within five weeks—five weeks, sir,” he repeated, struggling to attune his voice to his civilised surroundings, “those shares had gone from par to fourteen and a half. To-day they stand at twenty. He gave me five thousand pounds for those shares. To-day he could walk into your stock market and sell them for one hundred thousand. That is the way money is made in Africa, Mr. Mangan, where innocents like me are to be found every day.”
Dominey poured out a glass of wine and passed it to their visitor.
“Come,” he said, “we all have our ups and downs. Africa owes you nothing, Seaman.”
“I have done well in my small way,” Seaman admitted, fingering the stem of his wineglass, “but where I have had to plod, Sir Everard here has stood and commanded fate to pour her treasures into his lap.”
The lawyer was listening with a curious interest and pleasure to this half bantering conversation. He found an opportunity now to intervene.
“So you two were really friends in Africa?” he remarked, with a queer and almost inexplicable sense of relief.
“If Sir Everard permits our association to be so called,” Seaman replied. “We have done business together in the great cities—in Johannesburg and Pretoria, in Kimberley and Cape Town—and we have prospected together in the wild places. We have trekked the veldt and been lost to the world for many months at a time. We have seen the real wonders of Africa together, as well as her tawdry civilisation.”
“And you, too,” Mr. Mangan asked, “have you retired?”
Seaman's smile was almost beatific.
“The same deal,” he said, “which brought Sir Everard's fortune to wonderful figures brought me that modest sum which I had sworn to reach before I returned to England. It is true. I have retired from money-making. It is now that I take up again my real life's work.”
“If you are going to talk about your hobby,” Dominey observed, “you had better order them to serve your lunch here.”
“I had finished my lunch before you came in,” his friend replied. “I drink another glass of wine with you, perhaps. Afterwards a liqueur—who can say? In this climate one is favoured, one can drink freely. Sir Everard and I, Mr. Mangan, have been in places where thirst is a thing to be struggled against, where for months a little weak brandy and water was our chief dissipation.”
“Tell me about this hobby?” the lawyer enquired.
Dominey intervened promptly. “I protest. If he begins to talk of that, he'll be here all the afternoon.”
Seaman held out his hands and rolled his head from side to side.
“But I am not so unreasonable,” he objected. “Just one word—so? Very well, then,” he proceeded quickly, with the air of one fearing interruption. “This must be clear to you, Mr. Mangan. I am a German by birth, naturalised in England for the sake of my business, loving Germany, grateful to England. One third of my life I have lived in Berlin, one third at Forest Hill here in London, and in the city, one third in Africa. I have watched the growth of commercial rivalries and jealousies between the two nations. There is no need for them. They might lead to worse things. I would brush them all away. My aim is to encourage a league for the promotion of more cordial social and business relations between the people of Great Britain and the people of the German Empire. There! Have I wasted much of your time? Can I not speak of my hobby without a flood of words?”
“Conciseness itself,” Mangan admitted, “and I compliment you most heartily upon your scheme. If you can get the right people into it, it should prove a most valuable society.”
“In Germany I have the right people. All Germans who live for their country and feel for their country loathe the thought of war. We want peace, we want friends, and, to speak as man to man,” he concluded, tapping the lawyer upon the coat sleeve, “England is our best customer.”
“I wish one could believe,” the latter remarked, “that yours was the popular voice in your country.”
Seaman rose reluctantly to his feet.
“At half-past two,” he announced, glancing at his watch, “I have an appointment with a woollen manufacturer from Bradford. I hope to get him to join my council.”
He bowed ceremoniously to the lawyer, nodded to Dominey with the familiarity of an old friend, and made his bustling, good-humoured way out of the room.
“A sound business man, I should think,” was the former's comment. “I wish him luck with his League. You yourself, Sir Everard, will need to develop some new interests. Why not politics?”
“I really expect to find life a little difficult at first,” admitted Dominey, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I have lost many of the tastes of my youth, and I am very much afraid that my friends over here will call me colonial. I can't fancy myself doing nothing down in Norfolk all the rest of my days. Perhaps I shall go into Parliament.”
“You must forgive my saying,” his companion declared impulsively, “that I never knew ten years make such a difference in a man in my life.”
“The colonies,” Dominey pronounced, “are a kill or cure sort of business. You either take your drubbing and come out a stronger man, or you go under. I had the very narrowest escape from going under myself, but I just pulled together in time. To-day I wouldn't have been without my hard times for anything in the world.”
“If you will permit me,” Mr. Mangan said, with an inherited pomposity, “on our first meeting under the new conditions, I should like to offer you my hearty congratulations, not only upon what you have accomplished but upon what you have become.”
“And also, I hope,” Dominey rejoined, smiling a little seriously and with a curious glint in his eyes, “upon what I may yet accomplish.”
The Duchess and her companion had risen to their feet, and the former, on her way out, recognising her solicitor, paused graciously.
“How do you do, Mr. Mangan?” she said. “I hope you are looking after those troublesome tenants of mine in Leicestershire?”
“We shall make our report in due course, Duchess,” Mangan assured her. “Will you permit me,” he added, “to bring back to your memory a relative who has just returned from abroad—Sir Everard Dominey?”
Dominey had risen to his feet a moment previously and now extended his hand. The Duchess, who was a tall, graceful woman, with masses of fair hair only faintly interspersed with grey, very fine brown eyes, the complexion of a girl, and, to quite her own confession, the manners of a kitchen maid, stared at him for a moment without any response.
“Sir Everard Dominey?” she repeated. “Everard? Ridiculous!”
Dominey's extended hand was at once withdrawn, and the tentative smile faded from his lips. The lawyer plunged into the breach.
“I can assure your Grace,” he insisted earnestly, “that there is no doubt whatever about Sir Everard's identity. He only returned from Africa during the last few days.”
The Duchess's incredulity remained, wholly good-natured but ministered to by her natural obstinacy.
“I simply cannot bring myself to believe it,” she declared. “Come, I'll challenge you. When did we meet last?”
“At Worcester House,” was the prompt reply. “I came to say good-bye to you.”
The Duchess was a little staggered. Her eyes softened, a faint smile played at the corners of her lips. She was suddenly a very attractive looking woman.
“You came to say good-bye,” she repeated, “and?”
“I am to take that as a challenge?” Dominey asked, standing very upright and looking her in the eyes.
“As you will.”
“You were a little kinder to me,” he continued, “than you are to-day. You gave me—this,” he added, drawing a small picture from his pocketbook, “and you permitted—”
“For heaven's sake, put that thing away,” she cried, “and don't say another word! There's my grown-up nephew, St. Omar, paying his bill almost within earshot. Come and see me at half-past three this afternoon, and don't be a minute late. And, St. Omar,” she went on, turning to the young man who stood now by her side, “this is a connection of yours—Sir Everard Dominey. He is a terrible person, but do shake hands with him and come along. I am half an hour late for my dressmaker already.”
Lord St. Omar chuckled vaguely, then shook hands with his new-found relative, nodded affably to the lawyer and followed his aunt out of the room. Mangan's expression was beatific.
“Sir Everard,” he exclaimed, “God bless you! If ever a woman got what she deserved! I've seen a duchess blush—first time in my life!”
Worcester House was one of those semi-palatial residences set down apparently for no reason whatever in the middle of Regent's Park. It had been acquired by a former duke at the instigation of the Regent, who was his intimate friend, and retained by later generations in mute protest against the disfiguring edifices which had made a millionaire's highway of Park Lane. Dominey, who was first scrutinised by an individual in buff waistcoat and silk hat at the porter's lodge, was interviewed by a major-domo in the great stone hall, conducted through an extraordinarily Victorian drawing-room by another myrmidon in a buff waistcoat, and finally ushered into a tiny little boudoir leading out of a larger apartment and terminating in a conservatory filled with sweet-smelling exotics. The Duchess, who was reclining in an easy-chair, held out her hand, which her visitor raised to his lips. She motioned him to a seat by her side and once more scrutinised him with unabashed intentness.
“There's something wrong about you, you know,” she declared.
“That seems very unfortunate,” he rejoined, “when I return to find you wholly unchanged.”
“Not bad,” she remarked critically. “All the same, I have changed. I am not in the least in love with you any longer.”
“It was the fear of that change in you,” he sighed, “which kept me for so long in the furthest corners of the world.”
She looked at him with a severity which was obviously assumed.
“Look here,” she said, “it is better for us to have a perfectly clear understanding upon one point. I know the exact position of your affairs, and I know, too, that the two hundred a year which your lawyer has been sending out to you came partly out of a few old trees and partly out of his own pocket. How you are going to live over here I cannot imagine, but it isn't the least use expecting Henry to do a thing for you. The poor man has scarcely enough pocket money to pay his travelling expenses when he goes lecturing.”
“Lecturing?” Dominey repeated. “What's happened to poor Henry?”
“My husband is an exceedingly conscientious man,” was the dignified reply. “He goes from town to town with Lord Roberts and a secretary, lecturing on national defence.”
“Dear Henry was always a little cranky, wasn't he?” Dominey observed. “Let me put your mind at rest on that other matter, though, Caroline. I can assure you that I have come back to England not to borrow money but to spend it.”
His cousin shook her head mournfully. “And a few minutes ago I was nearly observing that you had lost your sense of humour!”
“I am in earnest,” he persisted. “Africa has turned out to be my Eldorado. Quite unexpectedly, I must admit, I came in for a considerable sum of money towards the end of my stay there. I am paying off the mortgages at Dominey at once, and I want Henry to jot down on paper at once those few amounts he was good enough to lend me in the old days.”
Caroline, Duchess of Worcester, sat perfectly still for a moment with her mouth open, a condition which was entirely natural but unbecoming.
“And you mean to tell me that you really are Everard Dominey?” she exclaimed.
“The weight of evidence is rather that way,” he murmured.
He moved his chair deliberately a little nearer, took her hand and raised it to his lips. Her face was perilously near to his. She drew a little back—and too abruptly.
“My dear Everard,” she whispered, “Henry is in the house! Besides—Yes, I suppose you must be Everard. Just now there was something in your eyes exactly like his. But you are so stiff. Have you been drilling out there or anything?”
He shook his head.
“One spends half one's time in the saddle.”
“And you are really well off?” she asked again wonderingly.
“If I had stayed there another year,” he replied, “and been able to marry a Dutch Jewess, I should have qualified for Park Lane.”
She sighed.
“It's too wonderful. Henry will love having his money back.”
“And you?”
She looked positively distressed.
“You've lost all your manners,” she complained. “You make love like a garden rake. You should have leaned towards me with a quiver in your voice when you said those last two words, and instead of that you look as though you were sitting at attention, with a positive glint of steel in your eyes.”
“One sees a woman once in a blue moon out there,” he pleaded.
She shook her head. “You've changed. It was a sixth sense with you to make love in exactly the right tone, to say exactly the right thing in the right manner.”
“I shall pick it up,” he declared hopefully, “with a little assistance.”
She made a little grimace.
“You won't want an old woman like me to assist you, Everard. You'll have the town at your feet. You'll be able to frivol with musical comedy, flirt with our married beauties, or—I'm sorry, Everard, I forgot.”
“You forgot what?” he asked steadfastly.
“I forgot the tragedy which finally drove you abroad. I forgot your marriage. Is there any change in your wife?”
“Not much, I am afraid.”
“And Mr. Mangan—he thinks that you are safe over here?”
“Perfectly.”
She looked at him earnestly. Perhaps she had never admitted, even to herself, how fond she had been of this scapegrace cousin.
“You'll find that no one will have a word to say against you,” she told him, “now that you are wealthy and regenerate. They'll forget everything you want them to. When will you come and dine here and meet all your relatives?”
“Whenever you are kind enough to ask me,” he answered. “I thought of going down to Dominey to-morrow.”
She looked at him with a new thing in her eyes—something of fear, something, too, of admiration.
“But—your wife?”
“She is there, I believe,” he said. “I cannot help it. I have been an exile from my home long enough.”
“Don't go,” she begged suddenly. “Why not be brave and have her removed. I know how tender-hearted you are, but you have your future and your career to consider. For her sake, too, you ought not to give her the opportunity—”
Dominey could never make up his mind whether the interruption which came at that moment was welcome or otherwise. Caroline suddenly broke off in her speech and glanced warningly towards the larger room. A tall, grey-haired man, dressed in old-fashioned clothes and wearing a pince-nez, had lifted the curtains. He addressed the Duchess in a thin, reedy voice.
“My dear Caroline,” he began,—“ah, you must forgive me. I did not know that you were engaged. We will not stay, but I should like to present to you a young friend of mine who is going to help me at the meeting this evening.”
“Do bring him in,” his wife replied, her voice once more attuned to its natural drawl. “And I have a surprise for you too, Henry—a very great surprise, I think you will find it!”
Dominey rose to his feet—a tall, commanding figure—and stood waiting the approach of the newcomer. The Duke advanced, looking at him enquiringly. A young man, very obviously a soldier in mufti, was hovering in the background.
“I must plead guilty to the surprise,” the Duke confessed courteously. “There is something exceedingly familiar about your face, sir, but I cannot remember having had the privilege of meeting you.”
“You see,” Caroline observed, “I am not the only one, Everard, who did not accept you upon a glance. This is Everard Dominey, Henry, returned from foreign exile and regenerated in every sense of the word.”
“How do you do?” Dominey said, holding out his hand. “I seem to be rather a surprise to every one, but I hope you haven't quite forgotten me.”
“God bless my soul!” the Duke exclaimed. “You don't mean to say that you're really Everard Dominey?”
“I am he, beyond a doubt,” was the calm assurance.
“Most amazing!” the Duke declared, as he shook hands. “Most amazing! I never saw such a change in my life. Yes, yes, I see—same complexion, of course—nose and eyes—yes, yes! But you seem taller, and you carry yourself like a soldier. Dear, dear me! Africa has done wonderfully by you. Delighted, my dear Everard! Delighted!”
“You'll be more delighted still when you hear the rest of the news,” his wife remarked drily. “In the meantime, do present your friend.”
“Precisely so,” the Duke acquiesced, turning to the young man in the background. “Most sorry, my dear Captain Bartram. The unexpected return of a connection of my wife must be my apology for this lapse of manners. Let me present you to the Duchess. Captain Bartram is just back from Germany, my dear, and is an enthusiastic supporter of our cause.—Sir Everard Dominey.”
Caroline shook hands kindly with her husband's protege, and Dominey exchanged a solemn handshake with him.
“You, too, are one of those, then, Captain Bartram, who are convinced that Germany has evil designs upon us?” the former said, smiling.
“I have just returned from Germany after twelve months' stay there,” the young soldier replied. “I went with an open mind. I have come back convinced that we shall be at war with Germany within a couple of years.”
The Duke nodded vigorously.
“Our young friend is right,” he declared. “Three times a week for many months I have been drumming the fact into the handful of wooden-headed Englishmen who have deigned to come to our meetings. I have made myself a nuisance to the House of Lords and the Press. It is a terrible thing to realise how hard it is to make an Englishman reflect, so long as he is making money and having a good time.—You are just back from Africa, Everard?”
“Within a week, sir.”
“Did you see anything of the Germans out there? Were you anywhere near their Colony?”
“I have been in touch with them for some years,” Dominey replied.
“Most interesting!” his questioner exclaimed. “You may be of service to us, Everard. You may, indeed! Now tell me, isn't it true that they have secret agents out there, trying to provoke unsettlement and disquiet amongst the Boers? Isn't it true that they apprehend a war with England before very long and are determined to stir up the Colony against us?”
“I am very sorry,” Dominey replied, “but I am not a politician in any shape or form. All the Germans whom I have met out there seem a most peaceful race of men, and there doesn't seem to be the slightest discontent amongst the Boers or any one else.”
The Duke's face fell. “This is very surprising.”
“The only people who seem to have any cause for discontent,” Dominey continued, “are the English settlers. I didn't commence to do any good myself there till a few years ago, but I have heard some queer stories about the way our own people were treated after the war.”
“What you say about South Africa, Sir Everard,” the young soldier remarked, “is naturally interesting, but I am bound to say that it is in direct opposition to all I have heard.”
“And I,” the Duke echoed fervently.
“I have lived there for the last eleven years,” Dominey continued, “and although I spent the earlier part of that time trekking after big game, lately I am bound to confess that every thought and energy I possess have been centered upon money-making. For that reason, perhaps, my observations may have been at fault. I shall claim the privilege of coming to one of your first meetings, Duke, and of trying to understand this question.”
His august connection blinked at him a little curiously for a moment behind his glasses.
“My dear Everard,” he said, “forgive my remarking it, but I find you more changed than I could have believed possible.”
“Everard is changed in more ways than one,” his wife observed, with faint irony.
Dominey, who had risen to leave, bent over her hand.
“What about my dinner party, sir?” she added.
“As soon as I return from Norfolk,” he replied.
“Dominey Hall will really find you?” she asked a little curiously.
“Most certainly!”
There was again that little flutter of fear in her eyes, followed by a momentary flash of admiration. Dominey shook hands gravely with his host and nodded to Bertram. The servant whom the Duchess had summoned stood holding the curtains on one side.
“I shall hope to see you again shortly, Duke,” Dominey said, as he completed his leave-taking. “There is a little matter of business to be adjusted between us. You will probably hear from Mr. Mangan in a day or two.”
The Duke gazed after the retreating figure of this very amazing visitor. When the curtains had fallen he turned to his wife.
“A little matter of business,” he repeated. “I hope you have explained to Everard, my dear, that although, of course, we are very glad to see him back again, it is absolutely hopeless for him to look to me for any financial assistance at the present moment.”
Caroline smiled.
“Everard was alluding to the money he already owes you,” she explained. “He intends to repay it at once. He is also paying off the Dominey mortgages. He has apparently made a fortune in Africa.”
The Duke collapsed into an easy-chair.
“Everard pay his debts?” he exclaimed. “Everard Dominey pay off the mortgages?”
“That is what I understand,” his wife acquiesced.
The Duke clutched at the last refuge of a weak but obstinate man. His mouth came together like a rat-trap.
“There's something wrong about it somewhere,” he declared.