Aynesworth was back in less than an hour. He carried under his arm a brown paper parcel, the strings of which he commenced at once to untie. Wingrave, who had been engrossed in the contents of his deed box, watched him with immovable face.
“The tailor will be here at two-thirty,” he announced, “and the other fellows will follow on at half an hour’s interval. The manicurist and the barber are coming at six o’clock.”
Wingrave nodded.
“What have you there?” he asked, pointing to the parcel.
“Cigars and cigarettes, and jolly good ones, too,” Aynesworth answered, opening a flat tin box, and smelling the contents appreciatively. “Try one of these! The finest Turkish tobacco grown!”
“I don’t smoke,” Wingrave answered.
“Oh! You’ve got out of it, but you must pick it up again,” Aynesworth declared. “Best thing out for the nerves—sort of humanizes one, you know!”
“Humanizes one, does it?” Wingrave remarked softly. “Well, I’ll try!”
He took a cigarette from the box, curtly inviting Aynesworth to do the same.
“What about lunch?” the latter asked. “Would you care to come round with me to the Cannibal Club? Rather a Bohemian set, but there are always some good fellows there.”
“I am much obliged,” Wingrave answered. “If you will ask me again in a few days’ time, I shall be very pleased. I do not wish to leave the hotel just at present.”
“Do you want me?” Aynesworth asked.
“Not until five o’clock,” Wingrave answered. “I should be glad if you would leave me now, and return at that hour. In the meantime, I have a commission for you.”
“Good!” Aynesworth declared. “What is it?”
“You will go,” Wingrave directed, “to No. 13, Cadogan Street, and you will enquire for Lady Ruth Barrington. If she should be out, ascertain the time of her return, and wait for her.”
“If she is out of town?”
“She is in London,” Wingrave answered. “I have seen her from the window this morning. You will give her a message. Say that you come from me, and that I desire to see her tomorrow. The time and place she can fix, but I should prefer not to go to her house.”
Aynesworth stooped down to relight his cigarette. He felt that Wingrave was watching him, and he wished to keep his face hidden.
“I am unknown to Lady Ruth,” he remarked. “Supposing she should refuse to see me?”
Wingrave looked at him coldly.
“I have told you what I wish done,” he said. “The task does not seem to be a difficult one. Please see to it that I have an answer by five o’clock——-”
Aynesworth lunched with a few of his particular friends at the club. They heard of his new adventure with somewhat doubtful approbation.
“You’ll never stand the routine, old chap!”
“And what about your own work!”
“What will the Daily Scribbler people say?”
Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t imagine it will last very long,” he answered, “and I shall get a fair amount of time to myself. The work I do on the Daily Scribbler doesn’t amount to anything. It was a chance I simply couldn’t refuse.”
The editor of a well-known London paper leaned back in his chair, and pinched a cigar carefully.
“You’ll probably find the whole thing a sell,” he remarked. “The story, as Lovell told it, sounded dramatic enough, and if the man were to come back to life again, fresh and vigorous, things might happen, provided, of course, that Lovell was right in his suppositions. But ten or twelve years’ solitary confinement, although it mayn’t sound much on paper, is enough to crush all the life and energy out of a man.”
Aynesworth shook his head.
“You haven’t seen him,” he said. “I have!”
“What’s he like, Walter?” another man asked.
“I can’t describe him,” Aynesworth answered. “I shouldn’t like to try. I’ll bring him here some day. You fellows shall see him for yourselves. I find him interesting enough.”
“The whole thing,” the editor declared, “will fizzle out. You see if it doesn’t? A man who’s just spent ten or twelve years in prison isn’t likely to run any risk of going there again. There will be no tragedy; more likely reconciliation.”
“Perhaps,” Aynesworth said imperturbably. “But it wasn’t only the possibility of anything of that sort happening, you know, which attracted me. It was the tragedy of the man himself, with his numbed, helpless life, set down here in the midst of us, with a great, blank chasm between him and his past. What is there left to drive the wheels? The events of one day are simple and monotonous enough to us, because they lean up against the events of yesterday, and the yesterdays before! How do they seem, I wonder, to a man whose yesterday was more than a decade of years ago!”
The editor nodded.
“It must be a grim sensation,” he admitted, “but I am afraid with you, my dear Walter, it is an affair of shop. You wish to cull from your interesting employer the material for that every-becoming novel of yours. Let’s go upstairs! I’ve time for one pool.”
“I haven’t,” Aynesworth answered. “I’ve a commission to do.”
He left the club and walked westwards, humming softly to himself, but thinking all the time intently. His errand disturbed him. He was to be the means of bringing together again these two people who had played the principal parts in Lovell’s drama—his new employer and the woman who had ruined his life. What was the object of it? What manner of vengeance did he mean to deal out to her? Lovell’s words of premonition returned to him just then with curious insistence—he was so certain that Wingrave’s reappearance would lead to tragical happenings. Aynesworth himself never doubted it. His brief interview with the man into whose service he had almost forced himself had impressed him wonderfully. Yet, what weapon was there, save the crude one of physical force, with which Wingrave could strike?
He rang the bell at No. 13, Cadogan Street, and sent in his card by the footman. The man accepted it doubtfully.
“Her ladyship has only just got up from luncheon, sir, and she is not receiving this afternoon,” he announced.
Aynesworth took back his card, and scribbled upon it the name of the newspaper for which he still occasionally worked.
“Her ladyship will perhaps see me,” he said, handing the card back to the man. “It is a matter of business. I will not detain her for more than a few minutes.”
The man returned presently, and ushered him into a small sitting room.
“Her ladyship will be quite half an hour before she can see you, sir,” he said.
“I will wait,” Aynesworth answered, taking up a paper.
The time passed slowly. At last, the door was opened. A woman, in a plain but exquisitely fitting black gown, entered. From Lovell’s description, Aynesworth recognized her at once, and yet, for a moment, he hesitated to believe that this was the woman whom he had come to see. The years had indeed left her untouched. Her figure was slight, almost girlish; her complexion as smooth, and her coloring, faint though it was, as delicate and natural as a child’s. Her eyes were unusually large, and the lashes which shielded them heavy. It was when she looked at him that Aynesworth began to understand.
She carried his card in her hand, and glanced at it as he bowed.
“You are the Daily Scribbler,” she said. “You want me to tell you about my bazaar, I suppose.”
“I am attached to the Daily Scribbler, Lady Ruth Barrington,” Aynesworth answered; “but my business this afternoon has nothing to do with the paper. I have called with a message from—an old friend of yours.”
She raised her eyebrows ever so slightly. The graciousness of her manner was perceptibly abated.
“Indeed! I scarcely understand you, Mr.—Aynesworth.”
“My message,” Aynesworth said, “is from Sir Wingrave Seton.”
The look of enquiry, half impatient, half interrogative, faded slowly from her face. She stood quite still; her impassive features seemed like a plaster cast, from which all life and feeling were drawn out. Her eyes began slowly to dilate, and she shivered as though with cold. Then the man who was watching her and wondering, knew that this was fear—fear undiluted and naked.
He stepped forward, and placed a chair for her. She felt for the back of it with trembling fingers and sat down.
“Is—Sir Wingrave Seton—out of prison?” she asked in a strange, dry tone. One would have thought that she had been choking.
“Since yesterday,” Aynesworth answered.
“But his time—is not up yet?”
“There is always a reduction,” Aynesworth reminded her, “for what is called good conduct.”
She was silent for several moments. Then she raised her head. She was a brave woman, and she was rapidly recovering her self-possession.
“Well,” she asked, “what does he want?”
“To see you,” Aynesworth answered, “tomorrow afternoon, either here or at his apartments in the Clarence Hotel. He would prefer not to come here!”
“Are you his friend?” she asked.
“I am his secretary,” Aynesworth answered.
“You are in his confidence?”
“I only entered his service this morning,” he said.
“How much do you know,” she persisted, “of the unfortunate affair which led—to his imprisonment?”
“I have been told the whole story,” Aynesworth answered.
Her eyes rested thoughtfully upon his. It seemed as though she were trying to read in his face exactly what he meant by “the whole story.”
“Then,” she said, “do you think that anything but pain and unpleasantness can come of a meeting between us?”
“Lady Ruth,” Aynesworth answered, “it is not for me to form an opinion. I am Sir Wingrave Seton’s secretary.”
“What is he going to do?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” he answered.
“Is he going abroad?”
“I know nothing of his plans,” Aynesworth declared. “What answer shall I take back to him?”
She looked at him earnestly. Gradually her face was softening. The frozen look was passing away. The expression was coming back to her eyes. She leaned a little towards him. Her voice, although it was raised above a whisper, was full of feeling.
“Mr. Aynesworth,” she murmured, “I am afraid of Sir Wingrave Seton!”
Aynesworth said nothing.
“I was always a little afraid of him,” she continued, “even in the days when we were friendly. He was so hard and unforgiving. I know he thinks that he has a grievance against me. He will have been brooding about it all these years. I dare not see him! I—I am terrified!”
“If that is your answer,” Aynesworth said, “I will convey it to him!”
Her beautiful eyes were full of reproach.
“Mr. Aynesworth,” she said, in a low tone, “for a young man you are very unsympathetic.”
“My position,” Aynesworth answered, “does not allow me the luxury of considering my personal feelings.”
She looked hurt.
“I forgot,” she said, looking for a moment upon the floor; “you have probably been prejudiced against me. You have heard only one story. Listen”—she raised her eyes suddenly, and leaned a little forward in her chair—“some day, if you will come and see me when I am alone and we have time to spare, I will tell you the whole truth. I will tell you exactly what happened! You shall judge for yourself!”
Aynesworth bowed.
“In the meantime?”
Her eyes filled slowly with tears. Aynesworth looked away. He was miserably uncomfortable.
“You cannot be quite so hard-hearted as you try to seem, Mr. Aynesworth,” she said quietly. “I want to ask you a question. You must answer it? You don’t know how much it means to me. You are Sir Wingrave Seton’s secretary; you have access to all his papers. Have you seen any letters of mine? Do you know if he still has any in his possession?”
“My answer to both questions is ‘No!’” Aynesworth said a little stiffly. “I only entered the service of Sir Wingrave Seton this morning, and I know nothing at all, as yet, of his private affairs. And, Lady Ruth, you must forgive my reminding you that, in any case, I could not discuss such matters with you,” he added.
She looked at him with a faint, strange smile. Afterwards, when he tried to do so, Aynesworth found it impossible to describe the expression which flitted across her face. He only knew that it left him with the impression of having received a challenge.
“Incorruptible!” she murmured. “Sir Wingrave Seton is indeed a fortunate man.”
There was a lingering sweetness in her tone which still had a note of mockery in it. Her silence left Aynesworth conscious of a vague sense of uneasiness. He felt that her eyes were raised to his, and for some reason, which he could not translate even into a definite thought, he wished to avoid them. The silence was prolonged. For long afterwards he remembered those few minutes. There was a sort of volcanic intensity in the atmosphere. He was acutely conscious of small extraneous things, of the perfume of a great bowl of hyacinths, the ticking of a tiny French clock, the restless drumming of her finger tips upon the arm of her chair. All the time he seemed actually to feel her eyes, commanding, impelling, beseeching him to turn round. He did so at last, and looked her full in the face.
“Lady Ruth,” he said, “will you favor me with an answer to my message?”
“Certainly,” she answered, smiling quite naturally. “I will come and see Sir Wingrave Seton at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. You can tell him that I think it rather an extraordinary request, but under the circumstances I will do as he suggests. He is staying at the Clarence, I presume, under his own name? I shall have no difficulty in finding him?”
“He is staying there under his own name,” Aynesworth answered, “and I will see that you have no difficulty.”
“So kind of you,” she murmured, holding out her hand. And again there was something mysterious in her eyes as she raised them to him, as though there existed between them already some understanding which mocked the conventionality of her words. Aynesworth left the house, and lit a cigarette upon the pavement outside with a little sigh of relief. He felt somehow humiliated. Did she fancy, he wondered, that he was a callow boy to dance to any tune of her piping—that he had never before seen a beautiful woman who wanted her own way?
“And what,” Wingrave asked his secretary as they sat at dinner that night, “did you think of Lady Ruth?”
“In plain words, I should not like to tell you,” Aynesworth answered. “I only hope that you will not send me to see her again.”
“Why not?”
“Lady Ruth,” Aynesworth answered deliberately, “is a very beautiful woman, with all the most dangerous gifts of Eve when she wanted her own way. She did me the scanty honor of appraising me as an easy victim, and she asked questions.”
“For instance?”
“She wanted me to tell her if you still had in your possession certain letters of hers,” Aynesworth said.
“Good! What did you say?”
“I told her, of course,” Aynesworth continued, “that having been in your service for a few hours only, I was scarcely in a position to know. I ventured further to remind her that such questions, addressed from her to me, were, to say the least of it, improper.”
Wingrave’s lips parted in what should have been a smile, but the spirit of mirth was lacking.
“And then?”
“There was nothing else,” Aynesworth answered. “She simply dismissed me.”
“I can see,” Wingrave remarked, “your grievance. You are annoyed because she regarded you as too easy a victim.”
“Perhaps,” Aynesworth admitted.
“There was some excuse for her, after all,” Wingrave continued coolly. “She possesses powers which you yourself have already admitted, and you, I should say, are a fairly impressionable person, so far as her sex is concerned. Confess now, that she did not leave you altogether indifferent.”
“Perhaps not,” Aynesworth admitted reluctantly. He did not care to say more.
“In case you should feel any curiosity on the subject,” Wingrave remarked, “I may tell you that I have those letters which she was so anxious to know about, and I shall keep them safe—even from you! You can amuse yourself with her if you like. You will never be able to tell her more than I care for her to know.”
Aynesworth continued his dinner in silence. After all, he was beginning to fear that he had made a mistake. Lovell had somehow contrived to impart a subtly tragic note to his story, but the outcome of it all seemed to assume a more sordid aspect. These two would meet, there would be recriminations, a tragic appeal for forgiveness, possibly some melodramatic attempt at vengeance. The glamour of the affair seemed to him to be fading away, now that he had come into actual contact with it. It was not until he began to study his companion during a somewhat prolonged silence that he felt the reaction. It was then that he began to see new things, that he felt the enthusiasm kindled by Lovell’s strangely told story begin to revive. It was not the watching for events more or less commonplace which would repay him for the step he had taken; it was the study of this man, placed in so strange a position,—a man come back to life, after years of absolute isolation. He had broken away from the chain which links together men of similar tastes and occupations, and which goes to the creation of type. He was in a unique position! He was in the world, but not of it. He was groping about amongst familiar scenes, over which time had thrown the pall of unfamiliarity. What manner of place would he find—what manner of place did he desire to find? It was here that the real interest of the situation culminated. At least, so Aynesworth thought then.
They were dining at a restaurant in the Strand, which Aynesworth had selected as representing one, the more wealthy, type of Bohemian life. The dinner and wine had been of his choosing. Wingrave had stipulated only for the best. Wingrave himself had eaten very little, the bottle of wine stood half empty between them. The atmosphere of the place, the effect of the wine, the delicate food, and the music, were visible to a greater or less degree, according to temperament, amongst all the other little groups of men and women by whom they were surrounded. Wingrave alone remained unaffected. He was carefully and correctly dressed in clothes borrowed from his new tailor, and he showed not the slightest signs of strangeness or gaucherie amongst his unfamiliar surroundings. He looked about him always, with the cold, easy nonchalance of the man of the world. Of being recognized he had not the slightest fear. His frame and bearing, and the brightness of his deep, strong eyes, still belonged to early middle age, but his face itself, worn and hardened, was the face of an elderly man. The more Aynesworth watched him, the more puzzled he felt.
“I am afraid,” he remarked, “that you are disappointed in this place.”
“Not at all,” Wingrave answered. “It is typical of a class, I suppose. It is the sort of place I wished to visit.”
In a corner of the room Aynesworth had recognized a friend and fellow clubman, who was acting at a neighboring theater. He was dining with some young ladies of his company, and beckoned to Aynesworth to come over and join them. He pointed them out to Wingrave.
“Would you care to be introduced?” he asked. “Holiwell is a very good fellow, and the girls might interest you. Two of them are Americans, and they are very popular.”
Wingrave shook his head.
“Thank you, no!” he said. “I should be glad to meet your friend some time when he is alone.”
It was the first intimation which Aynesworth had received of his companion’s sentiments as regards the other sex. Years afterwards, when his attitude towards them was often quoted as being one of the extraordinary features of an extraordinary personality, he remembered his perseverance on this occasion.
“You have not spoken to a woman for so many years,” he persisted. “Why not renew the experience? Nothing so humanizing, you know—not even cigarettes.”
Wingrave’s face fell, if possible into sterner lines. His tone was cold and hard.
“My scheme of life,” he said, “may be reconstructed more than once before I am satisfied. But I can assure you of this! There will be no serious place in it for women!”
Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders. He never doubted but that in a month of two his vis-a-vis would talk differently.
“Your scheme of life,” he repeated thoughtfully. “That sounds interesting! Have you any objection, I wonder, to telling me what manner of life you propose to lead?”
It was several moments before Wingrave answered him. He was smoking a cigar in a mechanical sort of way, but he obviously derived no pleasure from it. Yet Aynesworth noticed that some instinct had led him to choose the finest brand.
“Perhaps,” he said, letting his eyes rest coldly upon his questioner, “if I told you all that was in my mind you would waive your month’s salary and get back to your journalism!”
Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders.
“Why should you suppose that?” he asked. “I am not a moralist myself, nor am I the keeper of your conscience. I don’t think that you could frighten me off just yet.”
“Nevertheless,” Wingrave admitted, “there are times when I fear that we shall not get on together. I begin to suspect that you have a conscience.”
“You are the first,” Aynesworth assured him, “who has ever flattered me to that extent.”
“It may be elastic, of course,” Wingrave continued, “but I suspect its existence. I warn you that association with me will try it hard.”
“I accept the challenge,” Aynesworth answered lightly.
“You are rasher than you imagine,” Wingrave declared. “For instance, I have admitted to you, have I not, that I am interested in my fellow creatures, that I want to mix with them and watch them at their daily lives. Let me assure you that that interest is not a benevolent one.”
“I never fancied that you were a budding philanthropist,” Aynesworth remarked, lighting a fresh cigarette.
“I find myself,” Wingrave continued thoughtfully, “in a somewhat unique position. I am one of the ordinary human beings with whom the world is peopled, but I am not conscious of any of the usual weaknesses of sentiment or morality. For instance, if that gentleman with the red face, who has obviously eaten and drunk too much, were to have an apoplectic fit at the moment, and die in his chair, it would not shock or distress me in the least. On the contrary, I should be disposed to welcome his removal from a world which he obviously does nothing to adorn.”
Aynesworth glanced at the person in question. He was a theatrical agent and financier of stock companies, whom he knew very well by sight.
“I suppose,” Wingrave continued, “that I was born with the usual moral sentiments, and the usual feelings of kinship towards my fellow creatures. Circumstances, however, have wholly destroyed them. To me, men have become the puppets and women the dancing dolls of life. My interest in them, if it exists at all, is malevolent. I should like to see them all suffer exactly as I have suffered. It would interest me exceedingly.”
Still Aynesworth remained silent. He was anxious to hear all that was in the other’s mind, and he feared lest any interruption might divert him.
“There are men in the world,” Wingrave continued, “called philanthropists, amiable, obese creatures as a rule, whose professed aim in life it is to do as much good as possible. I take my stand upon the other pole. It is my desire to encourage and to work as much evil as possible. I wish to bring all the suffering I can upon those who come within the sphere of my influence.”
“You are likely,” Aynesworth remarked, “to achieve popularity.”
Wingrave regarded him steadfastly.
“Your speech,” he said, “is flippant, but you yourself do not realize how near it comes to the truth. Human beings are like dogs—they are always ready to lick the hand that flogs them. I mean to use the scourge whenever I can seize the opportunity, but you will find the jackals at my heels, nevertheless, whenever I choose to whistle.”
Aynesworth helped himself to a liqueur. He felt that he needed it.
“One weakness alone distresses me,” Wingrave continued. “In all ordinary matters of sentiment I am simply a negation. There is one antipathy, however, which I find it hard to overcome. The very sight of a woman, or the sound of her voice, distresses me. This is the more unfortunate,” he continued, “because it is upon the shoulders of her sex that the greater portion of my debt to my fellow creatures rests. However, time may help me!”
Aynesworth leaned back in his chair, and contemplated his companion for the next few moments in thoughtful silence. It was hard, he felt, to take a man who talked like this seriously. His manner was convincing, his speech deliberate and assured. There was not the slightest doubt but that he meant what he said, yet it seemed to Aynesworth equally certain that the time would come, and come quickly, when the unnatural hardness of the man would yield to the genial influence of friendship, of pleasure, of the subtle joys of freedom. Those past days of hideous monotony, of profitless, debasing toil, the long, sleepless nights, the very nightmare of life to a man of Wingrave’s culture and habits, might well have poisoned his soul, have filled him with ideas such as these. But everything was different now! The history of the world could show no epoch when pleasures so many and various were there for the man who carries the golden key. Today he was a looker-on, and the ice of his years of bitterness had not melted. Tomorrow, at any moment, he might catch a whiff of the fragrance of life, and the blood in his veins would move to a different tune. This was how it seemed to Aynesworth, as he studied his companion through the faint blue mist of tobacco smoke.
“This expression of your sentiments,” he remarked at last, “is interesting so far as it goes. I am, however, a practical person, and my connection with you is of a practical order. You don’t propose, I presume, to promenade the streets with a cat-o-nine-tails?”
“Your curiosity,” Wingrave remarked, “is reasonable. Tomorrow I may gratify some portion of it after my interview with Lady Ruth. In the meantime, I might remark that to the observant person who has wits and money, the opportunities for doing evil present themselves, I think, with reasonable frequency. I do not propose, however, to leave things altogether to chance.”
“A definite scheme of ill-doing,” Aynesworth ventured to suggest, “would be more satisfactory?”
“Exactly,” he admitted.
He called for the bill, and his eyes wandered once more around the room as the waiter counted out the change. The band were playing the “Valse Amoureuse”; the air was grown heavy with the odor of tobacco and the mingled perfumes of flowers and scents. A refrain of soft laughter followed the music. An after-dinner air pervaded the place. Wingrave’s lip curled.
“My lack of kinship with my fellows,” he remarked, “is exceedingly well defined just now. I agree with the one philosopher who declared that ‘eating and drinking are functions which are better performed in private.’”
The two men went on to a theater. The play was a society trifle—a thing of the moment. Wingrave listened gravely, without a smile or any particular sign of interest. At the end of the second act, he turned towards his companion.
“The lady in the box opposite,” he remarked, “desires to attract your attention.”
Aynesworth looked up and recognized Lady Ruth. She was fanning herself languidly, but her eyes were fixed upon the two men. She leaned a little forward, and her gesture was unmistakable.
Aynesworth rose to his feet a little doubtfully.
“You had better go,” Wingrave said. “Present my compliments and excuses. I feel that a meeting now would amount to an anti-climax.”
Aynesworth made his way upstairs. Lady Ruth was alone, and he noticed that she had withdrawn to a chair where she was invisible to the house. Even Aynesworth himself could not see her face clearly at first, for she had chosen the darkest corner of the box. He gathered an impression of a gleaming white neck and bosom rising and falling rather more quickly than was natural, eyes which shone softly through the gloom, and the perfume of white roses, a great cluster of which lay upon the box ledge. Her voice was scarcely raised above a whisper.
“That is—Sir Wingrave with you?”
“Yes!” Aynesworth answered. “It was he who saw you first!”
She seemed to catch her breath. Her voice was still tremulous.
“He is changed,” she said. “I should not have recognized him.”
“They were the best ten years of his life,” Aynesworth answered. “Think of how and in what surroundings he has been compelled to live. No wonder that he has had the humanity hammered out of him.”
She shivered a little.
“Is he always like this?” she asked. “I have watched him. He never smiles. He looks as hard as fate itself.”
“I have known him only a few hours,” Aynesworth reminded her.
“I dare not come tomorrow,” she whispered; “I am afraid of him.”
“Do you wish me to tell him so?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “You are very unfeeling, Mr. Aynesworth.”
“I hope not,” he answered, and looked away towards the orchestra. He did not wish to meet her eyes.
“You are!” she murmured. “I have no one to whom I dare speak—of this. I dare not mention his name to my husband. It was my evidence which convicted him, and I can see, I know, that he is vindictive. And he has those letters! Oh! If I could only get them back?”
Her voice trembled with an appeal whispered but passionate. It was wonderful how musical and yet how softly spoken her words were. They were like live things, and the few feet of darkened space through which they had passed seemed charged with magnetic influence.
“Mr. Aynesworth!”
He turned and faced her.
“Can’t you help me?”
“I cannot, Lady Ruth.”
The electric bell rang softly from outside, and the orchestra commenced to play. Lady Ruth rose and looked at herself in the mirror. Then she turned and smiled at her visitor. The pallor of her face was no longer unnatural. She was a wonderful woman.
“I shall come tomorrow,” she said. “Shall I see you?”
“That,” he answered, “depends upon Sir Wingrave.”
She made a little grimace as she dismissed him. Wingrave did not speak to his companion for some time after he had resumed his seat. Then he inclined his head towards him.
“Have you come to terms with her ladyship?” he asked drily.
“Not yet!” Aynesworth answered.
“You can name your own price,” he continued. “She will pay! Don’t be afraid of making her bid up. She has a good deal at stake!”
Aynesworth made no reply. He was thinking how easy it would be to hate this man!
Aynesworth was waiting in the hall on the following afternoon when Lady Ruth arrived. He had half expected that she would drive up to the side door in a hansom, would wear a thick veil, and adopt the other appurtenances of a clandestine meeting. But Lady Ruth was much too clever a woman for anything of the sort. She descended at the great front entrance from her own electric coupe, and swept into the hotel followed by her maid. She stopped to speak to the manager of the hotel, who knew her from her visits to the world-famous restaurant, and she asked at once for Sir Wingrave Seton. Then she saw Aynesworth, and crossed the hall with outstretched hand.
“How nice of you to be here,” she murmured. “Can you take me to Sir Wingrave at once? I have such a busy afternoon that I was afraid at the last moment that I should be unable to come!”
Aynesworth led her towards the lift.
“Sir Wingrave is in his sitting room,” he remarked. “It is only on the first floor.”
She directed her maid where to wait, and followed him. On the way down the corridor, he stole a glance at her. She was a little pale, and he could see that she had nerved herself to this interview with a great effort. As he knocked at the door, her great eyes were raised for a moment to his, and they were like the eyes of a frightened child.
“I am afraid!” she murmured.
There was no time for more. They were in the room, and Wingrave had risen to meet them. Lady Ruth did not hesitate for a moment. She crossed the room towards him with outstretched hands. Aynesworth, who was standing a little on one side, watched their meeting with intense, though covert interest. She had pushed back her veil, her head was a little upraised in a mute gesture of appeal.
She was pale to the lips, but her eyes were soft with hidden tears. Wingrave stood stonily silent, like a figure of fate. His hands remained by his sides. Her welcome found no response from him. She came to a standstill, and, swaying a little, stretched out her hand and steadied herself by grasping the back of a chair.
“Wingrave,” she murmured, and her voice was full of musical reproach.
Aynesworth turned to leave the room, but Wingrave, looking over her head, addressed him.
“You will remain here, Aynesworth,” he said. “There are some papers at that desk which require sorting.”
Aynesworth hesitated. He had caught the look on Lady Ruth’s face.
“If you could excuse me for half an hour, Sir Wingrave,” he began.
“I cannot spare you at present,” Wingrave interrupted. “Kindly remain!”
Aynesworth had no alternative but to obey. Wingrave handed a chair to Lady Ruth. He was looking at her steadfastly. There were no signs of any sort of emotion in his face. Whatever their relations in the past might have been, it was hard to believe, from his present demeanor, that he felt any.
“Wingrave,” she said softly, “are you going to be unkind to me—you, whom I have always thought of in my dreams as the most generous of men! I have looked forward so much to seeing you again—to knowing that you were free! Don’t disappoint me!”
Wingrave laughed shortly, and Aynesworth bent closer over his work, with a gathering frown upon his forehead. A mirthless laugh is never a pleasant sound.
“Disappoint you!” he repeated calmly. “No! I must try and avoid that! You have been looking forward with so much joy to this meeting then? I am flattered.”
She shivered a little.
“I have looked forward to it,” she answered, and her voice was dull and lifeless with pain. “But you are not glad to see me,” she continued. “There is no welcome in your face! You are changed—altogether! Why did you send for me?”
“Listen!”
There was a moment’s silence. Wingrave was standing upon the hearthrug, cold, passionless, Sphinx-like. Lady Ruth was seated a few feet away, but her face was hidden.
“You owe me something!” he said.
“Owe—you something?” she repeated vaguely.
“Do you deny it?” he said.
“Oh, no, no!” she declared with emotion. “Not for a moment.”
“I want,” he said, “to give you an opportunity of repaying some portion of that debt!”
She raised her eyes to his. Her whispered words came so softly that they were almost inaudible.
“I am waiting,” she said. “Tell me what I can do!”
He commenced to speak at some length, very impassively, very deliberately.
“You will doubtless appreciate the fact,” he said, “that my position, today, is a somewhat peculiar one. I have had enough of solitude. I am rich! I desire to mix once more on equal terms amongst my fellows. And against that, I have the misfortune to be a convicted felon, who has spent the last ten or a dozen years amongst the scum of the earth, engaged in degrading tasks, and with no identity save a number. The position, as you will doubtless observe, is a difficult one.”
Her eyes fell from his. Once more she shivered, as though with physical pain. Something that was like a smile, only that it was cold and lifeless, flitted across his lips.
“I have no desire,” he continued, “to live in foreign countries. On the contrary, I have plans which necessitate my living in England. The difficulties by this time are, without doubt, fully apparent to you.”
She said nothing. Her eyes were once more watching his face.
“My looking glass,” he continued, “shows me that I am changed beyond any reasonable chance of recognition. I do not believe that the Wingrave Seton of today would readily be recognized as the Wingrave Seton of twelve years ago. But I propose to make assurance doubly sure. I am leaving this country for several years, at once. I shall go to America, and I shall return as Mr. Wingrave, millionaire—and I propose, by the way, to make money there. I desire, under that identity, to take my place once more amongst my fellows. I shall bring letters of introduction—to you.”
There was a long and somewhat ominous silence! Lady Ruth’s eyes were fixed upon the floor. She was thinking, and thinking rapidly, but there were no signs of it in her pale drawn face. At last she looked up.
“There is my husband,” she said. “He would recognize you, if no one else did.”
“You are a clever woman,” he answered. “I leave it to you to deal with your husband as seems best to you.”
“Other people,” she faltered, “would recognize you!”
“Do me the favor,” he begged her, “to look at me carefully for several moments. You doubtless have some imperfect recollection of what I was. Compare it with my present appearance! I venture to think that you will agree with me. Recognition is barely possible.”
Again there was silence. Lady Ruth seemed to have no words, but there was the look of a frightened child upon her face.
“I am sorry,” he continued, “that the idea does not appeal to you! I can understand that my presence may serve to recall a period which you and your husband would doubtless prefer to forget—”
“Stop!”
A little staccato cry of pain; a cry which seemed to spring into life from a tortured heart, broke from her lips. Aynesworth heard it, and, at that moment, he hated his employer. Wingrave paused for a moment politely, and then continued.
“But after all,” he said, “I can assure you that you will find very little in the Mr. Wingrave of New York to remind you of the past. I shall do my utmost to win for myself a place in your esteem, which will help you to forget the other relationship, which, if my memory serves me, used once to exist between us!”
She raised her head. Either she realized that, for the present, the man was immune against all sentiment, or his calm brutality had had a correspondingly hardening effect upon her.
“If I agree,” she said, “will you give me back my letters?”
“No!” he answered.
“What are you going to do with them?”
“It depends,” he said, “upon you. I enter into no engagement. I make no promises. I simply remind you that it would be equally possible for me to take my place in the world as a rehabilitated Wingrave Seton. Ten years ago I yielded to sentiment. Today I have outlived it.”
“Ten years ago,” she murmured, “you were a hero. God knows what you are now!”
“Exactly!” he answered smoothly. “I am free to admit that I am a puzzle to myself. I find myself, in fact, a most interesting study.”
“I consent,” she said, with a little shudder. “I am going now.”
“You are a sensible woman,” he answered. “Aynesworth, show Lady Ruth to her carriage.”
She rose to her feet. Hung from her neck by a chain of fine gold, was a large Chinchilla muff. She stood before him, and her hands had sought its shelter. Timidly she withdrew one.
“Will you shake hands with me, Wingrave?” she asked timidly.
He shook his head.
“Forgive me,” he said; “I may better my manners in America, but a present I cannot.”
She passed out of the room. Aynesworth followed, closing the door behind them. In the corridor she stumbled, and caught at his arm for support.
“Don’t speak to me,” she gasped. “Take me where I can sit down.”
He found her a quiet corner in the drawing room. She sat perfectly still for nearly five minutes, with her eyes closed. Then she opened them, and looked at her companion.
“Mr. Aynesworth,” she said, “are you so poor that you must serve a man like that?”
He shook his head.
“It is not poverty,” he answered. “I knew his history, and I am interested in him!”
“You write novels, don’t you?” she asked.
“I try,” he answered. “His story fascinated me. He stands today in a unique position to life. I want to see how he will come out of it.”
“You knew his story—the truth?”
“Everything,” he answered. “I heard it from a journalist who was in court, his only friend, the only man who knew.”
“Where is he now?”
“On his way to Japan.”
She drew a little breath between her teeth.
“There were rumors,” she said. “It was hard for me at first, but I lived them down. I was very young then. I ought not to have accepted his sacrifice. I wish to heaven I had not. I wish that I had faced the scandal then. It is worse to be in the power of a man like this today! Mr. Aynesworth!”
“Lady Ruth!”
“Do you think that he has the right to keep those letters?”
“I cannot answer that question.”
“Will you be my friend?”
“So far as I can—in accordance with my obligations to my employer!”
She tried him no further then, but rose and walked slowly out of the room. He found her maid, and saw them to their carriage. Then he returned to the sitting room. Wingrave was smoking a cigarette.
“I am trying the humanizing influence,” he remarked. “Got rid of her ladyship?”
“Lady Ruth has just gone,” Aynesworth answered.
“Have you promised to steal the letters yet?” he inquired.
“Not yet!”
“Her dainty ladyship has not bid high enough, I suppose,” he continued. “Don’t be afraid to open your mouth. There’s another woman there besides the Lady Ruth Barrington, who opens bazaars, and patronizes charity, and entertains Royalty. Ask what you want and she’ll pay!”
“What a brute you are!” Aynesworth exclaimed involuntarily.
“Of course I am,” he admitted. “I know that. But whose fault is it? It isn’t mine. I’ve lived the life of a brute creature for ten years. You don’t abuse a one-legged man, poor devil. I’ve had other things amputated. I was like you once. It seemed all right to me to go under to save a woman’s honor. You never have. Therefore, I say you’ve no right to call me a brute. Personally, I don’t object. It is simply a matter of equity.”
“I admit it,” Aynesworth declared. “You are acting like a brute.”
“Precisely. I didn’t make myself what I am. Prison did it. Go and try ten years yourself, and you’ll find you will have to grope about for your fine emotions. Are you coming to America with me?”
“I suppose so,” Aynesworth answered. “When do we start?”
“Saturday week.”
“Sport west, or civilization east?”
“Both,” Wingrave answered. “Here is a list of the kit which we shall require. Add yourself the things which I have forgotten. I pay for both!”
“Very good of you,” Aynesworth answered.
“Not at all. I don’t suppose you’d come without. Can you shoot?”
“A bit,” he admitted.
“Be particular about the rifles. I can take you to a little corner in Canada where the bears don’t stand on ceremony. Put everything in hand, and be ready to come down to Cornwall with me on Monday.”
“Cornwall!” Aynesworth exclaimed. “What on earth are we going to do in Cornwall?”
“I have an estate there, the home of my ancestors, which I am going to sell. I am the last of the Setons, fortunately, and I am going to smash the family tree, sell the heirlooms, and burn the family records!”
“I shouldn’t if I were you,” Aynesworth said quietly. “You are a young man yet. You may come back to your own!”
“Meaning?”
“You may smoke enough cigarettes to become actually humanized! One can never tell! I have known men proclaim themselves cynics for life, who have been making idiots of themselves with their own children in five years.”
Wingrave nodded gravely.
“True enough,” he answered. “But the one thing which no man can mistake is death. Listen, and I will quote some poetry to you. I think—it is something like this:—
“‘The rivers of ice may melt, and the mountains crumble into dust, but the heart of a dead man is like the seed plot unsown. Green grass shall not sprout there, nor flowers blossom, nor shall all the ages of eternity show there any sign of life.’”
He spoke as though he had been reading from a child’s Primer. When he had finished, he replaced his cigarette between his teeth.
“I am a dead man,” he said calmly. “Dead as the wildest seed plot in God’s most forgotten acre!”