Tavernake sat a few hours later at his evening meal in the tiny sitting-room of an apartment house in Chelsea. He wore a black tie, and although he had not yet aspired to a dinner coat, the details of his person and toilet showed signs of a new attention. Opposite to him was Beatrice.
“Tell me,” she asked, as soon as the small maid-servant who brought in their first dish had disappeared, “what have you been doing all day? Have you been letting houses or surveying land or book-keeping, or have you been out to Marston Rise?”
It was her customary question, this. She really took an interest in his work.
“I have been attending a rich American client,” he announced, “a compatriot of your own. I went with her to Grantham House in her own motor-car. I believe she thinks of taking it.”
“American!” Beatrice remarked. “What was her name?”
Tavernake looked up from his plate across the little table, across the bowl of simple flowers which was its sole decoration.
“She called herself Mrs. Wenham Garner!”
Away like a flash went the new-found peace in the girl's face. She caught at her breath, her fingers gripped the table in front of her. Once more she was as he had known her first—pale, with great terrified eyes shining out of a haggard face.
“She has been to you,” Beatrice gasped, “for a house? You are sure?”
“I am quite sure,” Tavernake declared, calmly.
“You recognized her?”
He assented gravely.
“It was the woman who stood in the chemist's shop that night, signing her name in a book,” he said.
He did not apologize in any way for the shock he had given her. He had done it deliberately. From that very first morning, when they had breakfasted together at London Bridge, he had felt that he deserved her confidence, and in a sense it was a grievance with him that she had withheld it.
“Did she recognize you?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “I was sent for into the office and found her there with the chief. I felt sure that she recognized me from the first, and when she agreed to look at Grantham House, she insisted upon it that I should accompany her. While we were in the motor-car, she asked me about you. She wished for your address.”
“Did you give it to her?” the girl cried, breathlessly.
“No; I said that I must consult you first.”
She drew a little sigh of relief. Nevertheless, she was looking white and shaken.
“Did she say what she wanted me for?”
“She was very mysterious,” Tavernake answered. “She spoke of some danger of which you knew nothing. Before I came away, she offered me a hundred pounds to let her know where you were.”
Beatrice laughed softly.
“That is just like Elizabeth,” she declared. “You must have made her very angry. When she wants anything, she wants it very badly indeed, and she will never believe that every person has not his price. Money means everything to her. If she had it, she would buy, buy, buy all the time.”
“On the face of it,” Tavernake remarked, soberly, “her offer seemed rather an absurd one. If she is in earnest, if she is really so anxious to discover your whereabouts, she will certainly be able to do so without my help.”
“I am not so sure,” Beatrice replied. “London is a great hiding place.”
“A private detective,” he began,—
Beatrice shook her head.
“I do not think,” she said, “that Elizabeth will care to employ a private detective. Tell me, have you to see her upon this business again?”
“I am going to her flat at the Milan Court to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock.”
Beatrice leaned back in her chair. Presently she recommenced her dinner. She had the air of one to whom a respite has been granted. Tavernake, in a way, began to resent this continued silence of hers. He had certainly hoped that she would at least have gone so far as to explain her anxiety to keep her whereabouts secret.
“You must remember,” he went on, after a short pause, “that I am in a somewhat peculiar position with regard to you, Beatrice. I know so little that I do not even know how to answer in your interests such questions as Mrs. Wenham Gardner asked me. I am not complaining, but is this state of absolute ignorance necessary?”
A new thought seemed to come to Beatrice. She looked at her companion curiously.
“Tell me,” she asked, “what did you think of Mrs. Wenham Gardner?”
Tavernake answered deliberately, and after a moment's reflection.
“I thought her,” he said, “one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen in my life. That is not saying very much, perhaps, but to me it meant a good deal. She was exceedingly gracious and her interest in you seemed quite real and even affectionate. I do not understand why you should wish to hide from such a woman.”
“You found her attractive?” Beatrice persisted.
“I found her very attractive indeed,” Tavernake admitted, without hesitation. “She had an air with her. She was quite different from all the women I have ever met at the boarding-house or anywhere else. She has a face which reminded me somehow of the Madonnas you took me to see in the National Gallery the other day.”
Beatrice shivered slightly. For some reason, his remark seemed to have distressed her.
“I am very, very sorry,” she declared, “that Elizabeth ever came to your office. I want you to promise me, Leonard, that you will be careful whenever you are with her.”
Tavernake laughed.
“Careful!” he repeated. “She isn't likely to be even civil to me tomorrow when I tell her that I have seen you and I refuse to give her your address. Careful, indeed! What has a poor clerk in a house-agent's office to fear from such a personage?”
The servant had reappeared with their second and last course. For a few moments they spoke of casual subjects. Afterwards, however, Tavernake asked a question.
“By the way,” he said, “we are hoping to let Grantham House to Mrs. Wenham Gardner. I suppose she must be very wealthy?”
Beatrice looked at him curiously.
“Why do you come to me for information?” she demanded. “I suppose that she brought you references?”
“We haven't quite got to that stage yet,” he answered. “Somehow or other, from her manner of talking and general appearance, I do not think that either Mr. Dowling or I doubted her financial position.”
“I should never have thought you so credulous a person,” remarked Beatrice, with a smile.
Tavernake was genuinely disturbed. His business instincts were aroused.
“Do you really mean that this Mrs. Wenham Gardner is not a person of substance?” he inquired.
Beatrice shrugged her shoulders.
“She is the wife of a man who had the reputation of being very wealthy,” she replied. “She has no money of her own, I am sure.”
“She still lives with her husband, I suppose?” Tavernake asked.
Beatrice closed her eyes.
“I know very little about her,” she declared. “Last time I heard, he had disappeared, gone away, or something of the sort.”
“And she has no money,” Tavernake persisted, “except what she gets from him? No settlement, even, or anything of that sort?”
“Nothing at all,” Beatrice answered.
“This is very bad news,” Tavernake remarked, thinking gloomily of his wasted day. “It will be a great disappointment to Mr. Dowling. Why, her motor-car was magnificent, and she talked as though money were no object at all. I suppose you are quite sure of what you are saying?”
Beatrice shrugged her shoulders.
“I ought to know,” she answered, grimly, “for she is my sister.”
Tavernake remained quite motionless for a minute, without speech; it was his way of showing surprise. When he was sure that he had grasped the import of her words, he spoke again.
“Your sister!” he repeated. “There is a likeness, of course. You are dark and she is fair, but there is a likeness. That would account,” he continued, “for her anxiety to find you.”
“It also accounts,” Beatrice replied, with a little break of the lips, “for my anxiety that she should not find me. Leonard,” she added, touching his hand for a moment with hers, “I wish that I could tell you everything, but there are things behind, things so terrible, that even to you, my dear brother, I could not speak of them.”
Tavernake rose to his feet and lit a cigarette—a new habit with him, while Beatrice busied herself with a small coffee-making machine. He sat in an easy-chair and smoked slowly. He was still wearing his ready-made clothes, but his collar was of the fashionable shape, his tie well chosen and neatly adjusted. He seemed somehow to have developed.
“Beatrice,” he asked, “what am I to tell your sister to-morrow?”
She shivered as she set his coffee-cup down by his side.
“Tell her, if you will, that I am well and not in want,” she answered. “Tell her, too, that I refuse to send my address. Tell her that the one aim of my life is to keep the knowledge of my whereabouts a secret from her.”
Tavernake relapsed into silence. He was thinking. Mysteries had no attraction for him—he loathed them. Against this one especially he felt a distinct grudge. Nevertheless, some instinct forbade his questioning the girl.
“Apart from more personal matters, then,” he asked after some time, “you would not advise me to enter into any business negotiations with this lady?”
“You must not think of it,” Beatrice replied, firmly. “So far as money is concerned, Elizabeth has no conscience whatever. The things she wants in life she will have somehow, but it is all the time at other people's expense. Some day she will have to pay for it.”
Tavernake sighed.
“It is very unfortunate,” he declared. “The commission on the letting of Grantham House would have been worth having.”
“After all, it is only your firm's loss,” she reminded him.
“It does not appeal to me like that,” he continued. “So long as I am manager for Dowling & Spence, I feel these things personally. However, that does not matter. I am afraid it is a disagreeable subject for you, and we will not talk about it any longer.”
She lit a cigarette with a little gesture of relief. She came once more to his side.
“Leonard,” she said, “I know that I am treating you badly in telling you nothing, but it is simply because I do not want to descend to half truths. I should like to tell you all or nothing. At present I cannot tell you all.”
“Very well,” he replied, “I am quite content to leave it with you to do as you think best.”
“Leonard,” she continued, “of course you think me unreasonable. I can't help it. There are things between my sister and myself the knowledge of which is a constant nightmare to me. During the last few months of my life it has grown to be a perfect terror. It sent me into hiding at Blenheim House, it reconciled me even to the decision I came to that night on the Embankment. I had decided that sooner than go back, sooner than ask help from her or any one connected with her, I would do what I tried to do the time when you saved my life.”
Tavernake looked at her wonderingly. She was, indeed, under the spell of some deep emotion. Her memory seemed to have carried her back into another world, somewhere far away from this dingy little sitting-room which they two were sharing together, back into a world where life and death were matters of small moment, where the great passions were unchained, and men and women moved among the naked things of life. Almost he felt the thrill of it. It was something new to him, the touch of a magic finger upon his eyelids. Then the moment passed and he was himself again, matter-of-fact, prosaic.
“Let us dismiss the subject finally,” he said. “I must see your sister on business to-morrow, but it shall be for the last time.”
“I think,” she murmured, “that you will be wise.”
He crossed the room and returned with a newspaper.
“I saw your music in the hall as I came in,” he remarked. “Are you singing to-night?”
The question was entirely in his ordinary tone. It brought her back to the world of every-day things as nothing else could have done.
“Yes; isn't it luck?” she told him. “Three in one week. I only heard an hour ago.”
“A city dinner?” he inquired.
“Something of the sort,” she replied. “I am to be at the Whitehall Rooms at ten o'clock. If you are tired, Leonard, please let me go alone. I really do not mind. I can get a 'bus to the door, there and back again.”
“I am not tired,” he declared. “To tell you the truth, I scarcely know what it is to be tired. I shall go with you, of course.”
She looked at him with a momentary admiration of his powerful frame, his strong, forceful face.
“It seems too bad,” she remarked, “after a long day's work to drag you out again.”
He smiled.
“I really like to come,” he assured her. “Besides,” he added, after a moment's pause, “I like to hear you sing.”
“I wonder if you mean that?” she asked, looking at him curiously. “I have watched you once or twice when I have been singing to you. Do you really care for it?”
“Certainly I do. How can you doubt it? I do not,” he continued, slowly, “understand music, or anything of that sort, of course, any more than I do the pictures you take me to see, and some of the books you talk about. There are lots of things I can't get the hang of entirely, but they all leave a sort of pleasure behind. One feels it even if one only half appreciates.”
She came over to his chair.
“I am glad,” she said, a little wistfully, “that there is one thing I do which you like.”
He looked at her reprovingly.
“My dear Beatrice,” he said, “I often wish I could make you understand how extraordinarily helpful and useful to me you have been.”
“Tell me in what way?” she begged.
“You have given me,” he assured her, “an insight into many things in life which I had found most perplexing. You see, you have traveled and I haven't. You have mixed with all classes of people, and I have gone steadily on in one groove. You have told me many things which I shall find very useful indeed later on.”
“Dear me,” she laughed, “you are making me quite conceited!”
“Anyhow,” he replied, “I don't want you to look upon me, Beatrice, in any way as a benefactor. I am much more comfortable here than at the boarding-house and it is costing no more money, especially since you began to get those singing engagements. By the way, hadn't you better go and get ready?”
She smothered a sigh as she turned away and went slowly upstairs. To all appearance, no person who ever breathed was more ordinary than this strong-featured, self-centered young man who had put out his arm and snatched her from the Maelstrom. Yet it seemed to her that there was something almost unnatural about his unapproachability. She was convinced that he was entirely honest, not only with regard to his actual relations toward her, but with regard to all his purposes. Her sex did not even seem to exist for him. The fact that she was good-looking, and with her renewed health daily becoming more so, seemed to be of no account to him whatever. He showed interest in her appearance sometimes, but it was interest of an entirely impersonal sort. He simply expressed himself as satisfied or dissatisfied, as a matter of taste. It came to her at that moment that she had never seen him really relax. Only when he sat opposite to that great map which hung now in the further room, and wandered about from section to section with a pencil in one hand and a piece of rubber in another, did he show anything which in any way approached enthusiasm, and even then it was always the unmistakable enthusiasm born of dead things. Suddenly she laughed at herself in the little mirror, laughed softly but heartily. This was the guardian whom Fate had sent for her! If Elizabeth had only understood!
Later in the evening, Beatrice and Tavernake traveled together in a motor omnibus from their rooms at Chelsea to Northumberland Avenue. Tavernake was getting quite used to the programme by now. They sat in a dimly-lit waiting-room until the time came for Beatrice to sing. Every now and then an excitable little person who was the secretary to some institution or other would run in and offer them refreshments, and tell them in what order they were to appear. To-night there was no departure from the ordinary course of things, except that there was slightly more stir. The dinner was a larger one than usual. It came to Beatrice's turn very soon after their arrival, and Tavernake, squeezing his way a few steps into the dining-room, stood with the waiters against the wall. He looked with curious eyes upon a scene with which he had no manner of sympathy.
A hundred or so of men had dined together in the cause of some charity. The odor of their dinner, mingled with the more aromatic perfume of the tobacco smoke which was already ascending in little blue clouds from the various tables, hung about the over-heated room, seeming, indeed, the fitting atmosphere for the long rows of guests. The majority of them were in a state of expansiveness. Their faces were redder than when they had sat down; a certain stiffness had departed from their shirt-fronts and their manners; their faces were flushed, their eyes watery. There were a few exceptions—paler-faced men who sat there with the air of endeavoring to bring themselves into accord with surroundings in which they had no real concern. Two of these looked up with interest at the first note of Beatrice's song. The one was sitting within a few places of the chairman, and he was too far away for his little start to be noticed by either Tavernake or Beatrice. The nearer one, however, Tavernake happened to be watching, and he saw the change in his expression. The man was, in his way, ugly. His face was certainly not a good one, although he did not appear to share the immediate weaknesses of his neighbors. To every note of the song he listened intently. When it was over, he rose and came toward Tavernake.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but did I not see you come in with the young lady who has just been singing?”
“You may have,” Tavernake answered. “I certainly did come with her.”
“May I ask if you are related to her?”
Tavernake had got over his hesitation in replying to such questions, by now. He answered promptly.
“I am her brother,” he declared.
The man produced a card.
“Please introduce me to her,” he begged, laconically.
“Why should I?” Tavernake asked. “I have no reason to suppose that she desires to know you.”
The man stared at him for a moment, and then laughed.
“Well,” he said, “you had better show your sister my card. She is, I presume, a professional, as she is singing here. My desire to make her acquaintance is purely actuated by business motives.”
Tavernake moved away toward the waiting-room.
The man, who according to his card was Mr. Sidney Grier, would have followed him in, but Tavernake stopped him.
“If you will wait here,” he suggested, “I will see whether my sister desires to meet you.”
Once more Mr. Sidney Grier looked surprised, but after a second glance at Tavernake he accepted his suggestion and remained outside. Tavernake took the card to Beatrice.
“Beatrice,” he announced, “there is a man outside who has heard you sing and who wants to be introduced.”
She took the card and her eyes opened wide.
“Do you know who he is?” Tavernake asked.
“Of course,” she answered. “He is a great producer of musical comedies. Let me think.”
She stood with the card in her hand. Some one else was singing now—an ordinary modern ballad of love and roses, rapture and despair. They heard the rising and falling of the woman's voice; the clatter of the dinner had ceased. Beatrice stood still thinking, her fingers clinching the card of Mr. Sidney Grier.
“You must bring him in,” she said to Tavernake finally.
Tavernake went outside.
“My sister will see you,” he remarked, with the air of one who brings good news.
Mr. Sidney Grier grunted. He was not used to being kept waiting, even for a second. Tavernake ushered him into the retiring room, and the other two musicians who were there stared at him as at a god.
“This is the gentleman whose card you have, Beatrice,” Tavernake announced. “Mr. Sidney Grier—Miss Tavernake!”
The man smiled.
“Your brother seems to be suspicious of me,” he declared. “I found it quite difficult to persuade him that you might find it interesting to talk to me for a few minutes.”
“He does not quite understand,” Beatrice answered. “He has not much experience of musical affairs or the stage, and your name would not have any significance for him.”
Tavernake went outside and listened idly to the song which was proceeding. It was a class of music which secretly he preferred to the stranger and more haunting notes of Beatrice's melodies. Apparently the audience was of his opinion, for they received it with a vociferous encore, to which the young lady generously replied with a music-hall song about “A French lady from over the water.” Towards the close of the applause which marked the conclusion of this effort, Tavernake felt himself touched lightly upon the arm. He turned round. By his side was standing the other dinner guest who had shown some interest in Beatrice. He was a man apparently of about forty years of age, tall and broad-shouldered, with black moustache, and dark, piercing eyes. Unlike most of the guests, he wore a short dinner-coat and black tie, from which, and his slight accent, Tavernake concluded that he was probably an American.
“Say, you'll forgive my speaking to you,” he said, touching Tavernake on the arm. “My name is Pritchard. I saw you come in with the young lady who was singing a few minutes ago, and if you won't consider it a liberty, I'll be very glad indeed if you'll answer me one question.”
Tavernake stiffened insensibly.
“It depends upon the question,” he replied, shortly.
“Well, it's about the young lady, and that's a fact,” Mr. Pritchard admitted. “I see that her name upon the programme is given as Miss Tavernake. I was seated at the other end of the room but she seemed to me remarkably like a young lady from the other side of the Atlantic, whom I am very anxious to meet.”
“Perhaps you will kindly put your question in plain words,” Tavernake said.
“Why, that's easy,” Mr. Pritchard declared. “Is Miss Tavernake really her name, or an assumed one? I expect it's the same over here as in my country—a singer very often sings under another name than her own, you know,” he added, noting Tavernake's gathering frown.
“The young lady in question is my sister, and I do not care to discuss her with strangers,” Tavernake announced.
Mr. Pritchard nodded pleasantly.
“Why, of course, that ends the matter,” he remarked. “Sorry to have troubled you, anyway.”
He strolled off back to his seat and Tavernake returned thoughtfully to the dressing-room. He found Beatrice alone and waiting for him.
“You've got rid of that fellow, then?” he inquired.
Beatrice assented.
“Yes; he didn't stay very long,” she replied.
“Who was he?” Tavernake asked, curiously.
“From a musical comedy point of view,” she said, “he was the most important person in London. He is the emperor of stage-land. He can make the fortune of any girl in London who is reasonably good-looking and who can sing and dance ever so little.”
“What did he want with you?” Tavernake demanded, suspiciously.
“He asked me whether I would like to go upon the stage. What do you think about it, Leonard?”
Tavernake, for some reason or other, was displeased.
“Would you earn much more money than by singing at these dinners?” he asked.
“Very, very much more,” she assured him.
“And you would like the life?”
She laughed softly.
“Why not? It isn't so bad. I was on the stage in New York for some time under much worse conditions.”
He remained silent for a few minutes. They had made their way into the street now and were waiting for an omnibus.
“What did you tell him?” he asked, abruptly.
She was looking down toward the Embankment, her eyes filled once more with the things which he could not understand.
“I have told him nothing yet,” she murmured.
“You would like to accept?”
She nodded.
“I am not sure,” she replied. “If only—I dared!”
At eleven o'clock the next morning, Tavernake presented himself at the Milan Court and inquired for Mrs. Wenham Gardner. He was sent at once to her apartments in charge of a page. She was lying upon a sofa piled up with cushions, wrapped in a wonderful blue garment which seemed somehow to deepen the color of her eyes. By her side was a small table on which was some chocolate, a bowl of roses, and a roll of newspapers. She held out her hand toward Tavernake, but did not rise. There was something almost spiritual about her pallor, the delicate outline of her figure, so imperfectly concealed by the thin silk dressing-gown, the faint, tired smile with which she welcomed him.
“You will forgive my receiving you like this, Mr. Tavernake?” she begged. “To-day I have a headache. I have been anxious for your coming. You must sit by my side, please, and tell me at once whether you have seen Beatrice.”
Tavernake did exactly as he was bidden. The chair toward which she had pointed was quite close to the sofa, but there was no other unoccupied in the room. She raised herself a little on the couch and turned towards him. Her eyes were fixed anxiously upon his, her forehead slightly wrinkled, her voice tremulous with eagerness.
“You have seen her?”
“I have,” he admitted, looking steadily into the lining of his hat.
“She has been cruel,” Elizabeth declared. “I can tell it from your face. You have bad news for me.”
“I do not know,” Tavernake replied, “whether she has been cruel or not. She refuses to allow me to tell you her address. She begged me, indeed, to keep away from you altogether.”
“Why? Did she tell you why?”
“She says that you are her sister, that you have no money of your own and that your husband has left you,” Tavernake answered, deliberately.
“Is that all?”
“No, it is not all,” he continued. “As to the rest, she told me nothing definite. It is quite clear, however, that she is very anxious to keep away from you.”
“But her reason?” Elizabeth persisted. “Did she give you no reason?”
Tavernake looked her in the face.
“She gave me no reason,” he said.
“Do you believe that she is justified in treating me like this?” Elizabeth asked, playing nervously with a pendant which hung from her smooth, bare neck.
“Of course I do,” he replied. “I am quite sure that she would not feel as she does unless you had been guilty of something very terrible indeed.”
The woman on the couch winced as though some one had struck her. A more susceptible man than Tavernake must have felt a little remorseful at the tears which dimmed for a moment her beautiful eyes. Tavernake, however, although he felt a moment's uneasiness, although he felt himself assailed all the time by a curious new emotion which he utterly failed to understand, was nevertheless still immune. The things which were to happen to him had not yet, arrived.
“Of course,” he continued, “I was very much disappointed to hear this, because I had hoped that we might have been able to let Grantham House to you. We cannot consider the matter at all now unless you pay for everything in advance.”
She uncovered her eyes and looked at him. People so direct of speech as this had come very seldom into her life. She was conscious of a thrill of interest. The study of men was a passion with her. Here was indeed a new type!
“So you think that I am an adventuress,” she murmured.
He reflected for a moment.
“I suppose,” he admitted, “that it comes to that. I should not have returned at all if I had not promised. If there is any message which you wish me to give your sister, I will take it, but I cannot tell you her address.”
She laid her hand suddenly upon his, and raising herself a little on the couch, leaned towards him. Her eyes and her lips both pleaded with him.
“Mr. Tavernake,” she said slowly, “Beatrice is such a dear, obstinate creature, but she does not quite appreciate my position. Do me a favor, please. If you have promised not to give me her address let me at least know some way or some place in which I could come across her. I am sure she will be glad afterwards, and I—I shall be very grateful.”
Tavernake felt that he was enveloped by something which he did not understand, but his lack of experience was so great that he did not even wonder at his insensibility.
“I shall keep my word to your sister,” he announced, “in the spirit as well as the letter. It is quite useless to ask me to do otherwise.”
Elizabeth was at first amazed, then angry, how angry she scarcely knew even herself. She had been a spoilt child, she had grown into a spoilt woman. Men, at least, had been ready enough to do her bidding all her life. Her beauty was of that peculiar kind, half seductive, half pathetic, wholly irresistible. And now there had come this strange, almost impossible person, against the armor of whose indifference she had spent herself in vain. Her eyes filled with tears once more as she looked at him, and Tavernake became uneasy. He glanced at the clock and again toward the door.
“I think, if you will excuse me,” he began,—
“Mr. Tavernake,” she interrupted, “you are very unkind to me, very unkind indeed.”
“I cannot help it,” he answered.
“If you knew everything,” she continued, “you would not be so obstinate. If Beatrice herself were here, if I could whisper something in her ear, she would be only too thankful that I had found her out. Beatrice has always misunderstood me, Mr. Tavernake. It is a little hard upon me, for we are both so far away from home, from our friends.”
“You can send her any message you like by me,” Tavernake declared. “If you like, I will wait while you write a letter. If you really have anything to say to her which might change her opinion, you can write it, can't you?”
She looked down at her hands—very beautiful and well-kept hands—and sighed. This young man, with his unusual imperturbability and hateful common sense, was getting on her nerves.
“It is so hard to write things, Mr. Tavernake,” she said, “but, of course, it is something to know that if the worst happens I can send her a letter. I shall think about that for a short time. Meanwhile, there is so much about her I would love to have you tell me. She has no money, has she? How does she support herself?”
“She sings occasionally at concerts,” Tavernake replied after a moment's pause. “I suppose there is no harm in telling you that.”
Elizabeth leaned towards him. She was very loth indeed to acknowledge defeat. Once more her voice was deliciously soft, her forehead delicately wrinkled, her blue eyes filled with alluring light.
“Mr. Tavernake,” she murmured, “do you know that you are not in the least kind to me? Beatrice and I are sisters, after all. Even she has admitted that. She left me most unkindly at a critical time in my life; she misunderstood things; if I were to see her, I could explain everything. I feel it very much that she is living apart from me in this city where we are both strangers. I am anxious about her, Mr. Tavernake. Does she want money? If so, will you take her some from me? Can't you suggest any way in which I could help her? Do be my friend, please, and advise me.”
Life was certainly opening out for Tavernake. The atmosphere by which he was surrounded, which she was deliberately creating around him, was the atmosphere of an unknown world. It was a position, this, entirely novel to him. Nevertheless, he did his best to cope with it intelligently. He reflected carefully before he made any reply, he refused absolutely to listen to the strange voices singing in his ears, and he delivered his decision with his usual air of finality.
“I am afraid,” he said, “that since Beatrice refuses even to let you know her whereabouts, she would not wish to accept anything from you. It seems a pity,” he went on, the instincts of the money-saver stirring within him; “she is certainly none too well off.”
The lady on the couch sighed.
“Beatrice has at least a friend,” she murmured. “It is a great deal to have a friend. It is more than I have. We are both so far from home here. Often I am sorry that we ever left America. England is not a hospitable country, Mr. Tavernake.”
Again this painfully literal young man spoke out what was in his mind.
“There was a gentleman in the motor-car with you the other night,” he reminded her.
She bit her lip.
“He was just an acquaintance,” she answered, “a man whom I used to know in New York, passing through London. He called on me and asked me to go to the theatre and supper. Why not? I have had a terrible time during the last few months, Mr. Tavernake, and I am very lonely—lonelier than ever since my sister deserted me.”
Tavernake began to feel, ridiculous though it seemed, that in some subtle and inexplicable fashion he was in danger. At any rate, he was hopelessly bewildered. He did not understand why this very beautiful lady should look at him as though they were old friends, why her eyes should appeal to him so often for sympathy, why her fingers, which a moment ago were resting lightly upon his hand, and which she had drawn away with reluctance, should have burned him like pin-pricks of fire. The woman who wishes to allure may be as subtle as possible in her methods, but a sense of her purpose, however vague it may be, is generally communicated to her would be victim. Tavernake was becoming distinctly uneasy. He had no vanity. He knew from the first that this beautiful creature belonged to a world far removed from any of which he had any knowledge. The only solution of the situation which presented itself to him was that she might be thinking of borrowing money from him!
“There was never a time in my life,” she continued softly, “when I felt that I needed a friend more. I am afraid that my sister has prejudiced you against me, Mr. Tavernake. Beatrice is very young, and the young are not always sympathetic, you know. They do not make allowances, they do not understand.”
“Why did you tell Mr. Dowling things which were not true?” he asked bluntly.
She sighed, and looked down at the handkerchief with which she had been toying.
“It was a very silly piece of conceit,” she admitted, “but, you see, I had to tell him something.”
“Why did you come to the office at all?” he continued.
“Do you really want to know that?” she whispered softly.
“Well,—”
“I will tell you,” she went on suddenly. “It sounds foolish, in a way, and yet it wasn't really, because, you see,”—she smiled at him—“I was anxious about Beatrice. I saw you come out of the office that morning, and I recognized you at once. I knew that it was you who had been with Beatrice. I made an excuse about the house to come and see whether I could find you out.”
Tavernake, in whom the vanity was not yet born, missed wholly the significance of her smile, her trifling hesitation.
“All that,” he declared, “is no reason why you should have told Mr. Dowling that your husband was a millionaire and had given you carte blanche about taking a house.”
“Did I mention—my husband?”
“Distinctly,” he assured her.
For the first time she had faltered in her speech. Tavernake felt that she herself was shaken by some emotion. Her eyes for a moment were strangely-lit; something had come into her face which he did not understand. Then it passed. The delightful smile, half deprecating, half appealing, once more parted her lips; the gleam of horror no longer shone in her blue eyes.
“I am always so foolish about money,” she declared, “so ignorant that I never know how I stand, but really I think that I have plenty, and a hundred or two more or less for rent didn't seem to matter much.”
It was a point of view, this, which Tavernake utterly failed to comprehend. He looked at her in surprise.
“I suppose,” he protested, “you know how much a year you have to live on?”
She shook her head.
“It seems to vary all the time,” she sighed. “There are so many complications.”
He looked at her in amazement.
“After all,” he admitted, “you don't look as though you had much of a head for figures.”
“If only I had some one to help me!” she murmured.
Tavernake moved uneasily in his chair. His sense of danger was growing.
“If you will excuse me now,” he said, “I think that I must be getting back. I am an employee at Dowling, Spence & Company's, you know, and my time is not quite my own. I only came because I promised to.”
“Mr. Tavernake,” she begged, looking at him full out of those wonderful blue eyes, “please do me a great favor.”
“What is it?” he asked with clumsy ungraciousness.
“Come and see me, every now and then, and let me know how my sister is. Perhaps you may be able to suggest some way in which I can help her.”
Tavernake considered the question for a moment. He was angry with himself for the unaccountable sense of pleasure which her suggestion had given him.
“I am not quite sure,” he said, “whether I had better come. Beatrice seemed quite anxious that I should not talk about her to you at all. She did not like my coming to-day.”
“You seem to know a great deal about my sister,” Elizabeth declared reflectively. “You call her by her Christian name and you appear to see her frequently. Perhaps, even, you are fond of her.”
Tavernake met his questioner's inquiring gaze blankly. He was almost indignant.
“Fond of her!” he exclaimed. “I have never been fond of any one in my life, or anything—except my work,” he added.
She looked at him a little bewildered at first.
“Oh, you strange person!” she cried, her lips breaking into a delightful smile. “Don't you know that you haven't begun to live at all yet? You don't even know anything about life, and at the back of it all you have capacity. Yes,” she went on, “I think that you have the capacity for living.”
Her hand fell upon his with a little gesture which was half a caress. He looked around him as though seeking for escape. He was on his feet now and he clutched at his hat.
“I must go,” he insisted almost roughly.
“Am I keeping you?” she asked innocently. “Well, you shall go as soon as you please, only you must promise me one thing. You must come back, say within a week, and let me know how my sister is. I am not half so brutal as you think. I really am anxious about her. Please!”
“I will promise that,” he answered.
“Wait one moment, then,” she begged, turning to the letters by her side. “There is just something I want to ask you. Don't be impatient—it is entirely a matter of business.”
All the time he was acutely conscious of that restless desire to get out of the room. The woman's white arms, from which the sleeves of her blue gown had fallen back, were stretched towards him as she lazily turned over her pile of correspondence. They were very beautiful arms and Tavernake, although he had had no experience, was dimly aware of the fact. Her eyes, too, seemed always to be trying to reach some part of him which was dead, or as yet unborn. He could feel her striving to get there, beating against the walls of his indifference. Why should a woman wear blue stockings because she had a blue gown, he wondered idly. She was not like Beatrice, this alluring, beautiful woman, who lay there talking to him in a manner whose meaning came to him only in strange, bewildering flashes. He could be with Beatrice and feel the truth of what he had once told her—that her sex was a thing which need not even be taken into account between them. With this woman it was different; he felt that she wished it to be different.
“Perhaps you had better tell me about that matter of business next time I am here,” he suggested, with an abruptness which was almost brusque. “I must go now. I do not know why I have stayed so long.”
She held out her fingers.
“You are a very sudden person,” she declared, smiling at his discomfiture. “If you must go!”
He scarcely touched her hand, anxious only to get away. And then the door opened and a man of somewhat remarkable appearance entered the room with the air of a privileged person. He was oddly dressed, with little regard to the fashion of the moment. His black coat was cut after the mode of a past generation, his collar was of the type affected by Gladstone and his fellow-statesmen, his black bow was arranged with studied negligence and he showed more frilled white shirt-front than is usual in the daytime. His silk hat was glossy but broad-brimmed; his masses of gray hair, brushed back from a high, broad forehead, gave him almost a patriarchal aspect. His features were large and fairly well-shaped, but his mouth was weak and his cheeks lacked the color of a healthy life. Tavernake stared at him open-mouthed. He, for his part, looked at Tavernake as he might have looked at some strange wild animal.
“A thousand apologies, dear Elizabeth!” he exclaimed. “I knocked, but I imagine that you did not hear me. Knowing your habits, it did not occur to me that you might be engaged at this hour of the morning.”
“It is a young man from the house agent's,” she announced indifferently, “come to see me about a flat.”
“In that case,” he suggested amiably, “I am, perhaps, not in the way.”
Elizabeth turned her head slightly and looked at him; he backed precipitately toward the door.
“In a few minutes,” he said. “I will return in a few minutes.”
Tavernake attempted to follow his example.
“There is no occasion for your friend to leave,” he protested. “If you have any instructions for us, a note to the office will always bring some one here to see you.”
She sat up on the couch and smiled at him. His obvious embarrassment amused her. It was a new sort of game, this, altogether.
“Come, Mr. Tavernake,” she said, “three minutes more won't matter, will it? I will not keep you longer than that, I promise.”
He came reluctantly a few steps back.
“I am sorry,” he explained, “but we really are busy this morning.”
“This is business,” she declared, still smiling at him pleasantly. “My sister has filled you with suspicions about me. Some of them may be justifiable, some are not. I am not so rich as I should like some people to believe. It is so much easier to live well, you know, when people believe that you are rolling in money. Still, I am by no means a pauper. I cannot afford to take Grantham House, but neither can I afford to go on living here. I have decided to make a change, to try and economize, to try and live within my means. Now will you bring me a list of small houses or flats, something at not more than say two or three hundred a year? It shall be strictly a business proceeding. I will pay you for your time, if that is necessary, and your commission in advance. There, you can't refuse my offer on those terms, can you?”
Tavernake remained silent. He was conscious that his lack of response seemed both sullen and awkward, but he was for the moment tongue-tied. His habit of inopportune self-analysis had once more asserted itself. He could not understand the curious nature of his mistrust of this woman, nor could he understand the pleasure which her suggestion gave him. He wanted to refuse, and yet he was glad to be able to tell himself that he was, after all, but an employee of his firm and not in a position to decline business on their behalf.
She leaned a little towards him; her tone was almost beseeching.
“You are not going to be unkind? You will not refuse me?” she pleaded.
“I will bring you a list,” he answered heavily, “on the terms you suggest.”
“To-morrow morning?” she begged.
“As soon as I am able,” he promised.
Then he escaped. Outside in the corridor, the man who had interrupted his interview was walking backwards and forwards. Tavernake passed him without responding to his bland greeting. He forgot all about the lift and descended five flights of stairs....
A few minutes later, he presented himself at the office and reported that Mrs. Wenham Gardner had decided unfavorably about Grantham House, and that she was not disposed, indeed, to take premises of anything like such a rental. Mr. Dowling was disappointed, and inclined to think that his employee had mismanaged the affair.
“I wish that I had gone myself,” he declared. “She obviously wished me to, but it happened to be inconvenient. By-the-bye, Tavernake, close the door, will you? There is another matter concerning which I should like to speak to you.”
Tavernake did as he was bidden at once, without any disquietude. His own services to the firm were of such a nature that he had no misgiving whatever as to his employer's desire for a private interview.
“It is about the Marston Rise estate,” Mr. Dowling explained, arranging his pince nez. “I believe that the time is coming when some sort of overtures should be made. You know what has been in my mind for a very considerable time.”
Tavernake nodded.
“Yes,” he admitted, “I know quite well.”
“I did hear a rumor,” Mr. Dowling continued, “that some one had bought one small plot on the outskirts of the estate. I dare say it is not true, and in any case it is not worth while troubling about, but it shows that the public is beginning to nibble. I am of opinion that the time is almost—yes, almost ripe for a move.”
“Do you wish me to do anything in the matter, sir?” Tavernake asked.
“In the first place,” Mr. Dowling declared, “I should like you to try to find out whether any of the plots have really been sold, and, if so, to whom, and what would be their price. Can you do this during the week?”
“I think so,” Tavernake answered.
“Say Monday morning,” Mr. Dowling suggested, taking down his hat. “I shall be playing golf to-morrow and Friday, and of course Saturday. Monday morning you might let me have a report.”
Tavernake went back to his office. After all, then, things were to come to a crisis a little earlier than he had thought. He knew quite well that that report, if he made it honestly, and no other idea was likely to occur to him, would effectually sever his connection with Messrs. Dowling, Spence & Company.