Hamel awoke to find his room filled with sunshine and a soft wind blowing in through the open window. There was a pleasant odour of coffee floating up from the kitchen. He looked at his watch—it was past eight o’clock. The sea was glittering and bespangled with sunlight. He found among his scanty belongings a bathing suit, and, wrapped in his overcoat, hurried down-stairs.
“Breakfast in half an hour, Mrs. Cox,” he called out.
She stood at the door, watching him as he stepped across the pebbles and plunged in. For a few moments he swam. Then he turned over on his back. The sunlight was gleaming from every window of St. David’s Hall. He even fancied that upon the terrace he could see a white-clad figure looking towards him. He turned over and swam once more. From her place in the doorway Mrs. Cox called out to him.
“Mind the Dagger Rocks, sir!”
He waved his hand. The splendid exhilaration of the salt water seemed to give him unlimited courage. He dived, but the woman’s cry of fear soon recalled him. Presently he swam to shore and hurried up the beach. Mrs. Cox, with a sigh of relief, disappeared into the kitchen.
“Those rocks on your nerves again, Mrs. Cox?” he asked, good-humouredly, as he took his place at the breakfast table a quarter of an hour later.
“It’s only us who live here, sir,” she answered, “who know how terrible they are. There’s one—it comes up like my hand—a long spike. A boat once struck upon that, and it’s as though it’d been sawn through the middle.”
“I must have a look at them some day,” he declared. “I am going to work this morning, Mrs. Cox. Lunch at one o’clock.”
He took rugs and established himself with a pile of books at the back of a grassy knoll, sheltered from the wind, with the sea almost at his feet. He sharpened his pencil and numbered the page of his notebook. Then he looked up towards the Hall garden and found himself dreaming. The sunshine was delicious, and a gentle optimism seemed to steal over him.
“I am a fool!” he murmured to himself. “I am catching some part of these people’s folly. Mr. Fentolin is only an ordinary, crotchety invalid with queer tastes. On the big things he is probably like other men. I shall go to him this morning.”
A sea-gull screamed over his head. Little, brown sailed fishing-boats came gliding down the harbourway. A pleasant, sensuous joyfulness seemed part of the spirit of the day. Hamel stretched himself out upon the dry sand.
“Work be hanged!” he exclaimed.
A soft voice answered him almost in his ear, a voice which was becoming very familiar.
“A most admirable sentiment, my young friend, which you seem to be doing your best to live up to. Not a line written, I see.”
He sat up upon his rug. Mr. Fentolin, in his little carriage, was there by his side. Behind was the faithful Meekins, with an easel under his arm.
“I trust that your first night in your new abode has been a pleasant one?” Mr. Fentolin asked.
“I slept quite well, thanks,” Hamel replied. “Glad to see you’re going to paint.”
Mr. Fentolin shook his head gloomily.
“It is, alas!” he declared, “one of my weaknesses. I can work only in solitude. I came down on the chance that the fine weather might have tempted you over to the Golf Club. As it is, I shall return.”
“I am awfully sorry,” Hamel said. “Can’t I go out of sight somewhere?”
Mr. Fentolin sighed.
“I will not ask your pardon for my absurd humours,” he continued, a little sadly. “Their existence, however, I cannot deny. I will wait.”
“It seems a pity for you to do that,” Hamel remarked. “You see, I might stay here for some time.”
Mr. Fentolin’s face darkened. He looked at the young man with a sort of pensive wrath.
“If,” the latter went on, “you say ‘yes’ to something I am going to ask you, I might even stay—in the neighbourhood—for longer still.”
Mr. Fentolin sat quite motionless in his chair; his eyes were fixed upon Hamel.
“What is it that you are going to ask me?” he demanded.
“I want to marry your niece.”
Mr. Fentolin looked at the young man in mild surprise.
“A sudden decision on your part, Mr. Hamel?” he murmured.
“Not at all,” Hamel assured him. “I have been ten years looking for her.”
“And the young lady?” Mr. Fentolin enquired. “What does she say?”
“I believe, sir,” Hamel replied, “that she would be willing.”
Mr. Fentolin sighed.
“One is forced sometimes,” he remarked regretfully, “to realise the selfishness of our young people. For many years one devotes oneself to providing them with all the comforts and luxuries of life. Then, in a single day, they turn around and give everything they have to give to a stranger. So you want to marry Esther?”
“If you please.”
“She has a very moderate fortune.”
“She need have none at all,” Hamel replied; “I have enough.”
Mr. Fentolin glanced towards the house.
“Then,” he said, “I think you had better go and tell her so; in which case, I shall be able to paint.”
“I have your permission, then?” Hamel asked, rising to his feet eagerly.
“Negatively,” Mr. Fentolin agreed, “you have. I cannot refuse. Esther is of age; the thing is reasonable. I do not know whether she will be happy with you or not. A young man of your disposition who declines to study the whims of an unfortunate creature like myself is scarcely likely to be possessed of much sensibility. However, perhaps your views as to a solitary residence here will change with your engagement to my niece.”
Hamel did not reply for a moment. He was trying to ask himself why, even in the midst of this rush of anticipatory happiness, he should be conscious of a certain reluctance to leave the Tower—and Mr. Fentolin. He was looking longingly towards the Hall. Mr. Fentolin waved him away.
“Go and make love,” he ordered, “and leave me alone. We are both in pursuit of beauty—only our methods differ.”
Hamel hesitated no longer but walked up the narrow path with swift, buoyant footsteps. Everywhere he seemed to be surrounded by the glorious spring sunshine. It glittered in the little pools and creeks by his side. It drew a new colour from the dun-coloured marshes, the masses of emerald seaweed, the shimmering sands. It flashed in the long row of windows of the Hall. As he drew nearer, he could see the banks of yellow crocuses in the sloping gardens behind. There were odours of spring in the air. He ran lightly up the terrace steps. There was an easy-chair drawn into her favourite corner, and a book upon the table, but no sign of Esther. He hesitated for a moment, and then, retracing his steps along the terrace, entered the house by the front door, which stood wide open. There was no one in the hall, scarcely a sound about the place. A great clock ticked solemnly from the foot of the stairs. There was not even a servant in sight. Hamel wandered around, at a loss what to do. He opened the door of the drawing-room and looked in. It was empty. He turned away, meaning to ring a bell. On his way across the hall he paused. A curiously suggestive sound reached him faintly from the end of one of the passages. It was the click of a typewriter.
Hamel stood for a moment perfectly still. He had hurried up to the Hall, filled with the one selfish joy common to all mankind. He had had no thought save the thought of seeing Esther. The click of that machine brought him back to the stern realities of life. He remembered his talk to Kinsley, his promise. On the hall table he could see from where he was standing the great headlines which announced the nation’s anxiety. He was in the house of a suspected spy. The click of the typewriter was an accompaniment to his thought. He looked around once more and listened. Then he made his way quietly across the hall and down the long passage, at the end of which the room which Mr. Fentolin called his workroom was situated. He turned the handle of the door and entered, closing it immediately behind him. The woman who was typing paused with her fingers upon the keys. Her eyes met his coldly, without curiosity. She had paused in her work, but she took no other notice of his coming.
“Has Mr. Fentolin sent you here?” she asked at last.
He came over to the typewriter.
“Mr. Fentolin has not sent me,” he said slowly. “I am here on my own account. I dare say you will think that I am a lunatic to come to you like this. Nevertheless, please listen to me.”
Her fingers left the keys. She laid her hands upon the table in front of her. He drew a little nearer. She covered over the sheets of paper with which she was surrounded with a pad of blotting-paper. He pointed suddenly to them.
“Why do you do that?” he demanded. “What is there in your work that you are afraid I might see?”
She answered him without hesitation.
“These are private papers of Mr. Fentolin’s. No one has any business to see them. No one has any business to enter this room. Why are you here?”
“I came to the Hall to find Miss Fentolin,” he replied. “I heard the click of your typewriter. I came to you, I suppose I should say, on impulse.”
Her eyes rested upon his, filled with a cold and questioning light.
“There’s an impression up in London,” Hamel went on, “that Mr. Fentolin has been interfering by means of his wireless in affairs which don’t concern him, and giving away valuable information. This man Dunster’s disappearance is as yet unexplained. I feel myself justified in making certain investigations, and among the first of them I should like you to tell me exactly the nature of the work for which Mr. Fentolin finds a secretary necessary?”
She glanced towards the bell. He moved to the edge of the table as though to intercept her.
“In any ordinary case,” he continued, “I would not ask you to betray your employer’s confidence. As things are, I think I am justified. You are English, are you not? You realise, I suppose, that the country is on the brink of war?”
She looked at him from the depths of her still, lusterless eyes.
“You must be a very foolish person,” she remarked, “if you expect to obtain information in this manner.”
“Perhaps I am,” he confessed, “but my folly has brought me to you, and you can give me the information if you will.”
“Where is Mr. Fentolin?” she asked.
“Down at the Tower,” he replied. “I left him there. He sent me up to see Miss Fentolin. I was looking for her when the click of your typewriter reminded me of other things.”
She turned composedly back to her work.
“I think,” she said, “that you had better go and find Miss Fentolin.”
“Don’t talk nonsense! You can’t think I have risked giving myself away to you for nothing? I mean to search this room, to read the papers which you are typing.”
She glanced around her a little contemptuously.
“You are welcome,” she assured him. “Pray proceed.”
They exchanged the glances of duelists. Her plain black frock was buttoned up to her throat. Her colourless face seemed set in exact and expressionless lines. Her eyes were like windows of glass. He felt only their scrutiny; nothing of the reason for it, or of the thoughts which stirred behind in her brain. There was nothing about her attitude which seemed in any way threatening, yet he had the feeling that in this interview it was she who possessed the upper hand.
“You are a foolish person,” she said calmly. “You are so foolish that you are not, in all probability, in the slightest degree dangerous. Believe me, ours is an unequal duel. There is a bell upon this table which has apparently escaped your notice. I sit with my finger upon the button—so. I have only to press it, and the servants will be here. I do not wish to press it. I do not desire that you should be, as you certainly would be, banished from this house.”
He was immensely puzzled. She had not resented his strange intrusion. She had accepted it, indeed, with curious equanimity. Her forefinger lingered still over the little ivory knob of the bell attached to her desk. He shrugged his shoulders.
“You have the advantage of me,” he admitted, a little curtly. “All the same, I think I could possess myself of those sheets of paper, you know, before the bell was answered.”
“Would it be wise, I wonder, then, to ensure their safety?” she asked coolly.
Her finger pressed the bell. He took a quick step forward. She held out her hand.
“Stop!” she ordered. “These sheets will tell you nothing which you do not know already unless you are a fool. Never mind the bell. That is my affair. I am sending you away.”
He leaned a little towards her.
“It wouldn’t be possible to bribe you, I suppose?”
She shook her head.
“I wonder you haven’t tried that before. No, it would not—not with money, that is to say.”
“You’ll tell Mr. Fentolin, I presume?” he asked quickly.
“I have nothing to tell him,” she replied. “Nothing has happened. Richards,” she went on, as a servant entered the room, “Mr. Hamel is looking for Miss Fentolin. Will you see if you can find her?”
The man’s expression was full of polite regret.
“Miss Fentolin went over to Legh Woods early this morning, sir,” he announced. “She is staying to lunch with Lady Saxthorpe.”
Hamel stood quite still for a moment. Then he turned to the window. In the far distance he could catch a glimpse of the Tower. Mr. Fentolin’s chair had disappeared from the walk.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I must have made a mistake. I will hurry back.”
There were more questions which he was longing to ask, but the cold negativeness of her manner chilled him. She sat with her fingers poised over the keys, waiting for his departure. He turned and left the room.
Mr. Fentolin, his carriage drawn up close to the beach, was painting steadily when Hamel stood once more by his side. His eyes moved only from the sea to the canvas. He never turned his head.
“So your wooing has not prospered, my young friend,” he remarked gently. “I am sorry. Is there anything I can do?”
“Your niece has gone out to lunch,” Hamel replied shortly.
Mr. Fentolin stopped painting. His face was full of concern as he looked up at Hamel.
“My dear sir,” he exclaimed, “how can I apologise! Of course she has gone out to lunch. She has gone out to Lady Saxthorpe’s. I remember the subject being discussed. I myself, in fact, was the instigator of her going. I owe you a thousand apologies, Mr. Hamel. Let me make what amends are possible for your useless journey. Dine with us to-night.”
“You are very kind.”
“A poor amends,” Mr. Fentolin continued. “A morning like this was made for lovers. Sunshine and blue sky, a salt breeze flavoured just a little with that lavender, and a stroll through my spring gardens, where my hyacinths are like a field of purple and gold, a mantle of jewels upon the brown earth. Ah, well! One’s thoughts will wander to the beautiful things of life. There were once women who loved me, Mr. Hamel.”
Hamel looked doubtfully at the strange little figure in the chair. Was this genuine, he wondered, a voluntary outburst, or was it some subtle attempt to incite sympathy? Mr. Fentolin seemed almost to have read his thought.
“It is not for the sake of your pity that I say this,” he continued. “Mine is only the passing across the line which age as well as infirmity makes inevitable. No one in the world who lives to grow old, and who has loved and felt the fire of it in his veins, can pass that line without sorrow, or look back without a pang. I am among a great army. Well, well, I shall paint no more to-day,” he concluded abruptly.
“Where is your servant?” Hamel asked.
Mr. Fentolin glanced around him carelessly.
“He has wandered away out of sight. He knows well how necessary solitude is to me if once I take the brush between my fingers—solitude natural and entire, I mean. If any one is within a dozen yards of me I know it, even though I cannot see them. Meekins is wandering somewhere the other side of the Tower.”
“Shall I call him?”
“On no account,” Mr. Fentolin begged. “Presently he will appear, in plenty of time. There is the morning to be passed—barely eleven o’clock, I think, now. I shall sit in my chair, and sink a little down, and dream of these beautiful lights, these rolling, foam-flecked waves, these patches of blue and shifting green. I can form them in my brain. I can make a picture there, even though my fingers refuse to move. You are not an aesthete, I think, Mr. Hamel? The study of beauty does not mean to you what it did to your father, and my father, and, in a smaller way to me.”
“Perhaps not,” Hamel confessed. “I believe I feel these things somewhere, because they bring a queer sense of content with them. I am afraid, though, that my artistic perceptions are not so keen as some men’s.”
Mr. Fentolin looked at him thoughtfully.
“It is the physical life in your veins—too splendid to permit you abstract pleasures. Compensations again, you see—compensations. I wonder what the law is that governs these things. I have forgotten sometimes,” he went on, “forgotten my own infirmities in the soft intoxication of a wonderful seascape. Only,” he went on, his face a little grey, “it is the physical in life which triumphs. There are the hungry hours which nothing will satisfy.”
His head sank, his chin rested upon his chest. He had all the appearance now of a man who talks in bitter earnest. Yet Hamel wondered. He looked towards the Tower; there was no sign of Meekins. The sea-gulls went screaming above their heads. Mr. Fentolin never moved. His eyes seemed half closed. It was only when Hamel rose to his feet that he looked swiftly up.
“Stay with me, I beg you, Mr. Hamel,” he said. “I am in one of the moods when solitude, even for a moment, is dangerous. Do you know what I have sometimes thought to myself?”
He pointed to the planked way which led down the steep, pebbly beach to the sea.
“I have sometimes thought,” he went on, “that it would be glorious to find a friend to stand by my side at the top of the planks, just there, when the tide was high, and to bid him loose my chair and to steer it myself, to steer it down the narrow path into the arms of the sea. The first touch of the salt waves, the last touch of life. Why not? One sleeps without fear.”
He lifted his head suddenly. Meekins had appeared, coming round from the back of the Tower. Instantly Mr. Fentolin’s whole manner changed. He sat up in his chair.
“It is arranged, then,” he said. “You dine with us to-night. For the other matters of which you have spoken, well, let them rest in the hands of the gods. You are not very kind to me. I am not sure whether you would make Esther a good husband. I am not sure, even, that I like you. You take no pains to make yourself agreeable. Considering that your father was an artist, you seem to me rather a dull and uninspired young man. But who can tell? There may be things stirring beneath that torpid brain of yours of which no other person knows save yourself.”
The concentrated gaze of Mr. Fentolin’s keen eyes was hard to meet, but Hamel came out of the ordeal without flinching.
“At eight o’clock, Mr. Fentolin,” he answered. “I can see that I must try to earn your better opinion.”
Hamel read steadily for the remainder of the morning. It was past one o’clock when he rose stiffly from his seat among the sand knolls and, strolling back to the Tower, opened the door and entered. The cloth was laid for luncheon in the little sitting-room, but there were no signs of Hannah Cox. He passed on into the kitchen and came to a sudden standstill. Once more the memory of his own work passed away from him. Once more he was back again among that queer, clouded tangle of strange suspicions, of thrilling, half-formed fears, which had assailed him at times ever since his arrival at St, David’s. He stopped quite short. The words which rose to his lips died away. He felt the breathless, compelling need for silence and grew tense in the effort to make no sound.
Hannah Cox was kneeling on the stone floor. Her ear was close to the crack of the door which led into the boat-house. Her face, half turned from it, was set in a strange, concentrated passion of listening; her lips were parted, her eyes half closed. She took no more notice of Hamel or his arrival than if he had been some useless piece of furniture. Every faculty seemed to be absorbed in that one intense effort of listening. There was no need of her out-stretched finger. Hamel fell in at once with a mood so mesmeric. He, too, listened. The small clock which she had brought with her from the village ticked away upon the mantelpiece. The full sea fell with placid softness upon the high beach outside. Some slight noise of cooking came from the stove. Save for these things there was silence. Yet, for a space of time which Hamel could never have measured, they both listened. When at last the woman rose to her feet, Hamel, finding words at last, was surprised to find that his throat was dry.
“What is it, Mrs. Cox?” he asked. “Why were you listening there?”
Her face was absolutely expressionless. She was busying herself now with a small saucepan, and her back was turned towards him.
“I spend my life, sir,” she said, “listening and waiting. One never knows when the end may come.”
“But the boat-house,” Hamel objected. “No one has been in there his morning, have they?”
“Who can tell?” she answered. “He could go anywhere when he chose, or how he chose—through the keyhole, if he wanted.”
“But why listen?” Hamel persisted. “There is nothing in there now but some odds and ends of machinery.”
She turned from the fire and looked at him for a moment. Her eyes were colourless, her tone unemotional.
“Maybe! There’s no harm in listening.”
“Did you hear anything which made you want to listen?”
“Who can tell?” she answered. “A woman who lives well-nigh alone, as I live, in a quiet place, hears things so often that other folk never listen to. There’s always something in my ears, night or day. Sometimes I am not sure whether it’s in this world or the other. It was like that with me just then. It was for that reason I listened. Your luncheon’s ready, sir.”
Hamel walked thoughtfully back into his sitting-room. He seated himself before a spotless cloth and watched Hannah Cox spread out his well-cooked, cleanly-served meal.
“If there’s anything you want, sir,” she said, “I shall hear you at a word. The kitchen door is open.”
“One moment, Mrs. Cox.”
She lingered there patiently, with the tray in her hand.
“There was some sound,” Hamel continued, “perhaps a real sound, perhaps a fancy, which made you go down on your knees in the kitchen. Tell me what it was.”
“The sound I always hear, sir,” she answered quietly. “I hear it in the night, and I hear it when I stand by the sea and look out. I have heard it for so many years that who can tell whether it comes from this world or the other—the cry of men who die!”
She passed out. Hamel looked after her, for a moment, like a man in a dream. In his fancy he could see her back again once more in the kitchen, kneeling on the stone floor,—listening!
A cold twilight had fallen upon the land when Hamel left the Tower that evening and walked briskly along the foot-way to the Hall. Little patches of mist hung over the creeks, the sky was almost frosty. The lights from St. David’s Hall shone like cheerful beacons before him. He hastened up the stone steps, crossed the terrace, and passed into the hall. A servant conducted him at once to the drawing-room. Mrs. Fentolin, in a pink evening dress, with a pink ornament in her hair, held out both her hands. In the background, Mr. Fentolin, in his queerly-cut evening clothes, sat with folded arms, leaning back in his carriage. He listened grimly to his sister-in-law as she stood with Hamel’s hands in hers.
“My dear Mr. Hamel!” she exclaimed. “How perfectly charming of you to come up and relieve a little our sad loneliness! Delightful, I call it, of you. I was just saying so to Miles.”
Hamel looked around the room. Already his heart was beginning to sink.
“Miss Fentolin is well, I hope?” he asked.
“Well, but a very naughty girl,” her mother declared. “I let her go to Lady Saxthorpe’s to lunch, and now we have had simply the firmest letter from Lady Saxthorpe. They insist upon keeping Esther to dine and sleep. I have had to send her evening clothes, but you can’t tell, Mr. Hamel, how I miss her.”
Hamel’s disappointment was a little too obvious to pass unnoticed. There was a shade of annoyance, too, in his face. Mr. Fentolin smoothly intervened.
“Let us be quite candid with Mr. Hamel, dear Florence,” he begged. “I have spoken to my sister-in-law and told her the substance of our conversation this morning,” he proceeded, wheeling his chair nearer to Hamel. “She is thunderstruck. She wishes to reflect, to consider. Esther chanced to be away. We have encouraged her absence for a few more hours.”
“I hope, Mrs. Fentolin,” Hamel said simply, “that you will give her to me. I am not a rich man, but I am fairly well off. I should be willing to live exactly where Esther wishes, and I would do my best to make her happy.”
Mrs. Fentolin opened her lips once and closed them again. She laughed a little—a high-pitched, semi-hysterical laugh. The hand which gripped her fan was straining so that the blue veins stood out almost like whipcord.
“Esther is very young, Mr. Hamel. We must talk this over. You have known her for such a very short time.”
A servant announced dinner, and Hamel offered his arm to his hostess.
“Is Gerald away, too?” he asked.
“We do indeed owe you our apologies,” Mr. Fentolin declared. “Gerald is spending a couple of days at the Dormy House at Brancaster—a golf arrangement made some time back.”
“He promised to play with me to-morrow,” Hamel remarked thoughtfully. “He said nothing about going away.”
“I fear that like most young men of his age he has little memory,” Mr. Fentolin sighed. “However, he will be back to-morrow or the next day. I owe you my apologies, Mr. Hamel, for our lack of young people. We must do our best to entertain our guest, Florence. You must be at your best, dear. You must tell him some of those capital stories of yours.”
Mrs. Fentolin shivered for a moment. Hamel, as he handed her to her place, was struck by a strange look which she threw upon him, half furtive, full of pain. Her hand almost clung to his. She slipped a little, and he held her tightly. Then he was suddenly conscious that something hard was being pressed into his palm. He drew his hand away at once.
“You seem a little unsteady this evening, my dear Florence,” Mr. Fentolin remarked, peering across the round table.
She eyed him nonchalantly enough.
“The floor is slippery,” she said. “I was glad, for a moment, of Mr. Hamel’s strong hand. Where are those dear puppies? Chow-Chow,” she went on, “come and sit by your mistress at once.”
Hamel’s fingers inside his waistcoat pocket were smoothing out the crumpled piece of paper which she had passed to him. Soon he had it quite flat. Mrs. Fentolin, as though freed from some anxiety, chattered away gaily.
“I don’t know that I shall apologise to Mr. Hamel at all for the young people being away,” she declared. “Just fancy what we have saved him from—a solitary meal served by Hannah Cox! Do you know that they say she is half-witted, Mr. Hamel?”
“So far, she has looked after me very well,” Hamel observed.
“Her intellect is defective,” Mr. Fentolin remarked, “on one point only. The good woman is obsessed by the idea that her husband and sons are still calling to her from the Dagger Rocks. It is almost pitiful to meet her wandering about there on a stormy night. The seacoasts are full of these little village tragedies—real tragedies, too, however insignificant they may seem to us.”
Mr. Fentolin’s tone was gently sympathetic. He changed the subject a moment or two later, however.
“Nero fiddles to-night,” he said, “while Rome burns. There are hundreds in our position, yet it certainly seems queer that we should be sitting here so quietly when the whole country is in such a state of excitement. I see the press this morning is preaching an immediate declaration of war.”
“Against whom?” Mrs. Fentolin asked.
Mr. Fentolin smiled.
“That does seem to be rather the trouble,” he admitted. “Russia, Austria, Germany, Italy, and France are all assisting at a Conference to which no English representative has been bidden. In a sense, of course, that is equivalent to an act of hostility from all these countries towards England. The question is whether we have or have not a secret understanding with France, and if so, how far she will be bound by it. There is a rumour that when Monsieur Deschelles was asked formally whom he represented, that he replied—‘France and Great Britain.’ There may be something in it. It is hard to see how any English statesman could have left unguarded the Mediterranean, with all that it means, trusting simply to the faith of a country with whom we have no binding agreement. On the other hand, there is the mobilisation of the fleet. If France is really faithful, one wonders if there was need for such an extreme step.”
“I am out of touch with political affairs,” Hamel declared. “I have been away from England for so long.”
“I, on the other hand,” Mr. Fentolin continued, his eyes glittering a little, “have made the study of the political situation in Europe my hobby for years. I have sent to me the leading newspapers of Berlin, Rome, Paris, St. Petersburg, and Vienna. For two hours every day I read them, side by side. It is curious sometimes to note the common understanding which seems to exist between the Powers not bound by any formal alliance. For years war seemed a very unlikely thing, and now,” he added, leaning forward in his chair, “I pronounce it almost a certainty.”
Hamel looked at his host a little curiously. Mr. Fentolin’s gentleness of expression seemed to have departed. His face was hard, his eyes agleam. He had almost the look of a bird of prey. For some reason, the thought of war seemed to be a joy to him. Perhaps he read something of Hamel’s wonder in his expression, for with a shrug of the shoulders he dismissed the subject.
“Well,” he concluded, “all these things lie on the knees of the gods. I dare say you wonder, Mr. Hamel, why a poor useless creature like myself should take the slightest interest in passing events? It is just the fascination of the looker-on. I want your opinion about that champagne. Florence dear, you must join us. We will drink to Mr. Hamel’s health. We will perhaps couple that toast in our minds with the sentiment which I am sure is not very far from your thoughts, Florence.”
Hamel raised his glass and bowed to his host and hostess. He was not wholly at his ease. It seemed to him that he was being watched with a queer persistence by both of them. Mrs. Fentolin continued to talk and laugh with a gaiety which was too obviously forced. Mr. Fentolin posed for a while as the benevolent listener. He mildly applauded his sister-in-law’s stories, and encouraged Hamel in the recital of some of his reminiscences. Suddenly the door was opened. Miss Price appeared. She walked smoothly across the room and stood by Mr. Fentolin’s side. Stooping down, she whispered in his ear. He pushed his chair back a little from the table. His face was dark with anger.
“I said not before ten to-night,” he muttered.
Again she spoke in his ear, so softly that the sound of her voice itself scarcely travelled even as far as where Hamel was sitting. Mr. Fentolin looked steadfastly for a moment at his sister-in-law and from her to Hamel. Then he backed his chair away front the table.
“I shall have to ask to be excused for three minutes,” he said. “I must speak upon the telephone. It is a call from some one who declares that they have important news.”
He turned the steering-wheel of his chair, and with Miss Price by his side passed across the dining-room, out of the Oasis of rose-shaded lights into the shadows, and through the open door. From there he turned his head before he disappeared, as though to watch his guest. Mrs. Fentolin was busy fondling one of her dogs, which she had raised to her lap, and Hamel was watching her with a tolerant smile.
“Koto, you little idiot, why can’t you sit up like your sister? Was its tail in the way, then! Mr. Hamel,” she whispered under her breath, so softly that he barely caught the words, although he was only a few feet away, “don’t look at me. I feel as though we were being watched all the time. You can destroy that piece of paper in your pocket. All that it says is ‘Leave here immediately after dinner.’”
Hamel sipped his wine in a nonchalant fashion. His fingers had strayed over the silky coat of the little dog, which she had held out as though for his inspection.
“How can I?” he asked. “What excuse can I make?”
“Invent one,” she insisted swiftly. “Leave here before ten o’clock. Don’t let anything keep you. And destroy that piece of paper in your pocket, if you can—now.”
“But, Mrs. Fentolin—” he began.
She caught up one of her absurd little pets and held it to her mouth.
“Meekins is in the doorway,” she whispered.
“Don’t argue with me, please. You are in danger you know nothing about. Pass me the cigarettes.”
She leaned back in her chair, smoking quickly. She held one of the dogs on her knee and talked rubbish to it. Hamel watched her, leaning back in his carved oak chair, and he found it hard to keep the pity from his eyes. The woman was playing a part, playing it with desperate and pitiful earnestness, a part which seemed the more tragical because of the soft splendour of their surroundings. From the shadowy walls, huge, dimly-seen pictures hung about them, a strange and yet impressive background. Their small round dining-table, with its rare cut glass, its perfect appointments, its bowls of pink roses, was like a spot of wonderful colour in the great room. Two men servants stood at the sideboard a few yards away, a triumph of negativeness. The butler, who had been absent for a moment, stood now silently waiting behind his master’s place. Hamel was oppressed, during those few minutes of waiting, by a curious sense of unreality, as though he were taking part in some strange tableau. There was something unreal about his surroundings and his own presence there; something unreal in the atmosphere, charged as it seemed to be with some omen of impending happenings; something unreal in that whispered warning, those few hoarsely uttered words which had stolen to his hearing across the clusters of drooping roses; the absurd babble of the woman, who sat there with tragic things under the powder with which her face was daubed.
“Koto must learn to sit upon his tail—like that. No, not another grape till he sits up. There, then!”
She was leaning forward with a grape between her teeth, towards the tiny animal who was trying in vain to balance his absurdly shaped little body upon the tablecloth. Hamel, without looking around, knew quite well what was happening. Soon he heard the click of the chair. Mr. Fentolin was back in his place. His skin seemed paler and more parchment-like than ever. His eyes glittered.
“It seems,” he announced quietly, as he raised his wine-glass to his lips with the air of one needing support, “that we entertained an angel unawares here. This Mr. Dunster is lost for the second time. A very important personage he turns out to be.”
“You mean the American whom Gerald brought home after the accident?” Mrs. Fentolin asked carelessly.
Mr. Fentolin replied. “He insisted upon continuing his journey before he was strong enough. I warned him of what might happen. He has evidently been take ill somewhere. It seems that he was on his way to The Hague.”
“Do you mean that he has disappeared altogether this time?” Hamel asked.
Mr. Fentolin shook his head.
“No, he has found his way to The Hague safely enough. He is lying there at a hotel in the city, but he is unconscious. There is some talk about his having been robbed on the way. At any rate, they are tracing his movements backwards. We are to be honoured with a visit from one of Scotland Yard’s detectives, to reconstruct his journey from here. Our quiet little corner of the world is becoming quite notorious. Florence dear, you are tired. I can see it in your eyes. Your headache continues, I am sure. We will not be selfish. Mr. Hamel and I are going to have a long evening in the library. Let me recommend a phenacetin and bed.”
She rose at once to her feet, with a dog under either arm.
“I’ll take the phenacetin,” she promised, “but I hate going to bed early. Shall I see you again, I wonder, Mr. Hamel?”
“Not this evening, I fear,” he answered. “I am going to ask Mr. Fentolin to excuse me early.”
She passed out of the room. Hamel escorted her as far as the door and then returned. Mr. Fentolin was sitting quite still in his chair. His eyes were fixed upon the tablecloth. He looked up quickly as Hamel resumed his seat.
“You are not in earnest, I hope, Mr. Hamel,” he said, “when you tell me that you must leave early? I have been anticipating a long evening. My library is filled with books on South America which I want to discuss with you.”
“Another evening, if you don’t mind,” Hamel begged. “To-night I must ask you to excuse my hurrying away.”
Mr. Fentolin looked up from underneath his eyelids. His glance was quick and penetrating.
“Why this haste?”
Hamel shrugged his shoulders.
“To tell you the truth,” he admitted, “I had an idea while I was reading an article on cantilever bridges this morning. I want to work it out.”
Mr. Fentolin glanced behind him. The door of the dining-room was closed. The servants had disappeared. Meekins alone, looking more like a prize fighter than ever in his somber evening clothes, had taken the place of the butler behind his master’s chair.
“We shall see,” Mr. Fentolin said quietly.