"Mr. Vanrenen gives no details," she said at last, and seldom, indeed, did "Mr. Vanrenen" replace "father" in her speech. "Perhaps he was writing against time, though he might have told me less about the post and more of Mrs. Leland. Anyhow, he has a fine Italian hand in some things, and may be this is one of them.... But I must telegraph at once."
Medenham roused himself to set forth British idiosyncrasies on the question of Sunday labor. He remembered the telephone, however, and Cynthia went off to try and get in touch with the Savoy Hotel. He withdrew a little way, and began to smoke a reflective cigar, for he knew now who Mrs. Leland was. In twenty minutes or less Cynthia came to him. It was difficult to account for her obvious perplexity, though he could have revealed some of its secret springs readily enough.
"I"m sorry I shall not be able to take that walk, Mr. Fitzroy," she said, frankly recognizing the tacit pact between them. "We have a long day before us to-morrow, and we must make Chester in good time, as Mrs. Leland is coming alone from London. Meanwhile, I must attend to my correspondence."
"Ah. You have spoken to Mr. Vanrenen, then?"
"No. He was not in the hotel, but he left a message for me, knowing that I was more likely to "phone than wire."
She was troubled, disturbed, somewhat resentful of this unforeseen change in the programme arranged for the next few days. Medenham could have chosen no more unhappy moment for what he had to say, but during those twenty minutes of reflection a definite line of action had been forced upon him, and he meant to follow it to the only logical end.
"I am glad now that I mentioned my own little difficulty at Hereford,"
he said. "Since alterations are to be the order of the day at Chester, will you allow me to provide another driver for the Mercury there? You will retain the car, of course, but my place can be taken by a trustworthy man who understands it quite as well as I do."
"You mean that you are dropping out of the tour, then?"
"Yes."
She shot one indignant glance at his impa.s.sive face, for he held in rigid control the fire that was consuming him.
"Rather a sudden resolve on your part, isn"t it? What earthly difference does the presence of another lady in our party make?"
"I have been thinking matters over," he said doggedly. "Would you mind reading my father"s letter?"
He held out the note received at the Green Dragon, but she ignored it.
"I take it for granted that you have the best of reasons for wishing to go," she murmured.
"Please oblige me by reading it," he persisted.
Perhaps, despite all his self-restraint, some hint of the wild longing in his heart to tell her once and for all that no power under that of the Almighty should tear him from her side moved her to relent. She took the letter, and began to read.
"Why," she cried, "this was written at Hereford?"
"Yes. My father waited there all night. He left for town only a few minutes before I entered the hotel this morning."
She read with puzzled brows, smiled a little at "Your aunt is making a devil of a fuss," and pa.s.sed quite unheeded the solitary "F." in the signature.
"I think you ought to go to-day," she commented.
"Not because of any argument advanced there," he growled pa.s.sionately.
"But your aunt ... she is making a--a fuss. One has to conciliate aunts at times."
"My aunt is really a most estimable person. I promise myself some amus.e.m.e.nt when she explains the origin of the "fuss" to you."
"To me?"
"Yes. Have I not your permission to bring her to see you in London?"
"Something was said about that."
"May I add that I hope to make Mr. Vanrenen"s acquaintance on Tuesday?"
She looked at him in rather a startled way.
"Are you going to call and see my father?" she asked.
"Yes."
"But--why, exactly?"
"In the first place, to give him news of your well-being. Letters are good, but the living messenger is better. Secondly, I want to find out just why he traveled from Paris to London yesterday."
The air was electric between them. Each knew that the other was striving to cloak emotions that threatened at any moment to throw off the last vestige of concealment.
"My father is a very clever man, Mr. Fitzroy," she said slowly. "If he did not choose to tell you why he did a thing, you could no more extract the information from him than from a bit of marble."
"He has one weak point, I am sure," and Medenham smiled confidently into her eyes.
"I do not know it," she murmured.
"But I know it, though I have never seen him. He is vulnerable through his daughter."
Her cheeks flamed into scarlet, and her lips trembled, but she strove valiantly to govern her voice.
"You must be very careful in anything you say about me," she said with a praiseworthy attempt at light raillery.
"I shall be careful with the care of a man who has discovered some rare jewel, and fears lest each shadow should conceal an enemy till he has reached a place of utmost security."
She sighed, and her glance wandered away into the sun-drowned valley.
"Such fortresses are rare and hard to find," she said. "Take my own case. I was really enjoying this pleasant tour of ours, yet it is broken in two, as it were, by some force beyond our control, and the severance makes itself felt here, in this secluded nook, a retreat not even marked on our self-drawn map. Where could one be more secure--as you put it--less open to that surge of events that drives resistlessly into new seas? I am something of a fatalist, Mr. Fitzroy, though the phrase sounds strange on my lips. Yet I feel that after to-morrow we shall not meet again so soon or so easily as you imagine, and--if I may venture to advise one much more experienced than myself--the way that leads least hopefully to my speedy introduction to your aunt is that you should see my father, before I rejoin him. You know, I am sure, that I look on you rather as a friend than a mere--a mere----"
"Slave," he suggested, trying to wrench some spark of humor out of the iron in their souls.
"Don"t be stupid. I mean that you and I have met on an equality that I would deny to Simmonds or to any of the dozen chauffeurs we have employed in various parts of the world. And I want to warn you of this--knowing my father as well as I do--I am certain he has asked Mrs. Leland"s help for the undertaking that others have failed in.
I--can"t say more. I----"
"Cynthia, dear! I have been looking for you everywhere," cried a detested voice. "Ah, there you are, Mr. Fitzroy!" and Mrs. Devar bustled forward cheerfully. "You have been to Hereford, I hear. How kind and thoughtful of you! Were there any letters for me?"
"Sorry," broke in Cynthia. "I was so absorbed in my own news that I forget yours. Here is your letter. It is only from Monsieur Marigny, to blow both of us up, I suppose, for leaving him desolate last night.
But what do you think of _my_ budget? My father is in London; Mrs.
Leland, a friend of ours, joins us at Chester to-morrow; and Fitzroy deserts us at the same time."
Mrs. Devar"s eyes bulged and her lower jaw fell a little. She could hardly have exhibited more significant tokens of alarm had each of Cynthia"s unwelcome statements been punctuated by the crash of artillery fired in the garden beneath.
During a long night and a weary morning she had labored hard at the building of a new castle in Spain, and now it was dissipated at a breath. Her sky had fallen; she was plunged into chaos; her brain reeled under these successive shocks.