"But I"m spoiling your evening. Why not go back?"
"Go back?"
"Yes--go back to Beryl?"
He stiffened, and the hard look came into his face. She saw his jaw quiver slightly.
"To Miss Van Tuyn? But she is with someone."
"But she asked you!"
"She asked both of us. I shall certainly not go back alone."
"Really, I wish you would! Go back and--and see Beryl home."
He looked at her in astonishment.
"Oh, I couldn"t possibly do that! There was no suggestion--I couldn"t do that, really. I wonder you ask me to. Well--"
She took her hand away from the door and he shut it. But he remained beside it--did not give the chauffeur her address.
"Why won"t you let me take you back?" he said. "I don"t understand."
She smiled, and he thought it was the saddest smile he had ever seen.
"One is only a bore to others when one is ill," she said. "Good-bye.
Tell the man, please."
He obeyed her, then took off his hat. His face was grim and perplexed.
As she was driven away in the night she gave him a strange look; tragic and pleading, he thought, a look that almost frightened him, that sent a shiver through him.
"Is she horribly ill?" he asked himself. "What can it be? Perhaps she did go to Switzerland to see a doctor. Perhaps . . . can he have condemned her to death?"
He shivered again. The expression of her eyes haunted him.
He stood for a moment at the street corner, pondering over her words.
What could have induced her to ask him to go back to Beryl Van Tuyn, to see Beryl Van Tuyn home? She wanted him to interfere between Miss Van Tuyn and that man, Nicolas Arabian! She tried metaphorically to push him towards Miss Van Tuyn. It was inexplicable. Lady Sellingworth was a woman of the world, past mistress of all the _convenances_, one in whom any breach of good manners was impossible, unthinkable! And yet she had asked him to go back to the restaurant, and to thrust himself into the company of a girl and a man who were dining by themselves. She had even asked him, a young fellow, certainly younger than Beryl Van Tuyn"s escort, to play the part of chaperon to the girl!
Did she--could she know something about Arabian?
Certainly she did not know him. In the restaurant she had inquired who he was. But, later, she had said that his profile seemed familiar to her, that perhaps she had seen him about London. Her departure from the restaurant had been strangely abrupt. Perhaps--could she have recognized Arabian after he, Craven, had left her alone and had gone to speak to Miss Van Tuyn? The man looked a wrong "un. Craven felt certain he was a wrong "un. But if so, surely Lady Sellingworth could not know him, or even know anything about him. There was something so remote and distinguished about her life, her solitary, retired life. She did not come in contact with such people.
"Get you a kib, gentleman?" said a soft c.o.c.kney voice in Craven"s ear.
He started, and walked on quickly. In Lady Sellingworth"s conduct that night, in the last look she had given him, there was mystery. He was quite unable to fathom it, and he went home to his flat in the greatest perplexity, and feeling very uneasy.
When Murgatroyd opened the door to his mistress it was not much after nine, and he was surprised to see her back so early and alone.
"Tea, please, Murgatroyd!" she said.
"Yes, my lady."
She pa.s.sed by him and ascended the big staircase. He heard her go into the drawing-room and shut the door.
When, a few minutes later, he brought in the tea, she was standing by the fire. She had taken off her big hat and laid it on a table.
"I shall want nothing more. Good night."
"Good night, my lady."
He went towards the door. When he was just going out he heard her say, "Murgatroyd!" and turned.
"My lady!"
"Please let Cecile know I shan"t want her to-night. She is not to sit up for me. I"ll manage for myself."
"Yes, my lady."
"Make it quite understood, please."
"Certainly, my lady."
He went out and shut the door.
When she was quite alone Lady Sellingworth stood for several minutes by the fire quite still, with her head bent down and her hands folded together. Then she went to the tea table, poured out a cup of tea, sat down and sipped it slowly, looking into vacancy with the eyes of one whose real gaze was turned inwards upon herself. She finished the tea, sat still for a little while, then got up, went to the writing-table, sat before it, took a pen and a sheet of note-paper, and began slowly to write.
She wrote first at the top of the sheet in the left-hand corner, "Strictly private," and underlined the words. Then she wrote:
"DEAR BERYL,--Please consider this letter absolutely private and personal. I rely on your never speaking of it to anyone, and I ask you to burn it directly you have read it. Although I hate more than anything else interfering in the private affairs of another, I feel that it is my absolute duty to send this to you. I am a very much older woman than you--indeed, almost an old woman. I know the world very well--too well--and I feel I can ask you to trust me when I give you a piece of advice, however unpleasant it may seem at the moment. You were dining to-night alone with a man who is totally unfit to be your companion, or the companion of any decent woman. I cannot explain to you how I know this, nor can I tell you why he is unfit to be in any reputable company.
But I solemnly a.s.sure you--I give you my word--that I am telling you the truth. That man is a blackguard in the full acceptation of the word. I believe you met him by chance in a studio. I am quite positive that you know nothing whatever about him. I do. I know--"
She hesitated, leaning over the paper with the pen lifted, frowning painfully and with a look of fear in her eyes. Then her face hardened in an expression of white resolution, and she wrote:
"I know that he ought to be in prison. He is beyond the pale. You must never be seen with him again. I have said nothing of this to anyone. Mr.
Craven has not a suspicion of it. Nor has anyone else whom we know. Drop that man at once. I don"t think he will ask you for your reason. His not doing so will help to prove to you that I am telling you the truth.--Yours sincerely,
"ADELA SELLINGWORTH."
When she had finished this letter Lady Sellingworth read it over carefully twice, then put it into an envelope and wrote on the envelope Beryl"s address, and in the corner "strictly private." But having done this she did not fasten the envelope, though she lit a red candle that was on the table and took up a stick of sealing-wax. Again hesitation seized her.
The written word remains. Might it not be very dangerous to send this letter? Suppose Beryl did show it to that man who called himself Nicolas Arabian? He might--it was improbable, but he might--bring an action for libel against the writer. Lady Sellingworth sickened as she thought of that, and rapidly she imagined a hideous scandal, all London talking of her, the Law Courts, herself in the witness-box, cross-examination. What evidence could she give to prove that the accusation she had written was true?
But surely Beryl would not show the letter. It would be dishonourable to show it, and though she could be very cruel Lady Sellingworth did not believe that Beryl was a dishonourable girl. But if she was in love with that man? If she was under his influence? Women in love, women under a spell, are capable of doing extraordinary things. Lady Sellingworth knew that only too well. She remembered her own madnesses, the madnesses of women she had known, women of the "old guard." And Arabian had fascination. She had felt it long ago. And Beryl was young and had wildness in her.