Jack was indifferent to women, and wont to boast that none could enslave him, but the sight of this fair young English maiden, if it did not weaken the citadel of his heart, at least made that organ beat a trifle faster. He shot one look of bold admiration, then turned and bent to the oars.
"I don"t know when I have seen so lovely a face," he thought. "I wonder who she is."
The steamer glided by, and the next moment Jack was nearly opposite to the canoe. What happened then was swift and unexpected. Above the splash of the revolving paddles he heard hoa.r.s.e shouts and warning cries. He saw green waves approaching, flung up in the wake of the pa.s.sing vessel.
As he dropped the oars and leapt anxiously to his feet the frail canoe, unfitted to encounter such a peril, was clutched and lifted broadside by the foaming swell. Over it went instantly, and there was a flash of red and blue as the girl was flung headfirst into the river.
As quickly Jack clasped his hands and dived from his boat. He came to the top and swam forward with desperate strokes. He saw the upturned canoe, the floating paddle, the half-submerged Tam-o"-Shanter. Then a ma.s.s of dripping golden hair cleft the surface, only to sink at once.
But Jack had marked the spot, and, taking a full breath, he dived. To the onlookers the interval seemed painfully long, and a hundred cheering voices rent the air as the young artist rose to view, keeping himself afloat with one arm, while the other supported the girl. She was conscious, but badly scared and disposed to struggle.
"Be quite still," Jack said, sharply. "You are in no danger--I will save you if you trust me."
The girl obeyed, looking into Jack"s eyes with a calmer expression. The steamer had stopped, and half a dozen row-boats were approaching from different directions. A grizzled waterman and his companion picked up the two and pulled them across to Strand-on-the-Green. Others followed towing Jack"s boat and the canoe, and the big steamer proceeded on her way to Kew Pier.
The Black Bull, close by the railway bridge, received the drenched couple, and the watermen were delighted by the gift of a sovereign. A motherly woman took the half-dazed girl upstairs, and Jack was led into the oak-panelled parlor of the old inn by the landlord, who promptly poured him out a little brandy, and then insisted on his having a change of clothing.
"Thank you; I fear I must accept your offer," said Jack. "But I hope you will attend to the young lady first. Your wife seemed to know her."
"Quite well, sir," was the reply. "Bless you, we all know Miss Madge Foster hereabouts. She lives yonder at the lower end of the Green--"
"Then she had better be taken home."
"I think this is the best place for her at present, sir. Her father is in town, and there is only an old servant."
"You are quite right," said Jack. "I suppose there is a doctor near by."
"There is, sir, and I will send for him at once," the landlord promised.
"If you will kindly step this way--"
At that moment there was a stir among the curious idlers who filled the entrance pa.s.sage of the inn. An authoritative voice opened a way between them, and a man pushed through to the parlor. His face changed color at the sight of Jack, who greeted him with a cry of astonishment.
CHAPTER III.
AN OLD FRIEND
There was gladness as well as surprise in Jack"s hearty exclamation, for the man who stood before him in the parlor of the Black Bull was his old friend Victor Nevill, little altered in five years, except for a heavier mustache that improved his dark and handsome face. To judge from appearances, he had not run through with all his money. He was daintily booted and gloved, and wore morning tweeds of perfect cut; a sprig of violets was thrust in his b.u.t.ton-hole. The two had not met since they parted in Paris on that memorable night, nor had they known of each other"s whereabouts.
"Nevill, old chap!" cried Jack, holding out a hand.
Nevill clasped it warmly; his momentary confusion had vanished.
"My dear Clare--" he began.
"Not that name," Jack interrupted, laughingly. "I"m called Vernon on this side of the Channel."
"What, John Vernon, the rising artist?"
"The same."
"It"s news to me. I congratulate you, old man. If I had known I would have looked you up long ago, but I lost all trace of you."
"That"s my case," said Jack. "I supposed you were still abroad. Been back long?"
"Yes, a couple of years."
"By Jove, it"s queer we didn"t meet before. Fancy you turning up here!"
"I stopped last night with a friend in Grove Park," Nevill answered, after a brief hesitation, "and feeling a bit seedy this morning, I came for a stroll along the river. I hear of a gallant rescue from the water, and, of course, you are the hero, Jack. Is the young lady all right?"
"I believe so."
"Do you know who she is?"
"Miss Madge Poster, sir," spoke up the landlord, "and I can a.s.sure you she was very nearly drowned--"
"Not so bad as that," modestly protested Jack.
Victor Nevill"s face had changed color again, and for a second there was a troubled look in his eyes. He spoke the girl"s name carelessly, then added in hurried tones:
"You must get into dry clothes at once, Jack, or you will be ill--"
"Just what I told him, sir," interrupted the landlord. "Young men _will_ be reckless."
"I am going back to town to keep an engagement," Nevill resumed. "Can I do anything for you?"
"If you will, old chap," Jack said gratefully. "Stop at my studio,"
giving him the address, "and send my man Alphonse here with a dry rig."
"I"ll go right away," replied Neville. "I can get a cab at Kew Bridge.
Come and see me, Jack. Here is my card. I put up in Jermyn street."
"And you know where to find me," said Jack. "I am seldom at home in the evenings, though."
A few more words, and Neville departed. Jack was prevailed upon by the landlord to go to an upper room, where he stripped off his drenched garments and rubbed himself dry, then putting on a suit of clothes belonging to his host. The latter brought the cheering news that Miss Foster had taken a hot draught and was sleeping peacefully, and that it would be quite unnecessary to send for a doctor.
A little later Alphonse and a cab arrived at the rear of the Black Bull, where there was a lane for vehicular traffic, and Jack once more changed his attire. He left his card and a polite message for the girl, pressed a substantial tip on the reluctant landlord, and was soon rattling homeward up Chiswick high-road, feeling none the worse for his wetting, but, on the contrary, gifted with a keen appet.i.te. He had sent his boat back to Maynard"s.
"What a pretty girl that was!" he reflected. "It"s the first time in five years I"ve given a serious thought to a woman. But I shall forget her as quickly--I am wedded to my art. It"s rather a fetching name, Madge Foster. Come to think of it, it was hardly the proper thing to leave my card. I suppose I will get a fervid letter of grat.i.tude from the girl"s father, or the two of them may even invade my studio. How could I have been so stupid?"
He ate a hearty lunch, and set to work diligently. But he could not keep his mind from the adventure of the morning, and he saw more frequently the face of the lovely young English girl, than that of the swarthy Moorish dancer he was doing in oils.
Those five years had made a different man of Jack Clare--had brought him financial prosperity, success in his art, and contentment with life. He was now twenty-seven, clean-shaven, and with the build of an athlete; and his attractive, well-cut features had fulfilled the promise of youth. But for six wretched months, after that bitter night when Diane fled from him, he had suffered acutely. In vain his friends, none of whom could give him any clew to his betrayer, sought to comfort him; in vain he searched for trace of tidings of his wife, for her faithlessness had not utterly crushed his love, and the recollections of the first months of his marriage were very sweet to him. The chains with which the dancer of the Folies Bergere bound him had been strong; his hot youth had fallen victim to the charms of a face and figure that would have enslaved more experienced men.
But the healing power of time works wonders, and in the spring of the succeeding year, when Paris burst into leaf and blossom, Jack began to take a fresh interest in life, and to realize with a feeling little short of satisfaction that Diane"s desertion was all for the best, and that he was well rid of a woman who must ultimately have dragged him down to her own level. The sale of his mother"s London residence, a narrow little house in Bayswater, put him in possession of a fairly large sum of money. He left Paris with his friend Jimmie Drexell, and the two spent a year in Italy, Holland and Algeria, doing pretty hard work in the way of sketching. Jack returned to Paris quite cured, and with a determination to win success in his calling. He saw Drexell off for his home in New York, and then he packed up his belongings--they had been under lock and key in a room of the house on the Boulevard St.