"Yaas; that"s why I use him."
"And edged tools may cut the user"s fingers."
[Ill.u.s.tration: YAH DON"T CATCH ME GOING SO FAH FROM NEWMARKET.]
"Not mine," he answered, taking out a cigarette. "Oh deah no. He can"t turn against _me_. He wouldn"t dare to. Yah see, I have the fellah entirely in my powah. I know all his little games, and I can expose him any day. But it suits me to keep him. I don"t mind telling yah, since I respect your intellect, that he and I are engaged in pulling off a big _coup_ togethah. If it were not for that, I wouldn"t be heah. Yah don"t catch me going away so fah from Newmarket and the Empire for nothing."
"I judged as much," I answered. And then I was silent.
But I wondered to myself why the neutral-tinted young man should be so communicative to an obviously hostile stranger.
For the next few days it amused me to see how hard our lordling tried to suit his conversation to myself and Elsie. He was absurdly anxious to humour us. Just at first, it is true, he had discussed the subjects that lay nearest to his own heart. He was an ardent votary of the n.o.ble quadruped; and he loved the turf--whose sward, we judged, he trod mainly at Tattersall"s. He spoke to us with erudition on "two-year-old form,"
and gave us several "safe things" for the spring handicaps. The Oaks he considered "a moral" for Clorinda. He also retailed certain choice anecdotes about ladies whose Christian names were chiefly Tottie and Flo, and whose honoured surnames have escaped my memory. Most of them flourished, I recollect, at the Frivolity Music Hall. But when he learned that our interest in the n.o.ble quadruped was scarcely more than tepid, and that we had never even visited "the Friv.," as he affectionately called it, he did his best in turn to acquire our subjects. He had heard us talk about Florence, for example, and he gathered from our talk that we loved its art treasures. So he set himself to work to be studiously artistic. It was a beautiful study in human inept.i.tude. "Ah, yaas," he, murmured, turning up the pale blue eyes ecstatically towards the mast-head. "Chawming place, Florence! I dote on the pickchahs. I know them all by heart. I a.s.suah yah, I"ve spent houahs and houahs feeding my soul in the galleries."
"And what particular painter does your soul most feed upon?" I asked bluntly, with a smile.
The question staggered him. I could see him hunting through the vacant chambers of his brain for a Florentine painter. Then a faint light gleamed in the leaden eyes, and he fingered the straw-coloured moustache with that nervous hand till he almost put a visible point upon it. "Ah, Raphael?" he said, tentatively, with an inquiring air, yet beaming at his success. "Don"t you think so? Splendid artist, Raphael!"
"And a very safe guess," I answered, leading him on. "You can"t go far wrong in mentioning Raphael, can you? But after him?"
He dived into the recesses of his memory again, peered about him for a minute or two, and brought back nothing. "I can"t remembah the othah fellahs" names," he went on; "they"re all so much alike: all in _elli_, don"t yah know; but I recollect at the time they impressed me awfully."
"No doubt," I answered.
He tried to look through me, and failed. Then he plunged, like a n.o.ble sportsman that he was, on a second fetch of memory. "Ah--and Michael Angelo," he went on, quite proud of his treasure-trove. "Sweet things, Michael Angelo"s!"
"Very sweet," I admitted. "So simple; so touching; so tender; so domestic!"
I thought Elsie would explode; but she kept her countenance. The pea-green young man gazed at me uneasily. He had half an idea by this time that I was making game of him.
However, he fished up a name once more, and clutched at it. "Savonarola, too," he adventured. "I adore Savonarola. His pickchahs are beautiful."
"And so rare!" Elsie murmured.
"Then there is Fra Diavolo?" I suggested, going one better. "How do you like Fra Diavolo?"
He seemed to have heard the name before, but still he hesitated.
"Ah--what did he paint?" he asked, with growing caution.
I stuffed him valiantly. "Those charming angels, you know," I answered.
"With the roses and the glories!"
"Oh, yaas; I recollect. All askew, aren"t they; like this! I remembah them very well. But----" a doubt flitted across his brain, "wasn"t his name Fra Angelico?"
"His brother," I replied, casting truth to the winds. "They worked together, you must have heard. One did the saints; the other did the opposite. Division of labour, don"t you see; Fra Angelico, Fra Diavolo."
[Ill.u.s.tration: WASN"T FRA DIAVOLO ALSO A COMPOSAH?]
He fingered his cigarette with a dubious hand, and wriggled his eye-gla.s.s tighter. "Yaas, beautiful; beautiful! But----" growing suspicious apace, "wasn"t Fra Diavolo also a composah?"
"Of course," I a.s.sented. "In his off time, he composed. Those early Italians--so versatile, you see; so versatile!"
He had his doubts, but he suppressed them.
"And Torricelli," I went on, with a side glance at Elsie, who was choking by this time. "And Chianti, and Frittura, and Cinquevalli, and Giulio Romano."
His distrust increased. "Now you"re trying to make me commit myself," he drawled out. "I remembah Torricelli--he"s the fellah who used to paint all his women crooked. But Chianti"s a wine; I"ve often drunk it; and Romano"s--well, every fellah knows Romano"s is a restaurant near the Gaiety Theatre."
"Besides," I continued, in a drawl like his own, "there are Risotto, and Gnocchi, and Vermicelli, and Anchovy--all famous paintahs, and all of whom I don"t doubt you admiah."
Elsie exploded at last. But he took no offence. He smiled inanely, as if he rather enjoyed it. "Look heah, you know," he said, with his crafty smile; "that"s one too much. I"m not taking any. You think yourselves very clevah for kidding me with paintahs who are really macaroni and cheese and claret; yet if I were to tell you the Lejah was run at Ascot, or the Cesarewitch at Doncastah, why, you"d be no wisah. When it comes to art, I don"t have a look in; but I could tell you a thing or two about starting prices."
And I was forced to admit that there he had reason.
Still, I think he realised that he had better avoid the subject of art in future, as we avoided the n.o.ble quadruped. He saw his limitations.
Not till the last evening before we reached Bombay did I really understand the nature of my neighbour"s project. That evening, as it chanced, Elsie had a headache and went below early. I stopped with her till she dozed off; then I slipped up on deck once more for a breath of fresh air, before retiring for the night to the hot and stuffy cabin. It was an exquisite evening. The moon rode in the pale green sky of the tropics. A strange light still lingered on the western horizon. The stifling heat of the Red Sea had given way long since to the refreshing coolness of the Indian Ocean. I strolled a while on the quarter-deck, and sat down at last near the stern. Next moment, I was aware of somebody creeping up to me.
"Look heah, Miss Cayley," a voice broke in; "I"m in luck at last! I"ve been waiting, oh, evah so long, for this opportunity."
I turned and faced him. "Have you, indeed?" I answered. "Well, I have _not_, Lord Southminster."
I tried to rise, but he motioned me back to my chair. There were ladies on deck, and to avoid being noticed I sank into my seat again.
"I want to speak to you," he went on, in a voice that (for him) was almost impressive. "Half a mo, Miss Cayley. I want to say--this last night--you misunderstand me."
"On the contrary," I answered, "the trouble is--that I understand you perfectly."
"No, yah don"t. Look heah." He bent forward quite romantically. "I"m going to be perfectly frank. Of course yah know that when I came on board this ship I came--to checkmate yah."
"Of course," I replied. "Why else should you and Higginson have bothered to come here?"
He rubbed his hands together. "That"s just it. You"re always clevah. You hit it first shot. But there"s wheah the point comes in. At first, I only thought of how we could circ.u.mvent yah. I treated yah as the enemy.
Now, it"s all the othah way. Miss Cayley, you"re the cleverest woman I evah met in this world; you extort my admiration."
I could not repress a smile. I didn"t know how it was, but I could see I possessed some mysterious attraction for the Ashurst family. I was fatal to Ashursts. Lady Georgina, Harold Tillington, the Honourable Marmaduke, Lord Southminster--different types as they were, all succ.u.mbed without one blow to me.
"You flatter me," I answered, coldly.
"No, I don"t," he cried, flashing his cuffs and gazing affectionately at his sleeve-links. ""Pon my soul, I a.s.suah yah, I mean it. I can"t tell you how much I admiah yah. I admiah your intellect. Every day I have seen yah, I feel it moah and moah. Why, you"re the only person who has evah out-flanked my fellah, Higginson. As a rule I don"t think much of women. I"ve been through several London seasons, and lots of "em have tried their level best to catch me; the cleverest mammas have been aftah me for their Ethels. But I wasn"t so easily caught: I dodged the Ethels.
With you, it"s different. I feel"--he paused--"you"re a woman a fellah might be really proud of."
"You are too kind," I answered, in my refrigerator voice.
"Well, will you take me?" he asked, trying to seize my hand. "Miss Cayley, if you will, you will make me unspeakably happy."
It was a great effort--for him--and I was sorry to crush it. "I regret,"
I said, "that I am compelled to deny you unspeakable happiness."