She was good enough to seem pleased at my confidence; but she made no further remark for a minute or two, during which I racked my brains in vain for some effective remark, with my eyes fixed upon her. She certainly made a very charming picture, curled up in the great black oak chair, with the firelight playing upon her ruddy golden hair and glistening in her bright eyes.
"You"ve been reading, haven"t you?" I asked, pointing to the book which lay in her lap.
"It"s not a nice book at all!" she said decidedly. "I don"t like any of the books here. Oh!"
I turned round quickly, for I saw that she was looking behind me.
Standing on the threshold of his inner room was the tall, dark figure of Mr. Ravenor, handsomer than ever, it seemed to me, in his plain evening dress.
Slowly he advanced out of the shadows, with a faint smile upon his pale face, and laid his hand upon her shoulder, looking first at my little hostess and then at me.
"So you"ve been entertaining one of my guests for me, Trixie, have you?"
he said. "Rather late for you to be up, isn"t it? Your nurse has been looking for you everywhere."
"Then I suppose I must go," Lady Beatrice Cecilia remarked deliberately.
She rose, shook her hair out, and, replacing the book which she had been reading upon the shelf, prepared to depart. But first she came up to where I was standing on the hearthrug and held out her little white hand.
"Good-night, Philip Morton," she said, looking up at me with a grave smile. "I am very glad that you came in here to talk to me. I was so dull."
I made some reciprocative speech, which, if it was somewhat awkwardly expressed, had at least the merit of earnestness, and my eyes followed her admiringly as she walked to the door and disappeared with a backward glance and a smile. Then I started and coloured, to find that Mr. Ravenor was watching me.
"I don"t know why they should have brought you here," he said. "Come this way."
I followed Mr. Ravenor across the hall into a suite of rooms hung with satin, opening out one from another, and seeming to my inexperience like a succession of brilliantly-lit fairy chambers. In the smallest and most remote room three men were standing talking together, and in a low chair by their side reclined Lady Silchester, holding a dainty screen of peac.o.c.k feathers between her face and the fire, and listening to the conversation with a slightly bored air. She was in full evening toilette, and several rows of diamonds flashed and sparkled with every rise and fall of her snow-white throat. Afterwards I grew to look upon Lady Silchester as a good type of the well-bred society woman; but then she was a revelation to me--the revelation of a new species.
My appearance seemed at first to surprise and then slightly to discompose her, but both emotions pa.s.sed away at once and she welcomed me with a charming little smile as she languidly raised her hand and placed it within mine for a moment.
At our entrance the conversation ceased for a moment. Mr. Ravenor laid his hand upon my shoulder and turned towards the little group.
"Sir Richard, let me introduce to you a young ward of mine and a disciple of yours. Sir Richard Hibbet--Mr. Morton; Professor Marris--Mr. Morton; Mr. Later--Mr. Morton."
They all shook hands with me, and, widening their circle a little, continued the conversation.
This was interrupted presently by the announcement of dinner, the Professor taking in our hostess, the others following, Mr. Ravenor and I bringing up the rear.
There was no lack of conversation during dinner, though gradually it turned towards purely literary matters and remained there. To me it was altogether fascinating, although it was often beyond my comprehension.
Long after Lady Silchester had departed we sat round the small table glittering with plate and finely-cut gla.s.s, and loaded with choice flowers and wonderful fruits; and my senses were almost dazed by the brilliancy of my material surroundings, and the ever-flowing conversation, which seemed always to be teaching me something new and opening up fresh fields of thought. At times I scarcely knew which most to admire--the dry, pungent wit and caustic remarks of the Professor; the perfectly expressed, cla.s.sical English of Mr. Later; the sound, good sense of Sir Richard, seasoned with an apparently inexhaustible stock of anecdotes and quotations culled from all imaginable sources; or the brilliant epigrams, the trenchant criticisms, and the occasional flashes of genuine eloquence by means of which Mr. Ravenor, with rare art, continually stimulated the talk.
Almost unnoticed, Mr. Marx, still in his morning coat, with pale face and dark rims under his eyes, had entered and sank wearily into a seat; but, although he listened with apparent interest, he took no part in the war of words which was flashing around him. Suddenly it all came to an end.
Mr. Ravenor glanced at his watch and rose.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I must ask you to excuse me for an hour. If you care to see the library, Mr. Marx will show it you, or the smoking-room and billiard-room are at your service. Or if you care to remain here there is plenty more of the yellow-seal claret and the cigars are upon the table. Philip, I want you."
I rose and followed him towards the door. As I did so I had to pa.s.s Mr.
Marx, who had left his seat on some pretext. He leaned over towards me, haggard and pale, and pushed a slip of paper into my fingers.
"Read it at once," he muttered, in a quick, low tone. Then he moved up and took Mr. Ravenor"s place at the head of the table.
I felt inclined to throw it back to him; but I did not. Pa.s.sing across the hall, I unfolded it and read these few words, scrawled in a large, shaking hand:
"You must not go to Dr. Randall"s. Mr. Ravenor will give you a choice. Go anywhere but there. If you neglect this warning you will repent it all your life. I swear it. Tear this up,"
CHAPTER XXV.
MR. MARX"S WARNING.
My first impulse, on glancing through Mr. Marx"s brief note, was to show it to Mr. Ravenor; but, after a second"s consideration, I changed my mind. Mr. Marx was a complete mystery to me. At times it seemed possible that the interest which he undoubtedly showed in me was genuine and kindly, and I struggled against my dislike of the man. Then I remembered his brutal conduct to the lunatic and the other inexplicable parts of his behaviour, and the darkest suspicions and doubts began to take shape in my imagination.
There was something altogether mysterious about him--his connection with Mr. Ravenor and his manner towards myself. I was puzzled and more than half inclined to decide against the man whom personally I had grown to detest. But, on the other hand, I was young and still an optimist with regard to my fellow-men.
What harm had I done Mr. Marx, and why should he seek to injure me? It seemed improbable, almost ridiculous. So in the end a certain sense of fairness induced me to respect his postscript, and I said nothing to Mr.
Ravenor about his secretary"s warning.
My interview with him was a very short one indeed. He led the way into the study in which I had first seen him and, closing the door, turned round and faced me upon the hearthrug. The room was dimly lit, but where he stood the fast-dying fire cast a faint glow around his tall, straight figure, and showed me a face cold and resolute as marble, but not unkind.
"Philip Morton," he said slowly, "it has occurred to me that in wishing you to go to Lincolnshire, I may have been influenced to a certain extent by selfish considerations. If you have the slightest preference for a public school----"
I knew instinctively whence that idea had come and I interrupted him.
"Nothing should induce me to go anywhere else but to Dr. Randall"s!" I exclaimed firmly.
"In that case," he continued, "I wish you to leave tomorrow. You will be ready?"
I a.s.sented at once.
"I, too, am leaving here--it may be for a very long while," he went on.
"In two months" time I hope to start for Persia, and between now and then my movements will be uncertain. I cannot settle down here. It is useless."
A great weariness shone out of his dark blue eyes and he stifled a sigh.
Some thought or memory coloured with regret had flashed across his mind; but what it was I could not tell.
"You remember your mother"s letter to you and her dying request?" he continued, in a changed tone. "I cannot explain it now, although I must remind you of it. This packet"--and he pa.s.sed me a large, sealed envelope--"contains a chequebook, the address of the lawyer who will manage your affairs, and a letter which you will not open unless you have certain news and proof of my death. You will find that you are, comparatively speaking, rich. How this comes about I cannot tell you now, and you must remember your mother"s dying injunction not to seek to find out until the time comes, when you will know everything. At present, I can only a.s.sure you that the money is yours by right, that it is not a gift, and that no one else has any claim to it. That is all I can say upon the subject. Are you satisfied?"
Curiosity seemed a mean thing to me as I listened to my guardian"s words and looked into his sad, stern face. All the old fascination which I had felt from the first in his presence was strong upon me that night.
Whatever he had bidden me to do I should have done it. And so I answered:
"I am satisfied. What you tell me is mine I will take and ask no questions."
"That is well," he said quietly. "And now, one word about your future, Philip, for to-morrow you will take up some of the responsibilities of early manhood. A great man once said that the best adviser of youth was the man whose own life had been a failure. If this be anything more than a paradox, then there can be no one better fitted for that post than I.
Already the flavour of life has become like dead ashes between my teeth; and the fault is my own. Mr. Marris was talking a great deal of nonsense in the drawing-room before dinner this evening. I want to say just one or two words to you on the same subject, and remember that I speak as an outsider, impersonally.
"Before I was twenty-one years old, I had studied in most of the schools of modern philosophy, and had thrown off my religion like an old rag. I was inflated with a sense of my own intellectual superiority over other men. It was philosophy which taught men to live, I declared, and philosophy which taught them to die. With that motto before me, I carefully set myself to annihilate every vestige of faith with which I had ever been endowed. I succeeded--too well. It is dead; and sometimes I fear that it will never reawaken. And what am I? As miserable a man as ever drew breath upon this earth. It seems to me as though I had crushed a part of my very life and the sore will rankle for ever.
"There is a part of man"s nature, Philip--that is to say, of such men as I have been and you will be--the sympathetic, emotional, reverential part, which cries out for some belief in a higher, an infinite Power, for some sort of religion which it can cling to and entwine with every action of daily life. You must satisfy that craving if you desire to know happiness. For me there is no such knowledge. I have deliberately committed spiritual suicide; I have torn up faith by the roots and have made a void in my heart, which nothing else can ever fill. Frankly, I tell you, Philip, that there are times when religion of any sort seems to me no better than a fairy-tale. It need not seem so to you. Shape out for yourself any form of belief--that of the Christian is as good as any other--and resolutely cling to it. It is my advice to you--mine who believe in no G.o.d and no future state. Follow it and farewell!"