"Yes; I think that I understand you," Mr. Sabin said, his piercing eyes raised now from the ground and fixed upon the other man"s face. "You have given me food for serious thought. I shall do nothing further till I have talked with you again."
Harcutt suddenly and swiftly withdrew. He had stayed as long as he dared. At any moment his presence might have been detected, and he would have been involved in a situation which even the nerve and effrontery acquired during the practice of his profession could not have rendered endurable. He found a seat in an adjoining room, and sat quite still, thinking. His brain was in a whirl. He had almost forgotten the special object of his quest. He felt like a conspirator. The fascination of the unknown was upon him. Their first instinct concerning these people had been a true one. They were indeed no ordinary people. He must follow them up--he must know more about them. Once more he thought over what he had heard. It was mysterious, but it was interesting. It might mean anything. The man with Mr. Sabin he had recognised the moment he spoke. It was Baron von Knigenstein, the German Amba.s.sador. Those were strange words of his. He pondered them over again. The journalistic fever was upon him. He was no longer in love. He had overheard a few words of a discussion of tremendous import. If only he could get the key to it! If only he could follow this thing through, then farewell to society paragraphing and playing at journalism. His reputation would be made for ever!
He rose, and finding his way to the refreshment-room, drank off a gla.s.s of champagne. Then he walked back to the main salon. Standing with his back to the wall, and half-hidden by a tall palm tree, was Densham. He was alone. His arms were folded, and he was looking out upon the dancers with a gloomy frown. Harcutt stepped softly up to him.
"Well, how are you getting on, old chap?" he whispered in his ear.
Densham started, and looked at Harcutt in blank surprise.
"Why, how the--excuse me, how on earth did you get in?" he exclaimed.
Harcutt smiled in a mysterious manner.
"Oh! we journalists are trained to overcome small difficulties," he said airily. "It wasn"t a very hard task. The Morning is a pretty good pa.s.sport. Getting in was easy enough. Where is--she?"
Densham moved his head in the direction of the broad s.p.a.ce at the head of the stairs, where the Amba.s.sador and his wife had received their guests.
"She is under the special wing of the Princess. She is up at that end of the room somewhere with a lot of old frumps."
"Have you asked for an introduction?"
Densham nodded.
"Yes, I asked young Lobenski. It is no good. He does not know who she is; but she does not dance, and is not allowed to make acquaintances. That is what it comes to, anyway. It was not a personal matter at all. Lobenski did not even mention my name to his mother. He simply said a friend. The Princess replied that she was very sorry, but there was some difficulty. The young lady"s guardian did not wish her to make acquaintances for the present."
"Her guardian! He"s not her father, then?"
"No! It was either her guardian or her uncle! I am not sure which. By Jove! There they go! They"re off."
They both hurried to the cloak-room for their coats, and reached the street in time to see the people in whom they were so interested coming down the stairs towards them. In the glare of the electric light, the girl"s pale, upraised face shone like a piece of delicate statuary. To Densham, the artist, she was irresistible. He drew Harcutt right back amongst the shadows.
"She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life," he said deliberately. "t.i.tian never conceived anything more exquisite. She is a woman to paint and to worship!"
"What are you going to do now?" Harcutt asked drily. "You can rave about her in your studio, if you like."
"I am going to find out where she lives, if I have to follow her home on foot! It will be something to know that."
"Two of us," Harcutt protested. "It is too obvious."
"I can"t help that," Densham replied. "I do not sleep until I have found out."
Harcutt looked dubious.
"Look here," he said, "we need not both go! I will leave it to you on one condition."
"Well?"
"You must let me know to-morrow what you discover."
Densham hesitated.
"Agreed," he decided. "There they go! Good-night. I will call at your rooms, or send a note, to-morrow."
Densham jumped into his cab and drove away. Harcutt looked after them thoughtfully.
"The girl is very lovely," he said to himself, as he stood on the pavement waiting for his carriage; "but I do not think that she is for you, Densham, or for me! On the whole, I am more interested in the man!"
CHAPTER V.
THE DILEMMA OF WOLFENDEN.
Wolfenden was evidently absolutely unprepared to see the girl whom he found occupying his own particular easy chair in his study. The light was only a dim one, and as she did not move or turn round at his entrance he did not recognise her until he was standing on the hearthrug by her side. Then he started with a little exclamation.
"Miss Merton! Why, what on earth----"
He stopped in the middle of his question and looked intently at her. Her head was thrown back amongst the cushions of the chair, and she was fast asleep. Her hat was a little crushed and a little curl of fair hair had escaped and was hanging down over her forehead. There were undoubtedly tear stains upon her pretty face. Her plain, black jacket was half undone, and the gloves which she had taken off lay in her lap. Wolfenden"s anger subsided at once. No wonder Selby had been perplexed. But Selby"s perplexity was nothing to his own.
She woke up suddenly and saw him standing there, traces of his amazement still lingering on his face. She looked at him, half-frightened, half-wistfully. The colour came and went in her cheeks--her eyes grew soft with tears. He felt himself a brute. Surely it was not possible that she could be acting! He spoke to her more kindly than he had intended.
"What on earth has brought you up to town--and here--at this time of night? Is anything wrong at Deringham?"
She sat up in the chair and looked at him with quivering lips.
"N--no, nothing particular; only I have left."
"You have left!"
"Yes; I have been turned away," she added, piteously.
He looked at her blankly.
"Turned away! Why, what for? Do you mean to say that you have left for good?"
She nodded, and commenced to dry her eyes with a little lace handkerchief.
"Yes--your mother--Lady Deringham has been very horrid--as though the silly papers were of any use to me or any one else in the world! I have not copied them. I am not deceitful! It is all an excuse to get rid of me because of--of you."
She looked up at him and suddenly dropped her eyes. Wolfenden began to see some glimmerings of light. He was still, however, bewildered.
"Look here," he said kindly, "why you are here I cannot for the life of me imagine, but you had better just tell me all about it."
She rose up suddenly and caught her gloves from the table.
"I think I will go away," she said. "I was very stupid to come; please forget it and---- Goodbye."
He caught her by the wrist as she pa.s.sed.
"Nonsense," he exclaimed, "you mustn"t go like this."
She looked steadfastly away from him and tried to withdraw her arm.
"You are angry with me for coming," she said. "I am very, very sorry; I will go away. Please don"t stop me."
He held her wrist firmly.
"Miss Merton!"
"Miss Merton!" She repeated his words reproachfully, lifting her eyes suddenly to his, that he might see the tears gathering there. Wolfenden began to feel exceedingly uncomfortable.
"Well, Blanche, then," he said slowly. "Is that better?"
She answered nothing, but looked at him again. Her hand remained in his. She suffered him to lead her back to the chair.
"It"s all nonsense your going away, you know," he said a little awkwardly. "You can"t wonder that I am surprised. Perhaps you don"t know that it is a little late--after midnight, in fact. Where should you go to if you ran away like that? Do you know any one in London?"
"I--don"t think so," she admitted.
"Well, do be reasonable then. First of all tell me all about it."
She nodded, and began at once, now and then lifting her eyes to his, mostly gazing fixedly at the gloves which she was smoothing carefully out upon her knee.
"I think," she said, "that Lord Deringham is not so well. What he has been writing has become more and more incoherent, and it has been very difficult to copy it at all. I have done my best but he has never seemed satisfied; and he has taken to watch me in an odd sort of way, just as though I was doing something wrong all the time. You know he fancies that the work he is putting together is of immense importance. Of course I don"t know that it isn"t. All I do know is that it sounds and reads like absolute rubbish, and it"s awfully difficult to copy. He writes very quickly and uses all manner of abbreviations, and if I make a single mistake in typing it he gets horribly cross."
Wolfenden laughed softly.
"Poor little girl! Go on."
She smiled too, and continued with less constraint in her tone.
"I didn"t really mind that so much, as of course I have been getting a lot of money for the work, and one can"t have everything. But just lately he seems to have got the idea that I have been making two copies of this rubbish and keeping one back. He has kept on coming into the room unexpectedly, and has sat for hours watching me in a most unpleasant manner. I have not been allowed to leave the house, and all my letters have been looked over; it has been perfectly horrid."
"I am very sorry," Wolfenden said. "Of course you knew though that it was going to be rather difficult to please my father, didn"t you? The doctors differ a little as to his precise mental condition, but we are all aware that he is at any rate a trifle peculiar."
She smiled a little bitterly.
"Oh! I am not complaining," she said. "I should have stood it somehow for the sake of the money; but I haven"t told you everything yet. The worst part, so far as I am concerned, is to come."
"I am very sorry," he said; "please go on."
"This morning your father came very early into the study and found a sheet of carbon paper on my desk and two copies of one page of the work I was doing. As a matter of fact I had never used it before, but I wanted to try it for practice. There was no harm in it--I should have destroyed the second sheet in a minute or two, and in any case it was so badly done that it was absolutely worthless. But directly Lord Deringham saw it he went quite white, and I thought he was going to have a fit. I can"t tell you all he said. He was brutal. The end of it was that my boxes were all turned out and my desk and everything belonging to me searched as though I were a house-maid suspected of theft, and all the time I was kept locked up. When they had finished, I was told to put my hat on and go. I--I had nowhere to go to, for Muriel--you remember I told you about my sister--went to America last week. I hadn"t the least idea what to do--and so--I--you were the only person who had ever been kind to me," she concluded, suddenly leaning over towards him, a little sob in her throat, and her eyes swimming with tears.
There are certain situations in life when an honest man is at an obvious disadvantage. Wolfenden felt awkward and desperately ill at ease. He evaded the embrace which her movement and eyes had palpably invited, and compromised matters by taking her hands and holding them tightly in his. Even then he felt far from comfortable.
"But my mother," he exclaimed. "Lady Deringham surely took your part?"
She shook her head vigorously.
"Lady Deringham did nothing of the sort," she replied. "Do you remember last time when you were down you took me for a walk once or twice and you talked to me in the evenings, and--but perhaps you have forgotten. Have you?"
She was looking at him so eagerly that there was only one answer possible for him. He hastened to make it. There was a certain lack of enthusiasm in his avowal, however, which brought a look of reproach into her face. She sighed and looked away into the fire.
"Well," she continued, "Lady Deringham has never been the same since then to me. It didn"t matter while you were there, but after you left it was very wretched. I wrote to you, but you never answered my letter."
He was very well aware of it. He had never asked her to write, and her note had seemed to him a trifle too ingenuous. He had never meant to answer it.
"I so seldom write letters," he said. "I thought, too, that it must have been your fancy. My mother is generally considered a very good-hearted woman."
She laughed bitterly.
"Oh, one does not fancy those things," she said. "Lady Deringham has been coldly civil to me ever since, and nothing more. This morning she seemed absolutely pleased to have an excuse for sending me away. She knows quite well, of course, that Lord Deringham is--not himself; but she took everything he said for gospel, and turned me out of the house. There, now you know everything. Perhaps after all it was idiotic to come to you. Well, I"m only a girl, and girls are idiots; I haven"t a friend in the world, and if I were alone I should die of loneliness in a week. You won"t send me away? You are not angry with me?"
She made a movement towards him, but he held her hands tightly. For the first time he began to see his way before him. A certain ingenuousness in her speech and in that little half-forgotten note--an ingenuousness, by the bye, of which he had some doubts--was his salvation. He would accept it as absolutely genuine. She was a child who had come to him, because he had been kind to her.
"Of course I am not angry with you," he said, quite emphatically. "I am very glad indeed that you came. It is only right that I should help you when my people seem to have treated you so wretchedly. Let me think for a moment."
She watched him very anxiously, and moved a little closer to him.
"Tell me," she murmured, "what are you thinking about?"
"I have it," he answered, standing suddenly up and touching the bell. "It is an excellent idea."
"What is it?" she asked quickly.
He did not appear to hear her question. Selby was standing upon the threshold. Wolfenden spoke to him.
"Selby, are your wife"s rooms still vacant?"
Selby believed that they were.
"That"s all right then. Put on your hat and coat at once. I want you to take this young lady round there."
"Very good, my lord."
"Her luggage has been lost and may not arrive until to-morrow. Be sure you tell Mrs. Selby to do all in her power to make things comfortable."
The girl had gone very pale. Wolfenden, watching her closely, was surprised at her expression.
"I think," he said, "that you will find Mrs. Selby a very decent sort of a person. If I may, I will come and see you to-morrow, and you shall tell me how I can help you. I am very glad indeed that you came to me."
She shot a single glance at him, partly of anger, partly reproach.