"How rea.s.suring!" she exclaimed, with a brilliant smile. "Lord Wolfenden is going to be at the "Milan" to-night," she added, turning to Mr. Sabin. "Why don"t you ask him to join us? I shall feel so much more comfortable."
There was a faint but distinct frown on Mr. Sabin"s face--a distinct hesitation before he spoke. But Wolfenden would notice neither. He was looking over Mr. Sabin"s shoulder, and his instructions were very clear.
"If you will have supper with us we shall be very pleased," Mr. Sabin said stiffly; "but no doubt you have already made your party. Supper is an inst.i.tution which one seldom contemplates alone."
"I am quite free, and I shall be delighted," Wolfenden said without hesitation. "About eleven, I suppose?"
"A quarter past," Mr. Sabin said, stepping into the cab. "We may go to the theatre."
The hansom drove off, and Wolfenden stood on the pavement, hat in hand. What fortune! He could scarcely believe in it. Then, just as he turned to move on, something lying at his feet almost at the edge of the kerbstone attracted his attention. He looked at it more closely. It was a ribbon--a little delicate strip of deep blue ribbon. He knew quite well whence it must have come. It had fallen from her gown as she had stepped into the hansom. He looked up and down the street. It was full, but he saw no one whom he knew. The thing could be done in a minute. He stooped quickly down and picked it up crushing it in his gloved hand, and walking on at once with heightened colour and a general sense of having made a fool of himself. For a moment or two he was especially careful to look neither to the right or to the left; then a sense that some one from the other side of the road was watching him drew his eyes in that direction. A young man was standing upon the edge of the pavement, a peculiar smile parting his lips and a cigarette between his fingers. For a moment Wolfenden was furiously angry; then the eyes of the two men met across the street, and Wolfenden forgot his anger. He recognised him at once, notwithstanding his appearance in an afternoon toilette as carefully chosen as his own. It was Felix, Mr. Sabin"s a.s.sailant.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SHADOWS THAT GO BEFORE.
Wolfenden forgot his anger at once. He hesitated for a moment, then he crossed the street and stood side by side with Felix upon the pavement.
"I am glad to see that you are looking a sane man again," Wolfenden said, after they had exchanged the usual greetings. "You might have been in a much more uncomfortable place, after your last night"s escapade."
Felix shrugged his shoulders.
"I think," he said, "that if I had succeeded a little discomfort would only have amused me. It is not pleasant to fail."
Wolfenden stood squarely upon his feet, and laid his hand lightly upon the other"s shoulder.
"Look here," he said, "it won"t do for you to go following a man about London like this, watching for an opportunity to murder him. I don"t like interfering in other people"s business, but willingly or unwillingly I seem to have got mixed up in this, and I have a word or two to say about it. Unless you give me your promise, upon your honour, to make no further attempt upon that man"s life, I shall go to the police, tell them what I know, and have you watched."
"You shall have," Felix said quietly, "my promise. A greater power than the threat of your English police has tied my hands; for the present I have abandoned my purpose."
"I am bound to believe you," Wolfenden said, "and you look as though you were speaking the truth; yet you must forgive my asking why, in that case, you are following the man about? You must have a motive."
Felix shook his head.
"As it happened," he said, "I am here by the merest accident. It may seem strange to you, but it is perfectly true. I have just come out of Waldorf"s, above there, and I saw you all three upon the pavement."
"I am glad to hear it," Wolfenden said.
"More glad," Felix said, "than I was to see you with them. Can you not believe what I tell you? shall I give you proof? will you be convinced then? Every moment you spend with that man is an evil one for you. You may have thought me inclined to be melodramatic last night. Perhaps I was! All the same the man is a fiend. Will you not be warned? I tell you that he is a fiend."
"Perhaps he is," Wolfenden said indifferently. "I am not interested in him."
"But you are interested--in his companion."
Wolfenden frowned.
"I think," he said, "that we will leave the lady out of the conversation."
Felix sighed.
"You are a good fellow," he said; "but, forgive me, like all your countrymen, you carry chivalry just a thought too far--even to simplicity. You do not understand such people and their ways."
Wolfenden was getting angry, but he held himself in check.
"You know nothing against her," he said slowly.
"It is true," Felix answered. "I know nothing against her. It is not necessary. She is his creature. That is apparent. The shadow of his wickedness is enough."
Wolfenden checked himself in the middle of a hot reply. He was suddenly conscious of the absurdity of losing his temper in the open street with a man so obviously ill-balanced--possessed, too, of such strange and wild impulses.
"Let us talk," he said, "of something else, or say good-morning. Which way were you going?"
"To the Russian Emba.s.sy," Felix said, "I have some work to do this afternoon."
Wolfenden looked at him curiously.
"Our ways, then, are the same for a short distance," he said. "Let us walk together. Forgive me, but you are really, then, attached to the Emba.s.sy?"
Felix nodded, and glanced at his companion with a smile.
"I am not what you call a fraud altogether," he said. "I am junior secretary to Prince Lobenski. You, I think, are not a politician, are you?"
Wolfenden shook his head.
"I take no interest in politics," he said. "I shall probably have to sit in the House of Lords some day, but I shall be sorry indeed when the time comes."
Felix sighed, and was silent for a moment.
"You are perhaps fortunate," he said. "The ways of the politician are not exactly rose-strewn. You represent a cla.s.s which in my country does not exist. There we are all either in the army, or interested in statecraft. Perhaps the secure position of your country does not require such ardent service?"
"You are--of what nationality, may I ask?" Wolfenden inquired.
Felix hesitated.
"Perhaps," he said, "you had better not know. The less you know of me the better. The time may come when it will be to your benefit to be ignorant."
Wolfenden took no pains to hide his incredulity.
"It is easy to see that you are a stranger in this country," he remarked. "We are not in Russia or in South America. I can a.s.sure you that we scarcely know the meaning of the word "intrigue" here. We are the most matter-of-fact and perhaps the most commonplace nation in the world. You will find it out for yourself in time. Whilst you are with us you must perforce fall to our level."
"I, too, must become commonplace," Felix said, smiling. "Is that what you mean?"
"In a certain sense, yes," Wolfenden answered. "You will not be able to help it. It will be the natural result of your environment. In your own country, wherever that may be, I can imagine that you might be a person jealously watched by the police; your comings and goings made a note of; your intrigues--I take it for granted that you are concerned in some--the object of the most jealous and unceasing suspicion. Here there is nothing of that. You could not intrigue if you wanted to. There is nothing to intrigue about."
They were crossing a crowded thoroughfare, and Felix did not reply until they were safe on the opposite pavement. Then he took Wolfenden"s arm, and, leaning over, almost whispered in his ear-- "You speak," he said, "what nine-tenths of your countrymen believe. Yet you are wrong. Wherever there are international questions which bring great powers such as yours into antagonism, or the reverse, with other great countries, the soil is laid ready for intrigue, and the seed is never long wanted. Yes; I know that, to all appearance, you are the smuggest and most respectable nation ever evolved in this world"s history. Yet if you tell me that your"s is a nation free from intrigue, I correct you; you are wrong, you do not know--that is all! That very man, whose life last night you so inopportunely saved, is at this moment deeply involved in an intrigue against your country."
"Mr. Sabin!" Wolfenden exclaimed.
"Yes, Mr. Sabin! Mind, I know this by chance only. I am not concerned one way or the other. My quarrel with him is a private one. I am robbed for the present of my vengeance by a power to which I am forced to yield implicit obedience. So, for the present, I have forgotten that he is my enemy. He is safe from me, yet if last night I had struck home, I should have ridded your country of a great and menacing danger. Perhaps--who can tell--he is a man who succeeds--I might even have saved England from conquest and ruin."
They had reached the top of Piccadilly, and downward towards the Park flowed the great afternoon stream of foot-people and carriages. Wolfenden, on whom his companion"s words, charged as they were with an almost pa.s.sionate earnestness, could scarcely fail to leave some impression, was silent for a moment.
"Do you really believe," he said, "that ours is a country which could possibly stand in any such danger? We are outside all Continental alliances! We are pledged to support neither the dual or the triple alliance. How could we possibly become embroiled?"
"I will tell you one thing which you may not readily believe," Felix said. "There is no country in the world so hated by all the great powers as England."
Wolfenden shrugged his shoulders.
"Russia," he remarked, "is perhaps jealous of our hold on Asia, but----"
"Russia," Felix interrupted, "of all the countries in the world, except perhaps Italy, is the most friendly disposed towards you."
Wolfenden laughed.
"Come," he said, "you forget Germany."
"Germany!" Felix exclaimed scornfully. "Believe it or not as you choose, but Germany detests you. I will tell you a thing which you can think of when you are an old man, and there are great changes and events for you to look back upon. A war between Germany and England is only a matter of time--of a few short years, perhaps even months. In the Cabinet at Berlin a war with you to-day would be more popular than a war with France."
"You take my breath away," Wolfenden exclaimed, laughing.
Felix was very much in earnest.
"In the little world of diplomacy," he said, "in the innermost councils these things are known. The outside public knows nothing of the awful responsibilities of those who govern. Two, at least, of your ministers have realised the position. You read this morning in the papers of more warships and strengthened fortifications--already there have been whispers of the conscription. It is not against Russia or against France that you are slowly arming yourselves, it is against Germany!"
"Germany would be mad to fight us," Wolfenden declared.
"Under certain conditions," Felix said slowly. "Don"t be angry--Germany must beat you."
Wolfenden, looking across the street, saw Harcutt on the steps of his club, and beckoned to him.
"There is Harcutt," he exclaimed, pointing him out to Felix. "He is a journalist, you know, and in search of a sensation. Let us hear what he has to say about these things."
But Felix unlinked his arm from Wolfenden"s hastily.
"You must excuse me," he said. "Harcutt would recognise me, and I do not wish to be pointed out everywhere as a would-be a.s.sa.s.sin. Remember what I have said, and avoid Sabin and his parasites as you would the devil."
Felix hurried away. Wolfenden remained for a moment standing in the middle of the pavement looking blankly along Piccadilly. Harcutt crossed over to him.
"You look," he remarked to Wolfenden, "like a man who needs a drink."
Wolfenden turned with him into the club.
"I believe that I do," he said. "I have had rather an eventful hour."
CHAPTER X.
THE SECRETARY.
Mr. Sabin, who had parted with Wolfenden with evident relief, leaned back in the cab and looked at his watch.
"That young man," he remarked, "has wasted ten minutes of my time. He will probably have to pay for it some day."
"By the bye," the girl asked, "who is he?"
"His name is Wolfenden--Lord Wolfenden."
"So I gathered; and who is Lord Wolfenden?"
"The only son of Admiral the Earl of Deringham. I don"t know anything more than that about him myself."
"Admiral Deringham," the girl repeated, thoughtfully; "the name sounds familiar."
Mr. Sabin nodded.
"Very likely," he said. "He was in command of the Channel Squadron at the time of the Magnificent disaster. He was barely half a mile away and saw the whole thing. He came in, too, rightly or wrongly, for a share of the blame."
"Didn"t he go mad, or something?" the girl asked.
"He had a fit," Mr. Sabin said calmly, "and left the service almost directly afterwards. He is living in strict seclusion in Norfolk, I believe. I should not like to say that he is mad. As a matter of fact, I do not believe that he is."
She looked at him curiously. There was a note of reserve in his tone.
"You are interested in him, are you not?" she asked.
"In a measure," he admitted. "He is supposed, mad or not, to be the greatest living authority on the coast defences of England and the state of her battleships. They shelved him at the Admiralty, but he wrote some vigorous letters to the papers and there are people pretty high up who believe in him. Others, of course, think that he is a crank."
"But why," she asked, languidly, "are you interested in such matters?"
Mr. Sabin knocked the ash off the cigarette he was smoking and was silent for a moment.
"One gets interested nowadays in--a great many things which scarcely seem to concern us," he remarked deliberately. "You, for instance, seem interested in this man"s son. He cannot possibly be of any account to us."
She shrugged her shoulders.