When they had disappeared Sofia began to think.
There was something more in this affair than mere coincidence, there was mystery, a sinister question.
Her countenance grew as dark as the complexion of her reverie. Athwart the field of her abstracted vision drifted the figure of young Mr. Karslake.
She was barely conscious of it.
He seated himself with plain premeditation directly opposite the caisse, staring openly. But Sofia did not heed him at all. An odd smile shadowed his lips, an expression half eager, half apprehensive; there was a hint of puzzlement in his scrutiny. It was rather as if he had unexpectedly found some new reason for thinking the girl an exceptionally interesting personality. But she continued all unaware.
Shortly after being served with a drink which he ordered but made no offer to taste, he moved as if minded to rise and cross to Sofia, sat up and edged forward on the wall-seat with a singular air of timidity and embarra.s.sment. But whatever his intention, he reconsidered and sat back, glancing round the room to see if anybody were watching him. He could not see that anybody was. Not even Sofia. Relieved, he settled back, found a handsome gold case in the waistcoat of his dinner jacket, extracted a cigarette, nipped it between his lips--and forgot to light it.
Of a sudden Sofia had arrived at a decision; and with every expression of it in her manner she slipped down from the high stool and left the caisse to take care of itself. Turning to the swing door she barged through with a high head and fire of determination illuminating her face. She had had enough of riddles.
Behind the zinc an elderly and trusted waiter was nodding. The kitchen was cold and dark for the night. Papa Dupont, then, would be upstairs, closeted with the genius of the establishment.
From the pantry a narrow staircase led up to the apartment above the restaurant. Sofia mounted rapidly, with a firm tread that was nevertheless practically noiseless, thanks to the paper-thin soles of well-worn slippers. She could hear voices bickering above.
At the top there was a short, dark corridor, with three doors. Two of these were closed on sleeping-rooms; the third door, to a sort of combination office and living-room, stood open, letting out a stream of light.
Sofia approached on tiptoe, though the altercation going on within had reached a stage so acute that it was doubtful whether either of the disputants would have heard had she stumped like a navvy.
The point of dissension was not at first apparent, because Mama Therese was speaking, and what she said had exclusively to do with her estimate of Dupont"s character, the mettle of his spirit, the stuff of his mentality, the authenticity of his pedigree (with especial reference to the virtue of his maternal ancestry) and the circ.u.mstances of his upbringing; which estimate in sum was low but by no means so low as the terms in which Mama Therese was inspired to couch it.
Papa Dupont did not seem to be greatly interested. He had heard all this before, many a time, with insignificant phraseological variations. Sofia, pausing unseen and unsuspected in the darkness just outside the doorway, could see him slouching deep in his chair, to one side of the table, his soft fat hands deep in the pockets of his trousers, his chin sunken on his chest, something dogged in the louring frown which he was bending upon nothing, something of genuine indifference in his pa.s.sive att.i.tude toward the blowsy virago who was leaning across the table the better to spit vituperation at him.
And he waited with singular patience until she had to stop for want of breath. Then he shrugged and said heavily:
"Still, I don"t see what else you propose to do, my old one."
Apparently his old one was as poor in expedient as he. "It is for nothing,"
she said, acidly, "that one looks to you!"
"I have said my say. If you have anything better to suggest...." He made a rhetorical pause for reply, but Mama Therese was well blown and sulky for the moment. "I am not old, not so old as you, and I have reason to believe the girl is not indifferent to my person."
"Drooling old pig," Mama Therese observed with reason: "if you dream she would trouble to look twice at you--!"
"That remains to be seen. And I, for one, fail to see how else we are to hold her. All this money that has been coming in, paid on the dot every quarter--that means there is more, much more to come to her. Are you ready to give it up?"
"Never!" Mama Therese thumped the table vehemently. "It is mine by rights, I have earned it. Look at the way I have slaved for her, the tender care I have lavished upon her, ever since she was a little one in my arms."
"By all means," Papa Dupont agreed, "look at it, but don"t talk about it to her. She might not understand you. Also, do not depend upon her to endorse any claim you might set up based upon such a.s.sertions."
"She is an ungrateful baggage!"
"Possibly; but she is human, she has a memory--"
"Are you going to be sentimental about her again?" Mama Therese demanded.
"Pitiful old goat!"
"But I am not in the least sentimental," Papa Dupont disclaimed. "It is rather I who am practical, you who are sentimental. I ask you: Is there any way we can hold on to that money unless I marry Sofia? You do not answer.
Why? Because there _is_ no other way. Then I am practical. But you will not admit that. And why? Because we have lived together for a number of years through force of habit, because once, very long ago, we were lovers, you and I--so long ago that you have forgotten you ever had a softer name for me than pig or goat. Who is the sentimentalist now--eh?"
"Shut your face!" Mama Therese growled. "You annoy me. I have a presentiment I shall one day murder you."
"You would have done that long ago," Papa Dupont pointed out, "if you had had the courage. Enough! I am silent. But when you are tired trying to think out another way, reflect on my solution. Meantime, let me have another look at that accursed letter."
Mama Therese did not respond, she offered no objection when Dupont took up the sheet of paper that lay between them, but ground the heels of her hands into her fat cheeks and sat glowering vindictively while he read aloud, slowly, with the labour of one to whom reading is unaccustomed dissipation:
DEAR MADAM:
Herewith we beg to enclose our cheque to your order in the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds, being the quarterly payment in advance due you from the estate of our deceased client, the Princess Sofia Va.s.silyevski, for your care of her daughter. We further beg to advise that, pursuant to the provisions of her will, we begin to-day, on the eighteenth birthday of the young Princess Sofia, a search for her father with the object of apprising him of his daughter"s existence. Therefore we would request you to make arrangements to have the young Princess Sofia brought to England forthwith from the convent in France where we understand she is finishing her education. We take leave, however, to advise that, pending the outcome of our enquiries, the question of her father"s existence be not discussed with the young princess. In event of his death being established or of failure to find him within six months, the Princess Sofia is to enter without more delay or formality into possession of her mother"s estate.
Papa Dupont put down the letter. "It is plain enough," he expounded: "if this father is found, we can whistle for our money; whereas if I were married to Sofia, as her husband I would control--"
He broke off sharply, and added in consternation: "One million thunders!"
Sofia stood between them.
And yet she wasn"t the Sofia they knew, but another person altogether, a transfigured and exalted Sofia, aflame with righteous wrath and contemptuous with the pride of birth which had leaped into full being a moment since.
A princess, born the daughter of a princess, now she knew and looked it.
All thought of fear or deference was gone, she had nothing left but scorn for these two despicable creatures, the fat harpy and her c.r.a.pulent consort who had battened so long upon her misery, who had held her in bondage to the most menial tasks of their wretched restaurant while they filched and h.o.a.rded the money paid them for giving her the care and the advantages that were her due.
And something of this new-found dignity, to which her t.i.tle was so unquestionable, which set her upon a level from which she could not but look down on these two paltry frauds, so abashed the Frenchwoman that the phrases of invective and vilification which gushed instinctively from the foul springs of her temper stuck in her throat, she couldn"t utter them, and she well-nigh choked with impotent fury and fear as the girl spoke.
"You swindlers!" Sofia said, deliberately. "You poor cheats! To pocket a thousand pounds a year of my mother"s money--and make me slave for you in your wretched cafe! And for eighteen years! For eighteen years you have been robbing me of every right I had in the world, robbing me of everything I"ve needed and longed and prayed for, everything you were paid to give me--while I drudged for you and endured your ill-temper and your abuse and the contamination of a.s.sociation with you!... Give me that letter."
She possessed herself of it unopposed. But now Mama Therese found her tongue.
"What--what do you mean?" she gasped, livid with fright. Was not a fortune slipping through her avaricious fingers? "What are you going to do?"
"Do?" Sofia cried. "I don"t know, more than this: I"m not going to stay another hour under this roof, I"m going to leave to-night--now-- immediately! That"s what I"m going to do!"
"Where are you going?"
The question halted Sofia in the doorway.
"To find my father--wherever he is!"
She left the two staring at each other, dumbfounded and aghast.
At the far end of the pa.s.sage she flung open her bedchamber door, entered, turned up the light, and s.n.a.t.c.hed her cloak and hat from pegs beneath the curtained shelf that held her scanty wardrobe.
Adjusting these before the mirror she could hear Therese bawling at Dupont to follow and stop her. Sofia had little fear he would find heart to attempt that, none the less she hurried. Once her hat was adjusted there was nothing to detain her; the best she had she stood in; no sentimental a.s.sociations invested that room, the tomb of her defrauded childhood, the prison of her maltreated youth, to make her linger there, but only hateful ones to speed her going.
She turned and fled.