"And of course we must keep our own counsel. Good night, Roden."
"Of course. Good night, Von Holzen."
And Percy Roden pa.s.sed through the gateway, walking slowly across the dunes towards his own house; while Von Holzen watched him from the window of the little three-roomed cottage.
CHAPTER IX
A SHADOW FROM THE PAST.
"Le plus sur moyen d"arriver a son but c"est de ne pas faire de rencontres en chemin."
"Yes, it was long ago--"lang, lang izt"s her"--you remember the song Frau Neumayer always sang. So long ago, Mr. Cornish, that----Well, it must be Mr. Cornish, and not Tony."
Mrs. Vansittart leant back in her comfortable chair and looked at her visitor with observant eyes. Those who see the most are they who never appear to be observing. It is fatal to have others say that one is so sharp, and people said as much of Mrs. Vansittart, who had quick dark eyes and an alert manner.
"Yes," answered Cornish, "it is long ago, but not so long as all that."
His smooth fair face was slightly troubled by the knowledge that the recollections to which she referred were those of the Weimar days when she who was now a widow had been a young married woman. Tony Cornish had also been young in those days, and impressionable. It was before the world had polished his surface bright and hard. And the impression left of the Mrs. Vansittart of Weimar was that she was one of the rare women who marry _pour le bon motif_. He had met her by accident in the streets of The Hague a few hours ago, and having learnt her address, had, in duty bound, called at the house at the corner of Park Straat and Oranje Straat at the earliest calling hour.
"I am not ignorant of your history since you were at Weimar," said the lady, looking at him with an air of almost maternal scrutiny.
"I have no history," he replied. "I never had a past even, a few years ago, when every man who took himself seriously had at least one."
He spoke as he had learnt to speak, with the surface of his mind--with the object of pa.s.sing the time and avoiding topics that might possibly be painful. Many who appear to be egotistical must a.s.suredly be credited with this good motive. One is, at all events, safe in talking of one"s self. Sufficient for the social day is the effort to avoid glancing at the cupboard where our neighbour keeps his skeleton.
A silence followed Cornish"s heroic speech, and it was perhaps better to face it than stave it off.
"Yes," said Mrs. Vansittart, at the end of that pause, "I am a widow and childless. I see the questions in your face."
Cornish gave a little nod of the head, and looked out of the window.
Mrs. Vansittart was only a year older than himself, but the difference in their life and experience, when they had learnt to know each other at Weimar, had in some subtle way augmented the seniority.
"Then you never--" he said, and paused.
"No," she answered lightly. "So I am what the world calls independent, you see. No enc.u.mbrance of any sort."
Again he nodded without speaking.
"The line between an enc.u.mbrance and a purpose is not very clearly defined, is it?" she said lightly; and then added a question, "What are you doing in The Hague--Malgamite?"
"Yes," he answered, in surprise, "Malgamite."
"Oh, I know all about it," laughed Mrs. Vansittart. "I see Dorothy Roden at least once a week."
"But she takes no part in it."
"No; she takes no part in it, _mon ami_, except in so far as it affects her brother and compels her to live in a sad little villa on the Dunes."
"And you--you are interested?"
"Most a.s.suredly. I have even given my mite. I am interested in"--she paused and shrugged her shoulders--"in you, since you ask me, in Dorothy, and in Mr. Roden. He gave the flowers at which you are so earnestly looking, by the way."
"Ah!" said Cornish, politely.
"Yes," answered Mrs. Vansittart, with a pa.s.sing smile. "He is kind enough to give me flowers from time to time. You never gave me flowers, Mr. Cornish, in the olden times."
"Because I could not afford good ones."
"And you would not offer anything more reasonable?"
"Not to you," he answered.
"But of course that was long ago."
"Yes. I am glad to hear that you know Miss Roden. It will make the little villa on the Dunes less sad. The atmosphere of malgamite is not cheerful. One sees it at its best in a London drawing-room. It is one of the many realities which have an evil odour when approached too closely."
"And you are coming nearer to it?"
"It is coming nearer to me."
"Ah!" said Mrs. Vansittart, examining the rings with which her fingers were laden. "I thought there would be developments."
"There are developments. Hence my presence in The Hague. Lord Ferriby _et famille_ arrive to-morrow. Also my friend Major White."
"The fighting man?" inquired Mrs. Vansittart.
"Yes, the fighting man. We are to have a solemn meeting. It has been found necessary to alter our financial basis----"
Mrs. Vansittart held up a warning hand. "Do not talk to me of your financial basis. I know nothing of money. It is not from that point of view that I contemplate your Malgamite scheme."
"Ah! Then, if one may inquire, from what point of view....?"
"From the human point of view; as does every other woman connected with it. We are advancing, I admit, but I think we shall always be willing to leave the--financial basis--to your down-trodden s.e.x."
"It is very kind of you to be interested in these poor people," began Cornish; but Mrs. Vansittart interrupted him vivaciously.
"Poor people? Gott bewahre!" she cried. "Did you think I meant the workers? Oh no! I am not interested in them. I am interested in your Rodens and your Ferribys and your Whites, and even in your Tony Cornish. I wonder who will quarrel and who will--well, do the contrary, and what will come of it all? In my day young people were brought together by a common pleasure, but that has gone out of fashion. And now it is a common endeavour to achieve the impossible, to check the stars in their courses by the holding of mixed meetings, and the enunciation of second-hand plat.i.tudes respecting the poor and the ma.s.ses--this is what brings the present generation into that intercourse which ends in love and marriage and death--the old programme. And it is from that point of view alone, _mon ami_, that I take a particle of interest in your Malgamite scheme."
All of which Tony Cornish remembered later; for it was untrue. He rose to take his leave with polite hopes of seeing her again.
"Oh, do not hurry away," she said. "I am expecting Dorothy Roden, who promised to come to tea. She will be disappointed not to see you."
Cornish laughed in his light way. "You are kind in your a.s.sumptions,"