It was obvious that she was speaking under a certain tension. The silence which ensued was significant.
"Why not now?" he asked.
"It is too soon," she answered, "and you would not understand. I might say things to you which would perhaps end our friendship, which would give you a wrong impression. No, let us stay just as we are for a little time."
"This is most tantalising," grumbled Norgate.
She leaned over and patted his hand.
"Have patience, my friend," she whispered. "The great things come to those who wait."
An interruption, commonplace enough, yet in its way startling, checked the words which were already upon his lips. The telephone bell from the little instrument on the table within a few feet of them, rang insistently. For a moment Mrs. Benedek herself appeared taken by surprise. Then she raised the receiver to her ear.
"My friend," she said to Norgate, "you must excuse me. I told them distinctly to disconnect the instrument so that it rang only in my bedroom. I am disobeyed, but no matter. Who is that?"
Norgate leaned back in his place. His companion"s little interjection, however, was irresistible. He glanced towards her. There was a slight flush of colour in her cheeks, her head was moving slowly as though keeping pace to the words spoken at the other end. Suddenly she laughed.
"Do not be so foolish," she said. "Yes, of course. You keep your share of the bargain and I mine. At eight o"clock, then. I will say no more now, as I am engaged with a visitor. _Au revoir!_"
She set down the receiver and turned towards Norgate, who was turning the pages of an ill.u.s.trated paper. She made a little grimace.
"Oh, but life is very queer!" she declared. "How I love it! Now I am going to make you look glum, if indeed you do care just that little bit which is all you know of caring. Perhaps you will be a little disappointed. Tell me that you are, or my vanity will be hurt. Listen and prepare. To-night I cannot dine with you."
He turned deliberately around. "You are going to throw me over?" he demanded, looking at her steadfastly.
"To throw you over, dear friend," she repeated cheerfully. "You would do just the same, if you were in my position."
"It is an affair of duty," he persisted, "or the triumph of a rival?"
She made a grimace at him. "It is an affair of duty," she admitted, "but it is certainly with a rival that I must dine."
He moved a little nearer to her on the lounge.
"Tell me on your honour," he said, "that you are not dining with Baring, and I will forgive!"
For a moment she seemed as though she were summoning all her courage to tell the lie which he half expected. Instead she changed her mind.
"Do not be unkind," she begged. "I am dining with Captain Baring. The poor man is distracted. You know that I cannot bear to hurt people. Be kind this once. You may take my engagement book, you may fill it up as you will, but to-night I must dine with him. Consider, my friend. You may have many months before you in London. Captain Baring finishes his work at the Admiralty to-day, and leaves for Portsmouth to-morrow morning. He may not be in London again for some time. I promised him long ago that I would dine with him to-night on one condition. That condition he is keeping. I cannot break my word."
Norgate rose gloomily to his feet.
"Of course," he said, "I don"t want to be unreasonable, and any one can see the poor fellow is head over ears in love with you."
She took his arm as she led him towards the door.
"Listen," she promised, laughing into his face, "when you are as much in love with me as he is, I will put off every other engagement I have in the world, and I will dine with you. You understand? We shall meet later at the club, I hope. Until then, _au revoir!_"
Norgate hailed a taxi outside and was driven at once to the nearest telephone call office. There, after some search in the directory, he rang up a number and enquired for Captain Baring. There was a delay of about five minutes. Then Baring spoke from the other end of the telephone.
"Who is it wants me?" he enquired, rather impatiently.
"Are you Baring?" Norgate asked, deepening his voice a little.
"Yes! Who are you?"
"I am a friend," Norgate answered slowly.
"What the devil do you mean by "a friend"?" was the irritated reply. "I am engaged here most particularly."
"There can be nothing so important," Norgate declared, "as the warning I am charged to give to you. Remember that it is a friend who speaks. There is a train about five o"clock to Portsmouth. Your work is finished. Take that train and stay away from London."
Norgate set down the receiver without listening to the tangle of exclamations from the other end, and walked quickly out of the shop. He re-entered his taxi.
"The St. James"s Club," he ordered.
CHAPTER XIII
Norgate found Selingman in the little drawing-room of the club, reclining in an easy-chair, a small cup of black coffee by his side. He appeared to be exceedingly irate at the performance of his partner in a recent rubber, and he seized upon Norgate as a possibly sympathetic confidant.
"Listen to me for one moment," he begged, "and tell me whether I have not the right to be aggrieved. I go in on my own hand, no trump. I am a careful declarer. I play here every day when I am in London, and they know me well to be a careful declarer. My partner--I do not know his name; I hope I shall never know his name; I hope I shall never see him again--he takes me out. "Into what?" you ask. Into diamonds! I am regretful, but I recognise, as I believe, a necessity. I ask you, of what do you suppose his hand consists? Down goes my no trump on the table--a good, a very good no trump. He has in his hand the ace, king, queen and five diamonds, the king of clubs guarded, the ace and two little hearts, and he takes me out into diamonds from no trumps with a score at love all. Two pences they had persuaded me to play, too, and it was the rubber game. Afterwards he said to me: "You seem annoyed"; and I replied "I am annoyed," and I am. I come in here to drink coffee and cool myself.
Presently I will cut into another rubber, where that young man is not.
Perhaps our friend Mrs. Benedek will be here. You and I and Mrs. Benedek, but not, if we can help it, the lady who smokes the small black cigars.
She is very amiable, but I cannot attend to the game while she sits there opposite to me. She fascinates me. In Germany sometimes our women smoke cigarettes, but cigars, and in public, never!"
"We"ll get a rubber presently, I dare say," Norgate remarked, settling himself in an easy-chair. "How"s business?"
"Business is very good," Selingman declared. "It is so good that I must be in London for another week or so before I set off to the provinces. It grows and grows all the time. Soon I must find a manager to take over some of my work here. At my time of life one likes to enjoy. I love to be in London; I do not like these journeys to Newcastle and Liverpool and places a long way off. In London I am happy. You should go into business, young man. It is not well for you to do nothing."
"Do you think I should be useful in the crockery trade?" Norgate asked.
Herr Selingman appeared to take the enquiry quite seriously.
"Why not?" he demanded. "You are well-educated, you have address, you have intelligence. Mrs. Benedek has spoken very highly of you.
But you--oh, no! It would not suit you at all to plunge yourself into commerce, nor would it suit you, I think, to push the affairs of a prosperous German concern. You are very English, Mr. Norgate, is that not so?"
"Not aggressively," Norgate replied. "As a matter of fact, I am rather fed up with my own country just now."
Mr. Selingman sat quite still in his chair. Some signs of a change which came to him occasionally were visible in his face. He was for that moment no longer the huge, overgrown schoolboy bubbling over with the joy and appet.i.te of life. His face seemed to have resolved itself into sterner lines. It was the face of a thinker.
"There are other Englishmen besides you," Selingman said, "who are a little--what you call "fed up" with your country. You have much common sense. You do not believe that yours is the only country in the world.
You like sometimes to hear plain speech from one who knows?"
"Without a doubt," Norgate a.s.sented.