"Oh!" she remarked. She thought profoundly for a moment, and then added: "Indeed!"
"It is true, madame."
Suddenly Mademoiselle Verbena flung herself down on the Persian carpet at Mrs. Greyne"s large but well-proportioned feet, and, bathing them with her tears, cried in a heartrending manner:
"Madame will let me go! madame will permit me to fly to poor mamma--to close her dying eyes--to kiss once again----"
Mr. Greyne was visibly affected, and even Mrs. Greyne seemed somewhat put about, for she moved her feet rather hastily out of reach of the dependant"s emotion, and made her scramble up.
"Where is your poor mother?"
"In Paris, madame. In the Rue St. Honore, where I was born. Oh, if she should die there! If she should----"
Mrs. Greyne raised her hand, commanding silence.
"You wish to go there?"
"If madame permits."
"When?"
"To-morrow, madame."
"To-morrow? This is decidedly abrupt."
"_Mais la bronchite, madame_, she is abrupt, and death, she may be abrupt."
"True. One moment!"
There was an instant"s silence for Mrs. Greyne to let loose her brain in. She did so, then said:
"You have my permission. Go to-morrow, but return as soon as possible.
I do not wish Adolphus to lose his still uncertain grasp upon the irregular verbs."
In a flood of grateful tears Mademoiselle Verbena retired to make her preparations. On the morrow she was gone.
The morrow was a day of much perplexity, much bustle and excitement for Mr. Greyne and the valet, Darrell. They were preparing for Algiers. In the morning, at an early hour, Mr. Greyne set forth in the barouche with Mrs. Greyne to purchase African necessaries: a small but well-supplied medicine chest, a pith helmet, a white-and-green umbrella, a Baedeker, a couple of Smith & Wesson Springfield revolvers with a due amount of cartridges, a dozen of Merrin"s exercise-books--on mature reflection Mrs. Creyne thought that two would hardly contain a sufficient amount of African frailty for her present purpose--a packet of lead pencils, some bottles of a remedy for seasickness, a silver flask for cognac, and various other trifles such as travellers in distant continents require.
Meanwhile Darrell was learning French for the journey, and packing his own and his master"s trunks. The worthy fellow, a man of twenty-five summers, had never been across the Channel--the Greynes being by no means p.r.o.ne to foreign travel--and it may, therefore, be imagined that he was in a state of considerable expectation as he laid the trousers, coats, and waistcoats in their respective places, selected such boots as seemed likely to wear well in a tropical climate, and dropped those shirts which are so contrived as to admit plenty of ventilation to the heated body into the case reserved for them.
When Mr. Greyne returned from his shopping excursion the barouche, loaded almost to the gunwale--if one may be permitted a nautical expression in this connection--had to be disburdened, and its contents conveyed upstairs to Mr. Greyne"s bedroom, into which Mrs. Greyne herself presently entered to give directions for their disposing. Nor was it till the hour of sunset that everything was in due order, the straps set fast, the keys duly turned in the locks--the labels--"Mr.
Eustace Greyne: Pa.s.senger to Algiers: via Ma.r.s.eilles"--carefully written out in a full, round hand. Rook"s tickets had been bought; so now everything was ready, and the last evening in England might be spent by Mr. Greyne in the drawing-room and by Darrell in the servants" hall quietly, socially, perhaps pathetically.
The pathos of the situation, it must be confessed, appealed more to the master than to the servant. Darrell was very gay, and inclined to be boastful, full of information as to how he would comport himself with "them there Frenchies," and how he would make "them pore, G.o.dless Arabs sit up." But Mr. Greyne"s att.i.tude of mind was very different. As the night drew on, and Mrs. Greyne and he sat by the wood fire in the magnificent drawing-room, to which they always adjourned after dinner, a keen sense of the sorrow of departure swept over them both.
"How lonely you will feel without me, Eugenia," said Mr. Greyne. "I have been thinking of that all day."
"And you, Eustace, how desolate will be your tale of days! My mind runs much on that. You will miss me at every hour."
"You are so accustomed to have me within call, to depend upon me for encouragement in your life-work. I scarcely know how you will get on when I am far across the sea."
"And you, for whom I have labored, for whom I have planned and calculated, what will be your sensations when you realize that a gulf--the Gulf of Lyons--is fixed irrevocably between us?"
So their thoughts ran. Each one was full of tender pity for the other.
Towards bedtime, however, conscious that the time for colloquy was running short, they fell into more practical discourse.
"I wonder," said Mr. Greyne, "whether I shall find any difficulty in gaining the information you require, my darling. I suppose these places"--he spoke vaguely, for his thoughts were vague--"are somewhat awkward to come at. Naturally they would avoid the eye of day."
Mrs. Greyne looked profound.
"Yes. Evil ever seeks the darkness. You will have to do the same."
"You think my investigations must take place at night?"
"I should certainly suppose so."
"And where shall I find a cicerone?"
"Apply to Rook."
"In what terms? You see, dearest, this is rather a special matter, isn"t it?"
"Very special. But on no account hint that you are in Algiers for "Catherine"s" sake. It would get into the papers. It would be cabled to America. The whole reading world would be agog, and the future interest of the book discounted."
Mr. Greyne looked at his wife with reverence. In such moments he realized, almost too poignantly, her great position.
"I will be careful," he said. "What would you recommend me to say?"
"Well"--Mrs. Greyne knit her superb forehead--"I should suggest that you present yourself as an ordinary traveler, but with a specially inquiring bent of mind and a slight tendency towards the--the--er--hidden things of life."
"I suppose you wish me to visit the public houses?"
"I wish you to see everything that has part or lot in African frailty.
Go everywhere, see everything. Bring your notes to me, and I will select such fragments of the broken commandments as suit my purpose, which is, as always, the edifying of the human race. Only this time I mean to purge it as by fire."
"That corner house in Park Lane, next to the Duke of Ebury"s, would suit us very well," said Mr. Greyne reflectively.
"We could sell our lease here at an advance," his wife rejoined. "You will not waste your journey, Eustace?"
"My love," returned Mr. Greyne with decision, "I will apply to Rook on arrival, and, if I find his man unsatisfactory, if I have any reason to suspect that I am not being shown everything--more especially in the Kasbah region, which, from the guide-books we bought to-day, is, I take it, the most abandoned portion of the city--I will seek another cicerone."
"Do so. And now to bed. You must sleep well to-night in preparation for the journey."
It was their invariable habit before retiring to drink each a tumbler of barley water, which was set out by the butler in Mrs. Greyne"s study.
After this nightcap Mrs. Greyne wrote up her antic.i.p.atory diary, while Mr. Greyne smoked a mild cigar, and then they went to bed. To-night, as usual, they repaired to the sanctum, and drank their barley water.
Having done so, Mr. Greyne drew forth his cigar-case, while Mrs. Greyne went to her writing-table, and prepared to unlock the drawer in which her diary reposed, safe from all prying eyes.
The match was struck, the key was inserted in the lock, and turned. As the cigar end glowed the drawer was opened. Mr. Greyne heard a contralto cry. He turned from the arm-chair in which he was just about to seat himself.