Without thinking any disloyalty to his own Enid, who was now a fair and stately maiden of eighteen, he found it quite impossible to resist the strange charm of Miss Carol"s manner. She was obviously a lady by instinct, and she had also been educated after a sort. She had read widely if not altogether wisely, and she seemed just as familiar with the literature, or, at any rate, with the fiction of France and Italy as she was with that of England.
This she explained was due to the fact that until she was about twelve, that is to say some seven years ago, she had been constantly living and wandering about in these two countries with her mother and sometimes also with a gentleman who, as she put it, was pretty probably her father. She explained further that at the mature age of thirteen she had run away from a French school in which she had been placed by some unknown agency and joined a wandering English circus-troop with which she had travelled half over Europe, leading a more or less miserable existence for some five years. She had then terminated her connection with the Ring by going into housekeeping with an English art-student in Paris. Meanwhile she had lost all trace of her mother, and had come to the conclusion that she had by this time drunk herself to death.
"I scarcely ever knew her to be quite sober," she said pathetically, and then she changed the subject.
It was not a very cheerful story, as story, but Miss Carol told it with such a quaint humour and such a vivacity of expression and gesture that, despite the under-note of tragedy, Maxwell thought it the most interesting story he had ever heard in his life.
As the courses disappeared and the empty bottle of wine was succeeded by a half bottle "just for the last," as Maxwell said, the conversation grew gayer and perhaps also a trifle freer, although Miss Carol never permitted herself any of those freedoms of expression with which too many of the so-called Daughters of Delight vulgarise themselves so hopelessly. When the half bottle was finished Maxwell wanted another, and to this Miss Carol promptly and firmly objected.
"If you will excuse me saying so to a new acquaintance," she said, "I wouldn"t if I were you. We have both of us had enough of this stuff, nice and all as it is--at least, I have, and I think I"m more used to it than you. A coffee and liqueur if you like. That won"t hurt us--in fact, it"ll do us good; but I can see something in your eyes that shouldn"t be there."
"What do you mean?" said Maxwell, a trifle offended. "Surely you"re not going to accuse me of the unpardonable crime of getting drunk in the company of a lady."
"Thank you!" she said simply, and yet with a decided dignity. "No, I don"t mean that. It"s a funny thing, you know," she went on, leaning her elbows on the table and staring straight into his eyes, "but there"s a queer kind of light coming into your eyes, a sort of dancing, jumping yellow flame that makes them look almost red. Well, your eyes are almost exactly like mine, and mine are like my mother"s, and whenever she"d got so far on with drink that she couldn"t stop I used to see that light in her eyes. Of course I don"t say that it means anything; still, there it is. I used to call it the danger signal, and keep away from her as much as I could till it was over, and I had to nurse her back to something like life."
"That"s rather approaching the creepy," said Maxwell, with an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders. He had no feeling of offence now.
She looked so pretty and she spoke so earnestly that it was impossible to be offended with her. Moreover, although he was far from even getting drunk, he felt a dreamy sensation stealing over him which seemed to be sapping his self-restraint and making him utterly careless of what he did or what happened to him so long as it was only pleasant.
"Really, it is decidedly curious," he went on. "I hope I haven"t got the makings of a dipsomaniac in me. But I feel quite curiously happy, and I believe I could just go on drinking and getting happier and happier until I landed in Paradise with you standing just inside the gates to welcome me."
"Don"t!" she said almost sharply. "For goodness sake don"t begin to talk like that. That"s just how my mother used to feel, just how she used to talk, and she did go on--of course, there was no one to stop her. You should have seen her a couple of days after--a savage, an animal, a wild beast, only wild beasts don"t get drunk. It"s not a nice thing to say of your mother, even such a mother as mine was, but it"s true, and I"m telling you because I like you, and it may do you some good."
"Thank you, Miss Carol! After that I shall certainly take your advice,"
he said, pouring his cognac into his coffee. "This is the last drink to-night, and that reminds me; it"s getting rather late. How about going home?"
"I think it"s about time," she said. "They close at twelve to-night, you know. Which way do you go?"
"Which way do _you_ go?" he said, as he beckoned to the waiter for the bill. "By the way, I was going to ask you--I hope you have never seen that light, that danger signal, in your own eyes?"
She ignored his first question _in toto_, and replied:
"Yes, I saw it once when I got home after a pretty wild supper. It frightened me so that I went "T.T." for nearly a month, and just now I wouldn"t drink another gla.s.s of that champagne if you gave me a thousand pounds to drink it."
"Well, I"m sure I shan"t ask you after what you"ve said," he laughed, as he threw a couple of shillings on the plate which the waiter presented, and took up his bill. Then he got up and helped her on with her cloak, and as she shook her shapely shoulders into it he went on:
"But you haven"t answered my question yet."
"Which question?" she said, turning sharply round.
"Which way do you go--or do you intend to stop out a bit later?" he replied rather haltingly. "I thought perhaps I might have the pleasure----"
"Of seeing me home?" she said, raising her eyes to his and flushing hotly. "I"m afraid that"s impossible. But go and get your coat and hat, and let"s go outside. It"s horribly close in here."
He paid his bill at the pay-box near the door, and when they got out into the street he took her by the arm and said, as they turned down towards the Circus:
"And may I ask why it is impossible, Miss Carol. I thought just now you said that you liked me a bit."
"So I do," she replied, with a little thrill in her voice; "and that"s just why, or partly why--and besides, we"re too much alike. Why, we might be brother and sister----"
"That is quite out of the question," he interrupted quickly; "I never had a sister. I am an only child, and my mother died soon after I was born. She died in India nearly twenty years ago."
"I can"t help it," she said, almost pa.s.sionately. "Of course we can"t possibly be any relation, the idea"s absurd; but still, it"s no use--I couldn"t, I daren"t. Besides, have you forgotten what you were telling me about your fight on the steamer with that man we met at the Palace?
Aren"t you in love with the girl still? I quite understood you were engaged to her."
"Yes," said Maxwell frankly, "I am, and perhaps I ought to be ashamed of myself. That is two lessons you"ve taught me to-night, Miss Carol, and I shan"t forget either them or you. Still, I don"t see why we shouldn"t be friends. Honestly, I like you very much, and you"ve said you like me--why shouldn"t we?"
"Yes, that"s true; I like you all right," she replied with almost embarra.s.sing frankness; "but for all that it"s something very different from love at first sight. It"s funny, but do you know, Vane--I suppose if we"re going to be friends I may call you Vane--although I think I could get to like you very much in one way, however different things were, I don"t believe I could ever fall in love with you. But if you only mean friends, just real pals, as we say in my half of the world, I am there, always supposing that the friendship of such an entirely improper young person as I am doesn"t do you any harm."
"Harm, nonsense!" he said. "Why should it? Well, that"s a bargain, and now perhaps you won"t object to tell me where you live."
"Oh, no, not now," she said. "I live at 15, Melville Gardens, Brook Green, with a very nice girl that you may also be friends with if you"re good."
"Brook Green! Why, that"s off the Hammersmith Road. We, that is to say dad and myself, live in Warwick Gardens, a bit this side of Addison Bridge, so if you really mean to go home we may as well get a hansom, and you can drop me at Warwick Gardens and go on."
"Of course I mean to go home, and I think that would be a very good arrangement."
They had crossed over to the pavement in front of the Criterion as she said this. It was on the tip of Maxwell"s tongue to ask her to come in and have another drink. He certainly felt a greater craving for alcohol than he had ever done in his life before, and if he had been alone he might have yielded to it; but he was ashamed to do so after what he had just said to her, so he hailed an empty cab that was just coming up to the kerb. As he was handing his companion in, the door of the buffet swung open, and Reginald Garthorne came out with two other Cambridge men. They were all a trifle fresh, and as Garthorne recognised him he called out:
"By-by, Maxwell. Don"t forget to say your prayers."
Maxwell turned round angrily with his foot on the step. If he had had that other drink that he wanted there would have been a row, but, as it was, a word and a gesture from Miss Carol brought him into the cab.
There was an angry flush on her cheeks and a wicked light in her eyes, but she said very quietly, "Do you know, I am glad you thrashed that fellow once. He ought to be ashamed of himself shouting a thing like that out here. I suppose he thinks himself a gentleman, too."
"Oh, that"s all right," said Vane. "Garthorne"s a bit screwed, that"s all. Everyone is to-night. But he"s not at all a bad fellow. His father was a soldier in India, and did some very good service. He has a staff appointment at home. He"s a baronet too--one of the old ones. His mother comes of a good stock as well. We"ve been very good chums since that first row. Fellows who fight as boys generally are."
"Oh, I daresay he"s all right, but I didn"t like it," said Miss Carol, leaning back in the cab. "And now suppose you tell me something more about yourself."
When the cab pulled up at the corner of Warwick Gardens and he said good-night, he asked her for a kiss. She blushed like a fourteen-year-old school girl as she replied:
"That"s a great compliment, Vane, for I know how you mean it. But if you don"t mind I really think I"d rather not, at least not just yet. You see, after all we"ve only known each other two or three hours. Wait until you know me at least a little better before you ask again, and then perhaps we"ll see."
"Well, I daresay you"re right, Miss Modesty," he laughed, as he got out.
"In fact, you always seem to be right. Good-night, Carol."
"Good-night, Vane." As he stepped backwards from the cab she leant forward and smiled and waved her hand. A gentleman walking quickly from the direction of the bridge looked up and saw her pretty laughing face as the light of a lamp fell upon it. He stopped almost as suddenly as though he had run up against some invisible obstacle, and pa.s.sed his hand across his eyes. Then the cab doors closed, the face vanished back into the shadow of the interior, and, to his utter amazement, Maxwell heard his father"s voice say:
"G.o.d bless my soul. What a marvellous likeness!"
CHAPTER II.
"Well, Vane!"
"Well, dad!"
"May I ask who that young lady in the cab with you was?"