Before she could be half-way across the room, he would be holding her in his arms. A cry? Before it was half uttered, he would have stifled her mouth. No, she must sit very still and provoke no movement by him.
Mario Escobar was a creature of unhealthy refinements. He wanted to know, first, who was the man who had touched this indifferent maiden into warm life. The knowledge would be an extra spice to his pleasure.
"Who are staying in the house?" he asked. It would be amusing to make his selection, and discover if he were right.
"Dennis Brown, Harold Jupp"--Joan began, puzzled by his question, yet welcoming it as so much delay.
"I don"t want to hear about them," Mario Escobar replied. "Tell me of the new-comers!"
"Martin Hillyard----" Joan began again, and was aware that Mario Escobar made a quick startled movement and gasped. Martin Hillyard"s name was a pail of cold water for Escobar.
"Does Hillyard know that I am at Midhurst?" he asked sharply.
"No," Joan answered.
There was something which Hillyard had told her about Mario Escobar, something which she had rejected and dismissed altogether from her thoughts. Then she remembered. Escobar was an enemy working in England against England. She had given the statement no weight whatever. It was the sort of thing people said of unconventional people they disliked in order to send them to Coventry. But Escobar"s start and Escobar"s question put a different value upon it. Joan caught at it. Of what use could it be to her? Of some use, surely, if only she had the wit to divine it. But she was in such a disorder of fear and doubt that every idea went whirling about and about in her mind. She raised her hand to her forehead, keeping her eyes upon Escobar. She felt as helpless as a child. Almost she regretted the love which had so violently mastered her. It had made clear to her her ignorance and so stripped her of all a.s.surance and left her defenceless.
But even in the tumult of her thoughts, she began to recognise a change.
The air was less charged with terror. There was less of pa.s.sion and anger in Mario Escobar, and more of speculation. He watched her in a gloomy silence, and each moment she took fresh heart. With a swift movement he seated himself on the couch beside her.
Joan sprang up with a little cry, and her heart thumping in her breast.
"Hush!" said Escobar. Yes, it was now he who pleaded for secrecy and a quiet voice.
There was a stronger pa.s.sion in Mario than the love of women, and that was the love of money. Women were to him mainly the means to money. They were easier to get, too, if you were not over particular. Money was a rare, shy thing, except to an amazing few who acc.u.mulated it by some obscure, magnetic attraction; and opportunities of acquisition were not to be missed.
"Hush!" he said. "You treated me badly, Joan. It was right that I should teach you a lesson--frighten you a little, eh?"
He smiled at her with eyes half closed and eyelids cunningly blinking.
Now that her fears were weakening Joan found his impertinence almost insufferable. But she held her tongue and waited.
"But you owe me a return, don"t you?"
Joan did not move.
"A little return--which will cost you nothing at all. You know that I represent a line of ships. You can help me. We have rivals, with active agents. You shall find out for me exactly what Martin Hillyard is doing in the Mediterranean, and why he visits in a yacht the ports of Spain.
You will find this out for me, so that I may know whether he is acting for my rivals. Yes."
"He is not," answered Joan.
"You will find this out for me, so that I may know," Escobar repeated smoothly. "Exactly what he is doing in the Mediterranean, what special plans, and why he visits in a yacht the ports of Spain. You promise me that knowledge, and you can go straight back to your dancing."
"I have no knowledge," said Joan quietly.
"But you can obtain it," Escobar insisted. "He is a friend of yours.
Exactly what he is doing--is it not so?"
So Martin"s accusation was true. Joan nodded her head, and Escobar, with a smile of relief, took the gesture as a consent to his proposal.
"Good!" he said, rising from the couch. "Then all is forgiven! You will make some notes----"
"I will do nothing of the kind," said Joan quietly, but she was white to the edge of her lips, and she trembled from head to foot. But there was no room any more for fear in her. She was in a heat of anger which she had never known. "Oh, that you should dare!" and her words choked her.
Mario Escobar stared at her.
"You refuse?"
"With all my soul."
Escobar took a step towards her, but she did not move.
"You are alone with me, when you should be dancing at the ball. You made the appointment, chose the hour, the place ... even if you scream, there will be a scandal, a disgrace."
"I don"t care."
"And the man you are in love with, eh? That makes a difference," he said, as he saw the girl falter. "Do we think of him?"
"No," said Joan. "We incur the disgrace."
She saw his eyes open wide with terror. He drew a step away from her.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, in a long-drawn whisper; and he looked at Joan with incredulity and hatred. "You----" he used some Spanish word which Joan did not catch. It would have told her little if she had caught it. It was "Cabron," a harmless, inoffensive word which has become in Spain the ultimate low word of abuse. "You have laid a trap for me."
Joan answered him in a bewilderment. "I have laid no trap for you," and there was so much scorn and contempt in her voice that Escobar could hardly disbelieve her.
But he was shaken. He was in a panic. He was in a haste to go.
Money--yes. But you must live in order to enjoy it.
"I will give you a day to think over my proposal," he said, stammering the words in his haste. And then, "Don"t write to me! I will find a means," and, almost before she was aware of his movements, he had s.n.a.t.c.hed up his cap, and the room was empty. The curtain was torn aside; the gla.s.s door stood open; beyond it the garden lay white in the light of the moon.
"A trap?" Joan repeated his accusation in a perplexity. She turned and she saw the door, the door behind her, which Escobar had faced, the door into the hall, slowly open. There had been no turning of the handle, it was unlatched before. Yet Joan had seen to it that it was shut before ever she beckoned Mario Escobar into the room. Some one, then, had been listening. Mario Escobar had seen the handle move, the door drawn ajar.
Joan saw it open now to its full width, and in the entrance Stella Croyle.
CHAPTER XXVI
A FATAL KINDNESS
Joan picked up her cloak and arranged it upon her shoulders. She did not give one thought to Stella, or even hear the words which Stella began nervously to speak. Her secret appointment would come to light now in any case. It would very likely cost her--oh, all the gold and glamour of the world. It would be bandied about in gossip over the tea-tables, in the street, at the Clubs, in the Press. Sir Chichester ought to be happy, at all events. The thought struck her with a wry humour, and brought a smile to her lips. He would accomplish his dream. Without effort, without a letter or a telephone call, or a rebuff, he would have such publicity as he could hardly have hoped for. "Who is that?" Joan made up a little scene. "That? Oh, don"t you know? That"s Sir Chichester Splay. You must have heard of Sir Chichester! Why, it was in his house that the Whitworth girl, rather pretty but an awful fool, carried on with the spy-man."
Joan was a little overstrung. All the while she was powdering her nose in front of a mirror and removing as best she could the traces of tears, and all the while Mrs. Croyle was stammering words and words and words behind her. Joan regretted that Stella was not going to the Willoughbys"
ball. If she had been, she would probably be carrying some rouge in her little hand-bag, and Joan might have borrowed some.
"Well, since you haven"t got any with you, I must go," said Joan, bursting suddenly into Stella"s monologue. But she had caught a name spoken just before Stella stopped in her perplexity at Joan"s outbreak.
"Harry Luttrell!" Joan repeated. What in the world had Stella Croyle got to say to her about Harry Luttrell? But Stella resumed her faltering discourse and the sense of her words penetrated at last to Joan"s brain and amazed her.