Rice lighted a cigarette, glanced around, and leaned over the table.
"You, my friend and host. You are upon my mind. I will confess."
Douglas nodded and waited. Rice seemed to find it not altogether easy to continue. He dropped his voice. The question he asked was almost a whisper.
"Is your name really Douglas Jesson--or is it Douglas Guest?"
Douglas gasped and clutched for a moment at the tablecloth. The room was suddenly spinning round and round, the faces of the people were shrouded in mist, his newly-acquired strength was all engrossed in a desperate struggle against that sickening sensation of fainting. Rice"s voice seemed to come to him from a long way off.
"Drink your wine, man--quick."
Mechanically he obeyed. He set the gla.s.s down empty. Once more the faces in the restaurant were clear, the mists had pa.s.sed away. But the keen joy of living no longer throbbed in his pulses.
"How did you know?" he asked, hoa.r.s.ely.
"From the story you sent us," Rice answered. "At first you wrote on the t.i.tle-page Douglas Guest as the author. Then apparently you changed your mind, crossed it out, and subst.i.tuted Douglas Jesson, which we took to be a nom-de-plume, especially as you gave us for your address initials to a post-office."
"Did any one else see it?"
"Not unless Drexley did. He has never spoken to me about it."
Douglas drank more wine. He was unused to it, and the colour mounted to his pale cheeks.
"You have asked me a question," he said, "and it is answered. What else?"
"Nothing," Rice said slowly. "It is no concern of mine.
"You are not anxious, then," Douglas said, "to earn a hundred pounds reward?"
"I think if I were you," Rice said, "I would get the Courier to send you abroad. They would do it in a minute."
"Abroad?" Douglas looked across the table questioningly. It was a new idea to him. "Yes. You could visit odd places and write impressions of them. Yours is just the style for that sort of thing--quick and nervous, you know, and lots of colour. People are rabid for anything of that sort just now. Take my tip. Suggest it to Rawlinson."
"I think I will," Douglas said. "Yes, it is a good idea. I wonder--"
Rice leaned once more across the table.
"You wonder what the Countess de Reuss will say. Is that it?"
Douglas nodded.
"I should consult her, of course."
A rare seriousness fell upon Rice. The nonchalance, which was the most p.r.o.nounced of his mannerisms, had fallen away. It was a new man speaking. One saw, as it were for the first time, that his hair was grey, and that the lines on his face were deeply engraven.
"My young friend," he said, "I want you to listen to me. I am twice your age. I have seen very much more of the world than you. Years ago I had a friend--Silverton. He was about your age--clever, ambitious, good-looking. He scored a small success--a poem, I think it was--and some one took him one day to call on Emily de Reuss. I do not know where he is now, but two months ago I met him in rags, far advanced in consumption, an utter wreck bodily and mentally. Yet when I spoke one word of her he struck me across the lips. To-day I suppose he is dead--pauper"s funeral and all that sort of thing, without a doubt. I have taken his case first because he reminded me of you. He had come from the north somewhere, and he was about your age. But he is only one of a score. There is Drexley, a broken man. Once he wrote prose, which of its sort was the best thing going. To-day he is absolutely nerveless. He cannot write a line, and he is drinking heavily. That he has not gone under altogether is simply because as yet he has not received his final dismissal. He still has his uses, so he is allowed to hang on a little longer. Now, Douglas Jesson, listen to one who knows. What you are and who you are--well, no matter. I liked you when we met here, and you have a splendid opportunity before you. Listen.
Emily de Reuss will care nothing for your safety. She will oppose your going abroad. You are her latest plaything. She is not weary of you yet, so she will not let you go. Be a man, and do the sensible thing.
Too many have been her victims. It may make your heart ache a little; you may fancy yourself a little ungracious. Never mind. You will save your life and your soul. Go abroad as soon as Rawlinson will send you."
Rice"s words were too impressive to be disregarded altogether. They stirred up in Douglas"s mind a vague uneasiness, but his sense of loyalty to the woman who had befriended him was unshaken. Rice was led away by his feelings for his friend.
"Rice," he said, "I know you"re speaking what you believe. I can"t quite accept it all. Never mind. I"ll remember everything you"ve said.
I"m not quite a boy, you know, and I don"t wear my heart upon my sleeve."
"Hard to convince, as they all are," Rice said, with a wintry smile.
"Never mind. I"ll do my best to save you. Listen to this. Do you know why Drexley behaved so disgracefully to you about your story?"
Douglas looked up eagerly. The thing had always puzzled him.
"No. Why?"
"Because he had orders from Emily de Reuss to do so. She had given you her address and bidden you go and see her. You never went. So she wrote Drexley to give you no encouragement. It was your punishment.
You were to go to her."
"I don"t believe it," Douglas declared hotly.
"Then you don"t believe me," Rice said quietly, "for on my honour I tell you that I have seen the letter."
Douglas leaned his head upon his hand.
"I"m sorry," he said, wearily. "I believe absolutely in you, but I believe also in her. There must be some misunderstanding."
Rice rose up. Douglas had paid the bill long ago. A waiter, overcome with the munificence of his tip, brought them their hats and preceded them, smiling, to the door. They pa.s.sed out into the street, and the fresh air was grateful to them both. Rice pa.s.sed his arm through his companion"s.
"I want you to give me just an hour," he said--"no more."
Douglas nodded, and they made their way through a maze of squares and streets southwards. At last Rice stopped before a house in a terrace of smoke-begrimed tenements, and led the way inside. They mounted flight after flight of stairs, pausing at last before a door on the topmost floor. Rice threw it open, and motioned his companion to follow him in.
It was a small chamber, bare and gaunt, without ornament or luxury, without even comfort. The furniture was the poorest of its sort, the sc.r.a.p of carpet was eked out with linoleum from which the pattern had long been worn. There was only one thing which could be said in its favour--the room was clean. Rice leaned against the mantelpiece, watching his companion"s face.
"My friend," he said, "I have brought you here because I wanted you to see my home. Shall I tell you why? Because it is exactly typical of my life. Bare and empty, comfortless, with never a bright spot nor a ray of hope. There is nothing here to dazzle you, is there? All that you can remark in its favour is that it is tolerably clean--all in my life that I can lay claim to is that I have managed to preserve a moderate amount of self-respect. This is my life, my present and my future. I wanted you to see it."
Douglas was puzzled. He scarcely knew what to say, but instinctively he felt that Rice"s purpose in bringing him here had not yet been explained. So he waited.
"I have told you," Rice continued, "of Drexley and of poor young Silverton. I have told you that there have been many others. I have told you that she even tried to do you ill that you might be numbered amongst her victims. Now I tell you what as yet I have told no man. I, too, was once the most pitiful of her slaves."
"You?"
A sharp, staccato cry broke from Douglas"s lips. He had not expected this. Rice was suddenly an older man. The careless front he showed to the world was gone. He was haggard, weary, elderly. It was a rare moment with him.
"I made a brave start," he continued--"like you. Some one took me to her house. I made an epigram that pleased her; I pa.s.sed at once into the circle of her intimates. She flattered me, dazzled me, fed my ambition and my pa.s.sion. I told her of the girl whom I loved, whom I was engaged to marry. She was on the surface sympathetic; in reality she never afterwards let pa.s.s an opportunity of making some scathing remark as to the folly of a young man sacrificing a possibly brilliant future for the commonplace joys of domesticity. I became even as the rest. My head was turned; my letters to Alice became less frequent; every penny of the money I was earning went to pay my tailor"s bills, and to keep pace with the life which, as her constant companion, I was forced to live. All the while the girl who trusted me never complained, but was breaking her heart. They sent for me--she was unwell. I had promised to take Emily upon the river, and she declined to let me off.
I think that evening some premonition of the truth came to me. We saw a child drowned--I watched Emily"s face. She looked at the corpse without a shudder, with frank and brutal curiosity. She had never seen anything really dead,--it was quite interesting. Well, I hurried back to my rooms, meaning to catch a night train into Devonshire. On the mantelpiece was a telegram which had come early in the morning. Alice was worse--their only hope was in my speedy coming. I dashed into a hansom, but on the step another telegram was handed to me. Alice was dead. I had not seen her for ten months, and she was dead."
There was an odd, strained silence. Douglas walked away to the window and gazed with misty eyes over a wilderness of housetops. Rice"s head had fallen forward upon his arms. It was long before he spoke again.
When he did his tone was changed.
"For days I was stupefied. Then habit conquered. I went to her. I hoped for sympathy--she laughed at me. It was for the best. Then I told her truths, and she flung them back at me. I knew then what manner of woman she was--without heart, vain, callous, soulless. It is the sport of her life to play with, and cast aside when she is weary of them, the men whom she thinks it worth while to make her slaves. A murderess is a queen amongst the angels to her; it is the souls of men she destroys, and laughs when she sees them sink down into h.e.l.l. My eyes were opened, but it was too late. I had lost the girl who loved me, and whom I loved. I was head over ears in debt, my work had suffered from constant attendance upon her, I lost my position, and every chance I ever had in life went with it. I have become an ill-paid hack, and even to-day I am not free from debt after years of struggling.
Douglas Jesson, I have never spoken of these things to any breathing man, but every word is the gospel truth."