"You would have made me famous," she answered laughing. "I should have claimed the merit of discovering you."
He looked puzzled.
"Of course you know," she said, "how every one has been reading those wonderful articles of yours in the Courier? You are very fortunate.
You have made a reputation at one sitting."
He shook his head.
"A fleeting one, I am afraid. I can understand those articles seeming lifelike. You see I wrote them almost literally with my blood. It was my last effort. I was starving, poisoned with horrors, sick to death of the brutality of life."
"Things had gone so hardly with you then?" she murmured.
He nodded.
"From the first. I came to London as an adventurer, it is true. I knew no one, and I had no money. But the editor of the _Ibex_ had written me kindly, had accepted a story and asked for more. Yet when I went to see him he seemed to have forgotten or repented. He would not give me a hearing. Even the story he had accepted he told me he could not use for a long time--and I was relying upon the money for that. That was the beginning of my ill-luck, and afterwards it never left me."
She sat for a moment with a look in her deep, soft eyes which he could not understand. Afterwards he thought of it and wondered. It pa.s.sed away very soon, and she bent towards him with her face full of sympathy.
"It has left you now," she said softly, "and for ever. Do you know I have come to take you for a drive? The doctor says that it will do you good."
With a curious sense of unreality he followed her downstairs, and took the vacant seat in the victoria. It was all so much like a dream, like one of those wonderful visions which had come to him at times in the days of his homeless wanderings. Surely it was an illusion. The luxurious carriage, the great horses with their silver-mounted harness, the servants in their smart liveries, and above all, this beautiful woman, who leaned back at his side, watching him often with a sort of gentle curiosity. At first he sat still, quite dazed, his senses a little numbed, the feeling of unreality so strong upon him that he was almost tongue-tied. But presently the life of the streets awakened him.
It was all so fascinating and alluring. They were in a part of London of which he had seen little--and that little from the gutters. To-day in the brilliant sunshine, in clothes better than any he had ever worn before, and side by side with a woman whom every one seemed honoured to know, he looked upon it with different eyes. They drove along Bond Street at a snail"s pace and stopped for a few minutes at one of the smaller galleries, where she took him in to see a wonderful Russian picture, about which every one was talking. Fancying that he looked tired she insisted upon tea, and they stopped at some curious little rooms, and sat together at a tiny table drinking tea with sliced lemons, and eating strawberries such as he had never seen before. Then on again to the Park, where they pulled up under the trees, and she waved constantly away the friends who would have surrounded her carriage. One or two would not be denied, and to all of them she introduced Jesson--the young writer--they had seen that wonderful work of his in the _Daily Courier_, of course? He took no part in any conversation more than he could help, leaning back amongst the cushions with the white lace of her parasol close to his cheek, watching the faces of the men and women who streamed by, and the great banks of rhododendrons dimly seen lower down through the waving green trees. The murmur of pleasant conversation fell constantly upon his ears--surely that other world was part of an evil dream, a relic of his delirium. Heaven and h.e.l.l could never exist so close together. But by-and-bye, when they drove off she herself brought the truth home to him.
"Do you know," she said, "this afternoon I have had an idea? Some day I hope so much that it may come true. Do you mind if I tell it you? It concerns yourself."
"Tell me, of course," he said.
"You have written so wonderfully of that terrible world beneath--that world whose burden we would all give so much to lighten. You have written so vividly that every one knows that you yourself have been there. Presently--not now, of course--but some day I would have you write of life as we see it about us to-day--of the world beautiful--and I would have you ill.u.s.trate it as one who has lived in it, drunk of its joys, even as one of its happiest children. Think what a wealth of great experiences must lie between the two extremes! It is what you would wish for--you, to whom the study of your fellow-creatures is the chosen pursuit of life."
He smiled at her thoughtfully.
"I do not know," he replied, "but I should think very few in this world are ever permitted to pa.s.s behind both canopies. To me it seems impossible that I should have ceased so suddenly to be a denizen of the one, and even more impossible that I should ever have caught a glimpse of the other."
"You will not always say so," she murmured. "You have everything in your favour now--youth, strength, experience, and reputation."
"Even then," he answered, "I doubt whether I still possess the capacity for happiness. I feel at times as though what had gone before had frozen the blood in my veins."
"Your friends" she said, "must make up to you for the past.
Forgetfulness is sometimes hardly won, but it is never an impossibility."
"My friends? My dear lady, I do not possess one."
She raised her parasol. Her wonderful eyes sought his, her delicately-gloved hand rested for a moment lightly upon his palm.
"And what am I?" she asked softly.
He was only human, and his heart beat the faster for that gentle touch and the gleam in her eyes. She was so beautiful, so unlike any other woman with whom he had ever spoken.
"Have I any right to call you my friend?" he faltered.
"Have you any right," she answered brightly, "to call me anything else?"
"I wonder what makes you so kind to me," he said.
"I liked you from the moment you jumped into the railway carriage" she replied, "in those ridiculous clothes, and with a face like a ghost.
Then I liked your independence in refusing to come and be helped along, and since I have read your--but we won"t talk about that, only if you have really no friends, let me be your first."
No wonder his brain felt a little dizzy. They were driving through the great squares now, and already he began to wonder with a dull regret how much longer it was to last. Then at a corner they came face to face with Drexley. He was walking moodily along, but at the sight of them he stopped short upon the pavement. Emily de Reuss bowed and smiled.
Drexley returned the salute with a furious glance at her companion. He felt like a man befooled. Douglas, too, sat forward in the carriage, a bright spot of colour in his cheeks.
"You know that man?" he said.
She a.s.sented quietly.
"Yes, I have met him. He is the editor of the _Ibex_."
Douglas remembered the bitterness of that interview and Rice"s amazement, but he said nothing. He leaned back with half closed eyes.
After all perhaps it had been for the best. Yet Drexley"s black look puzzled him.
CHAPTER XIV
A VISITOR FROM SCOTLAND YARD
The carriage pulled up before one of the handsomest houses in London.
Douglas, brought back suddenly to the present, realised that this wonderful afternoon was at an end. The stopping of the carriage seemed to him, in a sense, symbolical. The interlude was over. He must go back to his brooding land of negatives.
"It has been very kind of you to come and see me, and to take me out,"
he said.
She interrupted the words of farewell which were upon his lips.
"Our little jaunt is not over yet," she remarked, smiling. "We are going to have dinner together--you and I alone, and afterwards I will show you that even a town house can sometimes boast of a pleasant garden. You needn"t look at your clothes. We shall be alone, and you will be very welcome as you are."
They pa.s.sed in together, and Douglas was inclined to wonder more than ever whether this were not a dream, only that his imagination could never have revealed anything like this to him. Outside the hall-porter"s office was a great silver bowl sprinkled all over with the afternoon"s cards and notes. A footman with powdered hair admitted them, another moved respectfully before them, and threw open the door of the room to which Emily de Reuss led him. He had only a mixed impression of pale and beautiful statuary, drooping flowers with strange perfumes, and the distant rippling of water; then he found himself in a tiny octagonal chamber draped in yellow and white--a woman"s den, cosy, dainty, cool. She made him sit in an easy-chair, which seemed to sink below him almost to the ground, and moved herself to a little writing-table.
"There is just one message I must send" she said, "to a stupid house where I am half expected to dine. It will not take me half a minute."
He sat still, listening mechanically to the sound of her pen scratching across the paper. A tiny dachshund jumped into his lap, and with a little snort of content curled itself up to sleep. He let his hand wander over its sleek satin coat--the touch of anything living seemed to inspire him with a more complete confidence as to the permanent and material nature of his surroundings. Meanwhile, Emily de Reuss wrote her excuses to a d.u.c.h.ess--a dinner-party of three weeks"
standing--knowing all the while that she was guilty of an unpardonable social offence. She sealed her letter and touched a bell by her side.
Then she came over to him.
"Now I am free" she announced, "for a whole evening. How delightful!
What shall we do? I am ordering dinner at eight. Would you like to look at my books, or play billiards, or sit here and talk? The garden I am going to leave till afterwards. I want you to see it at its best."
"I should like to see your books," he replied.
She rose and moved towards the door.