The note fluttered to the ground. Webster, picking it up and handing it back, was enabled to get a glimpse of the first two sentences. They confirmed his suspicions. The note was hot stuff. a.s.suming that it continued as it began, it was about the warmest thing of its kind that pen had ever written. Webster had received one or two heated epistles from the s.e.x in his time-your man of gallantry can hardly hope to escape these unpleasantnesses-but none had got off the mark quite so swiftly, and with quite so much frigid violence as this.
"Thanks," said Sam, mechanically.
"Not at all, sir. You are very welcome."
Sam resumed his reading. A cold perspiration broke out on his forehead. His toes curled, and something seemed to be crawling down the small of his back. His heart had moved from its proper place and was now beating in his throat. He swallowed once or twice to remove the obstruction, but without success. A kind of pall had descended on the landscape, blotting out the sun.
Of all the rotten sensations in this world, the worst is the realisation that a thousand-to-one chance has come off, and caused our wrong-doing to be detected. There had seemed no possibility of that little ruse of his being discovered, and yet here was Billie in full possession of the facts. It almost made the thing worse that she did not say how she had come into possession of them. This gave Sam that feeling of self-pity, that sense of having been ill-used by Fate, which makes the bringing home of crime so particularly poignant.
"Fine day!" he muttered. He had a sort of subconscious feeling that it was imperative to keep engaging Webster in light conversation.
"Yes, sir. Weather still keeps up," agreed the valet suavely.
Sam frowned over the note. He felt injured. Sending a fellow notes didn"t give him a chance. If she had come in person and denounced him it would not have been an agreeable experience, but at least it would have been possible then to have pleaded and cajoled and-and all that sort of thing. But what could he do now? It seemed to him that his only possible course was to write a note in reply, begging her to see him. He explored his pockets and found a pencil and a sc.r.a.p of paper. For some moments he scribbled desperately. Then he folded the note.
"Will you take this to Miss Bennett," he said, holding it out.
Webster took the missive, because he wanted to read it later at his leisure; but he shook his head.
"Useless, I fear, sir," he said gravely.
"What do you mean?"
"I am afraid it would effect little or nothing, sir, sending our Miss B. notes. She is not in the proper frame of mind to appreciate them. I saw her face when she handed me the letter you have just read, and I a.s.sure you, sir, she is not in a malleable mood."
"You seem to know a lot about it!"
"I have studied the s.e.x, sir," said Webster modestly.
"I mean, about my business, confound it! You seem to know all about it!"
"Why, yes, sir, I think I may say that I have grasped the position of affairs. And, if you will permit me to say so, sir, you have my respectful sympathy."
Dignity is a sensitive plant which flourishes only under the fairest conditions. Sam"s had perished in the bleak east wind of Billie"s note. In other circ.u.mstances he might have resented this intrusion of a stranger into his most intimate concerns. His only emotion now, was one of dull but distinct grat.i.tude. The four winds of heaven blew chilly upon his raw and unprotected soul, and he wanted to wrap it up in a mantle of sympathy, careless of the source from which he borrowed that mantle. If Webster, the valet, felt disposed, as he seemed to indicate, to comfort him, let the thing go on. At that moment Sam would have accepted condolences from a coal-heaver.
"I was reading a story-one of the Nosegay Novelettes; I do not know if you are familiar with the series, sir?-in which much the same situation occurred. It was ent.i.tled "Cupid or Mammon!" The heroine, Lady Blanche Trefusis, forced by her parents to wed a wealthy suitor, despatches a note to her humble lover, informing him it cannot be. I believe it often happens like that, sir."
"You"re all wrong," said Sam. "It"s not that at all."
"Indeed, sir? I supposed it was."
"Nothing like it! I-I-"
Sam"s dignity, on its death-bed, made a last effort to a.s.sert itself.
"I don"t know what it"s got to do with you!"
"Precisely, sir!" said Webster, with dignity. "Just as you say! Good afternoon, sir!"
He swayed gracefully, conveying a suggestion of departure without moving his feet. The action was enough for Sam. Dignity gave an expiring gurgle, and pa.s.sed away, regretted by all.
"Don"t go!" he cried.
The idea of being alone in this infernal lane, without human support, overpowered him. Moreover, Webster had personality. He exuded it. Already Sam had begun to cling to him in spirit, and rely on his support.
"Don"t go!"
"Certainly not, if you do not wish it, sir."
Webster coughed gently, to show his appreciation of the delicate nature of the conversation. He was consumed with curiosity, and his threatened departure had been but a pretence. A team of horses could not have moved Webster at that moment.
"Might I ask, then what...?"
"There"s been a misunderstanding," said Sam. "At least, there was, but now there isn"t, if you see what I mean."
"I fear I have not quite grasped your meaning, sir."
"Well, I-I-played a sort of-you might almost call it a sort of trick on Miss Bennett. With the best motives, of course!"
"Of course, sir!"
"And she"s found out. I don"t know how she"s found out, but she has. So there you are!"
"Of what nature would the trick be, sir? A species of ruse, sir,-some kind of innocent deception?"
"Well, it was like this."
It was a complicated story to tell, and Sam, a prey to conflicting emotions, told it badly; but such was the almost superhuman intelligence of Webster, that he succeeded in grasping the salient points. Indeed, he said that it reminded him of something of much the same kind in the Nosegay Novelette, "All for Her," where the hero, anxious to win the esteem of the lady of his heart, had bribed a tramp to simulate an attack upon her in a lonely road.
"The principle"s the same," said Webster.
"Well what did he do when she found out?"
"She did not find out, sir. All ended happily, and never had the wedding-bells in the old village church rung out a blither peal than they did at the subsequent union."
Sam was thoughtful.
"Bribed a tramp to attack her, did he?"
"Yes, sir. She had never thought much of him till that moment, sir. Very cold and haughty she had been, his social status being considerably inferior to her own. But, when she cried for help, and he dashed out from behind a hedge, well, it made all the difference."
"I wonder where I could get a good tramp," said Sam, meditatively.
Webster shook his head.
"I really would hardly recommend such a procedure, sir."
"No, it would be difficult to make a tramp understand what you wanted."