The upper end of the Park is never so fashionably frequented as its
southern regions, and Rainham, whose want of purpose had led him
past gay carpet-beds and under branching trees nearly to the Marble
Arch, was hardly surprised to recognise among the heterogeneous
array of promenaders, tramps, and nursemaids, whom the heat of the
slanting sun had prompted to occupy the benches dotted at intervals
along the Row, a face whose weary pallor caused him a pang of
self-reproach--Kitty!
For the last few days, since his encounter with her portrait at
Lightmark's studio, he had scarcely given her troubles a thought.
When the girl saw him, after a startled look and movement, she
seemed to shrink still further into the folds of her rusty black
cloak, and, to avoid meeting Rainham's eyes, bent her head over the
child who was seated at her side. He found something irresistibly
charming and pathetically generous in the girl's spontaneous denial
of any claim to his notice, although, except that he had promised to
let her know anything he might learn of the whereabouts of the
father of her child, he would have found it hard to establish in the
mind of an outside critic that any such claim in fact existed.
"Well, my poor child," he said softly, as he dropped into one of the
vacant seats on the same bench, "how goes it with you and the little
one?"
"Oh, sir, you shouldn't speak to me--not here. Anyone might see you.
Pray go. I know I shall get you into trouble, and you so kind!"
These words were spoken in a rapid, frightened whisper, and with an
apprehensive glance at the intermittent stream of carriages passing
within a few yards of them. Rainham shrugged his shoulders
pitifully, but found it rather difficult to say anything. Certainly,
his reputation was running a risk, and he felt that his indifference
was somewhat exceptional.
"I'm sorry to say I've got no news for you," he said presently,
after a silent pause, during which he had observed that the
wide-eyed child was really far prettier than many who (as he had
been assured by the complacent matrons who exhibited them) were
"little cherubs," and that it was as scrupulously cared for as the
little cherubs, even in their exhibition array. "I haven't been able
to discover anything; but you mustn't despair, we shall find him
sooner or later."
The girl glanced at him irresolutely, and then dropped her eyes
again, leaning over the child.
"It's no good, sir," she said. "I'm only sorry to have given you so
much trouble already. He won't come back--he's tired of me. He could
find me if he wanted to, and watching and hunting for him like this
would only set him more and more against me."
Rainham, as he listened to her, rather puzzled by her sudden change
of attitude since their last interview, was forced to admit mentally
that her reasoning, if it lacked spontaneity, was, at all events,
indisputably sound; and while he found himself doubting whether the
victim was not better versed in worldliness than he had at first
suspected, he still felt a curious reluctance which, though he was
half ashamed of his delicacy, prevented him from suggesting that,
sentimental reasons apart, the betrayer still ought to be
discovered, if only in order to force him to provide for the
maintenance of his child. It hardly, perhaps, occurred to him that
he, after all, would be the person who would suffer most, and he
certainly did not for an instant credit the girl with any ulterior
designs upon his purse.
"Oh, I don't know," he said feebly. "Perhaps he does not know where
you are. And I dare say, if he saw the child----"
"The child?" echoed the woman bitterly. "That's just the worst of
it!"
Rainham sighed, forced again to acknowledge his lower standing in
the wisdom of the world. He would have given a great deal to be able
to get up and go.
"Then you don't want me to employ a detective, or to advertise,
or--or to make an appeal to the editor of the _Outcry_?"
Mrs. Crichton seemed to welcome the opportunity afforded by this
direct questioning.
"No," she said, "I think it would be better not. I don't want to
seem ungrateful, sir--and I'm sure I thank you very, very much for
all you have done for me--but I think you had better take no more
trouble about it. If I can get work I shall do all right."
In spite of the girl's evident attempt to pull herself together, her
voice was less brave than her words, and they conveyed but little
assurance to the listener. He shrugged his shoulders somewhat
impatiently: the interview was beginning to tell upon his nerves.
"Of course, it's for you to decide, and I suppose you have thought
it well out, and have good reason for this alteration of purpose.
But when you talk about work----?"
He finished his sentence with a note of inquiry and a half
apologetic glance at her slight form and frail, white fingers.
"I haven't always been a model," she explained with some dignity.
"Would to God I never had! I can sew better than most, and I can
work a type-machine. That's what I used to do before he came. But
type-writing work isn't so easy to get as it was, and I am out of
practice."
It occurred to him for a moment to ask the girl whether she could
remember sitting for Mr. Lightmark, but he felt that Dick might
resent the introduction of his name; and, remembering that she had
told him that, for a time, before her health gave way, her artist
patrons had been numerous, he dismissed the idea as not likely to be
profitable.
As they spoke, she with her mournful eyes turned on Rainham's
sympathetic face, he absently following the movements of the child
as it laboriously raised a small edifice of gravel-stones on the
seat between them, neither of them noticed the severely correct
figure in the frock-coat and immaculate hat who passed close behind
with observant eyeglass fixed upon the little group, and with an air
which, after the first flush of open-mouthed surprise, was
eloquently expressive of regretful indignation and the highest
motives.
Charles Sylvester continued his walk for a distance of about fifty
paces, and then seated himself in a position to command a view of
the persons in whom he was interested.
"I don't like watching Rainham like this," he said to himself; "but
it's a duty which I owe to society."
That the man was Rainham was as obvious as that the woman he was
talking to was of a far lower rank in life than his own. And then
there was the child!
"By Jove!" said Sylvester sententiously, "it's worse than I thought.
People really ought to be warned. I suppose it's that girl he was
talking about at the studio the other day; and he tried to shift her
on to Lightmark. What a hypocrite the man must be!"
He was not, however, for long called upon to maintain, in the
interests of society, his position of espionage; for Rainham, warned
of the lapse of time by the clock which adorns the Park lodge,
presently became aware that, if he was to fulfil his intention of
calling on Mrs. Sylvester, he had no time to spare; and when he rose
from his seat Charles Sylvester thought it advisable to resume the
walk which his zeal had induced him to interrupt.