Louise glanced at her watch, sat up in bed, and turned reproachfully
toward Aline.
"Aline, do you know it is only eleven o'clock?" she exclaimed.
"I am very sorry, _madame_," the latter hastened to explain, "but there
is a gentleman down-stairs who wishes to see you. He says he will wait
until you can receive him. I thought you would like to know."
"A gentleman at this hour of the morning?" Louise yawned. "How absurd!
Anyhow, you ought to know better than to wake me up before the proper
time."
"I am very sorry, _madame_," Aline replied. "I hesitated for some time,
but I thought you would like to know that the gentleman was here. It is
Mr. Stephen Strangewey--Mr. John's brother."
Louise clasped her knees with her fingers and sat thinking. She was wide
awake now.
"He has been here some time already, _madame_," Aline continued. "I did
not wish to disturb you, but I thought perhaps it was better for you to
know that he was here."
"Quite right, Aline," Louise decided. "Go down and tell him that I will
see him in half an hour, and get my bath ready at once."
Louise dressed herself simply but carefully. She could conceive of but
one reason for Stephen's presence in her house, and it rather amused
her. It was, of course, no friendly visit. He had come either to
threaten or to cajole. Yet what could he do? What had she to fear? She
went over the interview in her mind, imagining him crushed and subdued
by her superior subtlety and finesse.
With a little smile of coming triumph upon her lips she descended the
stairs and swept into her pleasantly warmed and perfumed little
drawing-room. She even held out her hand cordially to the dark, grim
figure whose outline against the dainty white wall seemed so
inappropriate.
"This is very nice of you indeed, Mr. Strangewey," she began. "I had no
idea that you had followed your brother's example and come to town."
She told herself once more that her slight instinct of uneasiness had
been absurd. Stephen's bow, although a little formal and austere, was
still an acknowledgment of her welcome. The shadows of the room,
perhaps, had prevented him from seeing her outstretched hand.
"Mine is a very short visit, Miss Maurel," he said. "I had no other
reason for coming but to see John and to pay this call upon you."
"I am greatly flattered," she told him. "You must please sit down and
make yourself comfortable while we talk. See, this is my favorite
place," she added, dropping into a corner of her lounge. "Will you sit
beside me? Or, if you prefer, draw up that chair."
"My preference," he replied, "is to remain standing."
She raised her eyebrows. Her tone altered.
"It must be as you wish, of course," she continued; "only I have such
pleasant recollections of your hospitality at Peak Hall that I should
like, if there was any possible way in which I could return it--"
"Madam," he interrupted, "you must admit that the hospitality of Peak
Hall was not willingly offered to you. Save for the force of
circumstances, you would never have crossed our threshold."
She shrugged her shoulders. She was adapting her tone and manner to the
belligerency of his attitude.
"Well?"
"You want to know why I have found my way to London?" he went on. "I
came to find out a little more about you."
"About me?"
"To discover if there was anything about you," he proceeded
deliberately, "concerning which report had lied. I do not place my faith
in newspapers and gossip. There was always a chance that you might have
been an honest woman. That is why I came to London, and why I went to
see your play last night."
She was speechless. It was as if he were speaking to her in some foreign
tongue.
"I have struggled," he continued, "to adopt a charitable view of your
profession. I know that the world changes quickly, while we, who prefer
to remain outside its orbit, of necessity lose touch with its new ideas
and new fashions. So I said to myself that there should be no mistake.
For that reason I sat in a theater last night almost for the first time
in my life. I saw you act."
"Well?" she asked almost defiantly.
He looked down at her. All splendid self-assurance seemed ebbing away.
She felt a sudden depression of spirit, a sudden strange sense of
insignificance.
"I have come," he said, "if I can, to buy my brother's freedom."
"To buy your brother's freedom?" she repeated, in a dazed tone.
"My brother is infatuated with you," Stephen declared. "I wish to save
him."
Her woman's courage began to assert itself. She raised her eyes to his.
"Exactly what do you mean?" she asked calmly. "In what way is any man to
be saved from me? If your brother should care for me, and I, by any
chance, should happen to care for him, in what respect would that be a
state from which he would require salvation?"
"You make my task more difficult," he observed deliberately. "Does it
amuse you to practise your profession before one so ignorant and so
unappreciative as myself? If my brother should ever marry, it is my firm
intention that he shall marry an honest woman."
Louise sat quite still for a moment. A flash of lightning had glittered
before her eyes, and in her ears was the crash of thunder. Her face was
suddenly strained. She saw nothing but the stern, forbidding expression
of the man who looked down at her.
"You dare to say this to me, here in my own house?"
"Dare? Why not? Don't people tell you the truth here in London, then?"
She rose a little unsteadily to her feet, motioning him toward the door,
and moving toward the bell. Suddenly she sank back into her former
place, breathless and helpless.
"Why do you waste your breath?" he asked calmly. "We are alone here, and
I--we know the truth!"
She sat quite still, shivering a little.
"Do we? Tell me, then, because I am curious--tell me why you are so sure
of what you say?"
"The world has it," he replied, "that you are the mistress of the Prince
of Seyre. I came to London to satisfy myself as to the truth of that
report. Do you believe that any man living, among that audience last
night, could watch the play and know that you passed, night after night,
into your bed-chamber to meet your lover with that look upon your
face--you are a clever actress, madam--and believe that you were a woman
who was living an honest life?"
"That seems impossible to you?" she demanded.
"Utterly impossible!"
"And to John?"
"I am speaking for myself and not for my brother," Stephen replied. "Men
like him, who are assailed by a certain madness, are best left alone
with it. That is why I came to you to bargain, if I could. Is there
anything that you lack--anything which your own success and your lover,
or lovers, have failed to provide for you?"
It was useless to try to rise; she was powerless in all her limbs. Side
by side with the anger and horror that his words aroused was a sense of
something almost grotesque, something which seemed to force an unnatural
laugh from her lips.
"So you want to buy me off?"
"I should be glad to believe that it was within my power to do so. I
have not John's great fortune, but I have money, the accumulated savings
of a lifetime, for which I have no better purpose. There is one more
thing, too, to be said."
"Another charge?"
"Not that," he told her; "only it is better for you to understand that
if you turn me from your house this morning, I shall still feel the
necessity of saving my brother from you."
"Saving him from me?" she exclaimed, rising suddenly and throwing out
her arms. "Do you know what you are talking about? Do you know that if I
consented to think of your brother as my husband, there is not a man in
London who would not envy him? Look at me! I am beautiful, am I not? I
am a great artist. I am Louise Maurel, and I have made myself famous by
my own work and my own genius. What has your brother done in life to
render him worthy of the sacrifice I should make if I chose to give him
my hand? You had better go back to Cumberland, Mr. Strangewey. You do
not see life as we see it up here!"
"And what about John?" he asked, without moving. "You tempted him away.
Was it from wantonness, or do you love him?"
"Love him?" she laughed. "I hate you both! You are boors--you are
ignorant people. I hate the moment I ever saw either of you. Take John
back with you. Take him out of my life. There is no place there for
him!"
Stephen picked up his hat from the sofa where it lay. Louise remained
perfectly still, her breath coming quickly, her eyes lit with passion.
"Madam," he said, "I am sorry to have distressed you, but the truth
sometimes hurts the most callous of us. You have heard the truth from
me. I will take John back to Cumberland with me, if he will come. If he
will not--"
"Take him with you!" she broke in fiercely. "He will do as I bid him--do
you hear? If I lift my little finger, he will stay. It will be I who
decide, I--"
"But you will not lift your little finger," he interrupted grimly.
"Why shouldn't I, just to punish you?" she demanded. "There are scores
of men who fancy themselves in love with me. If I choose, I can keep
them all their lives hanging to the hem of my skirt, praying for a word,
a touch. I can make them furious one day and penitent the next--wretched
always, perhaps, but I can keep them there. Why should I not treat your
brother in the same way?"
He seemed suddenly to dilate. She was overcome with a sense of some
latent power in the man, some commanding influence.
"Because," he declared, "I am the guardian of my brother's happiness.
Whoever trifles with it shall in the future reckon with me!"
His eyes were fixed upon her soft, white throat. His long, lean fingers
seemed suddenly to be drawing near to her. She watched him, fascinated.
She was trying to scream. Even after he had turned away and left her,
after she had heard his measured tramp descending the stairs, her
fingers flew to her throat. She held herself tightly, standing there
with beating heart and throbbing pulses. It was not until the front door
had closed that she had the strength to move, to throw herself face
downward upon the couch.