Then for a few moments there was silence. The words Miss Davison
had uttered so hastily, in response to his warning that there was a
detective present, Gerard could not but look upon as an admission.
If all had been right at the Priory, why should she have expected to
see there an agent of the police?
She seemed to see that her words were a mistake, for presently she
laughed without much merriment, and said, looking at him with a
steady gaze which had in it something of what he felt to be unmerited
reproach--
“And so your friend Sir William thinks he had better be on the safe
side. That is what you call hedging, isn’t it, in racing matters? He
writes a letter of humble apology for his rudeness to Mrs. Van Santen,
and at the same time takes care to expose her--and us all, to the
ignominy of having a detective introduced to the house to watch us and
to see that we do not cheat at cards?”
Gerard met her gaze steadily.
“In the circumstances, I don’t think he is to be blamed, Miss Davison.
I think, on the contrary, that his conduct is more excusable than mine.
For as, whether he was cheated or no, he undoubtedly believed that he
was, he may have thought himself at liberty to use all possible means
of getting proof of the fact. I, on the other hand, while believing
that he was cheated, and that other people have been cheated here,
have warned you of the fact that the house is sheltering a detective,
although I am afraid you may make use of my warning to put these
thieves on their guard.”
Miss Davison heard him with a set white face, but without any
interruption. They were standing together in the veranda, for, late
as the season was, the afternoon was so fine that the French windows
were open, and the guests of the Van Santens were strolling in and out,
between the house and the grounds.
After a short pause she laughed again in the same hard, forced way as
before.
“If you think I am likely to put thieves on their guard against the
possibility of detection, you must believe that I am a friend, not to
say an accomplice, of thieves myself?” she said quietly, at last.
Gerard shook his head, but hesitated what to reply.
At last he said: “I can’t deny that I believe your friends are not
always well chosen. I have had proof of it before.”
“Don’t you think that, if you were wise, you would leave to her fate
a woman who had so many questionable friends, and whom you could not
depend upon from one moment to another?”
Gerard took up her challenge with sudden fire.
“Yes,” he said, “I do think I should be wiser if I could do as you
suggest; but, unluckily for me, I can’t. For, good or ill, Rachel,
I love you so much that I can’t believe the evidence of my own eyes
when you are in question. So that I am behaving like an imbecile, and
persisting in refusing to believe anything but good of you, even though
I am forced to believe very much that is not good of your friends and
acquaintances.”
As usual when he made a speech like this, owning his steady interest in
her, Miss Davison’s face broke up into softness and gentleness, thus
riveting his chains, even while she would give him no hope that she was
innocent of the things of which he thus by implication accused her.
For a moment he thought she was on the point of bursting into tears.
But she exercised strong self-control, and carefully abstaining from
again meeting his eyes, knowing what sort of look she should meet if
she did, she turned her head languidly in the direction of the interior
of the house, and said--
“But you mustn’t expect me to do anything but take their part, you
know. Whatever may be thought, or fancied, or suspected of them by
other people, I always stand by my own side, even assisting them to the
utmost of my power.”
“You mean,” whispered Gerard desperately, “that you will warn the Van
Santens that there is a detective here?”
She turned upon him sharply.
“Indeed I shall do nothing of the kind; there’s no need. Your friend
has behaved absurdly, and what he has done doesn’t make the least
difference. How should we mind who sees us, since we have nothing to
hide?”
“I wish you would not associate yourself with these Americans,” said
Gerard irritably. “I know very well that you have nothing to hide, but
I believe that the case is different with them. If you believe in them
really, honestly believe in them and trust them to deal honorably, as
you say you do, I want you to give me an understanding, a promise.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Will you promise--swear--that you will not tell the Van Santens what I
have just told you?”
She at once said, in a low voice, but firmly and resolutely--
“I swear that I will not tell anyone here what you have just told
me--about the presence of a detective.”
Gerard was surprised at this readiness to give her oath, and indeed his
doubts made him shudder. Was she perjuring herself? He had had so many
doubts of her before, that he ought not to have felt so strongly about
this fresh one. But yet he shuddered again at the thought that she
could be committing a crime, just as he had done before.
Anxious to avoid the thought that she had sworn with no intention of
keeping her oath, he asked himself whether her telling them would be
useless, and they perhaps knew already the news he had imparted to
her. There was another short pause, and then Miss Davison said to him
quickly, as she put her hand on the window, as if to go indoors--
“There’s one warning I ought to give you. As I have told you, it
doesn’t matter a bit who is present, because there is nothing to find
out, and the play to-day will be just as it has always been. But if you
want to prevent an unpleasant scene, you had better keep the warning
you have given me to yourself, and not tell Arthur Aldington.”
“Why not?”
“Because if you do, he will tell Cora Van Santen, and she will be
indignant, and will certainly speak her mind openly about it, and there
will be an explosion of wrath, and explanations, and inquiries, and the
party will be broken up, and perhaps the detective himself found out,
exposed, and thrown out of the house, and a fresh scandal will be made,
just as we have got rid of the old one.”
Gerard thought this very good advice, though he was surprised that she
should give it. He readily agreed not to say anything to Arthur about
the presence of the detective, and went indoors with her just in time
to see the arrival of a batch of visitors, among whom he saw the man
Cecil Jones, whom he believed to be a decoy of the Van Santens.
This belief was strengthened when he found that Jones was in a jubilant
and boastful mood, and that he was telling the other visitors that he
had come prepared to beat Denver Van Santen at poker, having provided
himself with money enough to bluff him to any extent he liked.
It seemed to Gerard that no man would have talked like this, doing his
best to invite the attentions of the spoiler, after the scene of the
preceding Sunday, which must certainly have been talked about by all
the habitues of the Priory, unless he was an absolute fool. And in
spite of his sheepish looks and gentle manners, Gerard had reason to
believe that Cecil Jones was by no means so silly as he looked.
Miss Davison was not the woman to have foolish friends; and that Cecil
Jones was the friend he had seen her with on more than one occasion
previous to his visits to the Priory he was quite sure.
Gerard decided, therefore, that Jones, in his character of decoy to the
rest of the pigeons whom the Van Santens plucked, had been allotted
this rôle of careless and wealthy spendthrift in order to prove that,
in spite of the scene of the preceding Sunday, the confidence of the
visitors in the integrity of the Americans was as great as ever.
Gerard was annoyed at this scheme and he took care to show Cecil Jones
that he did not believe in his bluff.
“You were not here last Sunday, I think?” he said dryly; “but no doubt
you heard what took place here?”
“I did hear about it, of course,” said Jones, raising his voice, so
that he could be heard by the rest of the people in the music-room,
where they were standing; “but I shouldn’t think of taking the word of
a man like Sir William Gurdon against that of people I know and like.”
“Why not?”
“Well, everyone knows what he is, a fellow who is getting through his
money as fast as he can, and who is as careless with his tongue as he
is with his cash,” replied Jones. “I suppose you think,” he went on
rather aggressively, “that, after last Sunday, nobody ought to play
anything but bagatelle and dominoes with the Van Santens. You look upon
me as a fool to risk my money?”
“Oh no, I don’t,” said Gerard quietly; “because I know you won’t risk
much.”
Although Gerard took care to keep his voice as low as that of Jones was
loud, Cora and Arthur, who were, as usual, at the piano together, were
so intently interested in the discussion that they contrived to hear
these words, and they exchanged looks.
Cora was flushed and angry. She rose from her seat at the piano and
said quickly--
“Why did you come here to-day, Mr. Buckland, if you believed the
infamous things Sir William Gurdon said, things, by the way, that he
has apologized most humbly for?”
“I don’t think I could have given a better proof that I took the
right side in the argument than by appearing here to-day, Miss Cora,”
retorted Gerard diplomatically.
Even while he spoke to her, he had his eye on Cecil Jones, who had at
once profited by Gerard’s turning away to follow Miss Davison into the
adjoining room.
Cora being perforce content with this neat reply, Gerard managed to
escape, and went into the middle room, where Mrs. Van Santen was
pouring out tea. He thought what a strange contrast she made, in her
simple gown, her black mittens, and the old-fashioned brooch and hair
bracelets which she persisted in wearing, with the elegantly gowned
daughters whose taste in dress excited the admiration of the men
visitors, and the envy of the women.
Her quiet, old-fashioned, almost abrupt manner, too, was a relief after
the artificiality of some of the other visitors, and Gerard wondered
how she had managed so soon to get over the terrible shock of the
preceding Sunday. He would have thought, knowing the simplicity of the
old lady, that the bare suggestion of anything unfair in connection
with her household would have been enough to make her shut up the
house, and return in dudgeon to America with her daughters.
But she seemed to be in the same mood of placid good spirits as usual;
and he supposed that her sons had known how, by getting hold of her by
her weak side, to smooth over the trouble, and to persuade her that the
unpleasant affair was only a passing cloud, such as would never darken
their atmosphere again.
Close beside her he found, among others, Cecil Jones and Miss Davison.
He could see that, although they said little to each other, there was
some secret understanding between the two, and he was maddened at
the thought that she had already broken her oath, and that she was
using Jones as a go-between to carry to the Van Santens her knowledge
that there would be a detective in the house that day to watch their
proceedings.
Gerard would fain have believed such an artful evasion of her oath
impossible to Miss Davison, but in the face of all that he suspected
this was scarcely credible.
But even at that moment the thought which troubled him the most was
that Rachel cared for Cecil Jones, that he was more than an accomplice,
more than a friend, that he was her confidant, and her lover.
Nay, the thought darted into his mind with a most poignant rush that
perhaps he might be her husband, and that, if not, he was probably
already her fiancé.
On that point he thought that she might perhaps be more candid than
upon the other, if taxed, and at the first opportunity he followed her
into the corner of the room where she had seated herself, in sight of
the nearest card-table in the end room, on the one hand, and of the
figure of Cora seated at the piano, on the other.
There was a seat near her, and he stood with one knee on it, as he bent
down and asked--
“Will you answer me a question truly, honestly, Rachel, a question
about yourself--and--someone else?”
“I can’t promise,” said she, in a low voice, with, as he thought, a
quick, self-conscious glance towards Cecil Jones.
From the adjoining room, where Denver and some other men were playing
cards, came a reminder, in Denver’s voice, of the other man of whom
he had been jealous, but whose chances Gerard now rejected, as he
could not believe that Miss Davison could have given her heart to a
card-sharper, who was also something worse.
“I want to know whether this Jones is engaged to you?”
A faint smile passed over her face, one of those flitting, quickly
fading ripples of gentle merriment which were characteristic of her.
“Why,” she said, “how many more people are you going to marry me to,
Mr. Buckland? There was Denver Van Santen--and now--”
He interrupted her with rash eagerness.
“Denver Van Santen! No. Even if you could care for a card-sharper,
which I own might be possible, you could not, I’m sure, care for a
murderer!”
Miss Davison, who was leaning back carelessly in her chair, sat up,
looking deadly pale. With a commanding air, she made him sit down
beside her.
“What do you mean?” she asked, fixing him with a gaze which seemed to
penetrate to his very soul. It was evident that, however she might try
to hide the fact, she was thrown by his words into a state of keenest
tension.
His jealousy grew as he watched the change in her. Did she really care
for this man, then, and was the tie which bound her to Cecil Jones one
of business interests only?
“I mean,” said he, lowering his voice, so that no one else should hear
a whisper of the momentous words he had to utter, “that Denver Van
Santen was the cause of the accident to Sir William’s car last week,
and that he shadowed us with a revolver, with what object, unless he
meant to rid himself of a person whom he looked upon as dangerous, I
can’t imagine.”
Miss Davison tried to laugh, but that resource she had used too often
that afternoon and her voice sounded hard and her mirth artificial.
“How absurd!” she cried. “Can anything be more preposterous than to
accuse a person on such flimsy grounds? for of course you only suppose
that you saw Denver, and Sir William only supposes it also.”
He saw, however, in her eyes, as she uttered the words, that she
felt by no means so certain as she pretended to be of the childlike
innocence of the young poker-player.
“We do more than suppose,” he said quietly; “we are both quite sure of
what we saw.”
She was silent for a moment. Then her eyes stole a stealthy glance at
the card-playing party in the next room. Gerard watched her, and said--
“I have told you why I don’t believe you can care for Denver Van
Santen. I want to know whether you care for the other fellow.”
She turned to him with a scoffing air.
“How on earth can it matter to you for whom I care, Mr. Buckland, when
you look upon me as an accomplice of card-sharpers?” she asked lightly.
“I don’t know why I do care,” he replied desperately, “except that you
are such an enigma that every detail concerning you is of surpassing
interest to me. I don’t understand you. I believe it’s difficult to
understand any woman; but certainly I never believed it until I met
you. But it seems to me that you unite in your own person all the
puzzling attributes of all the women who ever lived. The consequence
is that I adore you at one moment, I hate you the next. One day I
believe that all my suspicions of you are flimsy and groundless, and
that I only want the key to solve the mystery which will show you to
be all I want to believe you; the next day I can see in you only a
malignant enchantress, charming men to their undoing, without heart and
without conscience.”
“I’ve told you to believe that last description to be true, haven’t I?”
“But I can’t--I won’t. Rachel, when I spoke to you before about my
feeling for you, you promised to ask to be set free.”
“And I did ask--as I wrote you--and was refused. Don’t begin the
old argument again. It is of no use. You shouldn’t have come here
to-day--you shouldn’t have come here at all. It is all pain, nothing
but pain and distress that you give yourself and me by coming. Mr.
Buckland, be warned by me. This is not the place where women--or men,
either--are seen at their best. I don’t mean that there is any harm
in what we do, but the atmosphere is not good, not wholesome. Take my
advice: say good-bye to me now, and go back to town, and don’t come
here again. As I’ve told you, my way and yours lie far apart; there is
no advantage in pretending not to know it. Now, will you be good, and
wish me good-bye, and find you have an appointment in town that takes
you back early?”
The lights had been turned up, and Gerard knew that old Mrs. Van
Santen, from her corner of the room near the tea-table, was watching
him and Miss Davison. These two were sitting close by the curtains
of the wide window, partly hidden by one of them, indeed, though not
sufficiently for the old lady not to be able to see that something very
interesting was the subject of their conversation.
Gerard felt her eyes upon him, even when he was not looking at her;
and presently, even while he was so much occupied with Rachel, he saw
the old lady beckon Delia to her, and speak to her hurriedly, in a low
voice.
In the meantime he turned to Miss Davison and answered her question
after a short pause.
“I won’t distress you by arguing in the old way again,” he said. “But I
can’t take your advice about going back to town immediately, though I
know your counsel is good. I want to see it out.”
“To see what out?”
Miss Davison’s eyes were attracted too, by this time, in the direction
of the old lady and Delia.
Gerard hesitated.
“Well, shall we say the sequel to last Sunday’s scene?”
At that Miss Davison remained quite silent for some moments, with her
eyes cast down, and her hands lying immovable in her lap.
“I don’t understand,” she said at last.
He had no time to explain before Mrs. Van Santen, rising from her
chair, crossed the room, taking such a course that she came quite close
to the two young people. Gerard therefore, did not speak until he had
watched the old lady go into the card-room, where he saw her standing
close to Denver, without being able to hear whether she spoke to him.
In the meantime Delia came strolling across to the window, and
rearranged a curtain which had been pulled away from its proper folds
by a chair placed near it.
It was out of the question, therefore, for Gerard to give Miss Davison
any explanation of his rather momentous words while members of the Van
Santen family were flitting about so close to them. And before Delia
had moved away, Denver Van Santen, quitting the card-table, came up,
and unceremoniously drawing a chair close to Miss Davison, leaned
forward and looked sentimentally into her face.
“Guess I’m not going to let that fellow have you all to himself this
evening, Miss Davison,” said he.
And, as Rachel received this speech with an encouraging smile, instead
of snubbing the fellow, as he felt that she ought to do, Gerard
had nothing to do but to withdraw and leave the Yankee in full and
undisputed possession of the field.