"Oh!" And because she was nervous and overwrought and because the thing
meant so much to her, she said cheaply--
"He owes me no apologies. He has a perfect right to act as he pleases,
you know."
The Englishman frowned across at her.
"I didn't come to make apologies," said he. "I came to explain. Well, I
have explained--Baron de Vries and I together. That's just how it
happened, and that's just how Ste. Marie takes things. The point is,
that you've got to understand it. I've got to make you."
The girl smiled up at him dolefully.
"You look," she said, "as if you were going to beat me if necessary.
You look very warlike."
"I feel warlike," the man said, nodding. He said--
"I'm fighting for a friend to whom you are doing, in your mind, an
injustice. I know him better than you do, and I tell you you're doing
him a grave injustice. You're failing altogether to understand him."
"I wonder," the girl said, looking very thoughtfully down at the table
before her.
"I know," said he.
Quite suddenly she gave a little overwrought cry, and she put up her
hands over her face.
"Oh, Richard!" she said, "that day when he was here! He left me----
Oh, I cannot tell you at what a height he left me! It was something new
and beautiful. He swept me to the clouds with him. And I
might--perhaps I might have lived on there. Who knows? But then that
hideous evening! Ah, it was too sickening, the fall back to common
earth again!"
"I know," said the man gently, "I know. And he knew, too. Directly
he'd seen you he knew how you would feel about it. I'm not pretending
that it was of no consequence. It was unfortunate, of course. But--the
point is it did not mean in him any slackening, any stooping, any
letting go. It was a moment's incident. We went to the wretched place
by accident after dinner. Ste. Marie saw those childish lunatics at
play, and for about two minutes he played with them. The lady in the
blue hat made it appear a little more extreme, and that's all."
Miss Benham rose to her feet and moved restlessly back and forth.
"Oh, Richard!" she said, "the golden spell is broken--the enchantment he
laid upon me that day. I'm not like him, you know. Oh, I wish I were!
I wish I were! I can't change from hour to hour. I can't rise to the
clouds again after my fall to earth. It has all--become something
different.
"Don't misunderstand me," she cried; "I don't mean that I've ceased to
care for him. No, far from that! But I was in such an exalted heaven,
and now I'm not there any more. Perhaps he can lift me to it again. Oh
yes, I'm sure he can when I see him once more; but I wanted to go on
living there so happily while he was away! Do you understand at all?"
"I think I do," the man said, but he looked at her very curiously and a
little sadly; for it was the first time he had ever seen her swept from
her superb poise by any emotion, and he hardly recognised her. It was
very bitter to him to realise that he could never have stirred her to
this, never under any conceivable circumstances.
The girl came to him where he stood and touched his arm with her hand.
"He is waiting to hear how I feel about it all, isn't he?" she said.
"He is waiting to know that I understand. Will you tell him a little
lie for me, Richard? No! You needn't tell a lie; I will tell it. Tell
him that I said I understood perfectly. Tell him that I was shocked for
a moment, but that afterwards I understood and thought no more about it.
Will you tell him I said that? It won't be a lie from you, because I
did say it. Oh, I will not grieve him or hamper him now while he is
working in my cause! I'll tell him a lie rather than have him grieve."
"Need it be a lie?" said Richard Hartley. "Can't you truly believe what
you've said?"
She shook her head slowly.
"I'll try," said she, "but--my golden spell is broken, and I can't mend
it alone. I'm sorry."
He turned with a little sigh to leave her, but Miss Benham followed him
towards the door of the drawing-room.
"You're a good friend, Richard," she said, when she had come near.
"You're a good friend to him."
"He deserves good friends," said the man stoutly. "And besides," said
he, "we're brothers in arms nowadays. We've enlisted together to fight
for the same cause."
The girl fell back with a little cry. "Do you mean," she said, after a
moment, "do you mean that you are working with him--to find Arthur?"
Hartley nodded.
"But," said she stammering, "but, Richard----"
The man checked her. "Oh, I know what I'm doing," said he. "My eyes
are open. I know that I'm not--well, in the running. I work for no
reward except a desire to help you and Ste. Marie. That's all. It
pleases me to be useful."
He went away with that, not waiting for an answer; and the girl stood
where he had left her, staring after him.
*CHAPTER X*
*CAPTAIN STEWART ENTERTAINS*
Ste. Marie returned, after three days, from Dinard in a depressed and
somewhat puzzled frame of mind. He had found no trace whatever of
Arthur Benham either at Dinard or at Deauville, and, what was more, he
was unable to discover that any one even remotely resembling that youth
had been seen at either place. The matter of identification, it seemed
to him, should be a rather simple one. In the first place, the boy's
appearance was not at all French, nor for that matter English: it was
very American. Also he spoke French--so Ste. Marie had been told--very
badly, having for the language that scornful contempt peculiar to
Anglo-Saxons of a certain type. His speech, it seemed, was, like his
appearance, ultra-American, full of strange idioms and oddly pronounced.
In short, such a youth would be rather sure to be remembered by any
hotel management and staff with which he might have come in contact.
At first Ste. Marie pursued his investigations quietly and, as it were,
casually, but, after his initial failure, he went to the managements of
the various hotels and lodging-houses and to the cafes and bathing
establishments, and told them with all frankness a part of the
truth--that he was searching for a young man whose disappearance had
caused great distress to his family. He was not long in discovering
that no such young man could have been either in Dinard or Deauville.
The thing which puzzled him was that, apart from finding no trace of the
missing boy, he also found no trace of Captain Stewart's agent--the man
who had been first on the ground. No one seemed able to recollect that
such a person had been making inquiries, and Ste. Marie began to suspect
that his friend was being imposed upon. He determined to warn Stewart
that his agents were earning their fees too easily.
So he returned to Paris more than a little dejected and sore over this
waste of time and effort. He arrived by a noon tram, and drove across
the city in a fiacre to the Rue d'Assas. But as he was in the midst of
unpacking his portmanteau, for he kept no servant (a woman came in once
a day to "do" the rooms), the door-bell rang. It was Baron de Vries,
and Ste. Marie admitted him with an exclamation of surprise and
pleasure.
"You passed me in the street just now," explained the Belgian, "and, as
I was a few minutes early for a lunch engagement, I followed you up."
He pointed with his stick at the open bag.
"Ah, you have been on a journey! Detective work?"
Ste. Marie pushed his guest into a chair, gave him cigarettes, and told
him about the fruitless expedition to Dinard. He spoke also of his
belief that Captain Stewart's agent had never really found a clue at
all, and at that Baron de Vries nodded his grey head and said, "Ah!" in
a tone of some significance. Afterwards he smoked a little while in
silence, but presently he said, as if with some hesitation--
"May I be permitted to offer a word of advice?"
"But surely!" cried Ste. Marie, kicking away the half-empty portmanteau.
"Why not?"
"Do whatever you are going to do in this matter according to your own
judgment," said the elder man. "Or according to Mr. Hartley's and your
combined judgments. Make your investigations without reference to our
friend Captain Stewart." He halted there as if that were all he had
meant to say, but when he saw Ste. Marie's raised eyebrows, he frowned
and went on slowly as if picking his words with some care.
"I should be sorry," he said, "to have Captain Stewart at the head of
any investigation of this nature in which I was deeply interested--just
now, at any rate. I am afraid--It is difficult to say. I do not wish
to say too much--I am afraid he is not quite the man for the position."
Ste. Marie nodded his head with great emphasis.
"Ah!" he cried, "that's just what I have felt, you know, all along. And
it's what Hartley felt too, I'm sure. No, Stewart is not the sort for a
detective. He's too cock-sure. He won't admit that he might possibly
be wrong now and then. He's too----"
"He is too much occupied with other matters," said Baron de Vries. Ste.
Marie sat down on the edge of a chair.
"Other matters?" he demanded. "That sounds mysterious. What other
matters?"
"Oh, there is nothing very mysterious about it," said the elder man. He
frowned down at his cigarette and brushed some fallen ash neatly from
his knees.
"Captain Stewart," said he, "is badly worried, and has been for the past
year or so--badly worried over money matters and other things. He has
lost enormous sums at play, as I happen to know; and he has lost still
more enormous sums at Auteuil and at Longchamps. Also the ladies are
not without their demands."
Ste. Marie gave a shout of laughter.
"_Comment donc!_" he cried. "_Ce vieillard?_"
"Ah well," deprecated the other man, "_Vieillard_ is putting it rather
high. He can't be more than fifty, I should think. To be sure he looks
older, but then, in his day, he lived a great deal in a short time. Do
you happen to remember Olga Nilssen?"
"I do," said Ste. Marie. "I remember her very well indeed; I was a sort
of go-between in settling up that affair with Morrison. Morrison's
people asked me to do what I could. Yes, I remember her well, and with
some pleasure. I felt sorry for her, you know. People didn't quite
know the truth of that affair. Morrison behaved very badly to her."
"Yes," said Baron de Vries, "and Captain Stewart has behaved very badly
to her also. She is furious with rage or jealousy or both. She goes
about, I am told, threatening to kill him, and it would be rather like
her to do it one day. Well, I have dragged in all this scandal by way
of showing you that Stewart has his hands full of his own affairs just
now, and so cannot give the attention he ought to give to hunting out
his nephew. As you suggest, his agents may be deceiving him. I don't
know, I suppose they could do it easily enough. If I were you I would
set to work quite independently of him."
"Yes," said Ste. Marie in an absent tone. "Oh yes, I shall do that, you
may be sure." He gave a sudden smile.
"He's a queer type, this Captain Stewart," said Ste. Marie. "He begins
to interest me very much. I had never suspected this side of him
(though I remember now that I once saw him coming out of a milliner's
shop). He looks rather an ascetic, rather donnish, don't you think? I
remember that he talked to me one day quite pathetically about feeling
his age and about liking young people round him. He's an odd character.
Fancy him mixed up in an affair with Olga Nilssen! or, rather, fancy her
involved in an affair with him! What can she have seen in him? She's
not mercenary, you know. At least she used not to be."
"Ah! there," said Baron de Vries, "you enter upon a _terra incognita_.
No one can say what a woman sees in this man or in that. It's beyond
our ken." He rose to take his leave, and Ste. Marie went with him to
the door.
"I've been asked to a sort of party at Stewart's rooms this week," Ste.
Marie said. "I don't know whether I shall go or not. Probably not. I
suppose I shouldn't find Olga Nilssen there?"
"Well, no," said the Belgian, laughing. "No, I hardly think so.
Good-bye! Think over what I've told you. Good-bye!" He went away down
the stair, and Ste. Marie returned to his unpacking.
Nothing more of consequence occurred in the next few days. Hartley had
unearthed a somewhat shabby adventurer, who swore to having seen the
Irishman, O'Hara, in Paris within a month, but it was by no means
certain that this being did not merely affirm what he believed to be
desired of him, and in any case the information was of no especial
value, since it was O'Hara's present whereabouts that was the point at
issue. So it came to Thursday evening. Ste. Marie received a note from
Captain Stewart during the day, reminding him that he was to come to the
Rue du Faubourg St. Honore that evening, and asking him to come early,
at ten or thereabouts, so that the two could have a comfortable chat
before any one else turned up. Ste. Marie had about decided not to go at
all, but the courtesy of this special invitation from Miss Benham's
uncle made it rather impossible for him to stay away. He tried to
persuade Hartley to follow him later on in the evening, but that
gentleman flatly refused, and went away to dine with some English
friends at Armenonville.
So Ste. Marie, in a vile temper, dined quite alone at Lavenue's, beside
the Gare Montparnasse, and towards ten o'clock drove across the river to
the Rue du Faubourg. Captain Stewart's flat was up five stories, at the
top of the building in which it was located, and so well above the
noises of the street. Ste. Marie went up in the automatic lift, and at
the door above his host met him in person, saying that the one servant
he kept was busy making preparations in the kitchen beyond. They
entered a large room, long but comparatively shallow, in shape not
unlike the sitting-room in the Rue d'Assas but very much bigger, and
Ste. Marie uttered an exclamation of surprise and pleasure, for he had
never before seen an interior anything like this. The room was decorated
and furnished entirely in Chinese and Japanese articles of great age and
remarkable beauty. Ste. Marie knew little of the hieratic art of these
two countries, but he fancied that the place must be an endless delight
to the expert.
The general tone of the room was gold, dulled and softened by great age
until it had ceased to glitter, and relieved by the dusty Chinese blue,
and by old red faded to rose, and by warm ivory tints. The great expanse
of the walls was covered by a brownish-yellow cloth, coarse, like
burlap, and against it round the room hung sixteen large panels
representing the sixteen _Rakan_. They were early copies--fifteenth
century, Captain Stewart said--of those famous originals by the Chinese
_Sung_ master Ririomin, which have been for six hundred years or more
the treasures of Japan. They were mounted upon Japanese brocade of blue
and dull gold, framed in keyaki wood, and, out of their brown
time-stained shadows, the great _Rakan_ scowled or grinned or placidly
gazed, grotesquely graceful masterpieces of a perished art.
At the far end of the room, under a gilded canopy of intricate
wood-carving, stood upon his pedestal of many-petalled lotus a great
statue of Amida Buddha in the yogi attitude of contemplation, and at
intervals against the other walls other smaller images stood or sat;
Buddha in many incarnations; Kwannon, Goddess of Mercy; Jizo Bosatzu;
Hotei, pot-bellied, God of Contentment; Jingo-Kano, God of War. In the
centre of the place was a Buddhist temple table; and priests' chairs,
lacquered and inlaid, stood about the room. The floor was covered by
Chinese rugs, dull yellow with blue flowers; and over a doorway which
led into another room was fixed a huge rama of Chinese pierced carving,
gilded, in which there were trees and rocks and little grouped figures
of the hundred immortals.
It was indeed an extraordinary room. Ste. Marie looked about its mellow
glow with a half-comprehending wonder, and he looked at the man beside
him curiously, for here was another side to this many-sided character.
Captain Stewart smiled.
"You like my museum?" he asked. "Few people care much for it except, of
course, those who go in for the Oriental arts. Most of my friends think
it bizarre--too grotesque and unusual. I have tried to satisfy them by
including those comfortable low divan couches (they refuse altogether to
sit in the priests' chairs), but still they are unhappy." He called his
servant, who came to take Ste. Marie's hat and coat, and returned with
smoking things.
"It seems entirely wonderful to me," said the younger man. "I'm not an
expert at all--I don't know who the gentlemen in those sixteen panels
are, for example; but it is very beautiful. I have never seen anything
like it at all." He gave a little laugh.
"Will it sound very impertinent in me, I wonder, if I express
surprise--not surprise at finding this magnificent room, but at
discovering that this sort of thing is a taste and, very evidently, a
serious study of yours? You--I remember your saying once with some
feeling that it was youth and beauty and--well, freshness that you liked
best to be surrounded by. This," said Ste. Marie, waving an inclusive
hand, "was young so many centuries ago! It fairly breathes antiquity and
death."
"Yes," said Captain Stewart thoughtfully. "Yes, that is quite true."
The two had seated themselves upon one of the broad low benches which
had been built into the place to satisfy the philistine.
"I find it hard to explain," he said, "because both things are passions
of mine. Youth--I could not exist without it. Since I have it no
longer in my own body, I wish to see it about me. It gives me life. It
keeps my heart beating. I must have it near. And then this--antiquity
and death, beautiful things made by hands dead centuries ago in an alien
country! I love this too. I didn't speak too strongly, it is a sort of
passion with me--something quite beyond the collector's mania, quite
beyond that. Sometimes, do you know, I stay at home in the evening, and
I sit here quite alone with the lights half on and, for hours together,
I smoke and watch these things--the quiet, sure, patient smile of that
Buddha for example. Think how long he has been smiling like that, and
waiting! Waiting for what? There is something mysterious beyond all
words in that smile of his, that fixed, crudely carved wooden smile.
No, I'll be hanged if it's crude! It is beyond our modern art. The
dead men carved better than we do. We couldn't manage that with such
simple means. We can only reproduce what is before us. We can't carve
questions--mysteries--everlasting riddles."
Through the pale blue wreathing smoke of his cigarette Captain Stewart
gazed down the room to where Eternal Buddha stood and smiled eternally.
And from there the man's eyes moved with slow enjoyment along the
opposite wall over those who sat or stood there, over the panels of the
ancient Rakan, over carved lotus and gilt contorted dragon for ever in
pursuit of the holy pearl. He drew a short breath which seemed to
bespeak extreme contentment, the keenest height of pleasure, and he
stirred a little where he sat and settled himself among the cushions.
Ste. Marie watched him, and the expression of the man's face began to be
oddly revolting. It was the face of a voluptuary in the presence of his
desire. He was uncomfortable and wished to say something to break the
silence, but, as often occurs at such a time, he could think of nothing
to say. So there was a brief silence between them. But presently
Captain Stewart roused himself with an obvious effort.
"Here! this won't do," said he, in a tone of whimsical apology. "This
won't do, you know. I'm floating off on my hobby (and there's a mixed
metaphor that would do credit to your own Milesian blood!) I'm boring
you to extinction, and I don't want to do that, for I'm anxious that you
should come here again--and often. I should like to have you form the
habit.
"What was it I had in mind to ask you about? Ah yes! The journey to
Dinard and Deauville. I am afraid it turned out to be fruitless or you
would have let me know."
"Entirely fruitless," said Ste. Marie. He went on to tell the elder man
of his investigation, and of his certainty that no one resembling Arthur
Benham had been at either of the two places.
"It's no affair of mine, to be sure," he said; "but I rather suspect
that your agent was deceiving you--pretending to have accomplished
something by way of making you think he was busy." Ste. Marie was so
sure the other would immediately disclaim this that he waited for the
word, and gave a little smothered laugh when Captain Stewart said
promptly--
"Oh no! No! That is impossible. I have every confidence in that man.
He is one of my best. No, you are mistaken there. I am more
disappointed than you could possibly be over the failure of your
efforts, but I am quite sure my man thought he had something worth
working upon.
"By the way, I have received another rather curious communication--from
Ostend this time. I will show you the letter, and you may try your luck
there if you would care to." He felt in his pockets and then rose.
"I've left the thing in another coat," said he; "if you will allow me,
I'll fetch it." But before he had turned away the doorbell rang, and he
paused.
"Ah well," he said, "another time. Here are some of my guests. They
have come earlier than I had expected."
The new arrivals were three very perfectly dressed ladies, one of them
an operatic light who chanced not to be singing that evening, and whom
Ste. Marie had met before. The two others were rather difficult of
classification, but probably, he thought, ornaments of that mysterious
borderland between the two worlds which seems to give shelter to so many
people against whose characters nothing definite is known, but whose
antecedents and connexions are not made topics of conversation. The
three ladies seemed to be on very friendly terms with Captain Stewart,
and greeted him with much noisy delight. One of the unclassified two,
when her host, with a glance towards Ste. Marie, addressed her formally,
seemed inordinately amused, and laughed for a long time.
Within the next hour ten or a dozen other guests had arrived, and they
all seemed to know each other very well, and proceeded to make
themselves quite at home. Ste. Marie regarded them with a reflective
and not over-enthusiastic eye, and he wondered a good deal why he had
been asked here to meet them. He was as far from a prig or a snob as
any man could very well be, and he often went to very Bohemian parties
which were given by his painter or musician friends, but these people
seemed to him quite different. The men, with the exception of two
eminent opera singers, who quite obviously had been asked because of
their voices, were the sort of men who abound at such places as Ostend
and Monte Carlo, and Baden Baden in the race week. That is not to say
that they were ordinary racing touts or the cheaper kind of adventurers:
there was a count among them, and a marquis who had recently been
divorced by his American wife; but adventurers of a sort they
undoubtedly were. There was not one of them, so far as Ste. Marie was
aware, who was received anywhere in good society, and he resented very
much being compelled to meet them.
Naturally enough he felt much less concern on the score of the ladies.
It is an undoubted and wellnigh universal truth that men who would
refuse outright to meet certain classes of their own sex show no
reluctance whatever over meeting the women of a corresponding
circle--that is, if the women are attractive. It is a depressing fact,
and inclines one to sighs and head-shakes and some moral indignation,
until the reverse truth is brought to light: namely, that women have
identically the same point of view; that while they cast looks of
loathing and horror upon certain of their sisters, they will meet with
pleasure any presentable man whatever his crimes or vices.
Ste. Marie was very much puzzled over all this. It seemed to him so
unnecessary that a man who really had some footing in the newer society
of Paris should choose to surround himself with people of this type;
but, as he looked on and wondered, he became aware of a curious and, in
the light of a past conversation, significant fact. All of the people
in the room were young, all of them in their varying fashions and
degrees very attractive to look upon, all full to overflowing of life
and spirits and the determination to have a good time. He saw Captain
Stewart moving among them, playing very gracefully his role of host, and
the man seemed to have dropped twenty years from his shoulders. A
miracle of rejuvenation seemed to have come upon him; his eyes were
bright and eager, the colour was high in his cheeks, and the dry
pedantic tone had gone from his voice. Ste. Marie watched him, and at
last he thought he understood. It was half revolting, half pathetic, he
thought, but it certainly was interesting to see.
[Illustration: "He saw Captain Stewart moving among them."]
Duval, the great basso of the Opera, accompanied at the piano by one of
the unclassified ladies, was just finishing _Mefistofele's_ drinking
song out of _Faust_ when the door-bell rang.
*CHAPTER XI*
*A GOLDEN LADY ENTERS: THE EYES AGAIN*
The music of voice and piano was very loud just then, so that the little
soft whirring sound of the electric bell reached only one or two pairs
of ears in the big room. It did not reach the host certainly, and
neither he nor most of the others observed the servant make his way
among the groups of seated or standing people and go to the outer door,
which opened upon a tiny hallway. The song came to an end, and
everybody was cheering and applauding and crying _bravo_ or _bis_, or
one of the other things that people shout at such times, when, as if in
unexpected answer to the outburst, a lady appeared between the yellow
portieres, and came forward a little way into the room. She was a tall
lady of an extraordinary and immediately noticeable grace of movement, a
lady with rather fair hair, but her eyebrows and lashes had been stained
darker than it was their nature to be. She had the classic Greek type
of face--and figure too--all but the eyes, which were long and narrow,
narrow perhaps from a habit of going half closed; and when they were a
little more than half closed, they made a straight black line that
turned up very slightly at the outer end with an Oriental effect, which
went oddly in that classic face. There is a very popular piece of
sculpture now in the Luxembourg Gallery for which this lady "sat" as
model to a great artist. Sculptors from all over the world go there to
dream over its perfect line and contour, and little schoolgirls pretend
not to see it, and middle-aged maiden tourists with red _Baedeckers_ in
their hands regard it furtively, and pass on, and after awhile come back
to look again.
The lady was dressed in some close clinging material, which was not
cloth-of-gold but something very like it, only much duller--something
which gleamed when she stirred but did not glitter; and over her
splendid shoulders was hung an Oriental scarf heavily worked with
metallic gold. She made an amazing and dramatic picture in that golden
room. It was as if she had known just what her surroundings would be and
had dressed expressly for them.
The applause ceased as suddenly as if it had been trained to break off
at a signal, and the lady came forward a little way, smiling a quiet
assured smile. At each step her knee threw out the golden stuff of her
gown an inch or two, and it flashed suddenly a dull subdued flash in the
overhead light, and died and flashed again. A few of the people in the
room knew who the lady was, and they looked at one another with raised
eyebrows and startled faces; but the others stared at her with an eager
admiration, thinking that they had seldom seen anything so beautiful or
so effective. Ste. Marie sat forward on the edge of his chair. His
eyes sparkled, and he gave a little quick sigh of pleasurable
excitement. This was drama and very good drama too, and he suspected
that it might at any moment turn into a tragedy.
He saw Captain Stewart, who had been among a group of people halfway
across the room, turn his head to look, when the cries and the applause
ceased so suddenly, and he saw the man's face stiffen by swift degrees,
all the joyous buoyant life gone out of it, until it was yellow and
rigid like a dead man's face; and Ste. Marie, out of his knowledge of
the relations between these two people, nodded, _en connaisseur_, for he
knew that the man was very badly frightened.
So the host of the evening hung back staring for what must have seemed
to him a long and terrible time, though in reality it was but an
instant; then he came forward quickly to greet the newcomer; and if his
face was still yellow-white, there was nothing in his manner but the
courtesy habitual with him. He took the lady's hand and she smiled at
him; but her eyes did not smile: they were hard. Ste. Marie, who was the
nearest of the others, heard Captain Stewart say--
"This is an unexpected pleasure, my dearest Olga!" And to that the lady
replied more loudly--
"Yes, I returned to Paris only to-day. You didn't know, of course. I
heard you were entertaining this evening and so I came, knowing that I
should be welcome."
"Always!" said Captain Stewart. "Always more than welcome!" He nodded
to one or two of the men who stood near, and, when they had approached,
presented them. Ste. Marie observed that he used the lady's true
name--she had, at times, found occasion to employ others--and that he
politely called her "Madame Nilssen" instead of "Mademoiselle." But at
that moment the lady caught sight of Ste. Marie, and, crying out his
name in a tone of delighted astonishment, turned away from the other
men, brushing past them as if they had been furniture, and advanced,
holding out both her hands in greeting.
"Dear Ste. Marie!" she exclaimed. "Fancy finding you here! I'm so
glad! Oh, I'm so very glad! Take me away from these people! Find a
corner where we can talk. Ah! there is one with a big seat.
_Allons-y_!" She addressed him for the most part in English, which she
spoke perfectly--as perfectly as she spoke French and German and,
presumably, her native tongue, which must have been Swedish.
They went to the broad low seat, a sort of hard-cushioned bench, which
stood against one of the walls, and made themselves comfortable there by
the only possible means, which, owing to the width of the thing, was to
sit far back with their feet stuck straight out before them. Captain
Stewart had followed them across the room, and showed a strong tendency
to remain. Ste. Marie observed that his eyes were hard and bright and
very alert, and that there were two bright spots of colour in his yellow
cheeks. It occurred to Ste. Marie that the man was afraid to leave him
alone with Olga Nilssen, and he smiled to himself, reflecting that the
lady, even if indiscreetly inclined, could tell him nothing--save in
details--that he did not already know.
But, after a few rather awkward moments, Mlle. Nilssen waved an
irritated hand.
"Go away!" she said to her host. "Go away to your other guests! I want
to talk to Ste. Marie. We have old times to talk over." And after
hesitating awhile uneasily, Captain Stewart turned back into the room;
but for some time thereafter Ste. Marie was aware that a vigilant eye
was being kept upon them, and that their host was by no means at his
ease.
When they were left alone together, the girl turned to him and patted
his arm affectionately. She said--
"Ah, but it is very good to see you again, _mon cher ami_! It has been
so long!" She gave an abrupt frown.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded. And she said an unkind thing
about her fellow-guests. She called them _canaille_. She said--
"Why are you wasting your time among these _canaille_? This is not a
place for you. Why did you come?"
"I don't know," said Ste. Marie. He was still a little resentful and he
said so. He said--
"I didn't know it was going to be like this. I came because Stewart
went rather out of his way to ask me. I'd known him in a very different
_milieu_."
"Ah yes!" she said reflectively. "Yes, he does go into the world also,
doesn't he! But this is what he likes, you know." Her lips drew back
for an instant and she said--
"He is a pig-dog."
Ste. Marie looked at her gravely. She had used that offensive name with
a little too much fierceness. Her face had turned for an instant quite
white, and her eyes had flashed out over the room a look that meant a
great deal to any one who knew her as well as Ste. Marie did. He sat
forward and lowered his voice. He said--
"Look here, Olga! I'm going to be very frank for a moment. May I?"
For just an instant the girl drew away from him with suspicion in her
eyes, and something else, alertly defiant. Then she put out her hands
to his arm.
"You may be what you like, dear Ste. Marie," she said. "And say what
you like. I will take it all--and swallow it alive--good as gold. What
are you going to do to me?"
"I've always been fair with you, haven't I?" he urged. "I've had
disagreeable things to say or do but--you knew always that I liked you
and--where my sympathies were."
"Always! Always, _mon cher_!" she cried. "I trusted you always in
everything. And there is no one else I trust. No one! No one!
"Ste. Marie!"
"What then?" he asked.
"Ste. Marie," she said, "why did you never fall in love with me, as the
other men did?"
"I wonder," said he. "I don't know. Upon my word, I really don't
know." He was so serious about it that the girl burst into a shriek of
laughter. And in the end he laughed too.
"I expect it was because I liked you too well," he said at last. "But
come! We're forgetting my lecture. Listen to your _grandpere_ Ste.
Marie! I have heard--certain things--rumours--what you will. Perhaps
they are foolish lies, and I hope they are. But if not, if the fear I
saw in Stewart's face when you came here to-night was--not without
cause, let me beg you to have a care. You're much too savage, my dear
child. Don't be so foolish as to--well, turn comedy into the other
thing. In the first place it's not worth while, and in the second place
it recoils, always. Revenge may be sweet. I don't know. But nowadays,
with police courts and all that, it entails much more subsequent
annoyance that it is worth. Be wise, Olga!"
"Some things, Ste. Marie," said the golden lady, "are worth all the
consequences that may follow them." She watched Captain Stewart across
the room where he stood chatting with a little group of people, and her
beautiful face was as hard as marble, and her eyes were as dark as a
stormy night, and her mouth, for an instant, was almost like an animal's
mouth, cruel and relentless.
Ste. Marie saw, and he began to be a bit alarmed in good earnest. In
his warning he had spoken rather more seriously than he felt the
occasion demanded, but he began at last to wonder if the occasion was
not in reality very serious indeed. He was sure, of course, that Olga
Nilssen had come here on this evening to annoy Captain Stewart in some
fashion. As he put it to himself, she probably meant to "make a row,"
and he would not have been in the least surprised if she had made it in
the beginning upon her very dramatic entrance. Nothing more calamitous
than that had occurred to him. But when he saw the woman's face, turned
a little away and gazing fixedly at Captain Stewart, he began to be
aware that there was tragedy very near him, or all the makings of it.
Mlle. Nilssen turned back to him. Her face was still hard, and her eyes
dark and narrowed, with their oddly Oriental look. She bent her
shoulders together for an instant, and her hands moved slowly in her
lap, stretching out before her, in a gesture very like a cat's when it
wakens from sleep and yawns and extends its claws, as if to make sure
that they are still there and ready for use.
"I feel a little like Samson to-night," she said. "I am tired of almost
everything, and I should like very much to pull the world down on top of
me and kill everybody in it--except you, Ste. Marie, dear! Except
you!--and be crushed under the ruins."
"I think," said Ste. Marie practically--and the speech sounded rather
like one of Hartley's speeches--"I think it was not quite the world that
Samson pulled down, but a temple--or a palace--something of that kind."
"Well," said the golden lady, "this place is rather like a temple--a
Chinese temple, with the pig-dog for high priest."
Ste. Marie frowned at her.
"What are you going to do?" he demanded sharply. "What did you come
here to do? Mischief of some kind--_bien entendu_--but what?"
"Do?" she said, looking at him with her narrowed eyes. "I? Why, what
should I do? Nothing, of course! I merely said I should like to pull
the place down. Of course I couldn't do that quite literally, now,
could I? No. It is merely a mood. I'm not going to do anything."
"You're not being honest with me," he said. And at that her expression
changed, and she patted his arm again with a gesture that seemed to beg
forgiveness.
"Well then," she said, "if you must know, maybe I did come here for a
purpose. I want to have it out with our friend Captain Stewart about
something.
"And Ste. Marie, dear," she pleaded, "please, I think you'd better go
home first. I don't care about these other animals, but I don't want
you dragged into any row of any sort. Please, be a sweet Ste. Marie and
go home. Yes?"
"Absolutely, no!" said Ste. Marie. "I shall stay, and I shall try my
utmost to prevent you from doing anything foolish. Understand that! If
you want to have rows with people, Olga, for Heaven's sake don't pick an
occasion like this for the purpose. Have your rows in private!"
"I rather think I enjoy an audience," she said with a reflective air,
and Ste. Marie laughed aloud because he knew that the naive speech was
so very true. This lady, with her many good qualities and her bad
ones--not a few, alas!--had an undeniable passion for red fire that had
amused him very much on more than one past occasion.
"Please, go home!" she said once more. But when the man only shook his
head, she raised her hands a little way and dropped them again in her
lap in an odd gesture, which seemed to say that she had done all she
could do, and that if anything disagreeable should happen now, and he
should be involved in it, it would be entirely his fault because she had
warned him.
Then quite abruptly a mood of irresponsible gaiety seemed to come upon
her. She refused to have anything more to do with serious topics, and
when Ste Marie attempted to introduce them she laughed in his face. As
she had said in the beginning she wished to do, she harked back to old
days--the earlier stages of what might be termed the Morrison regime,
and it seemed to afford her great delight to recall the happenings of
that epoch. The conversation became a dialogue of reminiscence which
would have been entirely unintelligible to a third person, and was
indeed so to Captain Stewart, who once came across the room, made a
feeble effort to attach himself, and presently wandered away again.
They unearthed from the past an exceedingly foolish song all about one
"Little Willie" and a purple monkey climbing up a yellow stick. It was
set to a well-known air from _Don Giovanni_, and when Duval, the basso
heard them singing it, he came up and insisted upon knowing what it was
about. He laughed immoderately over the English words when he was told
what they meant, and made Ste. Marie write them down for him on two
visiting cards. So they made a trio out of "Little Willie," the great
Duval inventing a bass part quite marvellous in its ingenuity, and they
were compelled to sing it over, and over again, until Ste. Marie's
falsetto imitation of a tenor voice cracked and gave out altogether,
since he was by nature baritone, if anything at all.
The other guests had crowded round to hear the extraordinary song, and
when the song was at last finished several of them remained, so that
Ste. Marie saw he was to be allowed an uninterrupted _tete-a-tete_ with
Olga Nilssen no longer. He therefore drifted away, after a few moments,
and went with Duval and one of the other men across the room to look at
some small jade objects--snuff-bottles, bracelets, buckles and the
like--which were displayed in a cabinet cleverly reconstructed out of a
Japanese shrine. It was perhaps ten minutes later when he looked round
the place and discovered that neither Mlle. Nilssen nor Captain Stewart
were to be seen.
His first thought was of relief, for he said to himself that the two had
sensibly gone into one of the other rooms to "have it out" in peace and
quiet. But following that came the recollection of the woman's face
when she had watched her host across the room. Her words came back to
him: "I feel a little like Samson to-night.... I should very much like
to pull the world down on top of me and kill everybody in it." Ste.
Marie thought of these things and he began to be uncomfortable. He found
himself watching the yellow-hung doorway beyond, with its intricate
Chinese carving of trees and rocks and little groups of immortals, and
he found that unconsciously he was listening for something--he did not
know what--above the chatter and laughter of the people in the room. He
endured this for possibly five minutes, and all at once found that he
could endure it no longer. He began to make his way quietly through the
group of people towards the curtained doorway.
As he went one of the women near by complained in a loud tone that the
servant had disappeared. She wanted, it seemed, a glass of water having
already had many glasses of more interesting things. Ste. Marie said he
would get it for her and went on his way. He had an excuse now.
He found himself in a square dimly lighted room, much smaller than the
other. There was a round table in the centre so he thought it must be
Stewart's dining-room. At the left a doorway opened into a place where
there were lights, and at the other side was another door closed. From
the room at the left there came a sound of voices, and though they were
not loud, one of them, Mlle. Olga Nilssen's voice, was hard and angry
and not altogether under control. The man would seem to have been
attempting to pacify her, and he would seem not to have been very
successful.
The first words that Ste. Marie was able to distinguish were from the
woman. She said in a low fierce tone--
"That is a lie, my friend! That is a lie. I know all about the road to
Clamart, so you needn't lie to me any longer. It's no good." She
paused for just an instant there, and, in the pause, Ste. Marie heard
Stewart give a sort of inarticulate exclamation. It seemed to express
anger and it seemed also to express fear. But the woman swept on and
her voice began to be louder. She said--
"I've given you your chance. You didn't deserve it, but I've given it
you--and you've told me nothing but lies. Well, you'll lie no more.
This ends it."
Upon that Ste. Marie heard a sudden stumbling shuffle of feet and a low
hoarse cry of utter terror--a cry more animal-like than human. He heard
the cry break off abruptly in something that was like a cough and a
whine together, and he heard the sound of a heavy body falling with a
loose rattle upon the floor.
With the sound of that falling body he had already reached the doorway
and torn aside the heavy portiere. It was a sleeping-room he looked
into, a room of medium size, with two windows and an ornate bed of the
Empire style set sidewise against the farther wall. There were electric
lights upon imitation candles which were grouped in sconces against the
walls and these were turned on so that the room was brightly
illuminated. Midway between the door and the ornate Empire bed Captain
Stewart lay huddled and writhing upon the floor, and Olga Nilssen stood
upright beside him, gazing down upon him quite calmly. In her right
hand, which hung at her side, she held a little flat black automatic
pistol of the type known as Brownings, and they look toys but they are
not.
[Illustration: "Captain Stewart lay huddled and writhing upon the
floor."]
Ste. Marie sprang at her silently and caught her by the arm, twisting
the automatic pistol from her grasp, and the woman made no effort
whatever to resist him. She looked into his face quite frankly and
unmoved, and she shook her head.
"I haven't harmed him," she said. "I was going to, yes. And then
myself, but he didn't give me a chance. He fell down in a fit." She
nodded down towards the man, who lay writhing at their feet.
"I frightened him," she said, "and he fell in a fit. He's an epileptic,
you know. Didn't you know that? Oh yes."
Abruptly she turned away shivering, and put up her hands over her face.
And she gave an exclamation of uncontrollable repulsion.
"Ugh!" she cried, "it's horrible. Horrible! I can't bear to look. I
saw him in a fit once before--long ago--and I couldn't bear even to
speak to him for a month. I thought he had been cured. He said----
Ah, it's horrible!"
Ste. Marie had dropped upon his knees beside the fallen man, and Mlle.
Nilssen said over her shoulder--
"Hold his head up from the floor, if you can bear to. He might hurt
it." It was not an easy thing to do, for Ste. Marie had the natural
sense of repulsion in such matters that most people have, and this man's
appearance, as Olga Nilssen had said, was horrible. The face was drawn
hideously, and, in the strong clear light of the electrics, it was a
deathly yellow. The eyes were half closed, and the eyeballs turned up
so that only the whites of them showed between the lids. There was
froth upon the distorted mouth, and it clung to the cat-like moustache
and to the shallow sunken chin beneath. But Ste. Marie exerted all his
will power, and took the jerking trembling head in his hands, holding it
clear of the floor.
"You'd better call the servant," he said. "There may be something that
can be done." But the woman answered, without looking--
"No, there's nothing that can be done, I believe, except to keep him
from bruising himself. Stimulants--that sort of thing, do more harm than
good. Could you get him on the bed here?"
"Together we might manage it," said Ste. Marie. "Come and help!"
"I can't!" she cried nervously. "I can't--touch him. Please, I can't
do it."
"Come!" said the man in a sharp tone. "It's no time for nerves. I
don't like it either, but it's got to be done." The woman began a
half-hysterical sobbing, but after a moment she turned and came with
slow feet to where Stewart lay.
Ste. Marie slipped his arms under the man's body and began to raise him
from the floor.
"You needn't help after all," he said. "He's not heavy." And indeed,
under his skilfully shaped and padded clothes, the man was a mere waif
of a man--as unbelievably slight as if he were the victim of a wasting
disease. Ste. Marie held the body in his arms as if it had been a
child, and carried it across and laid it on the bed; but it was many
months before he forgot the horror of that awful thing, shaking and
twitching in his hold, the head thumping hideously upon his shoulder,
the arms and legs beating against him. It was the most difficult task
he had ever had to perform.
He laid Captain Stewart upon the bed and straightened the helpless limbs
as best he could.
"I suppose," he said, rising again, "I suppose when the man comes out of
this he'll be frightfully exhausted and drop off to sleep, won't he?
We'll have to----" He halted abruptly there and, for a single swift
instant, he felt the black and rushing sensation of one who is going to
faint away. The wall behind the ornate Empire bed was covered with
photographs, some in frames, others left as they had been received upon
the large squares of weird cardboard which are termed "art mounts."
"Come here a moment, quickly!" said Ste. Marie in a sharp voice. Mlle.
Nilssen's sobs had died down to a silent spasmodic catching of the
breath, but she was still much unnerved, and she approached the bed with
obvious unwillingness, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. Ste.
Marie pointed to an unframed photograph which was fastened to the wall
by thumb tacks, and his outstretched hand shook as he pointed. Beneath
them the other man still writhed and tumbled in his epileptic fit.
"Do you know who that woman is?" demanded Ste. Marie, and his tone was
such that Olga Nilssen turned slowly and stared at him.
"That woman," said she, "is the reason why I wished to pull the world
down upon Charlie Stewart and me to-night. That's who she is."
Ste. Marie gave a sort of cry.
"Who is she?" he insisted. "What is her name? I--have a particularly
important reason for wanting to know. I've got to know." Mlle. Nilssen
shook her head, still staring at him.
"I can't tell you that," said she. "I don't know the name. I only know
that--when he met her, he---- I don't know her name, but I know where
she lives and where he goes every day to see her--a house with a big
garden and walled park on the road to Clamart. It's on the edge of the
wood, not far from Fort d'Issy. The Clamart-Vanves-Issy tram runs past
the wall of one side of the park. That's all I know."
Ste. Marie clasped his head with his hands.
"So near to it!" he groaned, "and yet---- Ah!" He bent forward
suddenly over the bed and spelled out the name of the photographer,
which was pencilled upon the brown cardboard mount.
"There's still a chance," he said. "There's still one chance." He
became aware that the woman was watching him curiously, and nodded to
her.
"It's something you don't know about," he explained. "I've got to find
out who this--girl is. Perhaps the photographer can help me. I used to
know him." All at once his eyes sharpened.
"Tell me the simple truth about something!" said he. "If ever we have
been friends, if you owe me any good office, tell me this! Do you know
anything about young Arthur Benham's disappearance two months ago, or
about what has become of him?" Again the woman shook her head.
"No," said she. "Nothing at all. I haven't even heard of it. Young
Arthur Benham! I've met him once or twice. I wonder--I wonder Stewart
never spoke to me about his disappearance. That's very odd."
"Yes," said Ste. Marie absently, "it is." He gave a little sigh. "I
wonder about a good many things," said he. He glanced down upon the bed
before them, and Captain Stewart lay still, save for a slight twitching
of the hands. Once he moved his head restlessly from side to side, and
said something incoherent in a weak murmur.
"He's out of it," said Olga Nilssen. "He'll sleep now, I think. I
suppose we must get rid of those people and then leave him to the care
of his man. A doctor couldn't do anything for him."
"Yes," said Ste. Marie, nodding. "I'll call the servant and tell the
people that Stewart has been taken ill." He looked once more towards
the photograph on the wall, and under his breath he said with an odd
defiant fierceness--
"I won't believe it!" But he did not explain what he wouldn't believe.
He started out of the room, but, halfway, halted and turned back. He
looked Olga Nilssen full in the eyes, saying--
"It is safe to leave you here with him while I call the servant?
There'll be no more----?" But the woman gave a low cry and a violent
shiver with it.
"You need have no fear," she said. "I've no desire now to--harm him.
The--reason is gone. This has cured me. I feel as if I could never bear
to see him again. Oh, hurry! Please, hurry! I want to get away from
here." Ste. Marie nodded and went out of the room.
*CHAPTER XII*
*THE NAME OF THE LADY WITH THE EYES:
EVIDENCE HEAPS UP SWIFTLY*
Ste. Marie drove home to the Rue d'Assas with his head in a whirl and
with a sense of great excitement beating somewhere within him, probably
in the place where his heart ought to be. He had a curiously sure
feeling that at last his feet were upon the right path. He could not
have explained this to himself--indeed, there was nothing to explain,
and if there had been, he was in far too great an inner turmoil to
manage it. It was a mere feeling--the sort of thing which he had once
tried to express to Captain Stewart, and had got laughed at for his
pains.
There was, in sober fact, no reason whatever why Captain Stewart's
possession of a photograph of the beautiful lady whom Ste. Marie had
once seen in company with O'Hara should be taken as significant of
anything except an appreciation of beauty on the part of Miss Benham's
uncle--not even if, as Mlle. Nilssen believed, Captain Stewart was in
love with the lady. But to Ste. Marie, in his whirl of reawakened
excitement, the discovery loomed to the skies, and, in a series of
ingenious but very vague leaps of the imagination, he saw himself, with
the aid of this new evidence (which was no evidence at all, if he had
been calm enough to realise it), victorious in his great quest, leading
young Arthur Benham back to the arms of an ecstatic family, and kneeling
at the feet of that youth's sister to claim his reward. All of which
seems a rather startling flight of the imagination to have had its
beginning in the sight of one photograph of a young woman. But then Ste.
Marie was imaginative if he was anything.
He fell to thinking of this girl whose eyes, after one sight of them,
had so long haunted him. He thought of her between those two men, the
hard-faced Irish adventurer and the other, Stewart, strange compound of
intellectual and voluptuary, and his eyes flashed in the dark and he
gripped his hands together upon his knees. He said again--
"I won't believe it! I won't believe it!" Believe what? one wonders.
He slept hardly at all, only, towards morning, falling into an uneasy
doze. And in the doze he dreamed once more the dream of the dim waste
place and the hill, and the eyes and voice that called him back--because
they needed him.
As early as he dared, after his morning coffee, he took a fiacre and
drove across the river to the Boulevard de la Madeleine, where he
climbed a certain stair, at the foot of which were two glass cases
containing photographs of, for the most part, well-known ladies of the
Parisian stage. At the top of the stair he entered the reception-room
of a young photographer, who is famous now the world over, but who at
the beginning of his career, when he had nothing but talent and no
acquaintance, owed certain of his most important commissions to M. Ste.
Marie.
The man, whose name was Bernstein, came forward eagerly from the studio
beyond to greet his visitor, and Ste. Marie complimented him chaffingly
upon his very sleek and prosperous appearance, and upon the new
decorations of the little salon, which were, in truth, excellently well
judged. But after they had talked for a little while of such matters he
said--
"I want to know if you keep specimen prints of all the photographs you
have made within the last few months, and if so I should like to see
them."
The young Jew went to a wooden portfolio holder which stood in a corner
and dragged it out into the light.
"I have them all here," said he, "everything that I have made within the
past ten or twelve months. If you will let me draw up a chair you can
look them over comfortably." He glanced at his former patron with a
little polite curiosity as Ste. Marie followed his suggestion, and began
to turn over the big portfolio's contents, but he did not show any
surprise nor ask questions. Indeed he guessed--to a certain
extent--rather near the truth of the matter. It had happened before that
young gentlemen, and old ones too, wanted to look over his prints
without offering explanations, and they generally picked out all the
photographs there were of some particular lady, and bought them if they
could be bought.
So he was by no means astonished on this occasion, and he moved about
the room putting things to rights, and even went for a few moments into
the studio beyond, until he was recalled by a sudden exclamation from
his visitor, an exclamation which had a sound of mingled delight and
excitement.
Ste. Marie held in his hands a large photograph, and he turned it
towards the man who had made it.
"I am going to ask you some questions," said he, "that will sound rather
indiscreet and irregular, but I beg you to answer them if you can,
because the matter is of great importance to a number of people. Do you
remember this lady?"
"Oh yes," said the Jew readily, "I remember her very well. I never
forget people who are as beautiful as this lady was." His eyes gleamed
with retrospective joy.
"She was splendid!" he declared, "sumptuous! No! I cannot describe her.
I have not the words. And I could not photograph her with any justice
either. She was all colour--brown skin with a dull red stain under the
cheeks, and a great mass of hair that was not black but very nearly
black--except in the sun, and then there were red lights in it. She was
a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses: the young Juno before
marriage, the----"
"Yes," interrupted Ste. Marie, "yes, I see. Yes, quite evidently she was
beautiful, but what I wanted in particular to know was her name, if you
feel that you have a right to give it to me (I remind you again that the
matter is very important), and any circumstances that you can remember
about her coming here; who came with her, for instance, and things of
that sort."
The photographer looked a little disappointed at being cut off in the
middle of his rhapsody, but he began turning over the leaves of an
order-book which lay upon a table near by.
"Here is the entry!" he said after a few moments. "Yes, I thought so,
the date was nearly three months ago--April 5. And the lady's name was
Mlle. Coira O'Hara."
"What?" cried the other man sharply. "What did you say?"
"Mlle. Coira O'Hara was the name," repeated the photographer. "I
remember the occasion perfectly. The lady came here with three
gentlemen, one tall thin gentleman with an eyeglass, an Englishman, I
think, though he spoke very excellent French when he spoke to me. Among
themselves they spoke, I think, English, though I do not understand it
except a few words such as ''ow moch?' and 'sank you' and 'rady pleas'
now.'"
"Yes! Yes!" cried Ste. Marie impatiently. And the little Jew could see
that he was labouring under some very strong excitement, and he wondered
mildly about it, scenting a love affair.
"Then," he pursued, "there was a very young man in strange clothes, a
tourist, I should think, like those Americans and English who come in
the summer with little red books and sit on the terrace of the Cafe de
la Paix." He heard his visitor draw a swift sharp breath at that, but
he hurried on before he could be interrupted--
"This young man seemed to be unable to take his eyes from the lady, and
small wonder! He was very much _epris_, very much _epris_ indeed. Never
have I seen a youth more so. Ah, it was something to see, that! A
thing to touch the heart."
"What did the young man look like?" demanded Ste. Marie. The
photographer described the youth as best he could from memory, and he
saw his visitor nod once or twice, and at the end he said: "Yes, yes, I
thought so. Thank you."