Lord Creedmore had begun life as a poor barrister, with no particular
prospects, had entered the House of Commons early, and had been a
hard-working member of Parliament till he had inherited a title and a
relatively exiguous fortune when he was over fifty by the unexpected
death of his uncle and both the latter's sons within a year. He had
married young; his wife was the daughter of a Yorkshire country
gentleman, and had blessed him with ten children, who were all alive,
and of whom Lady Maud was not the youngest. He was always obliged to
make a little calculation to remember how old she was, and whether
she was the eighth or the ninth. There were three sons and seven
daughters. The sons were all in the army, and all stood between
six and seven feet in their stockings; the daughters were all
good-looking, but none was as handsome as Maud; they were all married,
and all but she had children. Lady Creedmore had been a beauty too,
but at the present time she was stout and gouty, had a bad temper, and
alternately soothed and irritated her complaint and her disposition by
following cures or committing imprudences. Her husband, who was now
over sixty, had never been ill a day in his life; he was as lean and
tough as a greyhound and as active as a schoolboy, a good rider, and a
crack shot.
His connection with this tale, apart from the friendship which grew
up between Margaret and Lady Maud, lies in the fact that his land
in Derbyshire adjoined the estate which Mr. Van Torp had bought and
re-named after himself. It was here that Lady Maud and the American
magnate had first met, two years after her marriage, when she had come
home on a long visit, very much disillusionised as to the supposed
advantages of the marriage bond as compared with the freedom of a
handsome English girl of three-and-twenty, who is liked in her set and
has the run of a score of big country houses without any chaperonial
encumbrance. For the chaperon is going down to the shadowy kingdom of
the extinct, and is already reckoned with dodos, stagecoaches, muzzle
loaders, crinolines, Southey's poems, the Thirty-nine Articles,
Benjamin Franklin's reputation, the British workman, and the late
Herbert Spencer's philosophy.
On the previous evening Lady Maud had not told Margaret that Lord
Creedmore lived in Surrey, having let his town house since his
youngest daughter had married. She now explained that it would be
absurd to think of driving such a distance when one could go almost
all the way by train. The singer was rather scared at the prospect of
possibly missing trains, waiting in draughty stations, and getting wet
by a shower; she was accustomed to think nothing of driving twenty
miles in a closed carriage to avoid the slightest risk of a wetting.
But Lady Maud piloted her safely, and showed an intimate knowledge
of the art of getting about by public conveyances which amazed her
companion. She seemed to know by instinct the difference between one
train and another, when all looked just alike, and when she had to
ask a question of a guard or a porter her inquiry was met with
business-like directness and brevity, and commanded the respect which
all officials feel for people who do not speak to them without a
really good reason--so different from their indulgent superiority when
we enter into friendly conversation with them.
The journey ended in a walk of a quarter of a mile from the station to
the gate of the small park in which the house stood. Lady Maud said
she was sorry she had forgotten to telephone for a trap to be sent
down, but added cheerfully that the walk would do Margaret good.
'You know your way wonderfully well,' Margaret said.
'Yes,' answered her companion carelessly. 'I don't think I could lose
myself in London, from Limehouse to Wormwood Scrubs.'
She spoke quite naturally, as if it were not in the least surprising
that a smart woman of the world should possess such knowledge.
'You must have a marvellous memory for places,' Margaret ventured to
say.
'Why? Because I know my way about? I walk a great deal, that's all.'
Margaret wondered whether the Countess Leven habitually took her walks
in the direction of Limehouse in the east or Shepherd's Bush in the
west; and if so, why? As for the distance, the thoroughbred looked
as if she could do twenty miles without turning a hair, and Margaret
wished she would not walk quite so fast, for, like all great singers,
she herself easily got out of breath if she was hurried; it was not
the distance that surprised her, however, but the fact that Lady Maud
should ever visit such regions.
They reached the house and found Lord Creedmore in the library, his
lame foot on a stool and covered up with a chudder. His clear brown
eyes examined Margaret's face attentively while he held her hand in
his.
'So you are little Margery,' he said at last, with a very friendly
smile. 'Do you remember me at all, my dear? I suppose I have changed
almost more than you have.'
Margaret remembered him very well indeed as Mr. Foxwell, who used
always to bring her certain particularly delicious chocolate wafers
whenever he came to see her father in Oxford. She sat down beside him
and looked at his face--clean-shaven, kindly, and energetic--the face
of a clever lawyer and yet of a keen sportsman, a type you will hardly
find out of England.
Lady Maud left the two alone after a few minutes, and Margaret found
herself talking of her childhood and her old home, as if nothing very
much worth mentioning had happened in her life during the last ten or
a dozen years. While she answered her new friend's questions and
asked others of him she unconsciously looked about the room. The
writing-table was not far from her, and she saw on it two photographs
in plain ebony frames; one was of her father, the other was a likeness
of Lady Maud. Little by little she understood that her father had been
Lord Creedmore's best friend from their schoolboy days till his death.
Yet although they had constantly exchanged short visits, the one
living in Oxford and the other chiefly in town, their wives had hardly
known each other, and their children had never met.
'Take him all in all,' said the old gentleman gravely, 'Donne was the
finest fellow I ever knew, and the only real friend I ever had.'
His eyes turned to the photograph on the table with a far-away manly
regret that went to Margaret's heart. Her father had been a reticent
man, and as there was no reason why he should have talked much about
his absent friend Foxwell, it was not surprising that Margaret should
never have known how close the tie was that bound them. But now,
coming unawares upon the recollection of that friendship in the man
who had survived, she felt herself drawn to him as if he were of
her own blood, and she thought she understood why she had liked his
daughter so much at first sight.
They talked for more than half an hour, and Margaret did not even
notice that he had not once alluded to her profession, and that she
had so far forgotten herself for the time as not to miss the usual
platitudes about her marvellous voice and her astoundingly successful
career.
'I hope you'll come and stop with us in Derbyshire in September,'
he said at last. 'I'm quite ashamed to ask you there, for we are
dreadfully dull people; but it would give us a great deal of
pleasure.'
'You are very kind indeed,' Margaret said. 'I should be delighted to
come.'
'Some of our neighbours might interest you,' said Lord Creedmore.
'There's Mr. Van Torp, for instance, the American millionaire. His
land joins mine.'
'Really?'
Margaret wondered if she should ever again go anywhere without hearing
of Mr. Van Torp.
'Yes. He bought Oxley Paddox some time ago and promptly re-christened
it Torp Towers. But he's not a bad fellow. Maud likes him, though Lady
Creedmore calls him names. He has such a nice little girl--at least,
it's not exactly his child, I believe,' his lordship ran on rather
hurriedly; 'but he's adopted her, I understand--at least, I fancy so.
At all events she was born deaf, poor little thing; but he has had her
taught to speak and to understand from the lips. Awfully pretty child!
Maud delights in her. Nice governess, too--I forget her name; but
she's a faithful sort of woman. It's a dreadfully hard position, don't
you know, to be a governess if you're young and good-looking, and
though Van Torp is rather a decent sort, I never feel quite sure--Maud
likes him immensely, it's true, and that is a good sign; but Maud is
utterly mad about a lot of things, and besides, she's singularly well
able to take care of herself.'
'Yes,' said Margaret; but she thought of the story Logotheti had told
her on the previous evening. 'I know Mr. Van Torp, and the little girl
and Miss More,' she said after a moment. 'We came over in the same
steamer.'
She thought it was only fair to say that she had met the people of
whom he had been speaking. There was no reason why Lord Creedmore
should be surprised by this, and he only nodded and smiled pleasantly.
'All the better. I shall set Maud on you to drag you down to
Derbyshire in September,' he said. 'Women never have anything to do in
September. Let me see--you're an actress, aren't you, my dear?'
Margaret laughed. It was positively delightful to feel that he had
never heard of her theatrical career.
'No; I'm a singer,' she said. 'My stage name is Cordova.'
'Oh yes, yes,' answered Lord Creedmore, very vaguely. 'It's the same
thing--you cannot possibly have anything to do in September, can you?'
'We shall see. I hope not, this year.'
'If it's not very indiscreet of me, as an old friend, you know, do you
manage to make a living by the stage?'
'Oh--fair!' Margaret almost laughed again.
Lady Maud returned at this juncture, and Margaret rose to go, feeling
that she had stayed long enough.
'Margery has half promised to come to us in September,' said Lord
Creedmore to his daughter, 'You don't mind if I call you Margery, do
you?' he asked, turning to Margaret. 'I cannot call you Miss Donne
since you really remember the chocolate wafers! You shall have some as
soon as I can go to see you!'
Margaret loved the name she had been called by as a child. Mrs.
Rushmore had severely eschewed diminutives.
'Margery,' repeated Lady Maud thoughtfully. 'I like the name awfully
well. Do you mind calling me Maud? We ought to have known each other
when we were in pinafores!'
In this way it happened that Margaret found herself unexpectedly
on something like intimate terms with her father's friend and the
latter's favourite child less than twenty-four hours after meeting
Lady Maud, and this was how she was asked to their place in the
country for the month of September. But that seemed very far away.
Lady Maud took Margaret home, as she had brought her, without making
her wait more than three minutes for a train, without exposing her to
a draught, and without letting her get wet, all of which would seem
easy enough to an old Londoner, but was marvellous in the eyes of the
young Primadonna, and conveyed to her an idea of freedom that was
quite new to her. She remembered that she used to be proud of her
independence when she first went into Paris from Versailles alone for
her singing lessons; but that trip, contrasted with the one from her
own house to Lord Creedmore's on the Surrey side, was like going out
for an hour's sail in a pleasure-boat on a summer's afternoon compared
with working a sea-going vessel safely through an intricate and
crowded channel at night.
Margaret noticed, too, that although Lady Maud was a very striking
figure, she was treated with respect in places where the singer knew
instinctively that if she herself had been alone she would have been
afraid that men would speak to her. She knew very well how to treat
them if they did, and was able to take care of herself if she chose
to travel alone; but she ran the risk of being annoyed where the
beautiful thoroughbred was in no danger at all. That was the
difference.
Lady Maud left her at her own door and went off on foot, though the
hansom that had brought them from the Baker Street Station was still
lurking near.
Margaret had told Logotheti to come and see her late in the afternoon,
and as she entered the hall she was surprised to hear voices upstairs.
She asked the servant who was waiting.
With infinite difficulty in the matter of pronunciation the man
informed her that the party consisted of Monsieur Logotheti, Herr
Schreiermeyer, Signor Stromboli, the Signorina Baci-Roventi, and
Fräulein Ottilie Braun. The four professionals had come at the very
moment when Logotheti had gained admittance on the ground that he had
an appointment, which was true, and they had refused to be sent away.
In fact, unless he had called the police the poor footman could not
have kept them out. The Signorina Baci-Roventi alone, black-browed,
muscular, and five feet ten in her shoes, would have been almost a
match for him alone; but she was backed by Signor Pompeo Stromboli,
who weighed fifteen stone in his fur coat, was as broad as he was
long, and had been seen to run off the stage with Madame Bonanni
in his arms while he yelled a high G that could have been heard in
Westminster if the doors had been open. Before the onslaught of such
terrific foreigners a superior London footman could only protest with
dignity and hold the door open for them to pass. Braver men than
he had quailed before Schreiermeyer's stony eye, and gentle little
Fräulein Ottilie slipped in like a swallow in the track of a storm.
Margaret felt suddenly inclined to shut herself up in her room
and send word that she had a headache and could not see them. But
Schreiermeyer was there. He would telephone for three doctors, and
would refuse to leave the house till they signed an assurance that she
was perfectly well and able to begin rehearsing the _Elisir d'Amore_
the next morning. That was what Schreiermeyer would do, and when she
next met him he would tell her that he would have 'no nonsense, no
stupid stuff,' and that she had signed an engagement and must sing or
pay.
She had never shammed an illness, either, and she did not mean to
begin now. It was only that for two blessed hours and more, with her
dead father's best friend and Maud, she had felt like her old self
again, and had dreamt that she was with her own people. She had even
disliked the prospect of seeing Logotheti after that, and she felt a
much stronger repugnance for her theatrical comrades. She went to her
own room before meeting them, and she sighed as she stood before the
tall looking-glass for a moment after taking off her coat and hat. In
pulling out the hat-pins her hair had almost come down, and Alphonsine
proposed to do it over again, but Margaret was impatient.
'Give me something--a veil, or anything,' she said impatiently. 'They
are waiting for me.'
The maid instantly produced from a near drawer a peach-coloured veil
embroidered with green and gold. It was a rather vivid modern Turkish
one given her by Logotheti, and she wrapped it quickly over her
disordered hair, like a sort of turban, tucking one end in, and
left the room almost without glancing at the glass again. She was
discontented with herself now for having dreamt of ever again being
anything but what she was--a professional singer.
The little party greeted her noisily as she entered the music-room.
Her comrades had not seen her since she had left them in New York, and
the consequence was that Signorina Baci-Roventi kissed her on both
cheeks with dramatic force, and she kissed Fräulein Ottilie on both
cheeks, and Pompeo Stromboli offered himself for a like favour and had
to be fought off, while Schreiermeyer looked on gravely, very much as
a keeper at the Zoo watches the gambols of the animals in his charge;
but Logotheti shook hands very quietly, well perceiving that his
chance of pleasing her just then lay in being profoundly respectful
while the professionals were overpoweringly familiar. His
almond-shaped eyes asked her how in the world she could stand it all,
and she felt uncomfortable at the thought that she was used to it.
Besides, these good people really liked her. The only members of the
profession who hated her were the other lyric sopranos. Schreiermeyer,
rapacious and glittering, had a photograph of her hideously enamelled
in colours inside the cover of his watch, and the facsimile of her
autograph was engraved across the lid of his silver cigarette-case.
Pompeo Stromboli carried some of her hair in a locket which he wore on
his chain between two amulets against the Evil Eye. Fräulein Ottilie
treasured a little water-colour sketch of her as Juliet on which
Margaret had written a few friendly words, and the Baci-Roventi
actually went to the length of asking her advice about the high notes
the contralto has to sing in such operas as _Semiramide_. It would be
hard to imagine a more sincere proof of affection and admiration than
this.
Margaret knew that the greeting was genuine and that she ought to be
pleased, but at the first moment the noise and the kissing and the
rough promiscuity of it all disgusted her.
Then she saw that all had brought her little presents, which were
arranged side by side on the piano, and she suddenly remembered that
it was her birthday. They were small things without value, intended
to make her laugh. Stromboli had sent to Italy for a Neapolitan clay
figure of a shepherd, cleverly modelled and painted, and vaguely
resembling himself--he had been a Calabrian goatherd. The contralto,
who came from Bologna, the city of sausages, gave Margaret a tiny pig
made of silver with holes in his back, in which were stuck a number of
quill toothpicks.
'You will think of me when you use them at table,' she said,
charmingly unconscious of English prejudices.
Schreiermeyer presented her with a bronze statuette of Shylock
whetting his knife upon his thigh.
'It will encourage you to sign our next agreement,' he observed
with stony calm. 'It is the symbol of business. We are all symbolic
nowadays.'
Fräulein Ottilie Braun had wrought a remarkable little specimen of
German sentiment. She had made a little blue pin-cushion and had
embroidered some little flowers on it in brown silk. Margaret had no
difficulty in looking pleased, but she also looked slightly puzzled.
'They are forget-me-nots,' said the Fräulein, 'but because my name is
Braun I made them brown. You see? So you will remember your little
Braun forget-me-not!'
Margaret laughed at the primitively simple little jest, but she was
touched too, and somehow she felt that her eyes were not quite dry
as she kissed the good little woman again. But Logotheti could not
understand at all, and thought it all extremely silly. He did not like
Margaret's improvised turban, either, though he recognised the veil as
one he had given her. The headdress was not classic, and he did not
think it becoming to the Victory of Samothrace.
He also had remembered her birthday and he had a small offering in
his pocket, but he could not give it to her before the others.
Schreiermeyer would probably insist on looking at it and would guess
its value, whereas Logotheti was sure that Margaret would not. He
would give it to her when they were alone, and would tell her that it
was nothing but a seal for her writing-case, a common green stone of
some kind with a little Greek head on it; and she would look at it and
think it pretty, and take it, because it did not look very valuable to
her unpractised eye. But the 'common green stone' was a great emerald,
and the 'little Greek head' was an intaglio of Anacreon, cut some two
thousand and odd hundred years ago by an art that is lost; and the
setting had been made and chiselled for Maria de' Medici when she
married Henry the Fourth of France. Logotheti liked to give Margaret
things vastly more rare than she guessed them to be.
Margaret offered her visitors tea, and she and Logotheti took theirs
while the others looked on or devoured the cake and bread and butter.
'Tea?' repeated Signor Stromboli. 'I am well. Why should I take tea?
The tea is for to perspire when I have a cold.'
The Signorina Baci-Roventi laughed at him.
'Do you not know that the English drink tea before dinner to give
themselves an appetite?' she asked. 'It is because they drink tea that
they eat so much.'
'All the more,' answered Stromboli. 'Do you not see that I am fat? Why
should I eat more? Am I to turn into a monument of Victor Emanuel?'
'You eat too much bread,' said Schreiermeyer in a resentful tone.
'It is my vice,' said the tenor, taking up four thin slices of bread
and butter together and popping them all into his mouth without the
least difficulty. 'When I see bread, I eat it. I eat all there is.'
'We see you do,' returned Schreiermeyer bitterly.
'I cannot help it. Why do they bring bread? They are in league to make
me fat. The waiters know me. I go into the Carlton; the head-waiter
whispers; a waiter brings a basket of bread; I eat it all. I go into
Boisin's, or Henry's; the head-waiter whispers; it is a basket of
bread; while I eat a few eggs, a chicken, a salad, a tart or two, some
fruit, cheese, the bread is all gone. I am the tomb of all the bread
in the world. So I get fat. There,' he concluded gravely, 'it is as I
tell you. I have eaten all.'
And in fact, while talking, he had punctuated each sentence with a
tiny slice or two of thin bread and butter, and everybody laughed,
except Schreiermeyer, as the huge singer gravely held up the empty
glass dish and showed it.
'What do you expect of me?' he asked. 'It is a vice, and I am not
Saint Anthony, to resist temptation.'
'Perhaps,' suggested Fräulein Ottilie timidly, 'if you exercised a
little strength of character--'
'Exercise?' roared Stromboli, not understanding her, for they spoke
a jargon of Italian, German, and English. 'Exercise? The more I
exercise, the more I eat! Ha, ha, ha! Exercise, indeed! You talk like
crazy!'
'You will end on wheels,' said Schreiermeyer with cold contempt. 'You
will stand on a little truck which will be moved about the stage from
below. You will be lifted to Juliet's balcony by a hydraulic crane.
But you shall pay for the machinery. Oh yes, oh yes! I will have it
in the contract! You shall be weighed. So much flesh to move, so much
money.'
'Shylock!' suggested Logotheti, glancing at the statuette and
laughing.
'Yes, Shylock and his five hundred pounds of flesh,' answered
Schreiermeyer, with a faint smile that disappeared again at once.
'But I meant character--' began Fräulein Ottilie, trying to go back
and get in a word.
'Character!' cried the Baci-Roventi with a deep note that made the
open piano vibrate. 'His stomach is his heart, and his character is
his appetite!'
She bent her heavy brows and fixed her gleaming black eyes on him with
a tragic expression.
'"Let them cant about decorum who have characters to lose,"' quoted
Logotheti softly.
This delicate banter went on for twenty minutes, very much to
Schreiermeyer's inward satisfaction, for it proved that at least four
members of his company were on good terms with him and with each
other; for when they had a grudge against him, real or imaginary, they
became sullen and silent in his presence, and eyed him with the coldly
ferocious expression of china dogs.
At last they all rose and went away in a body, leaving Margaret with
Logotheti.
'I had quite forgotten that it was my birthday,' she said, when they
were gone.
'I've brought you a little seal,' he answered, holding out the
intaglio.
She took it and looked at it.
'How pretty!' she exclaimed. 'It's awfully kind of you to have
remembered to-day, and I wanted a seal very much.'
'It's a silly little thing, just a head on some sort of green stone.
But I tried it on sealing-wax, and the impression is not so bad. I
shall be very happy if it's of any use, for I'm always puzzling my
brain to find something you may like.'
'Thanks very much. It's the thought I care for.' She laid the seal on
the table beside her empty cup. 'And now that we are alone,' she went
on, 'please tell me.'
'What?'
'How you found out what you told me at dinner last night.'
She leant back in the chair, raising her arms and joining her hands
above her head against the high top of the chair, and stretching
herself a little. The attitude threw the curving lines of her figure
into high relief, and was careless enough, but the tone in which she
spoke was almost one of command, and there was a sort of expectant
resentfulness in her eyes as they watched his face while she waited
for his answer. She believed that he had paid to have her watched by
some one who had bribed her servants.
'I did not find out anything,' he said quietly. 'I received an
anonymous letter from New York giving me all the details of the scene.
The letter was written with the evident intention of injuring Mr. Van
Torp. Whoever wrote it must have heard what you said to each other,
and perhaps he was watching you through the keyhole. It is barely
possible that by some accident he overheard the scene through the
local telephone, if there was one in the room. Should you care to see
that part of the letter which concerns you? It is not very delicately
worded!'
Margaret's expression had changed; she had dropped her hands and was
leaning forward, listening with interest.
'No,' she said, 'I don't care to see the letter, but who in the world
can have written it? You say it was meant to injure Mr. Van Torp--not
me.'
'Yes. There is nothing against you in it. On the contrary, the writer
calls attention to the fact that there never was a word breathed
against your reputation, in order to prove what an utter brute Van
Torp must be.'
'Tell me,' Margaret said, 'was that story about Lady Maud in the same
letter?'
'Oh dear, no! That is supposed to have happened the other day, but I
got the letter last winter.'
'When?'
'In January, I think.'
'He came to see me soon after New Year's Day,' said Margaret.' I wish
I knew who told--I really don't believe it was my maid.'
'I took the letter to one of those men who tell character by
handwriting,' answered Logotheti. 'I don't know whether you believe in
that, but I do a little. I got rather a queer result, considering that
I only showed half-a-dozen lines, which could not give any idea of the
contents.'
'What did the man say?'
'He said the writer appeared to be on the verge of insanity, if not
actually mad; that he was naturally of an accurate mind, with ordinary
business capacities, such as a clerk might have, but that he had
received a much better education than most clerks get, and must at one
time have done intellectual work. His madness, the man said, would
probably take some violent form.'
'There's nothing very definite about all that,' Margaret observed.
'Why in the world should the creature have written to you, of all
people, to destroy Mr. Van Torp's character?'
'The interview with you was only an incident,' answered Logotheti.
'There were other things, all tending to show that he is not a safe
person to deal with.'
'Why should you ever deal with him?'
Logotheti smiled.
'There are about a hundred and fifty men in different countries who
are regarded as the organs of the world's financial body. The very big
ones are the vital organs. Van Torp has grown so much of late that he
is probably one of them. Some people are good enough to think that I'm
another. The blood of the financial body--call it gold, or credit, or
anything you like--circulates through all the organs, and if one of
the great vital ones gets out of order the whole body is likely to
suffer. Suppose that Van Torp wished to do something with the Nickel
Trust in Paris, and that I had private information to the effect that
he was not a man to be trusted, and that I believed this information,
don't you see that I should naturally warn my friends against him, and
that our joint weight would be an effective obstacle in his way?'
'Yes, I see that. But, dear me! do you mean to say that all financiers
must be strictly virtuous, like little woolly white lambs?'
Margaret laughed carelessly. If Lushington had heard her, his teeth
would have been set on edge, but Logotheti did not notice the shade of
expression and tone.
'I repeat that the account of the interview with you was a mere
incident, thrown in to show that Van Torp occasionally loses his head
and behaves like a madman.'
'I don't want to see the letter,' said Margaret, 'but what sort of
accusations did it contain? Were they all of the same kind?'
'No. There was one other thing--something about a little girl called
Ida, who is supposed to be the daughter of that old Alvah Moon who
robbed your mother. You can guess the sort of thing the letter said
without my telling you.'
Margaret leaned forward and poked the small wood fire with a pair of
unnecessarily elaborate gilt tongs, and she nodded, for she remembered
how Lord Creedmore had mentioned the child that afternoon. He had
hesitated a little, and had then gone on speaking rather hurriedly.
She watched the sparks fly upward each time she touched the log, and
she nodded slowly.
'What are you thinking of?' asked Logotheti.
But she did not answer for nearly half a minute. She was reflecting on
a singular little fact which made itself clear to her just then. She
was certainly not a child; she was not even a very young girl, at
twenty-four; she had never been prudish, and she did not affect the
pre-Serpentine innocence of Eve before the fall. Yet it was suddenly
apparent to her that because she was a singer men treated her as if
she were a married woman, and would have done so if she had been
even five years younger. Talking to her as Margaret Donne, in Mrs.
Rushmore's house, two years earlier, Logotheti would not have
approached such a subject as little Ida Moon's possible relation to
Mr. Van Torp, because the Greek had been partly brought up in England
and had been taught what one might and might not say to a 'nice
English girl.' Margaret now reflected that since the day she had set
foot upon the stage of the Opera she had apparently ceased to be a
'nice English girl' in the eyes of men of the world. The profession of
singing in public, then, presupposed that the singer was no longer the
more or less imaginary young girl, the hothouse flower of the social
garden, whose perfect bloom the merest breath of worldly knowledge
must blight for ever. Margaret might smile at the myth, but she could
not ignore the fact that she was already as much detached from it in
men's eyes as if she had entered the married state. The mere fact of
realising that the hothouse blossom was part of the social legend
proved the change in herself.
'So that is the secret about the little girl,' she said at last. Then
she started a little, as if she had made a discovery. 'Good heavens!'
she exclaimed, poking the fire sharply. 'He cannot be as bad as
that--even he!'
'What do you mean?' asked Logotheti, surprised.
'No--really--it's too awful,' Margaret said slowly, to herself.
'Besides,' she added, 'one has no right to believe an anonymous
letter.'
'The writer was well informed about you, at least,' observed
Logotheti. 'You say that the details are true.'
'Absolutely. That makes the other thing all the more dreadful.'
'It's not such a frightful crime, after all,' Logotheti answered with
a little surprise. 'Long before he fell in love with you he may have
liked some one else! Such things may happen in every man's life.'
'That one thing--yes, no doubt. But you either don't know, or you
don't realise just what all the rest has been, up to the death of that
poor girl in the theatre in New York.'
'He was engaged to her, was he not?'
'Yes.'
'I forget who she was.'
'His partner's daughter. She was called Ida Bamberger.'
'Ida? Like the little girl?'
'Yes. Bamberger divorced his wife, and she married Senator Moon. Don't
you see?'
'And the girls were half-sisters--and--?' Logotheti stopped and
stared.
'Yes.' Margaret nodded slowly again and poked the fire.
'Good heavens!' The Greek knew something of the world's wickedness,
but his jaw dropped. 'Oedipus!' he ejaculated.
'It cannot be true,' Margaret said, quite in earnest. 'I detest him,
but I cannot believe that of him.'
For in her mind all that she knew and that Griggs had told her, and
that Logotheti did not know yet, rose up in orderly logic, and joined
what was now in her mind, completing the whole hideous tale of
wickedness that had ended in the death of Ida Bamberger, who had
been murdered, perhaps, in desperation to avert a crime even more
monstrous. The dying girl's faint voice came back to Margaret across
the ocean.
'He did it--'
And there was the stain on Paul Griggs' hand; and there was little
Ida's face on the steamer, when she had looked up and had seen Van
Torp's lips moving, and had understood what he was saying to himself,
and had dragged Margaret away in terror. And not least, there was the
indescribable fear of him which Margaret felt when he was near her for
a few minutes.
On the other side, what was there to be said for him? Miss More,
quiet, good, conscientious Miss More, devoting her life to the child,
said that he was one of the kindest men living. There was Lady Maud,
with her clear eyes, her fearless ways, and her knowledge of the world
and men, and she said that Van Torp was kind, and good to people in
trouble and true to his friends. Lord Creedmore, the intimate friend
of Margaret's father, a barrister half his life, and as keen as a
hawk, said that Mr. Van Torp was a very decent sort of man, and he
evidently allowed his daughter to like the American. It was true that
a scandalous tale about Lady Maud and the millionaire was already
going from mouth to mouth, but Margaret did not believe it. If she
had known that the facts were accurately told, whatever their meaning
might be, she would have taken them for further evidence against the
accused. As for Miss More, she was guided by her duty to her employer,
or her affection for little Ida, and she seemed to be of the
charitable sort, who think no evil; but after what Lord Creedmore had
said, Margaret had no doubt but that it was Mr. Van Torp who provided
for the child, and if she was his daughter, the reason for Senator
Moon's neglect of her was patent.
Then Margaret thought of Isidore Bamberger, the hard-working man of
business who was Van Torp's right hand and figure-head, as Griggs had
said, and who had divorced the beautiful, half-crazy mother of the two
Idas because Van Torp had stolen her from him--Van Torp, his partner,
and once his trusted friend. She remembered the other things Griggs
had told her: how old Bamberger must surely have discovered that his
daughter had been murdered, and that he meant to keep it a secret till
he caught the murderer. Even now the detectives might be on the right
scent, and if he whose child had been killed, and whose wife had been
stolen from him by the man he had once trusted, learnt the whole truth
at last, he would not be easily appeased.
'You have had some singular offers of marriage,' said Logotheti in a
tone of reflection. 'You will probably marry a beggar some day--a
nice beggar, who has ruined himself like a gentleman, but a beggar
nevertheless!'
'I don't know,' Margaret said carelessly. 'Of one thing I am sure. I
shall not marry Mr. Van Torp.'
Logotheti laughed softly.
'Remember the French proverb,' he said. '"Say not to the fountain, I
will not drink of thy water."'
'Proverbs,' returned Margaret, 'are what Schreiermeyer calls stupid
stuff. Fancy marrying that monster!'
'Yes,' assented Logotheti, 'fancy!'