By this time he had concluded the alteration in his toilet which was
necessary to assure his entrance into the hotel without occasioning
comment; and as Dollops had followed suit they readily passed muster,
when they alighted, for an ordinary English gentleman accompanied by an
ordinary English manservant.
"What was the charge at the garage?" inquired Cleek of Dollops just
previously to alighting.
"I dunno wot it runs to in this 'ere rum lingo of francs and sous, sir,"
said Dollops, "but the garage gent he said it would amount to two pounds
ten in English money, so I'll have to leave you to work it out for
yourself. The shuvver, he said sommink about 'poor boars'--which I've
heard is wot you has to give 'em as a tip to themselves, Gov'nor--so I
promised him 'arf a crown to stop at 'tother end of that passage leadin'
up from The Twisted Arm till he was wanted, sir. Made it a good tip
because I wanted him to be there sure--it would have been a case of
'nab' for us if he hadn't. Wasn't too much, was it, sir?"
"No," said Cleek--and let him see that it wasn't by giving the chauffeur
a pourboire of ten francs and sending him back to the garage with the
impression that he had had dealings with a millionaire.
Ten minutes later the hotel register bore the record of the arrival of
"Mr. Philip Barch and servant"; and one attendant was engaged in showing
the servant into a neat little bedroom which was to be his resting-place
until morning while another was ushering the master into the suite
engaged by the Baron de Carjorac.
Three persons were there: the Baron, his daughter, and his daughter's
companion; but Cleek saw but one--and that the only one who made no
movement, uttered no sound, when he came into the room. Curiously pale
and curiously quiet, she stood with one arm resting on the mantelpiece
and the other hanging by her side, looking at him--looking _for_ him, in
fact--but not saying one word, not making one sound. That she left
wholly to the baron and his daughter.
They, too, maintained, although with an effort, an appearance of
composure so long as the hotel servant was present; but in the moment
the door closed and the man was gone an overpowering excitement seized
and mastered them.
"Monsieur, for the love of God, don't tell me you have failed," implored
the baron. "I have died a hundred deaths of torture and suspense since
your card was carried up. But if I am to hear bad news ... Oh, my
country!"
"Don't cross bridges, baron, until you come to them," said Cleek
composedly. "I gave Miss Lorne my promise that I would not leave France
until I had done what she asked me to do; and--I am returning to England
to-morrow by the noon boat. I have had an exciting evening, but it has
had its compensation. Here is something for you. I had a bit of a fight
for it, baron--look out that it doesn't get into the wrong hands again."
He had taken a small packet of torn papers from his pocket while he was
speaking; now he put it into the baron's hand--not wholly without a
certain sense of gratification, however, in the excitement and delight
which the act called forth; for no man is utterly devoid of personal
vanity, personal pride in his achievements, and this man was no less
human than his kind.
He let the tumult of excitement and joy wear itself out; he suffered the
baron's embraces--even the two rapturous kisses the man planted upon
first one and then the other of his cheeks--he endured Mlle. Athalie's
exuberant hand-clapping and hand-shaking and the cyclonic and wholly
Gallic manner in which she deported herself when comparison with the
fragments which the baron had still retained proved beyond all question
that these were indeed the missing portions of the all-important
document; and not until these things were over did he so much as look at
Ailsa Lorne again.
She had taken no part in the general excitement, moved not one foot from
where she had been standing from the first. Even when Athalie danced
over and hugged her and showed the important fragments; even when she
reproved her with a wondering, "Ah, you strange Anglais--you stone-cold
Anglais! Is it possible that you can have blood in your veins and yet
take wondrous things like this so calmly?"--even then, she merely smiled
and remained standing just as she still was; her pallor not one whit
lessened, her reserve but the merest shadow less apparent than it had
been before.
Cleek chose that moment to walk over to her, to lift his eyes to hers,
and to stand looking at her questioningly. For now that he was close to
her he could see that she was trembling nervously; that her calmness was
merely an outward thing, and that under it nerves writhed and a
frightened heart was beating thick and fast.
Was even the fancied moment in Paradise to be denied him then? That such
a woman could not, all in a moment--could not by just one act of heroism
on his part--be won over and lured into complete forgetfulness of such a
past as his, he realized to the fullest extent. Always he had been
conscious of that; but even so ... Ah, well, the meanest may hope, the
lowest may at least look up; and even saints and angels were not above
saying, "Well done!" to a soul that had struggled, to a sinner that had
done his best.
"I managed it, you see, Miss Lorne," he said, in a slightly lowered
voice, while the baron busied himself in looking for his cheque-book and
Athalie bustled about in quest of ink and a pen. "It wasn't an easy
night's work, and I'm a bit fagged out. So, as I leave in the morning,
it will be good-bye as well as good-night."
She moved for the first time. The hand that lay upon the shelf of the
mantelpiece shook and closed quickly. She lifted up her head and looked
at him. Her eyes were misty and faint clouds of color were coming and
going over her face.
"What is it?" he asked. "Surely, Miss Lorne, you--are not afraid of me?"
"No," she said, averting her face again. "Not of you but of myself. That
is--I--" trying to laugh, but making a parody of it--"I was always more
or less of a coward, Mr. Cleek, but ..." She faced round again sharply
and held out her hand to him. "Will you let me thank you? Will you let
me say that I must be merely a little child in intellect since it is
only now that I have begun to understand how natural it is that a pound
of gold should inevitably outweigh an ounce of dirt? And will you please
understand that I am trying to thank you, trying to let you know that I
am very, very sorry if I ever hurt your feelings. I don't think I meant
to. I couldn't see then so clearly as I do now. Please forgive me."
He took the hand she held out to him; and so had his moment in Paradise
after all.
"Hurt me as often as you like, if it will always end like this," he said
with a queer little laugh that seemed to come from the very depths of
his chest. "As for that other time ... How could I have expected that
you would take it in any other way, being what you are and I what I had
been? I am glad I told you. You could never have respected me for an
instant if you had found it out in any other way; and I want your
respect: I want it very, very earnestly, Miss Lorne. If you can ever
give it to me I'll do my best to be worthy of it."
She had withdrawn her hand from his and was drumming with her
finger-tips upon the mantelshelf. A little pucker was between her
eyebrows, she was biting her under lip perplexedly, and appeared to be
hesitating. But of a sudden she twitched round her head sharply and a
sweep of red went up over her face.
"Shall I show you how much I do respect you, then?" she said. "One may
ask of a friend things one would not dream of asking of a mere
acquaintance, and so--Mr. Cleek, this night of horror has been too much
for me. I know now that I can no longer remain in this position in this
dreadful city. I have already resigned my post, and will return to
England, and--if I am not too late for it--make an effort to secure the
post of governess to Lady Chepstow's little son. I shall start in the
morning. Will you play the part of friend and guide and see me safely
across the Channel?"
"Do you mean that?" he asked, his face alight, his eyes shining. "You
will let me have the privilege, the honour? What a queen you are! You
give largesse with both hands when a simple coin would have been enough.
Shall I secure your tickets? When will you have your luggage ready? Is
there anything you will need before you leave?"
She smiled at his enthusiasm, coloured anew, and again held out her
hand.
"We will talk of all that in the morning," she said. "There will be
plenty of time. Mlle. de Carjorac has promised to look after my effects
and to see that they are shipped on to me in due course. But now it
really must be good-night. I shall see you again at breakfast."
"At breakfast?" repeated Cleek, with a happy laugh. "I wonder if you
understand that I shall be kicking my heels on my bedside until it is
ready?--that I shan't sleep a wink all night?"
And as events proved he came respectably close to living up to that
exuberant assertion--merely napping now and again, to wake up suddenly
and "moon" for an hour or so; and, between periodical inspections of his
watch, to wonder if God ever made a night so long and slow-dragging as
this one.
It had its recompense, however; for all--or nearly all--the next day was
passed in company with _her_; and more than that he would not have asked
of Heaven. Long before she rose he had made all arrangements for the
journey to Calais; and she was not a little gratified--yes, and touched
if the truth must be told--on arriving at the train, to find that he had
made no effort to secure accommodations which would compel her to endure
his companionship alone from the Gare du Nord to the steamer, but had
considerately reserved seats in a compartment containing other
travellers, and had done everything in his power to relieve her of any
possible embarrassment and to insure her all possible comforts. Even
magazines and pictorial papers were not omitted, but were there for her
in plenty lest she might prefer an excuse for not indulging much in
conversation; and there was also a huge bunch of La France roses bought
at the temporary flower market beside the Madeleine at daybreak that
morning.
"They are beautiful, aren't they?" he said, as he laid them in her lap.
"Will it surprise you to learn that flowers are a passion with me, and
that I am a living refutation of the fallacy that 'there can be nothing
very wrong about a man who can cultivate a garden'?"
She looked up at him and smiled.
"I think nothing about you will surprise me--you are so many-sided
and--if you will pardon me saying it--so different from what one
imagines men of--of your calling to be," she said; and laughed a little,
colouring divinely until her face was like the roses themselves. "You
treat me as if I were a queen; and I am not used to Court manners.
Where, if you please, did you acquire yours?"
"In the vast Kingdom of the World," he made answer, with just a
momentary change of countenance--a mere suspicion of embarrassment:
laughed off before she could be quite sure that it had had any real
existence. "Please remember that to appear to be what one is not, and to
ape manners foreign to one's real self is part of what you have so
nicely, so euphemistically, termed 'my calling.' I am an Actor on the
World's Stage, Miss Lorne; I should be but a very poor one if I could
not accommodate myself to many rôles."
"If you play them all so well as you do that of the _preux chevalier_,
it is no wonder you are a success," she replied gaily, slipping thus
into easy conversation with him.
And so it fell out that the magazines and the illustrated papers were
not so much of a boon as both had fancied they might be when Cleek
brought them to her; for they had not even been opened when the train
ran up to the quay side at Calais and brought them almost abreast of the
channel steamer.