Margaret received her friend's letter and the account of Baraka's
trial by the same post on the morning after she and Mr. Van Torp had
been to hear _Parsifal_ together, and she opened the two envelopes
before reading her other letters, though after assuring herself that
there was nothing from Logotheti. He did not write every day, by any
means, for he was a man of the world and he knew that although most
women demand worship at fixed hours, few can receive it so regularly
without being bored to the verge of exasperation. It was far better,
Logotheti knew, to let Margaret find fault with him for writing too
little than to spoil her into indifference by writing too much. Women
are often like doctors, who order their patients to do ten things and
are uncommonly glad if the patient does one.
So Margaret had no letter from Logotheti that morning, and she read
Lady Maud's and the enclosure before going on to the unpaid bills,
religious tracts, appeals for alms, advertisements of patent
medicines, 'confidential' communications from manufacturers of motor
cars, requests to sing for nothing at charity concerts, anonymous
letters of abuse, real business letters from real business men, and
occasional attempts at blackmail, which are the usual contents of a
celebrity's post-bag, and are generally but thinly salted with
anything like news from friends.
The Primadonna, in her professional travels, had grown cautious of
reading her letters in a room where there were other people; she had
once surprised a colleague who was toying with an opera-glass quite
absently, ten paces away, as if trying its range and focus, but who
frequently directed it towards a letter she was perusing; and
short-sighted people had dropped a glove or a handkerchief at her very
feet in order to stoop down and bring their noses almost against a
note she held in her hand. The world is full of curious people;
curiosity is said, indeed, to be the prime cause of study and
therefore of knowledge itself. Margaret assuredly did not distrust
Mrs. Rushmore, and she did not fear Potts, but her experience had
given her the habit of reading her important letters alone in her own
room, and sometimes with the door locked. Similarly, if any one came
near her when she was writing, even about the most indifferent
matters, she instinctively covered the page with her hand, or with a
piece of blotting-paper, sometimes so hastily as to lead a person to
believe that she was ashamed of what she had written. Natural habits
of behaviour remind us how we were brought up; acquired ones recall to
us the people with whom we have lived.
Margaret read the newspaper cutting first, supposing that it contained
something flattering about herself, for she had been a little short of
public admiration for nearly a fortnight. Baraka's case was reported
with the rather brutal simplicity which characterises such accounts
in the English papers, and Logotheti's name appeared in Mr. Pinney's
evidence. There had been the usual 'laughter,' duly noted by the
stenographer, when the poor girl's smart man's clothes were produced
before the magistrate by the policeman who had arrested her. The
magistrate had made a few stern remarks when ordering the delinquents
to prison, and had called Baraka 'hardened' because she did not burst
into tears. That was all, and there were barely five-and-twenty lines
of small print.
But the Primadonna bit her handsome lip and her eyes sparkled with
anger, as she put the cutting back into the first envelope, and took
the folded letter out of the other. The girl had not only stolen a
ruby, but it was Margaret's ruby, her very own, the one Logotheti had
given her for her engagement, and which she had insisted upon having
set as a ring though it would cover more than half the space between
her knuckle and the joint of her third finger. Further, it had been
stolen by the very girl from whom Logotheti had pretended that he had
bought it, a fact which cast the high light of absurdity on his
unlikely story! It was natural enough that she should have seen it,
and should have known that he was taking it to Pinney's, and that she
should have been able to prepare a little screw of paper with a bit of
glass inside, to substitute for it. The improbabilities of such an
explanation did not occur to Lady Maud, who saw only the glaring fact
that the handsome Tartar girl had accompanied Logotheti, between
London and Paris, disguised as a man, and had ultimately robbed him,
as he richly deserved. She had imposed upon Van Torp too, and had
probably tried to sell him the very stone she had stolen from
Logotheti, and the one she had made him take as a gift was nothing but
a bit of glass, as he said it might be, for all he knew.
She devoured Lady Maud's letter in a few moments, and then read it
twice again, which took so long that Mrs. Rushmore sent Justine to
tell Potts to ask if Miss Donne did not mean to go out that morning,
though the weather was so fine.
Great singers generally develop a capacity for flying into rages, even
if they have not been born with hot tempers. It is very bad for the
voice, but it seems to be a part of the life. Margaret was very angry,
and Potts became as meek and mild as a little lamb when she saw the
storm signals in her mistress's face. She delivered her message in a
pathetic and oppressed tone, like a child reciting the collect for the
day at a Sunday school.
The Primadonna, imposing as a young lioness, walked slowly backwards
and forwards between her window and the foot of the iron bedstead.
There was an angry light in her eyes and instead of flushing, as her
cheeks did for any ordinary fit of temper, they were as white as wax.
Potts, who was a small woman, seemed to shrink and become visibly
smaller as she stood waiting for an answer. Suddenly the lioness stood
still and surveyed the poor little jackal that served her.
'Ask Mrs. Rushmore if she can wait half an hour,' she said. 'I'm very
angry, Potts, and it's not your fault, so keep out of the way.'
She was generous at all events, but she looked dangerous, and Potts
seemed positively to shrivel through the crack of the door as she
disappeared. She was so extremely glad to keep out of the way! There
were legends already about the great singer's temper, as there are
about all her fellow-artists. It was said, without the slightest
foundation, that she had once tossed a maid out of the window like a
feather, that on another occasion she had severely beaten a coachman,
and that she had thrown two wretched lap-dogs into a raging fire in a
stove and fastened the door, because they had barked while she was
studying a new part. As a matter of fact, she loved animals to
weakness, and was kindness itself to her servants, and she was
generally justified in her anger, though it sometimes made her say
things she regretted. Oedipus found the right answer to the Sphinx's
riddle in a moment, but the ingenious one about truth propounded by
Pontius Pilate has puzzled more than sixty generations of Christians.
If the Sphinx had thought of it, Oedipus would never have got to
Thebes and some disgustingly unpleasant family complications would
have been prevented by his premature demise.
Margaret's wrath did not subside quickly, and as it could not spend
itself on any immediate object, it made her feel as if she were in a
raging fever. She had never been ill in her life, it was true, and
therefore did not know what the sensation was. Her only experience of
medical treatment had been at the hands of a very famous specialist
for the throat, in New York, to whom she went because all her
fellow-artists did, and whose mere existence is said by grateful
singers to effectually counteract the effects of the bad climate
during the opera season. He photographed her vocal chords, and the
diagrams produced by her best notes, made her breathe
pleasant-smelling sprays and told her to keep her feet dry in rainy
weather. That was the sum of her experience with doctors, and it was
not at all disagreeable.
Now, her temples throbbed, her hands trembled and were as hot as fire,
her lips were drawn and parched, and when she caught sight of herself
in the looking-glass she saw that she was quite white and that her
eyes were bloodshot.
But she was really a sensible English girl, although she was so very
angry.
'This is ridiculous!' she said aloud, with emphasis. 'I won't be so
silly!' And she sat down to try and think quietly.
It was not so easy. A Tartar girl indeed! More probably a handsome
Greek. How could they know the difference in a London Police Court?
She was not aware that in London and other great cities the police
disposes of interpreters for every known language, from the Malay
dialects to Icelandic. Besides, it did not matter! She would have been
angry if Logotheti had made love to the Duchess of Barchester, or to
Lady Dick Savory, the smartest woman in London, or to Mrs.
Smythe-Hockaday, the handsomest woman in England; she would have been
angry of course, but not so furious as she was now, not in a white
rage that made her teeth chatter, and her eyes burn as if they were
red-hot in her head. An ignorant Eastern girl! A creature that
followed him about in man's clothes! A thief! Pah! Disgusting!
Each detail that occurred to her made it more unbearable. She
remembered her conversation with him through the telephone when she
was at Versailles, his explanation the next day, which she had so
foolishly accepted, his kiss! Her blood raged in her eyes, and her
hands shook together. On that evening he had refused to stay to
dinner; no doubt he had gone back to his house in Paris, and had dined
with the girl--in the hall of the Aphrodite! It was not to be
believed, and after that memorable moment under the elm-tree, too,
when the sun was going down--after an honest girl's first kiss, the
first she had given any man since she had been a child and her lips
had timidly touched her dead father's forehead! People would not
believe it, perhaps, because she was an artist and an opera-singer;
but it was true.
It was no wonder that they had succeeded in deceiving her for a while,
the two Orientals together! They had actually made Rufus Van Torp
believe their story, which must have been a very different matter from
lying to a credulous young woman who had let herself fall in love! But
for her friend Lady Maud she would still be their victim. Her heart
went out to the woman who had saved her from her fate, and with the
thought came the impulse to send a message of gratitude; and the
first fury of her anger subsided with the impulse to do so. By and by
it would cool and harden to a lasting resentment that would not soften
again.
Her hand still shook so that she could hardly hold the pen steady
while she wrote the telegram.
'Unspeakably grateful. If can join me here will gladly wait for you.
Must see you at once. Do come.'
She felt better as she rose from the table, and when she looked at
herself in the mirror she saw that her face had changed again and that
her natural colour was returning. She rang for Potts, remembering that
the half-hour must be almost up.
The maid appeared at once, still looking very small and mild; but one
glance told her that the worst was past. She raised her head, threw
back her shoulders and stood up straight, apparently growing visibly
till she regained her ordinary size.
'Potts,' Margaret said, facing round upon her, 'I've been in a rage,
but I'm only angry now. Do I look like a human being again?'
'Yes, ma'am,' answered the maid, inspecting her gravely. 'You are
still a bit pale, ma'am, and your eye is a trifle wild, I may say. A
motor veil, perhaps, if you are thinking of going out, ma'am.'
'I haven't got such a thing, have I? I never motor now.'
Potts smiled the smile of the very superior maid, and moved towards a
perfectly new leather hat-box that stood in the corner.
'I always put in two for sea, ma'am,' she said. 'You wore one when we
crossed the Channel the last time, if you remember.'
'Potts, you're a treasure!'
'Yes, ma'am,' Potts answered vaguely in her meek voice, as she dived
into one of the curious secret pockets of the hat-box. 'That is,
ma'am,' she said, correcting herself, 'I mean, it's very kind of you
to say so.'
Without further consulting Margaret, who had seated herself before the
dressing-table, Potts proceeded to fasten a broad-brimmed black straw
hat on the thick brown hair; she then spread an immense white veil
over it, drew it under her mistress's chin and knotted in a way that
would have amazed a seaman.
When Margaret was putting on her gloves, Mrs. Rushmore herself came to
the door, knocked and opened discreetly before there was any answer.
'My dear child,' she asked, 'what in the world is the matter? Nothing
serious, I trust?'
'Oh, nothing,' Margaret answered, going forward to meet her, and
finding her natural voice. 'I'm sorry if I've kept you waiting.'
'It's so unlike you, my dear,' Mrs. Rushmore said, with emphasis; 'and
Potts looked quite grave when she brought me your message half an hour
ago.'
'You would have been more surprised if she had burst out laughing,'
Margaret said viciously.
'My dear,' Mrs. Rushmore answered, 'I'm astonished at you! I know
something has happened. I know it. You are not yourself this
morning.'
This was a statement so evidently absurd that it could not be answered
except by a flat contradiction; so Margaret said nothing, and went on
working her hand into a perfectly new glove.
'I see that you have not even opened your letters,' Mrs. Rushmore
continued severely. 'Except that,' she added, noticing the loose
sheets of Lady Maud's letter on the toilet-table.
Margaret gathered them up hastily, folded them into a crumpled package
and thrust them into the empty envelope. For once, she had forgotten
her caution, but she retrieved herself by pushing the thick letter
into her long glove, much to Potts' distress, for it made an ugly
lump. She made it worse by forcing in the second envelope, which
contained the newspaper cutting.
'I'm ready now,' she said.
Mrs. Rushmore turned and led the way with stately steps; she was
always imposing, but when she was offended she was monumental. The two
went out in silence, opened their parasols, the one black, the other
scarlet, and walked slowly down the straight, dull street side by
side. Mrs. Rushmore spoke first, after they had gone some distance.
'I know,' she said, 'that something has happened. It was in that
letter. You cannot deny it, Margaret. It was in the letter you folded
in that hurried manner.'
'The news was,' answered the Primadonna, still vicious.
'I told you so. My dear child, it's not of the slightest use to try to
deceive me. I've known you since you were a child.'
'I'm not trying to deceive you.'
'When I asked what had happened, you answered, "Nothing." I do not
call that very frank, do you?'
'Potts was there, to begin with,' explained Margaret rather crossly.
But Mrs. Rushmore no longer heard. Her head was up, her parasol lay
back upon her shoulder, her faded eyes were brighter than before, and
the beginning of a social smile wreathed her hitherto grave lips.
There was game about, and she was pointing; there were lions to
windward.
'There's Mr. Van Torp, my dear,' she said in quite another tone, and
very low, 'and unless I'm much mistaken--yes, I knew it! He's with
Count Kralinsky. I saw the Count from the window yesterday when he
arrived. I hope our friend will present him.'
'I daresay,' Margaret answered indifferently, but surveying the two
men through the white mist of her thick veil.
'Yes,' said Mrs. Rushmore with delight, and almost whispering in her
excitement. 'He has seen us, and now he's telling the Count who we
are.'
Margaret was used to her excellent old friend's ways on such
occasions, and gave no more heed to them than she would have given to
a kitten scampering after a ball of string. The kitten would certainly
catch the ball in the end, and Mrs. Rushmore would as surely capture
the lion.
Mr. Van Torp raised his hat when he was within four or five paces of
the ladies, and his companion, who was a head and shoulders taller
than he, slackened his pace and stopped a little way behind him as
Mrs. Rushmore shook hands and Margaret nodded pleasantly.
'May I present Count Kralinsky?' asked the American. 'I've met him
before, and we've just renewed our acquaintance.'
Mr. Van Torp looked from Mrs. Rushmore to Margaret, and tried to see
her expression through her veil. She answered his look by a very
slight inclination of the head.
'We shall be delighted,' said the elder lady, speaking for both.
Mr. Van Torp introduced the Count to Mrs. Rushmore and then to
Margaret, calling her 'Miss Donne,' and she saw that the man was
handsome as well as tall and strong. He had a magnificent golden
beard, a clear complexion, and rather uncertain blue eyes, in one of
which he wore a single eyeglass without a string. He was quietly
dressed and wore no jewellery, excepting one ring, in which blazed a
large 'tallow-topped' ruby. He had the unmistakable air of a man of
the world, and was perfectly at his ease. When he raised his straw hat
he disclosed a very white forehead, and short, thick fair hair. There
was no sign of approaching middle age in his face or figure, but
Margaret felt, or guessed, that he was older than he looked.
In her stiffly correct French, Mrs. Rushmore said that she was
enchanted to make his acquaintance, and Margaret murmured sweetly but
unintelligibly.
'The Count speaks English perfectly,' observed Mr. Van Torp.
He ranged himself beside Margaret, leaving the foreigner to Mrs.
Rushmore, much to her gratification.
'We were going to walk,' she said. 'Will you join us?' And she moved
on.
'It is a great pleasure to meet you,' Kralinsky said by way of opening
the conversation. 'I have often heard of you from friends in Paris.
Your little dinners at Versailles are famous all over Europe. I am
sure we have many mutual friends, though you may never have heard my
name.'
Mrs. Rushmore was visibly pleased, and as the way was not very wide,
Margaret and Van Torp dropped behind. They soon heard the other two
enumerating their acquaintances. Kralinsky was surprised at the number
of Mrs. Rushmore's friends, but the Count seemed to know everybody,
from all the Grand Dukes and Archdukes in Russia, Germany, and
Austria, to the author of the latest successful play in Paris, and the
man of science who had discovered how to cure gout by radium.
Kralinsky had done the cure, seen the play, and dined with the
royalties within the last few weeks. Mrs. Rushmore thought him one of
the most charming men she had ever met.
In the rear Mr. Van Torp and the Primadonna were not talking; but he
looked at her, she looked at him, they both looked at Kralinsky's
back, and then they once more looked at each other and nodded; which
meant that Van Torp had recognised the man he had met selling rubies
in New York, and that Margaret understood this.
'I'll tell you something else that's quite funny, if you don't mind
dropping a little further behind,' he said.
Margaret walked still more slowly till a dozen paces separated them
from the other two.
'What is it?' she asked in a low tone.
'I believe he's my old friend from whom I learned to whistle
_Parsifal_,' answered the American. 'I'm pretty sure of it, in spite
of a good many years and a beard--two things that change a man. See
his walk? See how he turns his toes in? Most cow-boys walk like that.'
'How very odd that you should meet again!' Margaret was surprised, but
not deeply interested by this new development.
'Well,' said Van Torp thoughtfully, 'if I'd known I was going to meet
him somewhere, I'd have said this was as likely a place as any to find
him in, now that I know what it was he whistled. But I admit that the
other matter has more in it. I wonder what would happen if I asked him
about Miss Barrack?'
'Nothing,' Margaret answered confidently. 'Nothing would happen. He
has never heard of her.'
Van Torp's sharp eyes tried in vain to penetrate the veil.
'That's not quite clear,' he observed. 'Or else this isn't my good
day.'
'The girl fooled you,' said Margaret in a low voice. 'Did she mention
his name to you?'
'Well, no----'
'She never saw him in her life, or if she ever did, it was she who
robbed him of rubies; and it was not the other way, as you supposed.
Men are generally inclined to believe what a nice-looking girl tells
them!'
'That's true,' Van Torp admitted. 'But all the same, I don't quite
understand you. There's a meaning in your voice that's not in the
words. Excuse me if I'm not quick enough this morning, please. I'm
doing my best.'
'Your friend Baraka has been arrested and sent to prison in London for
stealing a very valuable ruby from the counter in Pinney's,' Margaret
explained. 'The stone had just been taken there by Monsieur Logotheti
to be cut. The girl must have followed him without his knowing it, and
watched her chance, though how old Pinney can have left such a thing
lying on the counter where any one could take it is simply
incomprehensible. That's what you heard in my voice when I said that
men are credulous.'
Mr. Van Torp thought he had heard even more in her accent when she had
pronounced Logotheti's name. Besides, she generally called him 'Logo,'
as all his friends did. The American said nothing for a moment, but he
glanced repeatedly at the white veil, through which he saw her
handsome features without their expression.
'Well,' he said at last, almost to himself, for he hardly expected her
to understand the language of his surprise, 'that beats the band!'
'It really is rather odd, you know,' responded Margaret, who
understood perfectly. 'If you think I've adorned the truth I'll give
you the Police Court report. I have it in my glove. Lady Maud sent it
to me with a letter.' She added, after an instant's hesitation, 'I'm
not sure that I shall not give you that to read too, for there's
something about you in it, and she is your best friend, isn't she?'
'Out and out. I daresay you'd smile if I told you that I asked her to
help me to get you to change your mind.'
'No,' Margaret answered, turning slowly to look at him. 'She tells me
so in this letter.'
'Does she really?' Van Torp had guessed as much, and had wished to
undermine the surprise he supposed that Margaret had in store for him.
'That's just like her straightforward way of doing things. She told me
frankly that she wouldn't lift a finger to influence you. However, it
can't be helped, I suppose.'
The conclusion of the speech seemed to be out of the logical sequence.
'She has done more than lift a finger now,' Margaret said.
'Has she offended you?' Van Torp ventured to ask, for he did not
understand the constant subtone of anger he heard in her voice. 'I
know she would not mean to do that.'
'No. You don't understand. I've telegraphed to ask her to join us
here.'
Van Torp was really surprised now, and his face showed it.
'I wish we were somewhere alone,' Margaret continued. 'I mean, out of
the way of Mrs. Rushmore. She knows nothing about all this, but she
saw me cramming the letters into my glove, and I cannot possibly let
her see me giving them to you.'
'Oh, well, let me think,' said the millionaire. 'I guess I want to buy
some photographs of Bayreuth and the _Parsifal_ characters in that
shop, there on the right. Suppose you wait outside the door, so that
Mrs. Rushmore can see you if she turns around. She'll understand that
I'm inside. If you drop your parasol towards her you can get the
letters out, can't you? Then as I come out you can just pass them to
me behind the parasol, and we'll go on. How's that? It won't take one
second, anyhow. You can make-believe your glove's uncomfortable, and
you're fixing it, if anybody you know comes out of the shop. Will that
do? Here we are. Shall I go in?'
'Yes. Don't be long! I'll cough when I'm ready.'
The operation succeeded, and the more easily as Mrs. Rushmore went
quietly on without turning her head, being absorbed and charmed by
Kralinsky's conversation.
'You may as well read the newspaper cutting now,' Margaret said when
they had begun to walk again. 'That cannot attract attention, even if
she does look round, and it explains a good many things. It's in the
thinner envelope, of course.'
Van Torp fumbled in the pocket of his jacket, and brought out the slip
of newspaper without the envelope, a precaution which Margaret noticed
and approved. If she had been able to forget for a moment her anger
against Logotheti she would have been amazed at the strides her
intimacy with Van Torp was making. He himself was astounded, and did
not yet understand, but he had played the great game for fortune
against adversaries of vast strength and skill, and had won by his
qualities rather than his luck, and they did not desert him at the
most important crisis of his life. The main difference between his
present state of mind and his mental view, when he had been fighting
men for money, was that he now felt scruples wholly new to him. Things
that had looked square enough when millions were at stake appeared to
him 'low down' where Margaret was the prize.
She watched him intently while he read the printed report, but his
face did not change in the least. At that short distance she could see
every shade of his expression through the white veiling, though he
could not see hers at all. He finished reading, folded the slip
carefully, and put it into his pocket-book instead of returning it to
the envelope.
[Illustration: "She watched him intently while he read the printed
report."]
'It does look queer,' he said slowly. 'Now let me ask you one thing,
but don't answer me unless you like. It's not mere inquisitiveness on
my part.' As Margaret said nothing, though he waited a moment for her
answer, he went on. 'That ruby, now--I suppose it's to be cut for you,
isn't it?'
'Yes. He gave it to me in Versailles, and I kept it some days. Then he
asked me to let him have it to take to London when I came here.'
'Just so. Thank you. One more question, if I may. That stone I gave
you, I swear I don't know that it's not glass--anyhow, that stone,
does it look at all like the one that was stolen?'
'Oh, no! It's quite another shape and size. Why do you ask? I don't
quite see.'
'What I mean is, if these people are around selling rubies, there may
be two very much alike, that's all.'
'Well, if there were? What of it?'
'Suppose--I'm only supposing, mind, that the girl really had another
stone about her a good deal like the one that was stolen, and that
somebody else was the thief. Queer things like that have happened
before.'
'Yes. But old Pinney is one of the first experts in the world, and he
swore to the ruby.'
'That's so,' said Van Torp thoughtfully. 'I forgot that.'
'And if she had the other stone, she had stolen it from Monsieur
Logotheti, I have not the least doubt.'
'I daresay,' replied the millionaire. 'I'm not her attorney. I'm not
trying to defend her. I was only thinking.'
'She was at his house in Paris,' Margaret said, quite unable to keep
her own counsel now. 'It was when I was at Versailles.'
'You don't say so! Are you sure of that?'
'He admitted it when I was talking to him through the telephone, and I
heard her speaking to him in a language I did not understand.'
'Did you really? Well, well!' Mr. Van Torp was beginning to be
puzzled again. 'Nice voice, hasn't she?'
'Yes. He tried to make me think he wasn't sure whether the creature
was a boy or a girl.'
'Maybe he wasn't sure himself,' suggested the American, but the tone
in which she had spoken the word 'creature' had not escaped him.
He was really trying to put the case in a fair light, and was not at
all manoeuvring to ascertain her state of mind. That was clear
enough now. How far she might go he could not tell, but what she had
just said, coupled with the way in which she spoke of the man to whom
she was engaged as 'Monsieur Logotheti,' made it quite evident that
she was profoundly incensed against him, and Van Torp became more than
ever anxious not to do anything underhand.
'Look here,' he said, 'I'm going to tell you something. I took a sort
of interest in that Tartar girl the only time I saw her. I don't know
why. I daresay I was taken in by her--just ordinary "taken in," like a
tenderfoot. I gave her that fellow's address in New York.' He nodded
towards Kralinsky. 'When I found he was here, I wired Logotheti to
tell her, since she's after him. I suppose I thought Logotheti would
go right away and find her, and get more mixed up with her than ever.
It was mean of me, wasn't it? That's why I've told you. You see, I
didn't know anything about all this, and that makes it meaner still,
doesn't it?'
Possibly if he had told her these facts forty-eight hours earlier she
might have been annoyed, but at present they seemed to be rather in
his favour. At all events he was frank, she thought. He declared war
on his rival, and meant fight according to the law of nations. Lady
Maud would not be his friend if he were playing any double game, but
she had stuck to him throughout his trouble in the spring, he had
emerged victorious and reinstated in public opinion, and she had been
right. Lady Maud knew him better than any one else, and she was a good
woman, if there ever was one.
Yet he had accused himself of having acted 'meanly.' Margaret did not
like the word, and threw up her head as a horse does when a beginner
holds on by the curb.
'You need not make yourself out worse than you are,' she answered.
'I want to start fair,' said the millionaire, 'and I'd rather your
impression should improve than get worse. The only real trouble with
Lucifer was he started too high up.'
This singular statement was made with perfect gravity, and without the
slightest humorous intention, but Margaret laughed for the first time
that day, in spite of the storm that was still raging in the near
distance of her thoughts.
'Why do you laugh?' asked Van Torp. 'It's quite true. I don't want to
start too high up in your estimation and then be turned down as unfit
for the position at the end of the first week. Put me where I belong
and I won't disappoint you. Say I was doing something that wasn't
exactly low-down, considering the object, but that mightn't pass
muster at an honour-parade, anyhow. And then say that I've admitted
the fact, if you like, and that the better I know you the less I want
to do anything mean. It won't be hard for you to look at it in that
light, will it? And it'll give me the position of starting from the
line. Is that right?'
'Yes,' Margaret answered, smiling. 'Slang "right" and English "right"!
You ask for a fair field and no favour, and you shall have it.'
'I'll go straight,' Van Torp answered.
He was conscious that he was hourly improving his knowledge of women's
little ways, and that what he had said, and had purposely expressed in
his most colloquial manner, had touched a chord which would not have
responded to a fine speech. For though he often spoke a sort of
picturesque dialect, and though he was very far from being highly
educated, he could speak English well enough when he chose. It
probably seemed to him that good grammar and well-selected words
belonged to formal occasions and not to everyday life, and that it was
priggish to be particular in avoiding slang and cowardly to sacrifice
an hereditary freedom from the bonds of the subjunctive mood.
'I suppose Lady Maud will come, won't she?' he asked suddenly, after a
short silence.
'I hope so,' Margaret said. 'If not, she will meet me in Paris, for
she offers to do that in her letter.'
'I'm staying on in this place because you said you didn't mind,'
observed Van Torp. 'Do you want me to go away if she arrives?'
'Why should I? Why shouldn't you stay?'
'Oh, I don't know. I was only thinking. Much obliged anyway, and I'll
certainly stay if you don't object. We shall be quite a party, shan't
we? What with us three, and Lady Maud and Kralinsky there----'
'Surely you don't call him one of our "party"!' objected Margaret.
'He's only just been introduced to us. I daresay Mrs. Rushmore will
ask him to dinner or luncheon, but that will be all.'
'Oh, yes! I suppose that will be all.'
But his tone roused her curiosity by its vagueness.
'You knew him long ago,' she said. 'If he's not a decent sort of
person to have about, you ought to tell us--indeed you should not have
introduced him at all if he's a bad lot.'
Mr. Van Torp did not answer at once, and seemed to be consulting his
recollections.
'I don't know anything against him,' he said at last. 'All foreigners
who drift over to the States and go West haven't left their country
for the same reasons. I suppose most of them come because they've got
no money at home and want some. I haven't any right to take it for
granted that a foreign gentleman who turns cow-boy for a year or two
has cheated at cards, or anything of that sort, have I? There were all
kinds of men on that ranch, as there are on every other and in every
mining camp in the West, and most of 'em have no particular names.
They get called something when they turn up, and they're known as that
while they stay, and if they die with their boots on, they get buried
as that, and if not, they clear out when they've had enough of it;
and some of 'em strike something and get rich, as I did, and some of
'em settle down to occupations, as I've known many do. But they all
turn into themselves again, or turn themselves into somebody else
after they go back. While they're punching cattle they're generally
just "Dandy Jim" or "Levi Longlegs," as that fellow was, or something
of that sort.'
'What were you called?' asked Margaret.
'I?' Van Torp smiled faintly at the recollection of his nickname. 'I
was always Fanny Cook.'
Margaret laughed.
'Of all the inappropriate names!'
'Well,' said the millionaire, still smiling, 'I guess it must have
been because I was always sort of gentle and confiding and sweet, you
know. So they concluded to give me a girl's name as soon as they saw
me, and I turned out a better cook than the others, so they tacked
that on, too. I didn't mind.'
Margaret smiled too, as she glanced at his jaw and his flat, hard
cheeks, and thought of his having been called 'Fanny.'
'Did you ever kill anybody, Miss Fanny?' she asked, with a little
laugh.
A great change came over his face at once.
'Yes,' he answered very gravely. 'Twice, in fair self-defence. If I
had hesitated, I should not be here.'
'I beg your pardon,' Margaret said quietly. 'I should not have asked
you. I ought to have known.'
'Why?' he asked. 'One gets that kind of question asked one now and
then by people one doesn't care to answer. But I'd rather have you
know something about my life than not. Not that it's much to be proud
of,' he added, rather sadly.
'Some day you shall tell me all you will,' Margaret answered. 'I
daresay you did much better than you think, when you look back.'
'Lady Maud knows all about me now,' he said, 'and no one else alive
does. Perhaps you'll be the second that will, and that'll be all for
the present. They want us to come up with them, do you see?'
Mrs. Rushmore and Kralinsky had stopped in their walk and were waiting
for them. They quickened their pace.
'I thought perhaps this was far enough,' said Mrs. Rushmore. 'Of
course I could go on further, and it's not your usual walk, my dear,
but unless you mind--'
Margaret did not mind, and said so readily; whereupon Mrs. Rushmore
deliberately took Van Torp for her companion on the way back.
'I'm sure you won't object to walking slowly,' she said to him, 'and
Miss Donne and the Count can go as fast as they like, for they are
both good walkers. I am sure you must be a great walker,' she added,
turning to the Russian.
He smiled blandly and bent his head a little, as if he were
acknowledging a compliment. Van Torp looked at him quietly.
'I should have thought you were more used to riding,' said the
American.
'Ah, yes!' The indifferent answer came in a peculiarly oily tone,
though the pronunciation was perfect. 'I was in the cavalry before I
began to travel. But I walked over two thousand miles in Central Asia,
and was none the worst for it.'
Margaret was sure that she was not going to like him, as she moved on
with him by her side; and Van Torp, walking with Mrs. Rushmore, was
quite certain that he was Levi Longlegs, who had herded cattle with
him for six months very long ago.