The _St. Paul_ sped eastwards across the summer sea, and surely of all
the human hopes and fears carried by the great liner those locked in the
breast of the new Duke were the most momentous. To gain a little
breathing time, he had booked his passage as plain Charles Hanbury. In
the brief interval before sailing he had seen no more of Jevons, but he
guessed that that shrewd practitioner would have watched him, or had him
watched, on board, even if there was not a spy upon him among his
fellow-passengers; and he wished to let it be inferred that his voyage
was undertaken solely in observance of the compact made in the Bowery
dive.
For as yet he was by no means certain of his attitude towards that
compact. It was true that the cast-off wastrel of two days ago was now
one of the premier peers of England, hastening home to take possession
of his fortune and estates. But where was the good of being a duke if
you were to be a dead duke? he argued with a cynicism bred of his
misfortunes rather than innate. There had been a genuine ring about the
proposal of Jevons that left no doubt as to the reality of the menace
held out; the man's reluctance in broaching the penalty of desertion
carried conviction that it was no mere flower of speech.
On the whole, the Duke was inclined to call on the arch rogue at the
Hotel Cecil before incurring a risk that might render his dukedom a
transitory possession. Then, if the part he was expected to play proved
to be within his powers and without much chance of detection, he might
still elect to play it, and so enjoy in security his hereditary
privileges.
It will be seen that the seventh Duke of Beaumanoir was not troubled
with moral scruples, and that the principle of _noblesse oblige_ had no
place as yet in his somewhat seared philosophy. It was enough for the
moment that he had gained something worth having and keeping, and he
meant to have it and keep it by the most efficacious method. Whether
that method would prove to be connivance in a gigantic crime or the
denouncement of the latter to Scotland Yard could only be decided by a
personal interview with the mysterious Ziegler. Yes, he would pay that
visit to the Hotel Cecil, at any rate, and be guided by what passed
there as to his future course of action.
"A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Hanbury," said a gay voice at his elbow,
as on the third day of the voyage he leaned over the rail of the
promenade deck and ruminated on his dilemma. Wheeling round he looked
down into the laughing eyes of a girl, a very dainty and charming girl,
who sat next him at the saloon table. No formal introduction had taken
place between them, for lack of mutual friends; but he had learned from
the card designating her place at table that she was Miss Leonie
Sherman, and it is to be presumed that she had gathered his name in the
same way.
"I will earn that penny," he said with mock gravity. "I was debating how
far one might legitimately carry the principle of doing evil that good
might come."
It was a strange answer to make to a shipboard acquaintance of three
days, and Miss Sherman regarded him with a newly awakened interest.
"It depends," she said, "whether the good is to accrue to yourself or to
other people."
"Oh, to myself," he replied, smiling. "I am not a philanthropist--quite
the other way about."
"Then, whatever it is, you oughtn't to do it," said the girl, decidedly.
"It will be horrid of you to as much as contemplate anything of the
kind. You had much better do good lest evil befall; and the opportunity
occurs right here, at this very moment."
"I shall be most happy--without prejudice to my intentions as to the
reverse of the medal," said Beaumanoir, lightly.
"Then help me to avoid a lecture from my mother by taking me for a
promenade," proceeded Leonie, indicating a portly lady who had ascended
from the lower deck and was peering about in search. "She is the best
and dearest of mothers, but she has set her heart on a vain thing, and
it is becoming the least bit tiresome. I can see that she is going to
din it into me again, if she catches me. Her idea is that the sole duty
of an American girl going to England is to 'spread herself,' as they say
out West, to marry an English duke."
His Grace of Beaumanoir listened with an unmoved countenance.
"Yes," he said, "to marry a duke might--probably would--be an
unmitigated evil. I will help you to avoid it with pleasure. Let us walk
by all means, Miss Sherman, if you don't mind my awkward limp."
So they joined the procession of promenaders, and there and then
cemented a friendship which ripened quickly, as friendships between the
opposite sexes do at sea. The haughty salesladies of the dry-goods store
had not deigned to notice the counting-house drudge, and Leonie's
piquant beauty made instant captive of one who had been deprived of the
society of women for over a year. She had all the frank _camaraderie_ of
the well-bred American, and her eager anticipations of the good time she
was to have in Europe were infectious. In her company Beaumanoir was
able to forget the dark shadow hanging over him, and to give himself up
to the enjoyment of the hour. He began by being deeply grateful to her
for taking him out of himself; and gratitude to a charming girl with a
ravishing figure and a complexion of tinted ivory is like to have its
heels trod by a warmer sentiment.
Leonie, in her turn, was interested in the reserved young Englishman,
who had so little to say about his doings in America, and less about his
position and prospects in his native land. As he paced with his slight
limp at her side or lounged with her at the rail, she tried to draw him
out; but she could get nothing from him but that he had been in New York
on business, and that business was taking him home. Yet, though reticent
on his own affairs, he talked freely about all that concerned herself,
and painted vivid word-pictures of the delights that awaited her in
London.
The girl, having nothing to conceal, told him freely of herself and of
her plans and projects. She and her mother were going to stay with
English friends in London till the end of the season, when perhaps they
would run over to Paris and Rome for a month before returning to America
in the autumn. Her father, Senator Sherman, was to have accompanied
them; but he had been detained by public business at Washington, and was
to join them a little later in London.
On the fifth day of the voyage, as the _St. Paul_ was approaching the
Irish coast, Leonie and Beaumanoir were sitting on deck after dinner,
chatting in the twilight, when she suddenly laid her hand on his arm.
"I want you to notice that man who has just gone by--the one smoking the
fag-end of a cigar in a holder," she whispered, with a gesture towards
the stream of passengers passing and repassing between the rows of
chairs.
Beaumanoir's gaze followed her indication to an insignificant little
figure in a brown covert-coat and tweed cap.
"Yes. What of him?" he asked. He had not spoken to this passenger, but
now that attention was called to him he had an idea that the fellow had
loomed largely during the last few days.
"That man is watching you, Mr. Hanbury," replied Leonie with conviction.
"I wonder you haven't observed it yourself. Whenever you are talking he
hangs about trying to listen; when you are on deck he is on deck; if you
go below, he goes below. If you were a fugitive from justice, and he a
detective, he couldn't shadow you more closely."
The Duke winced inwardly.
"I am not a fugitive from justice," he said, with the mental addition of
"yet." He could not tell this laughing maiden that the man was probably
spying on him in the interest, not of justice, but of crime--to see that
he was true to a pledge to place forged bonds; for now that he had been
put on his guard he had no doubt that his pretty informant was right.
The stranger occupied the cabin next to him, and was always hovering
near him in the smoking-room, unobtrusively but persistently.
Thanking the girl for her warning in a careless tone that implied that
he had no reason to be anxious, he changed the subject. But before he
turned in that night he made it his business to ascertain from his
bedroom steward the name of his next-door neighbor, which proved to be
Marker.
"Probably Mr. Marker's functions are confined to espionage. If that is a
sample of the sort of bravo to be employed should I kick over the
traces, I haven't much to fear," he reflected, as he switched off the
electric light and composed himself to dream of Leonie Sherman.