On the platform of the Gare de l’Est, with ten minutes to spare before
the departure of the Orient Express, Grey and O’Hara, with the fair
Minna von Altdorf between them, strolled leisurely up and down beside
the long and lugubrious train of _wagons-lit_. There was the usual
bustle incident to the leaving of the great transcontinental flyer.
Passengers were nervously seeking their locations; blue-overalled
porters wheeling trucks piled high with trunks and boxes hurried
towards the luggage vans, and others with smaller impedimenta in hand
crowded on the narrow platforms of the cars and ran into the still
smaller passageways upon which the compartments opened. English and
American tourists unable to speak the language of the country were
besieging the interpreters; friends and kinsfolk with lingering
handshakes, effusive embraces, and kisses upon either cheek were
bidding departing travellers farewell, and dapper-uniformed guards
were at intervals repeating the stereotyped command: “_En voiture,
messieurs!_” There was the distracting hissing of escaping steam, the
shrill piping of whistles, the rumble and roar of arriving trains. And
over all hung an atmosphere of intolerably humid heat.
O’Hara and the Fraülein were chatting animatedly, but Grey was still
depressed and silent. The delay irritated him. He was impatient to be
gone. For the hundredth time he was wondering whether he had said too
much or too little in his letter to Hope Van Tuyl; wondering how she
regarded it; whether she was still obdurate. He had not given her an
address and there was no way in which she could communicate with him.
He regretted this now. A word from her would be a talisman.
His memory of her as he had seen her yesterday at Versailles was very
vivid. It was only a glimpse, but in that instant he had drunk in
greedily the marvellous perfection of her beauty; and the picture had
dwelt with him since. Sleeping and waking he could see the bronze dusk
of her hair, the gentleness of her eyes, the softly flushed curve of
her cheek, the tender sympathy of her mouth, the supple grace of her
figure. The portrait was not new to him, to be sure--he had many times
revelled in fond contemplation of those rare features--but absence
had its usual effect, and it had been centuries, it seemed, since his
vision had been so blessed. Against the dull, dun, grimy background of
the railway station this radiant reflection was projected, clear and
sharp. He saw her mentally just as he had seen her physically on the
previous afternoon.
And as he gazed a miracle was wrought. For into and out of the image
came and grew the reality, and he suddenly realised that she was
standing before him, that in one hand he was holding his hat and that
his other hand was clasping hers. All the sights and sounds of the
platform died away, and he saw only her, more beautiful even than he
had dreamed, her eyes alight with love, her lips smiling forgiveness.
O’Hara and the Fräulein had passed on, and he and the one woman in the
world had drawn aside out of the hurry and scurry. A few steps away
stood Marcelle, the maid, her interest decorously diverted.
“Oh, how good you are!” Grey was saying, his heart in his voice; “how
very, very good you are!”
Her hand answered the ardent pressure of his.
“I just couldn’t let you go without seeing you,” she returned. “You
cannot imagine what I have suffered. I tried to be brave--I tried so
hard, dear; but I’m only a weak woman and my soul longed for you every
minute.”
What bliss it was to hear her speak! It set the man’s pulses surging.
His face was flushed and young and happy again, as it had not been
since his awakening.
“The whole thing has been frightful,” he told her, clenching his teeth
at the recollection. “You haven’t an idea what a net of circumstance
has been thrown around me.”
“Yes,” she hastened, “I know--they told me you had been ill,
irresponsible; that you had had brain fever or something, and--oh,
Carey, why did you do that?” and she pointed to his beard.
He smiled grimly.
“I didn’t do it,” he answered, with emphasis. “You surely don’t think
I’d be guilty of such a ridiculous transformation, do you?”
“But----”
“I’ll explain some day, dear heart,” he interrupted her, “but there
isn’t time now; the train leaves in about five minutes, and I want all
of that in which to tell you how very beautiful you are and how very,
very much I love you.”
She wore a perfectly fitting gown of white with rich lace, and a large
hat of pale blue with a circling ostrich plume of the same delicate
tint. Her tall and shapely figure was quite unavoidably a little
conspicuous, and a target for admiring glances.
“Leaves in five minutes?” she repeated, dolorously. “But I can’t let
you go in five minutes. I have so much to say to you. It has been
five months since I spoke to you. You must wait and take the next
train--wait until tomorrow.”
“If only I might!” Grey replied, his eyes in hers. “If it could only be
we should never part again, never! Ah, my own, how my arms ache for
you!”
“But you can stay,” she urged. He was still holding her hand, and now
she placed her other hand over his as she pleaded. “There is no reason
why you shouldn’t. What difference will twenty-four hours make? Are you
going for the King’s funeral? It is set for Friday, you know. We are
thinking of going ourselves. Wait until tomorrow, and you and papa and
I can go together.”
“But, my darling,” Grey protested, arguing against his inclination,
“don’t you see that that would be quite impossible? Your father could
not afford to be seen with me. I am a supposed fugitive from justice.
He would be guilty of aiding and abetting a criminal,” and he smiled
grimly again.
“What would he care?” the young woman demanded, airily. “He doesn’t
believe you guilty. He knows you are not. He has said as much. I can’t
let you go, dear; I can’t--I won’t.”
“Please, please don’t make it more difficult for me to part from you
than it is already,” he begged. “You know how much I long to have you
with me, and yet another day’s delay might ruin everything. I should be
in Kürschdorf at this very minute.”
Her eyes glistened and tears hung on her lashes.
“Why?” she asked, simply.
“All my hopes of undoing the wrong that has been done me lie in that
direction,” he answered, gravely. “It was a conspiracy, dear, involving
men high in the Budavian government. The work of unmasking them will
grow more difficult with each hour it is put off.”
She gazed at him in sudden alarm.
“You are going into danger,” she murmured. Her voice trembled. Anxiety
was in her tone. She pressed his hands nervously, convulsively. “Tell
me the truth. You are, aren’t you?”
Grey laughed to reassure her.
“Not a bit, my darling,” he answered, with an assumption of
nonchalance; “the whole affair can, I think, be adjusted most
peacefully.”
For a moment she was silent, her eyes reading his thoughts.
“I’m going with you,” she exclaimed, suddenly.
Grey stared at her in surprise.
“I only wish you could,” he said, refusing to take her seriously, “but
I don’t see just how----”
“I’m going,” she interrupted, determinedly. “I shan’t be in the least
in your way, that I promise. But I’m going. I refuse to be left behind.”
“_En voiture, messieurs et mesdames!_”
The guard’s command had grown imperative. The second bell had rung.
Grey pulled out his watch. It showed thirty seconds of starting time.
O’Hara was standing at the car’s step looking anxiously towards him.
Johann was at his side, his hat deferentially raised.
“The train is now to start, Herr Arndt,” he said.
The man turned to the woman he loved.
“I am going with you,” she reiterated before he could speak; and she
beckoned to Marcelle.
“_En voiture!_” shouted the guards.
There was no time for further protest or parley. The four crossed
the platform hurriedly. Hope entered the car, her maid following;
and then Grey, with O’Hara at his heels and Johann bringing up the
rear, stepped from the platform of the station to the platform of the
_wagon-lit_.
The third bell rang; the locomotive whistled its piping treble, gates
clashed, doors slammed, and the Orient Express drew slowly and solemnly
out of the hot, dingy station into the red glare of the torrid June
sunset.
After the presentation of Miss von Altdorf and Lieutenant O’Hara had
been accomplished Grey left Hope in their company and went in search
of the conductor. As it happened, there were several berths to spare
in the sleeping-car, and he arranged for the accommodation of Miss Van
Tuyl and her maid. There would be no stop, however, he learned, until
they reached Château-Thierry, at 8.15. From there, the conductor told
him, a telegram might be sent.
Before returning to the compartment Grey lit a cigarette and stood for
a few minutes in the refreshing draft that swept through the narrow
passage. To have Hope with him was a joy undreamt, and yet he could
not repress a little uneasiness over her action. He feared that in
a calmer mood she might regret her impulsiveness as savouring too
strongly of a sensational elopement. He wondered how Nicholas Van Tuyl
would regard it. He was, Grey knew, the most indulgent of fathers,
but his anxiety over her absence would necessarily be poignant, and
there was no possible means of getting word to him of her safety until
hours after he had missed her. But in spite of these reflections Carey
Grey was experiencing a gratified pride in the fact that the girl had
acted as she had. She was proving her love for him and her faith in
him by a disregard of convention that was undeniably very flattering,
particularly grateful after his recent trying experiences, and his
affection for her, if possible, waxed warmer under the stimulus of
appreciation.
Meanwhile the trio Grey had left to their own devices, with scarcely a
word of explanation, were getting into a wellnigh inextricable tangle.
“Fancy my deciding to run off this way on the spur of the moment,
without even a handful of luggage,” Miss Van Tuyl had exclaimed, “but
Mr. Grey and I have so much to talk about I just couldn’t think of
waiting another twenty-four hours, and he said he couldn’t possibly
stop over another day in Paris.”
Minna had recognised her minutes before on the platform, as the
beautiful lady she had noticed the previous afternoon at Versailles,
and she had been and was still wondering how it came about that her
Uncle Max had not seen her and spoken to her there. And now this
mention of a Mr. Grey perplexed her. Was he in another car or another
compartment? And if she had so much to say to him why had she stood
talking to another man until the train was on the point of leaving? and
why was she sitting here now instead of being with him?
“American women are such fun,” O’Hara was saying, his cheery, ruddy
face one broad smile. “I admire them awfully. They’re so superbly
self-reliant.”
“You’re an American, Miss Van Tuyl?” the Fräulein ventured. “Oh, of
course. It was in America, I suppose, you met Uncle Max?”
Hope stared questioningly.
“Uncle Max?” she questioned. “I don’t understand you. Who is----”
“Didn’t you know he was my uncle?” the girl asked, a little embarrassed.
“Really, I--” she began again. And then O’Hara came to the rescue:
“Our mutual friend, Miss Van Tuyl. After all, what’s in a name? Miss
von Altdorf calls him ‘Uncle Max’ and you--what is your favourite pet
name for him? Or is it rude of me to ask?”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” Hope implored, addressing the fair-haired
girl beside her; “how stupid of me! Yes, of course; I met him in
America when we were both very young. You were with him yesterday at
Versailles, weren’t you? I remember you distinctly. Mr. Grey wrote me
something very nice about you.”
“About me? Mr. Grey?” It was the Fräulein’s turn to be audibly
perplexed.
“Yes, certainly, Mr. Grey wrote me about you.”
“But I don’t know any Mr. Grey.”
O’Hara laughed aloud. Should he or should he not, he asked himself,
set them right and thus end this game of cross-purposes? It was very
amusing, it appealed to his native love of fun and he enjoyed it, so
he concluded to let the play go on.
“Why, my dear Miss von Altdorf,” Hope insisted, “do you mean to tell me
that you don’t know your Uncle Max’s name is Grey?”
Minna’s eyes were wide with amazement. Could it be possible that her
uncle was known in the United States by another name? The supposition
was preposterous.
“My Uncle Max’s name is Arndt,” she said, very decidedly. “He is my
mother’s brother, and my mother’s name was Arndt before she married.”
Hope leaned back in the hot, stuffy cushions of the railway carriage,
nonplussed. This was altogether beyond her understanding. And the
Fräulein, a little nettled, but triumphant, sat looking at her with
something of pity in her great long-lashed blue eyes, while O’Hara on
the seat opposite was bent double in a convulsion of merriment.
“I don’t really see, Mr. O’Hara,” Minna observed, rebukingly, a moment
later, “what there is to laugh over. Would you mind telling me?”
The Irishman, who had more than a passing fondness for the girl,
pulled a straight face on the instant.
“I’m sorry, Miss von Altdorf,” he apologised. “It’s too bad of me,
isn’t it? And I beg Miss Van Tuyl’s pardon, too. I’d like to explain
the whole blessed thing to you both, but to tell the truth, I fancy
the gentleman of the mixed nomenclature had better be after doing it
himself.”
But when Grey arrived and the situation was laid before him, the
explanation was not at the moment forthcoming. He evaded it as deftly
as he knew how, which, if the truth be told, was not by any means to
the taste of either of the ladies. It would have been an easy matter
to clear the mystery for Hope, but he hesitated to confess to Minna,
in the presence of the others, that he had been sailing under false
colours. She was a sensitive child, and serious, and he had no relish
for inflicting the pain that his unmasking would, he knew, entail. So
he simply said:
“Ah, that’s a long story and we’ll have it at another time. Just now I
want to know what Miss Van Tuyl is going to wire to her doting father.”
O’Hara excused himself and went out, and Miss von Altdorf extracted a
novel from her satchel and buried herself in its pages.
“Wire him,” Hope directed, “that I’ve gone on with you unexpectedly to
Kürschdorf to secure rooms for the royal obsequies, and that he is to
follow tomorrow night with the luggage.”
“But he won’t get it until late tonight, you know; possibly not until
tomorrow morning,” Grey told her.
“No, he won’t get it until after two o’clock tomorrow, at the
earliest,” she replied, smiling.
“How do you know that?” he asked, surprised.
“Because he went to Trouville last night to see a man,” she laughed.
“He does not leave there until nine-one tomorrow morning, and it takes
these crawling French railway trains five hours to make the journey.”