INGRATITUDE
Norris Vine stood in the middle of his room, his hat still upon his
head, and his overcoat on his arm. Before him stood the waiter and the
watchman of the flats.
"My rooms," he was saying, "have been occupied within the last ten
minutes by strangers, and by people who have no right here whatever. I
have certain proof of this. Do you allow any one who chooses to come
into the building and use the lift, and enter whatever apartment
they choose?"
"We cannot employ detectives," the manager answered, "and every one who
lives here has visitors."
There was a soft knock at the door, and almost immediately it was
opened. Virginia entered, and guessed immediately the meaning of the
little scene before her.
"You want an explanation as to that telephone message," she said
quietly. "I have come to give it to you. If you will send these people
away, I will explain everything."
Norris Vine looked at her in amazement. Her face somehow seemed
familiar, but he failed at first to place her. The two men whom Vine was
interviewing were only too glad of the opportunity to take their
departure.
"Am I to understand," Vine asked, "that it was you whose voice I heard
at the telephone?"
"You are," Virginia answered, "and you may be very thankful for it. I do
not know whether it was wise of me or not, but I am quite sure that I
saved your life."
"In which case," Vine remarked, with an incredulous smile, "I must at
least ask you to sit down."
Virginia seated herself and pushed back her veil.
"You do not remember me," she said. "I am Phineas Duge's niece."
"I remember you now quite well," he answered. "You were having dinner
with your uncle one night at Sherry's."
She nodded.
"That is quite true," she said. "I have been looking for you for some
days. In fact, I came to London to look for you."
"That," he remarked drily, "sounds somewhat mysterious, considering that
I have not yet had the pleasure of your acquaintance."
"There is nothing mysterious about it," she answered. "You are a
receiver of stolen goods. Some papers were stolen from my uncle's study
by Stella, my cousin, and given to you. They were stolen through my
carelessness. Unless I can recover them I am ruined."
"Go on," Morris Vine said. "You have not finished yet."
"No!" she answered, "I have not. I followed you to England to get those
papers back, either by theft, or by appealing to your sense of honour,
or by any means which presented themselves. I found by accident that I
was not the only American in London who was over here in search of you.
This afternoon I overheard part of a plot in a café in Regent Street
between two men, strangers to me, but who had both apparently made up
their minds that this particular paper was worth a little more than your
life. From them I heard your address. Your valet must be in their pay,
for they knew exactly your movements for the night. I heard them plan to
come here, and I knew what the end of that would be. I determined to
anticipate them. It was not out of any feeling for you, but simply
because if the paper got into their hands my cause was lost. So I came
on here to warn you, but I had scarcely entered your room before I was
aware that some one who had come with very different intentions was
already here. We waited--I in the sitting-room, he in that
bedroom--waited for you. I pretended to be unconscious of his existence.
He seemed to be content to ignore mine. While I was wondering how I
should warn you, the telephone bell rang. I answered it, and it was you
who spoke. Then I had the idea of carrying on some imaginary
conversation with you, which would induce the man who was listening to
go away. I did it and he went away. It must have sounded terrible
nonsense to you, of course, but it was the only way I could think of to
get him out of the place. He left convinced that you were not coming
here to-night."
"Do you know who he was, this man?" Vine asked.
"I do not," she answered, "but I can guess who his employers are."
"And so can I," Vine said grimly. "It seems to me that you are a very
plucky young lady, Miss Longworth."
"Not at all," she answered. "What I have done, I have done for the sake
of reward."
"Will you name it?" he asked.
"I want that paper to take back to my uncle," she said. "Stella stole it
from me brutally, and unless I can get it back again, my uncle is going
to send me back to the little farmhouse where I came from, and is going
to leave off helping my people. I want that paper back, Mr. Vine, and
you must give it to me."
He looked at her with utterly impassive face.
"I am afraid, Miss Longworth," he said, "that I must disappoint you. If
I gave you back that paper, it would go into the hands of one of the
most unprincipled men in America. It is not only your uncle whom I
dislike, but his methods, his craft, his infernal, incarnate
selfishness. He wants this paper as a whip to hold over other people. He
obtained it by subtlety. The means by which it was taken from him,
although I had nothing to do with them, were on the whole justified. I
cannot give it back to you, Miss Longworth. I have not made up my mind
yet what to do with it, and I certainly have no friendship for the men
whom it implicates; but all the same, for the present it must remain in
my possession."
"Do you know," she reminded him, "that I have saved your life
to-night?"
He laughed softly.
"My dear child," he said, "my life is not so easily disposed of. I
believe that you have tried to do me a kindness, but you ask too great a
return. Even if the paper you speak of was stolen, it is better in my
keeping than in your uncle's."
"You will not give it to me, then?" she asked.
"I will not," he answered.
She rose from her place.
"Very well," she said; "I am going now, but I think that we shall meet
again before very long."
He opened the door for her and walked out toward the lift.
"My dear young lady," he said, "I hope you will forgive my saying so,
but this is certainly a wild-goose chase of yours. If you will take my
advice, and I know something about life, you will go back to your
farmhouse in the Connecticut valley. These larger places in the world
may seem fascinating to you at first, but believe me you will be better
off and happier in the backwoods. Ask Stella. I think that she would
give you the same advice."
Virginia looked at him steadily. The faint note of sarcasm which was
seldom absent from his tone was not lost upon her.
"I thank you for your advice," she said, "It sounds so
disinterested--and convincing. Such an excellent return, too, for a
person who has risked something to do you a kindness."
"My dear young lady," Vine answered, "it was not for my own sake that
you warned me. You have admitted that yourself. It was entirely from
your own point of view that you judged it well for me to remain a little
longer on the earth. Why, therefore, should I be grateful? As a matter
of fact, I am not sure that I am. I, too, go about armed, and it is by
no means certain that I might not have had the best of any little
encounter with our friend who you say was hiding there."--He motioned
his head towards his bedroom.--"In that case, you see, I should have
known exactly who he was, possibly even have been able to hand him over
to the police."
Virginia pressed the little bell and the lift began to ascend.
"I am glad to know, Mr. Vine," she said, "what sort of a man you are."
He bowed, and she stepped into the lift without any further form of
farewell. Vine walked thoughtfully back to his rooms. He was a man who
had grown hard and callous in the stress of life, but somehow the memory
of Virginia's pale face and dark reproachful eyes remained with him.