"I beg your pardon," said I, recovering; "I am neither going to molest
you nor be intentionally impertinent. But, as your face has never been
out of my mind for three months, and as I am travelling straight
through from Vienna to Grandchester to see it for the first time, I may
be excused for addressing you."
She glanced hurriedly at the communication-cord and then back at me, as
if I were a lunatic.
"You are Miss Deane of Grandchester--daughter of Dr. Deane?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Valerie Deane, then?"
"I have told you so."
"Then all I can say is," I cried, losing my temper at her stony
heartlessness, "that your conduct in turning an honest, decent man into
a besotted fool, and then disclaiming all knowledge of him, is
outrageous. It's damnable. The language hasn't a word to express it!"
She stood with her hand on the cord.
"I shall really have to call the guard," she said, regarding me coolly.
"You are quite free to do so," I answered. "But if you do, I shall
have to show your letters, in sheer self-defence. I am not going to
spend the day in a police-station."
She let go the cord and sat down again.
"What on earth do you mean?" she asked.
I took a bundle of letters from my pocket and tossed one over to her.
She glanced at it quickly, started, as if in great surprise, and handed
it back with a smile.
"I did not write that."
I thought I had never seen her equal for unblushing impudence. Her
mellow tones made the mockery appear all the more diabolical.
"If you didn't write it," said I, "I should like to know who did."
"My Cousin Valerie."
"I don't understand," said I.
"My name is Valerie Deane and my cousin's name is Valerie Deane, and
this is her handwriting."
Bewildered, I passed my hand over my eyes. What feline trick was she
playing? Her treachery was incomprehensible.
"I suppose it was your Cousin Valerie who tended me during my blindness
at your father's house, who shed tears because she had to leave me,
who----"
"Quite possibly," she interrupted. "Only it would have been at her
father's house and not mine. She does tend blind people, my father's
patients."
I looked at her open-mouthed. "In the name of Heaven," I exclaimed,
"who are you, if not the daughter of Dr. Deane of Stavaton Street?"
"My father is Mr. Henry Deane, the oculist. You asked if I were the
daughter of Dr. Deane. So many people give him the wrong title I
didn't trouble to correct you."
It took me a few moments to recover. I had been making a pretty fool
of myself. I stammered out pleas for a thousand pardons. I confused
myself, and her, in explanation. Then I remembered that the fathers
were twin brothers and bore a strong resemblance one to the other.
What more natural than that the daughters should also be alike?
"What I can't understand," said Miss Deane, "is how you mistook me for
my cousin."
"Your voices are identical."
"But our outer semblances----"
"I have never seen your cousin--she left me before I recovered my
sight."
"How then could you say you had my face before you for three months?"
"I am afraid, Miss Deane, I was wrong in that as in everything else.
It was her face. I had a mental picture of it."
She put on a puzzled expression. "And you used the mental picture for
the purpose of recognition?"
"Yes," said I.
"I give it up," said Miss Deane.
She did not press me further. Her Cousin Valerie's love affairs were
grounds too delicate for her to tread upon. She turned the
conversation by politely asking me how I had come to consult her
father. I mentioned my friend Mobray and the gun accident. She
remembered the case and claimed a slight acquaintance with Mobray, whom
she had met at various houses in Grandchester. My credit as a sane and
reputable person being established, we began to chat most amicably. I
found Miss Deane an accomplished woman. We talked books, art, travel.
She had the swift wit which delights in bridging the trivial and the
great. She had a playful fancy. Never have I found a personality so
immediately sympathetic. I told her a sad little Viennese story in
which I happened to have played a minor part, and her tenderness was as
spontaneous as Valerie's--my Valerie's. She had Valerie's woodland
laugh. Were it not that her personal note, her touch on the strings of
life differed essentially from my beloved's, I should have held it
grotesquely impossible for any human being but Valerie to be sitting in
the opposite corner of that railway carriage. Indeed there were
moments when she was Valerie, when the girl waiting for me at
Grandchester faded into the limbo of unreal things. A kiss from those
lips had fluttered on mine. It were lunacy to doubt it.
During intervals of non-illusion I examined her face critically. There
was no question of its unattractiveness to the casual observer. The
nose was too large and fleshy, the teeth too prominent, the eyes too
small. But my love had pierced to its underlying spirituality, and it
was the face above all others that I desired.
Toward the end of a remarkably short four hours' journey, Miss Deane
graciously expressed the hope that we might meet again.
"I shall ask Valerie," said I, "to present me in due form."
She smiled maliciously. "Are you quite sure you will be able to
distinguish one from the other when my cousin and I are together?"
"Are you, then, so identically alike?"
"That's a woman's way of answering a question--by another question,"
she laughed.
"Well, but are you?" I persisted.
"How otherwise could you have mistaken me for her?" She had drawn off
her gloves, so as to give a tidying touch to her hair. I noticed her
hands, small, long, and deft. I wondered whether they resembled
Valerie's.
"Would you do me the great favour of letting me touch your hand while I
shut my eyes, as if I were blind?"
She held out her hand frankly. My fingers ran over it for a few
seconds, as they had done many times over Valerie's. "Well?" she asked.
"Not the same," said I.
She flushed, it seemed angrily, and glanced down at her hand, on which
she immediately proceeded to draw a glove.
"Yours are stronger. And finer," I added, when I saw that the tribute
of strength did not please.
"It's the one little personal thing I am proud of," she remarked.
"You have made my four hours pass like four minutes," said I. "A
service to a fellow-creature which you might take some pride in having
performed."
"When I was a child I could have said the same of performing elephants."
"I am no longer a child, Miss Deane," said I with a bow.
What there was in this to make the blood rush to her pale cheeks I do
not know. The ways of women have often surprised me. I have heard
other men make a similar confession.
"I think most men are children," she said shortly.
"In what way?"
"Their sweet irresponsibility," said Miss Deane.
And then the train entered Grandchester Station.
I deposited my bag at the station hotel and drove straight to Stavaton
Street. I forgot Miss Deane. My thoughts and longings centred in her
beloved counterpart, with her tender, caressing ways, and just a subtle
inflection in the voice that made it more exquisite than the voice to
which I had been listening.
The servant who opened the door recognized me and smiled a welcome.
Miss Valerie was in the drawing-room.
"I know the way," said I.
Impetuous, I ran up the stairs, burst into the drawing-room, and
stopped short on the threshold in presence of a strange and exceedingly
beautiful young woman. She was stately and slender. She had masses of
bright brown hair waving over a beautiful brow. She had deep sapphire
eyes, like stars. She had the complexion of a Greuze child. She had
that air of fairy diaphaneity combined with the glow of superb health
which makes the typical loveliness of the Englishwoman. I gaped for a
second or two at this gracious apparition.
"I beg your pardon," said I; "I was told--"
The apparition who was standing by the fireplace smiled and came
forward with extended hands.
"Why, Harold! Of course you were told. It is all right. I am
Valerie."
I blinked; the world seemed upside down; the enchanting voice rang in
my ears, but it harmonized in no way with the equally enchanting face.
I put out my hand. "How do you do?" I said stupidly.
"But aren't you glad to see me?" asked the lovely young woman.
"Of course," said I; "I came from Vienna to see you."
"But you look disappointed."
"The fact is," I stammered, "I expected to see some one
different--quite different. The face you described has been haunting
me for three months."
She had the effrontery to laugh. Her eyes danced mischief.
"Did you really think me such a hideous fright?"
"You were not a fright at all," said I, remembering my late travelling
companion.
And then in a flash I realised what she had done.
"Why on earth did you describe your cousin instead of yourself?"
"My cousin! How do you know that?"
"Never mind," I answered. "You did. During your description you had
her face vividly before your mind. The picture was in some telepathic
way transferred from your brain to mine, and there it remained. The
proof is that when I saw a certain lady to-day I recognised her at once
and greeted her effusively as Valerie. Her name did happen to be
Valerie, and Valerie Deane too, and I ran the risk of a
police-station--and I don't think it was fair of you. What prompted
you to deceive me?"
I was hurt and angry, and I spoke with some acerbity. Valerie drew
herself up with dignity.
"If you claim an explanation, I will give it to you. We have had young
men patients in the house before, and, as they had nothing to do, they
have amused themselves and annoyed me by falling in love with me. I
was tired of it, and decided that it shouldn't happen in your case. So
I gave a false description of myself. To make it consistent, I took a
real person for a model."
"So you were fooling me all the time?" said I, gathering hat and stick.
Her face softened adorably. Her voice had the tones of the wood-wind.
"Not all the time, Harold," she said.