“The sun woke me,” she answered. “It always does. I was going down
to the sands. Shall we go together? Or would you like to go into the
gardens at Tredowen? The flowers are beautiful there while the dew is on
them!”
“I am afraid,” Aynesworth answered, “that I cannot do either. I have
come to say goodbye.”
The light died out of her face all of a sudden. The delicate beauty of
her gleaming eyes and quivering mouth had vanished. She was once more
the pale, wan little child he had seen coming slowly up the garden path
at Tredowen.
“You are going--so soon!” she murmured.
He took her hand and led her away over the short green turf of the
common.
“We only came for a few hours,” he told her. “But I have good news for
you, Juliet, unless you know already. Mr. Saunders has found out some
of your friends. They are going to look after you properly, and you will
not be alone any more.”
“What time are you going?” she asked.
“Silly child,” he answered, giving her hand a shake. “Listen to what I
am telling you. You are going to have friends to look after you always.
Aren’t you glad?”
“No, I am not glad,” she answered passionately. “I don’t want to go
away. I am--lonely.”
Her arms suddenly sought his neck, and her face was buried on his
shoulder. He soothed her as well as he could.
“I must go, little girl,” he said, “for I am off to America almost at
once. As soon as I can after I come back, I will come and see you.”
“You have only been here one day,” she sobbed.
“I would stay if I could, dear,” Aynesworth answered. “Come, dry those
eyes and be a brave girl. Think how nice it will be to go and live with
people who will take care of you properly, and be fond of you. Why, you
may have a pony, and all sorts of nice things.”
“I don’t want a pony,” she answered, hanging on his arm. “I don’t want
to go away. I want to stay here--and wait till you come back.”
He laughed.
“Why, when I come back, little woman,” he answered, “you will be almost
grown up. Come, dry your eyes now, and I tell you what we will do. You
shall come back with me to breakfast, and then drive up to the station
and see us off.”
“I should like to come,” she whispered, “but I am afraid of the other
gentleman.”
“Very likely we sha’n’t see him,” Aynesworth answered. “If we do, he
won’t hurt you.”
“I don’t like his face!” she persisted.
“Well, we won’t look at it,” Aynesworth answered. “But breakfast we must
have!”
They were half way through the meal, and Juliet had quite recovered her
spirits when Wingrave entered. He looked at the two with impassive face,
and took his place at the table. He wished the child “Good morning”
carelessly, but made no remark as to her presence there.
“I have just been telling Juliet some good news,” Aynesworth remarked.
“I went to see Mr. Saunders, the Vicar here, last night, and he has
found out some of her father’s friends. They are going to look after
her.”
Wingrave showed no interest in the information. But a moment later he
addressed Juliet for the first time.
“Are you glad that you are going away from Tredowen?” he asked.
“I am very, very sorry,” she answered, the tears gathering once more in
her eyes.
“But you want to go to school, don’t you, and see other girls?” he
asked.
She shook her head decidedly.
“It will break my heart,” she said quietly, “to leave Tredowen. I think
that if I have to go away from the pictures and the garden, and the sea,
I shall never be happy any more.”
“You are a child,” he remarked contemptuously; “you do not understand.
If you go away, you can learn to paint pictures yourself like those
at Tredowen. You will find that the world is full of other beautiful
places!”
The sympathetic aspect of his words was altogether destroyed by the thin
note of careless irony, which even the child understood. She felt that
he was mocking her.
“I could never be happy,” she said simply, “away from Tredowen. You
understand, don’t you?” she added, turning confidentially to Aynesworth.
“You think so now, dear,” he said, “but remember that you are very
young. There are many things for you to learn before you grow up.”
“I am not a dunce,” she replied. “I can talk French and German, and do
arithmetic, and play the organ. Father used to teach me these things. I
can learn at Tredowen very well. I hope that my friends will let me stay
here.”
Wingrave took no more notice of her. She and Aynesworth walked together
to the station. As they passed the little whitewashed cottage, she
suddenly let go his hand, and darted inside.
“Wait one moment,” she cried breathlessly.
She reappeared almost at once, holding something tightly clenched in her
right hand. She showed it to him shyly.
“It is for you, please,” she said.
It was a silver locket, and inside was a little picture of herself.
Aynesworth stooped down and kissed her. He had had as many presents in
his life as most men, but never an offering which came to him quite like
that! They stood still for a moment, and he held out her hands. Already
the morning was astir. The seagulls were wheeling, white-winged and
noiseless, above their heads; the air was fragrant with the scent of
cottage flowers. Like a low, sweet undernote, the sea came rolling in
upon the firm sands--out to the west it stretched like a sheet of softly
swaying inland water. For those few moments there seemed no note of
discord--and then the harsh whistle of an approaching train! They took
hold of hands and ran.
It was, perhaps, as well that their farewells were cut short. There was
scarcely time for more than a few hurried words before the train moved
out from the queer little station, and with his head out of the window,
Aynesworth waved his hand to the black-frocked child with her pale,
eager face already stained with tears--a lone, strange little figure,
full of a sort of plaintive grace as she stood there, against a
background of milk cans, waving a crumpled handkerchief!
Wingrave, who had been buried in a morning paper, looked up presently.
“If our journeyings,” he remarked drily, “are to contain everywhere
incidents such as these, they will become a sort of sentimental
pilgrimage.”
Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders.
“I am sorry,” he said, “that my interest in the child has annoyed you.
At any rate, it is over now. The parson was mysterious, but he assured
me that she was provided for.”
Wingrave looked across the carriage with cold, reflective curiosity.
“Your point of view,” he remarked, “is a mystery to me! I cannot see how
the future of an unfledged brat like that can possibly concern you!”
“Perhaps not,” Aynesworth answered, “but you must remember that you are
a little out of touch with your fellows just now. I daresay when you
were my age, you would have felt as I feel. I daresay that as the years
go on, you will feel like it again.”
Wingrave was thoughtful for a moment.
“So you think,” he remarked, “that I may yet have in me the making of a
sentimentalist.”
Aynesworth returned his gaze as steadfastly.
“One can never tell,” he answered. “You may change, of course. I hope
that you will.”
“You are candid, at any rate!”
“I do not think,” Aynesworth answered, “that there is any happiness in
life for the man who lives entirely apart from his fellow creatures.
Not to feel is not to live. I think that the first real act of kindness
which you feel prompted to perform will mark the opening of a different
life for you.”
Wingrave spread out the newspaper.
“I think,” he said, with a faint sneer, “that it is quite time you took
this sea voyage.”
THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES
Mr. Lumley Barrington, K.C. and M.P., was in the act of stepping into
his carriage to drive down to the House, when he was intercepted by a
message. It was his wife’s maid, who came hurrying out after him.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” she said, “but her ladyship particularly
wished to see you as soon as you came in.”
“Is your mistress in?” Barrington asked in some surprise.
“Yes, sir!” the maid answered. “Her ladyship is resting, before she goes
to the ball at Caleram House. She is in her room now.”
“I will come up at once,” Barrington said.
He kept the carriage waiting while he ascended to his wife’s room. There
was no answer to his knock. He opened the door softly. She was asleep on
a couch drawn up before the fire.
He crossed the room noiselessly, and stood looking down upon her.
Her lithe, soft figure had fallen into a posture of graceful, almost
voluptuous ease; the ribbons and laces of her muslin dressing gown
quivered gently with her deep regular breathing. She had thrown off her
slippers, and one long, slender foot was exposed; the other was doubled
up underneath her body. Her face was almost like the face of a child,
smooth and unwrinkled, save for one line by the eyes where she laughed.
He looked at her steadfastly. Could the closing of the eyes, indeed,
make all the difference? Life and the knowledge of life seemed things
far from her consciousness. Could one look like that--even in sleep--and
underneath--! Barrington broke away from his train of thought, and woke
her quickly.
She sat up and yawned.
“Parsons managed to catch you, then,” she remarked.
“Yes!” he answered. “I was just off. I got away from Wills’ dinner
party early, and called here for some notes. I must be at the House”--he
glanced at the clock--“in three-quarters of an hour!”
She nodded. “I won’t keep you as long as that.”
Her eyes met his, a little furtively, full of inquiry. “I have done what
you wished,” he said quietly. “I called at the Clarence Hotel!”
“You saw him!”
“No! He sent back my card. He declined to see me.”
She showed no sign of disappointment. She sat up and looked into the
fire, smoothing her hair mechanically with her hands.
“Personally,” Barrington continued, “I could see no object whatever in
my visit. I have nothing to say to him, nor, I should think, he to me. I
am sorry for him, of course, but he’d never believe me if I told him so.
What happened to him was partly my fault, and unless he’s changed, he’s
not likely to forget it.”
She swayed a little towards him.
“It was partly--also--mine,” she murmured.
“I don’t see that at all,” he objected. “You at any rate were
blameless!”
She looked up at him, and he was astonished to find how pale she was.
“I was not!” she said calmly.
There was a short silence. Barrington had the air of a man who has
received a shock.
“Ruth!” he exclaimed, glancing towards the door, and speaking almost
in a whisper. “Do you mean--that there are things which I have never
known?”
“Yes!” she answered. “I mean that he might, if he chose, do us now--both
of us--an immense amount of harm.”
Barrington sat down at the end of the sofa. He knew his wife well enough
to understand that this was serious.
“Let us understand one another, Ruth,” he said quietly. “I always
thought that you were a little severe on Wingrave at the trial! He may
bear you a grudge for that; it is very possible that he does. But what
can he do now? He had his chance to cross examine you, and he let it go
by.”
“He has some letters of mine,” Lady Ruth said slowly.
“Letters! Written before the trial?”
“Yes!”
“Why did he not make use of them there?”
“If he had,” Lady Ruth said, with her eyes fixed upon the carpet, “the
sympathy would have been the other way. He would have got off with a
much lighter sentence, and you--would not have married me!”
“Good God!” Barrington muttered.
“You see,” Lady Ruth continued, resting her hand upon her husband’s coat
sleeve, “the thing happened all in a second. I had the check in my hand
when you and Sir William came crashing through that window, and
Sir William’s eyes were upon me. The only way to save myself was to
repudiate it, and let Wingrave get out of the affair as well as he
could. Of course, I never guessed what was going to happen.”
“Then it was Wingrave,” Barrington muttered, “who played the game?”
“Yes!” Lady Ruth answered quietly. “But I am not so sure about him now.
You and I, Lumley, know one another a little better today than we
did twelve years ago. We have had a few of the corners knocked off, I
suppose. I can tell you things now I didn’t care to then. Wingrave had
lent me money before! He has letters from me today, thanking him for
it.”
Barrington was a large, florid man, well built and well set up. In court
he presented rather a formidable appearance with his truculent chin, his
straight, firm mouth, and his commanding presence. Yet there was nothing
about him now which would have inspired fear in the most nervous of
witnesses. He looked like a man all broken up by some unexpected shock.
“If he had produced those letters--at the trial--”
Lady Ruth shrugged her shoulders.
“I risked it, anyhow,” she said. “I had to. My story was the only one
which gave me a dog’s chance, and I didn’t mean to go under--then.
Wingrave never gave me away, but I fancy he’s feeling differently about
it now!”
“How do you know, Ruth?”
“I have seen him! He sent for me!” she answered. “Lumley, don’t look at
me like that! We’re not in the nursery, you and I. I went because I had
to. He’s going to America for a time, and then he’s coming back here. I
think that when he comes back--he means mischief!”
“He is not the sort of man to forget,” Barrington said, half to himself.
She shuddered ever so slightly. Then she stretched out a long white arm,
and drawing his head suddenly down to her, kissed him on the lips.
“If only,” she murmured, “he would give up the letters! Without them, he
might say--anything. No one would believe!”
Barrington raised his eyes to hers. There was something almost pathetic
in the worshiping light which shone there. He was, as he had always
been, her abject slave.
“Can you think of any way?” he asked. “Shall I go to him again?”
“Useless!” she answered. “You have nothing to offer in exchange. He
would not give them to me. He surely would not give them to you. Shall I
tell you what is in his mind? Listen, then! He is rich now; he means
to make more money there. Then he will return, calling himself Mr.
Wingrave--an American--with imaginary letters of introduction to us. He
has ambitions--I don’t know what they are, but they seem to entail his
holding some sort of a place in society. We are to be his sponsors.”
“Is it practicable?” he asked.
“Quite,” she answered. “He is absolutely unrecognizable now. He has
changed cruelly. Can’t you imagine the horror of it? He will be always
in evidence; always with those letters in the background. He means to
make life a sort of torture chamber for us!”
“Better defy him at once, and get over,” Barrington said. “After all,
don’t you think that the harm he could do is a little imaginary?”
She brushed the suggestion aside with a little shiver.
“Shall I tell you what he would do, Lumley?” she said, leaning towards
him. “He would have my letters, and a copy of my evidence, printed in an
elegant little volume and distributed amongst my friends. It would come
one day like a bomb, and nothing that you or I could do would alter
it in the least. Your career and my social position would be ruined.
Success brings enemies, you know, Lumley, and I have rather more than my
share.”
“Then we are helpless,” he said.
“Unless we can get the letters--or unless he should never return from
America,” she answered.
Barrington moved uneasily in his seat. He knew very well that some
scheme was already forming in his wife’s brain.
“If there is anything that I can do,” he said in a low tone, “don’t be
afraid to tell me.”
“There is one chance,” she answered, “a sort of forlorn hope, but you
might try it. He has a secretary, a young man named Aynesworth. If he
were on our side--”
“Don’t you think,” Barrington interrupted, “that you would have more
chance with him than I?”
She laughed softly.
“You foolish man,” she said, touching his fingers lightly. “I believe
you think that I am irresistible!”
“I have seen a good many lions tamed,” he reminded her.
“Nonsense! Anyhow, there is one here who seems quite insensible. I have
talked already with Mr. Aynesworth. He would not listen to me!”
“Ah!”
“Nevertheless,” she continued softy, “of one thing I am very sure. Every
man is like every woman; he is vulnerable if you can discover the right
spot and the right weapons. Mr. Aynesworth is not a woman’s man, but I
fancy that he is ambitious. I thought that you might go and see him. He
has rooms somewhere in Dorset Street.”
He rose to his feet. A glance at the clock reminded him of the hour.
“I will go,” he said. “I will do what I can. I think, dear,” he added,
bending over her to say farewell, “that you should have been the man!”
She laughed softly.
“Am I such a failure as a woman, then?” she asked with a swift upward
glance. “Don’t be foolish, Lumley. My woman will be here to dress me
directly. You must really go away.”
He strode down the stairs with tingling pulses, and drove to the House,
where his speech, a little florid in its rhetoric, and verbose as became
the man, was nevertheless a great success.
“Quite a clever fellow, Barrington,” one of his acquaintances remarked,
“when you get him away from his wife.”
A FORLORN HOPE
Aynesworth ceased tugging at the strap of his portmanteau, and rose
slowly to his feet. A visitor had entered his rooms--apparently
unannounced.
“I must apologize,” the newcomer said, “for my intrusion. Your
housekeeper, I presume it was, whom I saw below, told me to come up.”
Aynesworth pushed forward a chair.
“Won’t you sit down?” he said. “I believe that I am addressing Mr.
Lumley Barrington.”
Not altogether without embarrassment, Barrington seated himself.
Something of his ordinary confidence of bearing and demeanor had
certainly deserted him. His manner, too, was nervous. He had the air of
being altogether ill at ease.
“I must apologize further, Mr. Aynesworth,” he continued, “for an
apparently ill-timed visit. You are, I see, on the eve of a journey.”
“I am leaving for America tomorrow,” Aynesworth answered.
“With Sir Wingrave Seton, I presume?” Barrington remarked.
“Precisely,” Aynesworth answered.
Barrington hesitated for a moment. Aynesworth was civil, but inquiring.
He felt himself very awkwardly placed.
“Mr. Aynesworth,” he said, “I must throw myself upon your consideration.
You can possibly surmise the reason of my visit.”
Aynesworth shook his head.
“I am afraid,” he said, “that I must plead guilty to denseness--in this
particular instance, at any rate. I am altogether at a loss to account
for it.”
“You have had some conversation with my wife, I believe?”
“Yes. But--”
“Before you proceed, Mr. Aynesworth,” Barrington interrupted, “one
word. You are aware that Sir Wingrave Seton is in possession of certain
documents in which my wife is interested, which he refuses to give up?”
“I have understood that such is the case,” Aynesworth admitted.
“Will you pardon me if I add that it is a matter which I can scarcely
discuss?”
Barrington shrugged his shoulders.
“Let it go, for the moment,” he said. “There is something else which I
want to say to you.”
Aynesworth nodded a little curtly. He was not very favorably impressed
with his visitor.
“Well!”
Barrington leaned forward in his chair.
“Mr. Aynesworth,” he said, “you have made for yourself some reputation
as a writer. Your name has been familiar to me for some time. I was at
college, I believe, with your uncle, Stanley Aynesworth.”
He paused. Aynesworth said nothing.
“I want to know,” Barrington continued impressively, “what has induced
you to accept a position with such a man as Seton?”
“That,” Aynesworth declared, “is easily answered. I was not looking for
a secretaryship at all, or anything of the sort, but I chanced to hear
his history one night, and I was curious to analyze, so far as possible,
his attitude towards life and his fellows, on his reappearance in it.
That is the whole secret.”
Barrington leaned back in his chair, and glanced thoughtfully at his
companion.
“You know the story of his misadventures, then?” he remarked.
“I know all about his imprisonment, and the cause of it,” Aynesworth
said quietly.
Barrington was silent for several moments. He felt that he was receiving
but scanty encouragement.
“Is it worth while, Mr. Aynesworth?” he asked at length. “There is
better work for you in the world than this.”
Again Aynesworth preferred to reply by a gesture only. Barrington was
watching him steadily.
“A political secretaryship, Mr. Aynesworth,” he said, “might lead you
anywhere. If you are ambitious, it is the surest of all stepping stones
into the House. After that, your career is in your own hands. I offer
you such a post.”
“I am exceedingly obliged to you,” Aynesworth replied, “but I scarcely
understand.”
“I have influence,” Barrington said, “which I have never cared to use
on my own account. I am willing to use it on yours. You have only to say
the word, and the matter is arranged.”
“I can only repeat,” Aynesworth said, “that I am exceedingly obliged
to you, Mr. Barrington, but I cannot understand why you should interest
yourself so much on my behalf.”
“If you wish me to speak in plain words,” Barrington said, “I will do
so. I ask you to aid me as a man of honor in the restoration of those
letters to my wife.”
“I cannot do it,” Aynesworth said firmly. “I am sorry that you should
have come to me with such an offer. It is quite out of the question!”
Barrington held out his hand.
“Do not decide too hastily,” he said. “Remember this. Sir Wingrave Seton
had once an opportunity of putting those letters to any use he may have
thought fit. He ignored it. At that time, their tenor and contents might
easily have been explained. After all these years, that task would be
far more difficult. I say that no man has a right to keep a woman’s
letters back from her years after any friendship there may have been
between them is over. It is not the action of an honorable man. Sir
Wingrave Seton has placed himself outside the pale of honorable men.”
“Your judgment,” Aynesworth answered quietly, “seems to me severe. Sir
Wingrave Seton has been the victim of peculiar circumstances.”
Barrington looked at his companion thoughtfully. He was wondering
exactly how much he knew.
“You defend him,” he remarked. “That is because you have not yet found
out what manner of man he is.”
“In any case,” Aynesworth answered, “I am not his judge. Mr.
Barrington,” he added, “You must forgive me if I remind you that this is
a somewhat unprofitable discussion.”
A short silence followed. With Barrington it did not appear to be a
silence of irresolution. He was leaning a little forward in his chair,
and his head was resting upon his hand. Of his companion he seemed for
the moment to have become oblivious. Aynesworth watched him curiously.
Was he looking back through the years, he wondered, to that one brief
but lurid chapter of history; or was it his own future of which he was
thinking,--a future which, to the world, must seem so full of brilliant
possibilities, and yet which he himself must feel to be so fatally and
miserably insecure?
“Mr. Aynesworth,” he said at last, “I suppose from a crude point of view
I am here to bribe you.”
Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders.
“Is it worth while?” he asked a little wearily. “I have tried to be
civil--but I have also tried to make you understand. Your task is
absolutely hopeless!”
“It should not be,” Barrington persisted. “This is one of those rare
cases, in which anything is justifiable. Seton had his chance at the
trial. He chose to keep silence. I do not praise him or blame him for
that. It was the only course open to a man of honor. I maintain that his
silence then binds him to silence for ever. He has no right to ruin
my life and the happiness of my wife by subtle threats, to hold
those foolish letters over our heads, like a thunderbolt held ever in
suspense. You are ambitious, I believe, Mr. Aynesworth! Get me
those letters, and I will make you my secretary, find you a seat in
Parliament, and anything else in reason that you will!”
Aynesworth rose to his feet. He wished to intimate that, so far as he
was concerned, the interview was at an end.
“Your proposition, Mr. Barrington,” he said, “is absolutely impossible.
In the first place, I have no idea where the letters in question are,
and Sir Wingrave is never likely to suffer them to pass into my charge.”
“You have opportunities of finding out,” Barrington suggested.
“And secondly,” Aynesworth continued, ignoring the interruption,
“whatever the right or the wrong of this matter may be, I am in
receipt of a salary from Sir Wingrave Seton, and I cannot betray his
confidence.”
Barrington also rose to his feet. He was beginning to recognize the
hopelessness of his task.
“This is final, Mr. Aynesworth?” he asked.
“Absolutely!” was the firm reply.
Barrington bowed stiffly, and moved towards the door. On the threshold
he paused.
“I trust, Mr. Aynesworth,” he said hesitatingly, “that you will not
regard this as an ordinary attempt at bribery and corruption. I have
simply asked you to aid me in setting right a great injustice.”
“It is a subtle distinction, Mr. Barrington,” Aynesworth answered, “but
I will endeavor to keep in mind your point of view.”
Barrington drove straight home, and made his way directly to his study.
Now that he was free from his wife’s influence, and looked back upon his
recent interview, he realized for the first time the folly and indignity
of the whole proceedings. He was angry that, a man of common sense, keen
witted and farseeing in the ordinary affairs of life, should have placed
himself so completely in a false, not to say a humiliating position. And
then, just as suddenly, he forgot all about himself, and remembered only
her. With a breath of violets, and the delicate rustling of half-lifted
skirts, she had come softly into the room, and stood looking at him
inquiringly. Her manner seemed to indicate more a good-natured curiosity
than real anxiety. She made a little grimace as he shook his head.
“I have failed,” he said shortly. “That young man is a prig!”
“I was afraid,” she said, “that he would be obstinate. Men with eyes of
that color always are!”
“What are we to do, Ruth?”
“What can we?” she answered calmly. “Nothing but wait. He is going to
America. It is a terrible country for accidents. Something may happen to
him there! Do go and change your things, there’s a dear, and look in at
the Westinghams’ for me for an hour. We’ll just get some supper and come
away.”
“I will be ready in ten minutes,” Barrington answered. He understood
that he was to ask no questions, nor did he. But all the time his man
was hurrying him into his clothes, his brain was busy weaving fancies.
PROFESSOR SINCLAIR’S DANCING ACADEMY
Mr. Sinclair, or as he preferred to be called, Professor Sinclair, waved
a white kid glove in the direction of the dancing hall.
“This way, ladies and gentlemen!” he announced. “A beautiful valse just
about to commence. Tickets, if you please! Ah! Glad to see you, Miss
Cullingham! You’ll find--a friend of yours inside!”
There was a good deal of giggling as the girls came out from the little
dressing room and joined their waiting escorts, who stood in a line
against the wall, mostly struggling with refractory gloves. Mr.
Sinclair, proprietor of the West Islington Dancing Academy, and host of
these little gatherings--for a consideration of eighteenpence--did his
best, by a running fire of conversation, to set everyone at their ease.
He wore a somewhat rusty frock coat, black trousers, a white dress
waistcoat, and a red tie. Evening dress was not DE RIGUEUR! The money at
the door, and that everyone should behave as ladies and gentlemen, were
the only things insisted upon.
Mr. Sinclair’s best smile and most correct bow was suddenly in evidence.
“Mademoiselle Violet!” he exclaimed to a lady who came in alone, “we
are enchanted. We feared that you had deserted us. There is a young
gentleman inside who is going to be made very happy. One shilling
change, thank you. Won’t you step into the cloak room?”
The lady shook her head.
“If you don’t mind, Mr. Sinclair,” she said, “I would rather keep my hat
and veil on. I can only stay for a few minutes. Is Mr. Richardson here,
do you know? Ah! I can see him.”
She stepped past the Professor into the little dancing hall. A young
lady was pounding upon a piano, a boy at her side was playing the
violin. A few couples were dancing, but most of the company was looking
on. The evening was young, and Mr. Sinclair, who later on officiated
as M.C., had not yet made his attack upon the general shyness. The lady
known as Mademoiselle Violet paused and looked around her. Suddenly she
caught sight of a pale, anemic-looking youth, who was standing apart
from the others, lounging against the wall. She moved rapidly towards
him.
“How do you do, Mr. Richardson?” she said, holding out her hand.
He started, and a sudden rush of color streamed into his cheeks. He took
her hand awkwardly, and he was almost speechless with nervousness.
“I don’t believe you’re at all glad to see me!” she remarked.
“Oh! Miss Violet!” he exclaimed. He would have said more, but the words
stuck in his throat.
“Can we sit down somewhere?” she said. “I want to talk to you.”
There were one or two chairs placed behind a red drugget curtain, where
adventurous spirits led their partners later in the evening. They found
a place there, and the young man recovered his power of speech.
“Not glad to see you!” he exclaimed almost vehemently. “Why, what else
do you suppose I come here for every Thursday evening? I never dance;
they all make game of me because they know I come here on the chance of
seeing you again. I’m a fool! I know that! You just amuse yourself here
with me, and then you go away, back to your friends--and forget! And I
hang about round here, like the silly ass that I am!”
“My dear--George!”
The young man blushed at the sound of his Christian name. He was
mollified despite himself.
“I suppose it’s got to be the same thing all over again,” he declared
resignedly. “You’ll talk to me and let me be near you--and make a fool
of me all round; and then you’ll go away, and heaven knows when I’ll see
you again. You won’t let me take you home, and won’t tell me where you
live, or who your friends are. You do treat me precious badly, Miss
Violet.”
“This time,” she said quietly, “it will not be the same. I have
something quite serious to say to you.”
“Something serious--you? Go on!” he exclaimed in excitement.
“Have you found another place yet?”
“No. I haven’t really tried. I have a little money saved, and I could
get one tomorrow if--”
She stopped him with a smiling gesture.
“I don’t mean that--yet,” she said. “I wanted to know whether it would
be possible for you to go away for a little time, if someone paid all
your expenses.”
“To go away!” he repeated blankly. “What for?”
Mademoiselle Violet leaned a little nearer to him.
“My mistress asked me yesterday,” she said, “if I knew anyone who could
be trusted who would go away, at a moment’s notice, on an errand for
her.”
“Your mistress,” he repeated. “You really are a lady’s maid, then, are
you?”
“Of course!” she answered impatiently. “Haven’t I told you so before?
Now what do you say? Will you go?”
“I dunno,” he answered thoughtfully. “If it had been for you, I don’t
know that I’d have minded. I ain’t fond of traveling.”
“It is for me,” she interrupted hastily. “If I can find her anyone who
will do what she wants, she will make my fortune. She has promised. And
then--”
“Well, and then?”
Mademoiselle Violet looked at him thoughtfully.
“I should not make any promises,” she said demurely, “but things would
certainly be different.”
The young man’s blood was stirred. Mademoiselle Violet stood to him for
the whole wonderful world of romance, into which he had peered dimly
from behind the counter of an Islington emporium. Her low voice--so
strange to his ears after the shrill chatter of the young ladies of
his acquaintance--the mystery of her coming and going, all went to give
color to the single dream of his unimaginative life. Apart from her, he
was a somewhat vulgar, entirely commonplace young man, of saving habits,
and with some aptitude for business, in a small way. He had been well on
his way to becoming a small but successful shopkeeper, thereby realizing
the only ideals which had yet presented themselves to him, when Madame
Violet had unconsciously intervened. Of what might become of him now he
had no clear conception of himself.
“I’ll go!” he declared.
Mademoiselle Violet’s eyes flashed behind her veil. Her fingers touched
his for a moment.
“It is a long way,” she said.
“I don’t care,” he answered valiantly.
“To--America!”
“America!” he gasped. “But--is this a joke, Miss Violet?”
She shook her head.
“Of course not! America is not a great journey.”
“But it will cost--”
She laughed softly.
“My mistress is very rich,” she said. “The cost does not matter at all.
You will have all the money you can spend--and more.”
He felt himself short of breath, and bereft of words.
“Gee whiz!” he murmured.
They sat there in silence for a few moments. A promenading couple put
their heads behind the screen, and withdrew with the sound of feminine
giggling. Outside, the piano was being thumped to the tune of a popular
polka.
“But what have I go to do?” he asked.
“To watch a man who will go out by the same steamer as you,” she
answered. “Write to London, tell me what he does, how he spends his
time, whether he is ill or well. You must stay at the same hotel in New
York, and try and find out what his business is there. Remember, we want
to know, my mistress and I, everything that he does.”
“Who is he?” he asked. “A friend of your mistress?”
“No!” she answered shortly, “an enemy. A cruel enemy--the cruelest enemy
a woman could have!”
The subdued passion of her tone thrilled him. He felt himself
bewildered--in touch with strange things. She leaned a little closer
towards him, and that mysterious perfume, which was one of her many
fascinations, dazed him with its sweetness.
“If you could send home word,” she whispered, “that he was ill, that
anything had happened to him, that he was not likely to return--our
fortunes would be made--yours and mine.”
“Stop!” he muttered. “You--phew! It’s hot here!”
He wiped the perspiration recklessly from his forehead with a red silk
handkerchief.
“What made you come to me?” he asked. “I don’t even know the name of
your mistress.”
“And you must not ask it,” she declared quietly. “It is better for you
not to know. I came to you because you were a man, and I knew that I
could trust you.”
Her flattery sank into his soul. No one else had ever called him a man.
He felt himself capable of great things. To think that, but for the
coming of this wonderful Mademoiselle Violet, he might even now have
been furnishing a small shop on the outskirts of Islington, with collars
and ties and gloves designed to attract the youth of that populous
neighborhood!
“When do I start?” he asked with a coolness which surprised himself.
She drew a heavy packet from the recesses of the muff she carried.
“All the particulars are here,” she said. “The name of the steamer, the
name of the man, and money. You will be told where to get more in New
York, if you need it.”
He took it from her mechanically. She rose to her feet.
“You will remember,” she said, looking into his eyes.
“I ain’t likely to forget anything you’ve said tonight,” he answered
honestly. “But look here! Let me take you home--just this once! Give me
something to think about.”
She shook her head.
“I will give you something to hope for,” she whispered. “You must not
come a yard with me. When you come back it will, perhaps--be different.”
He remained behind the partition, gripping the packet tightly.
Mademoiselle Violet took a hasty adieu of Mr. Sinclair, and descended to
the street. She walked for a few yards, and then turned sharply to the
left. A hansom, into which she stepped at once, was waiting there. She
wrapped herself hastily in a long fur coat which lay upon the seat, and
thrust her hand through the trap door.
“St. Martin’s Schoolroom!” she told the cabman.
Apparently Mademoiselle Violet combined a taste for philanthropy
with her penchant for Islington dancing halls. She entered the little
schoolroom and made her way to the platform, dispensing many smiles
and nods amongst the audience of the concert, which was momentarily
interrupted for her benefit. She was escorted on to the platform by a
young and earnest-looking clergyman, and given a chair in the center of
the little group who were gathered there. And after the conclusion of
the song, the clergyman expressed his gratification to the audience that
a lady with so many calls upon her time, such high social duties, should
yet find time to show her deep interest in their welfare by this most
kind visit. After which, he ventured to call upon Lady Barrington to say
a few words.
MEPHISTOPHELES ON A STEAMER
In some respects, the voyage across the Atlantic was a surprise to
Aynesworth. His companion seemed to have abandoned, for the time at
any rate, his habit of taciturnity. He conversed readily, if a little
stiffly, with his fellow passengers. He divided his time between the
smoke room and the deck, and very seldom sought the seclusion of his
state room. Aynesworth remarked upon this change one night as the two
men paced the deck after dinner.
“You are beginning to find more pleasure,” he said, “in talking to
people.”
Wingrave shook his head.
“By no means,” he answered coldly. “It is extremely distasteful to me.”
“Then why do you do it?” Aynesworth asked bluntly.
Wingrave never objected to being asked questions by his secretary. He
seemed to recognize the fact that Aynesworth’s retention of his post was
due to a desire to make a deliberate study of himself, and while his
own attitude remained purely negative, he at no time exhibited any
resentment or impatience.
“I do it for several reasons,” he answered. “First, because misanthropy
is a luxury in which I cannot afford to indulge. Secondly, because I am
really curious to know whether the time will ever return when I shall
feel the slightest shadow of interest in any human being. I can only
discover this by affecting a toleration for these people’s society,
which I can assure you, if you are curious about the matter, is wholly
assumed.”
Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders.
“Surely,” he said, “you find Mrs. Travers entertaining?”
Wingrave reflected for a moment.
“You mean the lady with a stock of epigrams, and a green veil?” he
remarked. “No! I do not find her entertaining.”
“Your neighbor at table then, Miss Packe?”
“If my affections have perished,” Wingrave answered grimly, “my taste,
I hope, is unimpaired. The young person who travels to improve her mind,
and fills up the gaps by reading Baedeker on the places she hasn’t been
to, fails altogether to interest me!”
“Aren’t you a little severe?” Aynesworth remarked.
“I suppose,” Wingrave answered, “that it depends upon the point of view,
to use a hackneyed phrase. You study people with a discerning eye for
good qualities. Nature--and circumstances have ordered it otherwise with
me. I see them through darkened glasses.”
“It is not the way to happiness,” Aynesworth said.
“There is no highroad to what you term happiness,” Wingrave answered.
“One holds the string and follows into the maze. But one does not choose
one’s way. You are perhaps more fortunate than I that you can
appreciate Mrs. Travers’ wit, and find my neighbor, who has done Europe,
attractive. That is a matter of disposition.”
“I should like,” Aynesworth remarked, “to have known you fifteen years
ago.”
Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.
“I fancy,” he said, “that I was a fairly average person--I mean that
I was possessed of an average share of the humanities. I have only my
memory to go by. I am one of those fortunate persons, you see, who have
realized an actual reincarnation. I have the advantage of having
looked out upon life from two different sets of windows.--By the bye,
Aynesworth, have you noticed that unwholesome-looking youth in a serge
suit there?”
Aynesworth nodded.
“What about him?”
“I fancy that he must know--my history. He sits all day long smoking
bad cigarettes and watching me. He makes clumsy attempts to enter into
conversation with me. He is interested in us for some reason or other.”
Aynesworth nodded.
“Shocking young bounder,” he remarked. “I’ve noticed him myself.”
“Talk to him some time, and find out what he means by it,” Wingrave
said. “I don’t want to find my biography in the American newspapers. It
might interfere with my operations there. Here’s this woman coming to
worry us! You take her off, Aynesworth! I shall go into the smoking
room.”
But Mrs. Travers was not so easily to be disposed of. For some reason or
other, she had shown a disposition to attach herself to Wingrave.
“Please put me in my chair,” she said to him, holding out her rug and
cushion. “No! Not you, Mr. Aynesworth. Mr. Wingrave understands so much
better how to wrap me up. Thanks! Won’t you sit down yourself? It’s much
better for you out here than in the smoking room--and we might go on
with our argument.”
“I thought,” Wingrave remarked, accepting her invitation after a
moment’s hesitation, “that we were to abandon it.”
“That was before dinner,” she answered, glancing sideways at him. “I
feel braver now.”
“You are prepared,” he remarked, “for unconditional surrender?”
She looked at him again. She had rather nice eyes, quite dark and very
soft, and she was a great believer in their efficacy.
“Of my argument?”
He did not answer her for a moment. He had turned his head slightly
towards her, and though his face was, as usual, expressionless, and his
eyes cold and hard, she found nevertheless something of meaning in his
steady regard. There was a flush in her cheek when she looked away.
“I am afraid,” she remarked, “that you are rather a terrible person.”
“You flatter me,” he murmured. “I am really quite harmless!”
“Not from conviction then, I am sure,” she remarked.
“Perhaps not,” he admitted. “Let us call it from lack of enterprise! The
virtues are all very admirable things, but it is the men and women with
vices who have ruled the world. The good die young because there is no
useful work for them to do. No really satisfactory person, from a moral
point of view, ever achieved greatness!”
She half closed her eyes.
“My head is going round,” she murmured. “What an upheaval! Fancy
Mephistopheles on a steamer!”
“He was, at any rate, the most interesting of that little trio,”
Wingrave remarked, “but even he was a trifle heavy.”
“Do you go about the world preaching your new doctrines?” she asked.
“Not I!” he answered. “Nothing would every make a missionary of me,
for good or for evil, for the simple reason that no one else’s welfare
except my own has the slightest concern for me.”
“What hideous selfishness!” she said softly. “But I don’t think--you
quite mean it?”
“I can assure you I do,” he answered drily. “My world consists of myself
for the central figure, and the half a dozen or so of people who are
useful or amusing to me! Except that the rest are needed to keep moving
the machinery of the world, they might all perish, so far as I was
concerned.”
“I don’t think,” Mrs. Travers said softly, “that I should like to be in
your world.”
“I can very easily believe you,” he answered.
“Unless,” she remarked tentatively, “I came to convert!”
He nodded.
“There is something in that,” he admitted. “It would be a great work, a
little difficult, you know.”
“All the more interesting!”
“You see,” he continued, “I am not only bad, but I admire badness. My
wish is to remain bad--in fact, I should like to be worse if I knew how.
You would find it hard to make a start. I couldn’t even admit that a
state of goodness was desirable!”
She looked at him curiously. The night air was perhaps getting colder,
for she shivered, and drew the rug a little closer around her.
“You speak like a prophet,” she remarked.
“A prophet of evil then!”
She looked at him steadfastly. The lightness had gone out of her tone.
“Do you know,” she said, “I am almost sorry that I ever knew you?”
He shook his head.
“You can’t mean it,” he declared.
“Why not?”
“I have done you the greatest service one human being can render
another! I have saved you from being bored!”
She nodded.
“That may be true,” she admitted. “But can you conceive no worse state
in the world than being bored?”
“There is no worse state,” he answered drily. “I was bored once,” he
added, “for ten years or so; I ought to know!”
“Were you married?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Not quite so bad as that,” he answered. “I was in prison!”
She turned a startled face towards him.
“Nonsense!”
“It is perfectly true,” he said coolly. “Are you horrified?”
“What did you do?” she asked in a low tone.
“I killed a man.”
“Purposely?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“He attacked me! I had to defend myself.”
She said nothing for several moments.
“Shall I go?” he asked.
“No! Sit still,” she answered. “I am frightened of you, but I don’t want
you to go away. I want to think.... Yes! I can understand you better
now! Your life was spoilt!”
“By no means,” he answered. “I am still young! I am going to make up for
those ten years.”
She shook her head.
“You cannot,” she answered. “The years can carry no more than their
ordinary burden of sensations. If you try to fill them too full, you
lose everything.”
“I shall try what I can do!” he remarked calmly.
She rose abruptly.
“I am afraid of you tonight,” she said. “I am going downstairs. Will you
give my rug and cushion to the deck steward? And--good night.”
She gave him her hand, but she did not look at him, and she hurried away
a little abruptly.
Wingrave yawned, and lighting a cigar, strolled up and down the deck.
A figure loomed out of the darkness and almost ran into him. It was the
young man in the serge suit. He muttered a clumsy apology and hurried
on.
A COCKNEY CONSPIRATOR
“The bar closes in ten minutes, sir!” the smoking room steward
announced.
The young man who had been the subject of Wingrave’s remarks hastily
ordered another drink, although he had an only half-emptied tumbler in
front of him. Presently he stumbled out on to the deck. It was a dark
night, and a strong head wind was blowing. He groped his way to the
railing and leaned over, with his head half buried in his hands. Below,
the black tossing sea was churned into phosphorescent spray, as the
steamer drove onwards into the night.
Was it he indeed--George Richardson? He doubted it. The world of tape
measures and calico counters seemed so far away; the interior of
his quondam lodgings in a by-street of Islington, so unfamiliar and
impossible. He felt himself swallowed up in this new and bewildering
existence, of which he was so insignificant an atom, the existence where
tragedy reared her gloomy head, and the shadows of great things loomed
around him. Down there in the cold restless waste of black waters--what
was it that he saw? The sweat broke out upon his forehead, the blood
seemed turned to ice in his veins. He knew very well that his fancy
mocked him, that it was not indeed a man’s white face gleaming on the
crest of the waves. But none the less he was terrified.
Mr. Richardson was certainly nervous. Not all the brandy he had
drunk--and he had never drunk half as much before in his life--afforded
him the least protection from these ghastly fancies. The step of a
sailor on the deck made him shiver; the thought of his empty state room
was a horror. He tried to think of the woman at whose bidding he had
left behind him Islington and the things that belonged to Islington! He
tried to recall her soft suggestive whispers, the glances which promised
more even than her spoken words, all the perfume and mystery of her
wonderful presence. Her very name was an allurement. Mademoiselle
Violet! How softly it fell from the lips!... God in heaven, what was
that? He started round, trembling in every limb. It was nothing more
than the closing of the smoking room door behind him. Sailors with
buckets and mops were already beginning their nightly tasks. He must go
to his state room! Somehow or other, he must get through the night...
He did it, but he was not a very prepossessing looking object when he
staggered out on deck twelve hours later, into the noon sunshine. The
chair towards which he looked so eagerly was occupied. He scarcely knew
himself whether that little gulp of acute feeling, which shot through
his veins, was of relief or disappointment. While he hesitated, Wingrave
raised his head.
Wingrave did not, as a rule, speak to his fellow passengers. Of
Richardson, he had not hitherto taken the slightest notice. Yet this
morning, of all others, he addressed him.
“I believe,” he said, holding it out towards him, “that this envelope is
yours. I found it under your chair.”
Richardson muttered something inarticulate, and almost snatched it away.
It was the envelope of the fatal letter which Mademoiselle Violet had
written him to Queenstown.
“Sit down, Mr. Richardson, if you are not in a hurry,” Wingrave
continued calmly. “I was hoping that I might see you this morning. Can
you spare me a few minutes?”
Richardson subsided into his chair. His heart was thumping against his
ribs. Wingrave’s voice sounded to him like a far-off thing.
“The handwriting upon that envelope which I have just restored to
you, Mr. Richardson, is well known to me,” Wingrave continued, gazing
steadfastly at the young man whom he was addressing.
“The envelope! The handwriting!” Richardson faltered. “I--it was from--”
An instant’s pause. Wingrave raised his eyebrows.
“Ah!” he said. “We need not mention the lady’s name. That she should be
a correspondent of yours, however, helps me to understand better several
matters which have somewhat puzzled me lately. No! Don’t go, my dear
sir. We must really have this affair straightened out.”
“What affair?” Richardson demanded, with a very weak attempt at bluster.
“I don’t understand you--don’t understand you at all.”
Wingrave leaned a little forward in his chair. His eyebrows were drawn
close together; his gaze was entirely merciless.
“You are not well this morning,” he remarked. “A little headache
perhaps! Won’t you try one of these phenacetine lozenges--excellent
things for a headache, I believe? Warranted, in fact, to cure all bodily
ailments for ever! What! You don’t like the look of them?”
The young man cowered back in his chair. He was gripping the sides
tightly with both hands, and the pallor of a ghastly fear had spread
over his face.
“I--don’t know what you mean,” he faltered. “I haven’t a headache!”
Wingrave looked thoughtfully at the box between his fingers.
“If you took one of these, Mr. Richardson,” he said, “you would never
have another, at any rate. Now, tell me, sir, how you came by them!”
“I know nothing about--” the young man began.
“Don’t lie to me, sir,” Wingrave said sharply. “I have been wondering
what the ---- you meant by hanging around after me, giving the deck
steward five shillings to put your chair next mine, and pretending
to read, while all the time you were trying to overhear any scraps of
conversation between my secretary and myself. I thought you were simply
guilty of impertinent curiosity. This, however, rather alters the look
of affairs.”
“What does?” Richardson asked faintly. “That box ain’t mine.”
“Perhaps not,” Wingrave answered, “but you found it in my state room and
filled it up with its present contents. My servant saw you coming out,
and immediately went in to see what you had stolen, and report you. He
found nothing missing, but he found this box full of lozenges, which he
knows quite well was half full before you went in. Now, what was your
object, Mr. Richardson, in tampering with that box upon my shelf?”
“I have--I have never seen it before,” Richardson declared. “I have
never been in your state room!”
The deck steward was passing. Wingrave summoned him.
“I wish you would ask my servant to step this way,” he said. “You will
find him in my state room.”
The man disappeared through the companion way. Richardson rose to his
feet.
“I’m not going to stay here to be bullied and cross examined,” he
declared. “I’m off!”
“One moment,” Wingrave said. “If you leave me now, I shall ask the
captain to place you under arrest.”
Richardson looked half fearfully around.
“What for?”
“Attempted murder! Very clumsily attempted, but attempted murder none
the less.”
The young man collapsed. Wingrave’s servant came down the deck.
“You sent for me, sir?” he inquired respectfully.
Wingrave pointed towards his companion.
“Was that the person whom you saw coming out of my state room?” he
asked.
“Yes sir,” the man replied at once.
“You could swear to him, if necessary?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“That will do, Morrison.”
The man withdrew. Wingrave turned to his victim. “A few weeks ago,” he
remarked, “I had a visit from the lady whose handwriting is upon that
envelope. I had on the table before me a box of phenacetine lozenges.
She naturally concluded that I was in the habit of using them. That lady
has unfortunately cause to consider me, if not an enemy, something very
much like it. You are in correspondence with her. Only last night you
placed in my box of these lozenges some others, closely resembling them,
but fortunately a little different in shape. Mine were harmless--as a
matter of fact, a single one of yours would kill a man in ten minutes.
Now, Mr. Richardson, what have you to say about all this? Why should I
not send for the captain, and have you locked up till we arrive at New
York?”
Richardson drew his handkerchief across his damp forehead.
“You can’t prove nothing,” he muttered.
“I am afraid that I must differ from you,” Wingrave answered. “We will
see what the captain has to say.”
He leaned forward in his chair, to attract the attention of a seaman.
Richardson interposed.
“All right,” he said thickly. “Suppose I own up! What then?”
“A few questions--nothing terrifying. I am not very frightened of you.”
“Go on!”
“How did you become acquainted with the writer of that letter?”
Richardson hesitated.
“She came to a dancing class at Islington,” he said.
Wingrave’s face was expressionless, but his tone betrayed his
incredulity.
“A dancing class at Islington! Nonsense!”
“Mind,” the young man asserted, “it was her mistress who put her up to
this! It was nothing to do with her. It was for her mistress’s sake.”
“Do you know the mistress?” Wingrave asked.
“No; I don’t know her name even. Never heard it.”
“Your letter, then, was from the maid?”
“Of course, it was,” Richardson answered. “If you recognize the writing,
you must know that yourself.”
Wingrave looked reflectively seaward. The matter was not entirely clear
to him. Yet he was sure that this young man was telling the truth, so
far as he could divine it.
“Well,” he said, “you have made your attempt and failed. If fortune had
favored you, you might at this moment have been a murderer. I might have
warned you, by the bye, that I am an exceedingly hard man to kill.”
Richardson looked uneasily around.
“I ain’t admitting anything, you know,” he said.
“Precisely! Well, what are you going to do now? Are you satisfied with
your first reverse, or are you going to renew the experiment?”
“I’ve had enough,” was the dogged answer. “I’ve been made a fool of. I
can see that. I shall return home by the next steamer. I never ought to
have got mixed up in this.”
“I am inclined to agree with you,” Wingrave remarked calmly. “Do I
understand that if I choose to forget this little episode, you will
return to England by the next steamer?”
“I swear it,” Richardson declared.
“And in the meantime, that you make no further attempt of a similar
nature?”
“Not I!” he answered with emphasis. “I’ve had enough.”
“Then,” Wingrave said, “we need not prolong this conversation. Forgive
my suggesting, Mr. Richardson, that whilst I am on deck, the other side
of the ship should prove more convenient for you!”
The young man rose, and without a word staggered off. Wingrave watched
him through half-closed eyes, until he disappeared.
“It was worth trying,” he said softly to himself. “A very clever woman
that! She looks forward through the years, and she sees the clouds
gathering. It was a little risky, and the means were very crude. But it
was worth trying!”
THE MOTH AND THE CANDLE
“Tomorrow morning,” Aynesworth remarked, “we shall land.”
Wingrave nodded.
“I shall not be sorry,” he said shortly.
Aynesworth fidgeted about. He had something to say, and he found it
difficult. Wingrave gave him no encouragement. He was leaning back
in his steamer chair, with his eyes fixed upon the sky line.
Notwithstanding the incessant companionship of the last six days,
Aynesworth felt that he had not progressed a single step towards
establishing any more intimate relations between his employer and
himself.
“Mrs. Travers is not on deck this afternoon,” he remarked a trifle
awkwardly.
“Indeed!” Wingrave answered. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Aynesworth sat down. There was nothing to be gained by fencing.
“I wanted to talk about her, sir, if I might,” he said.
Wingrave withdrew his eyes from the sea, and looked at his companion in
cold surprise.
“To me?” he asked.
“Yes! I thought, the first few days, that Mrs. Travers was simply a vain
little woman of the world, perfectly capable of taking care of herself,
and heartless enough to flirt all day long, if she chose, without any
risk, so far as she was concerned. I believe I made a mistake!”
“This is most interesting,” Wingrave said calmly, “but why talk to me
about the lady? I fancy that I know as much about her as you do.”
“Very likely; but you may not have realized the same things. Mrs.
Travers is a married woman, with a husband in Boston, and two little
children, of whom, I believe, she is really very fond. She is a foolish,
good-natured little woman, who thinks herself clever because her husband
has permitted her to travel a good deal, and has evidently been rather
fascinated by the latitudinarianism of continental society. She is a
little afraid of being terribly bored when she gets back to Boston, and
she is very sentimental.”
“I had no idea,” Wingrave remarked, “that you had been submitting the
lady and her affairs to the ordeal of your marvelous gift of analysis. I
rather fancied that you took no interest in her at all.”
“I did not,” Aynesworth answered, “until last night.”
“And last night?” he repeated questioningly.
“I found her on deck--crying. She had been tearing up some photographs,
and she talked a little wildly. I talked to her then for a little time.”
“Can’t you be more explicit?” Wingrave asked.
Aynesworth looked him in the face.
“She gave me the impression,” he said, “that she did not intend to
return to her husband.”
Wingrave nodded.
“And what have you to say to me about this?” he asked.
“I have no right to say anything, of course,” Aynesworth answered. “You
might very properly tell me that it is no concern of mine. Mrs. Travers
has already compromised herself, to some extent, with the people on
board who know her and her family. She never leaves your side for a
moment if she can help it, and for the last two or three days she has
almost followed you about. You may possibly derive some amusement from
her society for a short time, but--afterwards!”
“Explain yourself exactly,” Wingrave said.
“Is it necessary?” Aynesworth declared brusquely. “Talk sensibly to
her! Don’t encourage her if she should really be contemplating anything
foolish!”
“Why not?”
“Oh, hang it all!” Aynesworth declared. “I’m not a moralist, but she’s
a decent little woman. Don’t ruin her life for the sake of a little
diversion!”
Wingrave, who had been holding a cigar case in his hand for the last few
minutes, opened it, and calmly selected a cigar.
“Aren’t you a little melodramatic, Aynesworth?” he said.
“Sounds like it, no doubt,” his companion answered, “but after all, hang
it, she’s not a bad little sort, and you wouldn’t care to meet her in
Piccadilly in a couple of years’ time.”
Wingrave turned a little in his chair. There was a slight hardening of
the mouth, a cold gleam in his eyes.
“That,” he remarked, “is precisely where you are wrong. I am afraid you
have forgotten our previous conversations on this or a similar subject.
Disconnect me in your mind at once from all philanthropic notions! I
desire to make no one happy, to assist at no one’s happiness. My own
life has been ruined by a woman. Her sex shall pay me where it can. If
I can obtain from the lady in question a single second’s amusement,
her future is a matter of entire indifference to me. She can play the
repentant wife, or resort to the primeval profession of her sex. I
should not even have the curiosity to inquire which.”
“In that case,” Aynesworth said slowly, “I presume that I need say no
more.”
“Unless it amuses you,” Wingrave answered, “it really is not worth
while.”
“Perhaps,” Aynesworth remarked, “it is as well that I should tell you
this. I shall put the situation before Mrs. Travers exactly as I see
it. I shall do my best to dissuade her from any further or more intimate
intercourse with you.”
“At the risk, of course,” Wingrave said, “of my offering you--this?”
He drew a paper from his pocket book, and held it out. It was the return
half of a steamer ticket.
“Even at that risk,” Aynesworth answered without hesitation.
Wingrave carefully folded the document, and returned it to his pocket.
“I am glad,” he said, “to find that you are so consistent. There is Mrs.
Travers scolding the deck steward. Go and talk to her! You will scarcely
find a better opportunity.”
Aynesworth rose at once. Wingrave in a few moments also left his seat,
but proceeded in the opposite direction. He made his way into the
purser’s room, and carefully closed the door behind him.
Mrs. Travers greeted Aynesworth without enthusiasm. Her eyes were
resting upon the empty place which Wingrave had just vacated.
“Can I get your chair for you, Mrs. Travers,” Aynesworth asked, “or
shall we walk for a few minutes?”
Mrs. Travers hesitated. She looked around, but there was obviously no
escape for her.
“I should like to sit down,” she said. “I am very tired this morning. My
chair is next Mr. Wingrave’s there.”
Aynesworth found her rug and wrapped it around her. She leaned back and
closed her eyes.
“I shall try to sleep,” she said. “I had such a shocking night.”
He understood at once that she was on her guard, and he changed his
tactics.
“First,” he said, “may I ask you a question?”
She opened her eyes wide, and looked at him. She was afraid.
“Not now,” she said hurriedly. “This afternoon.”
“This afternoon I may not have the opportunity,” he answered. “Is your
husband going to meet you at New York, Mrs. Travers?”
“No!”
“Are you going direct to Boston?”
She looked at him steadily. There was a slight flush of color in her
cheeks.
“I find your questions impertinent, Mr. Aynesworth,” she answered.
There was a short silence. Aynesworth hated his task and hated himself.
But most of all, he pitied the woman who sat by his side.
“No!” he said, “they are not impertinent. I am the looker-on, you know,
and I have seen--a good deal. If Wingrave were an ordinary sort of man,
I should never have dared to interfere. If you had been an ordinary sort
of woman, I might not have cared to.”
She half rose in her chair.
“I shall not stay here,” she began, struggling with her rug.
“Do!” he begged. “I am--I want to be your friend, really!”
“You are supposed to be his,” she reminded him.
He shook his head.
“I am his secretary. There is no question of friendship between us. For
the rest, I told him that I should speak to you.”
“You have no right to discuss me at all,” she declared vehemently.
“None whatever,” he admitted. “I have to rely entirely upon your mercy.
This is the truth. People are thrown together a good deal on a voyage
like this. You and Mr. Wingrave have seen a good deal of one another.
You are a very impressionable woman; he is a singularly cold,
unimpressionable man. You have found his personality attractive. You
fancy--other things. Wingrave is not the man you think he is. He is
selfish and entirely without affectionate impulses. The world has
treated him badly, and he has no hesitation in saying that he means to
get some part of his own back again. He does not care for you, he does
not care for anyone. If you should be contemplating anything ridiculous
from a mistaken judgment of his character, it is better that you should
know the truth.”
The anger had gone. She was pale again, and her lips were trembling.
“Men seldom know one another,” she said softly. “You judge from the
surface only.”
“Mine is the critical judgment of one who has studied him intimately,”
Aynesworth said. “Yours is the sentimental hope of one fascinated by
what she does not understand. Wingrave is utterly heartless!”
“That,” she answered steadfastly, “I do not believe.”
“You do not because you will not,” he declared. “I have spoken because
I wish to save you from doing what you would repent of for the rest of
your days. You have the one vanity which is common to all women. You
believe that you can change what, believe me, is unchangeable. To
Wingrave, women are less than playthings. He owes the unhappiness of
his life to one, and he would see the whole of her sex suffer without
emotion. He is impregnable to sentiment. Ask him and I believe that he
would admit it!”
She smiled and regarded him with the mild pity of superior knowledge.
“You do not understand Mr. Wingrave,” she remarked.
Aynesworth sighed. He realized that every word he had spoken had been
wasted upon this pale, pretty woman, who sat with her eyes now turned
seawards, and the smile still lingering upon her lips. Studying her
for a moment, he realized the danger more acutely than ever before. The
fretfulness seemed to have gone from her face, the weary lines from her
mouth. She had the look of a woman who has come into the knowledge of
better things. And it was Wingrave who had done this! Aynesworth for the
first time frankly hated the man. Once, as a boy, he had seen a keeper
take a rabbit from a trap and dash its brains out against a tree. The
incident flashed then into his mind, only the face of the keeper was the
face of Wingrave!
“DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST”
Wingrave and Aynesworth were alone in a private room of the Waldorf
Astoria Hotel. The table at which the former was seated was covered with
letters and papers. A New York directory and an atlas were at his elbow.
“I propose,” Wingrave said, leaning back in his chair, “to give you
some idea of the nature of my business in this country. You will be able
then, I trust, to carry out my instructions more intelligibly.”
Aynesworth nodded.
“I thought,” he said, “that you came here simply to remain in seclusion
for a time.”
“That is one of my reasons,” Wingrave admitted, “but I had a special
purpose in coming to America. During my--enforced seclusion--I made the
acquaintance of a man called Hardwell. He was an Englishman, but he
had lived in America for some years, and had got into trouble over
some company business. We had some conversation, and it is upon his
information that I am now going to act.”
“He is trustworthy?” Aynesworth asked.
“I take the risk,” Wingrave answered coolly. “There is a small copper
mine in Utah called the Royal Hardwell Copper Mine. The shares are
hundred dollar ones, and there are ten thousand of them. They are
scarcely quoted now, as the mine has become utterly discredited.
Hardwell managed this himself with a false report. He meant to have the
company go into liquidation, and then buy it for a very small amount.
As a matter of fact, the mine is good, and could be worked at a large
profit.”
“You have Hardwell’s word for that,” Aynesworth remarked.
“Exactly!” Wingrave remarked. “I am proceeding on the assumption that he
told me the truth. I wish to buy, if possible, the whole of the shares,
and as many more as I can get brokers to sell. The price of the shares
today is two dollars!”
“I presume you will send out an expert to the mine first?” Aynesworth
said.
“I shall do nothing of the sort,” Wingrave answered. “The fact that I
was buying upon information would send the shares up at once. I mean
to buy first, and then go out to the mine. If I have made a mistake, I
shall not be ruined. If Hardwell’s story is true, there will be millions
in it.”
Aynesworth said nothing, but his face expressed a good deal.
“Here are the names of seven respectable brokers,” Wingrave continued,
passing a sheet of paper towards him. “I want you to buy five hundred
shares from each of them. The price may vary a few points. Whatever it
is, pay it. Here are seven signed checks. I shall buy myself as many as
I can without spoiling the market. You had better start out in about a
quarter of an hour and see to this. You have my private ledger?”
“Yes.”
“Open an account to Hardwell in it; a quarter of all the shares I
buy are to be in his name, and a quarter of all the profits I make in
dealing in the shares is to be credited to him.”
“A fairly generous arrangement for Mr. Hardwell,” Aynesworth remarked.
“There is nothing generous about it,” Wingrave answered coldly. “It is
the arrangement I made with him, and to which I propose to adhere. You
understand what I want you to do?”
“Perfectly,” Aynesworth answered; “I still think, however, that much the
wiser course would be to send an expert to the mine first.”
“Indeed!” Wingrave remarked politely. “That is all, I think. I shall
expect to see you at luncheon time. If you are asked questions as to why
you are dealing in these shares to such an extent, you can say that the
friend for whom you are acting desires to boom copper, and is going on
the low price of the metal at the moment. They will think you a fool,
and perhaps may not trouble to conceal their opinion after they have
finished the business. You must endeavor to support the character. I
have no doubt but that you will be successful.”
Aynesworth moved towards the door.
Once more Wingrave called him back. He was leaning a little forward
across the table. His face was very set and cold.
“There is a question which I wish to ask you, Aynesworth,” he said. “It
concerns another matter altogether. Do you know who sent the Marconigram
to Dr. Travers, which brought him to New York to meet his wife?”
“I do not,” Aynesworth answered.
“It was sent by someone on board the ship,” Wingrave continued. “You
have no suspicion as to whom it could have been?”
“None!” Aynesworth answered firmly. “At the same time, I do not mind
telling you this. If I had thought of it, I would have sent it myself.”
Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.
“It is perhaps fortunate for the continuation of our mutual relations
that you did not think of it,” he remarked quietly. “I accept your
denial. I shall expect you back at one o’clock.”
At a few minutes after that hour the two men sat down to luncheon.
Wingrave at that time was the possessor of six thousand shares in the
Royal Hardwell Copper Mine, which had cost him, on an average, two
dollars twenty-five. The news of the dealing, however, had got about,
and although derision was the chief sentiment amongst the brokers, the
price steadily mounted. A dozen telegrams were sent out to the mine, and
on receipt of the replies, the dealing became the joke of the day. The
mine was still deserted, and no fresh inspection had been made.
The price dropped a little. Then Wingrave bought a thousand more by
telephone, and it rose again to four. A few minutes before closing time,
he threw every share of which he was possessed upon the market, and the
next morning Royal Hardwells stood at one dollar seventy-five.
For a week Wingrave pursued the same tactics, and at the end of that
time he had made twenty thousand dollars. The brokers, however, now
understood, or thought they understood, the situation. No one bought for
the rise; they were all sellers. Wingrave at once changed his tactics.
He bought five thousand shares in one block, and sold none. Even then,
the market was only mildly amused. In a fortnight he was the nominal
owner of sixteen thousand shares in a company of which only ten thousand
actually existed. Then he sat still, and the panic began. The shares
in a company which everyone believed to be worthless stood at thirty
dollars, and not a share was offered.
A small pandemonium reigned in Wingrave’s sitting room. The telephone
rang all the time; the place was besieged with brokers. Then Wingrave
showed his hand. He had bought these shares to hold; he did not intend
to sell one. As to the six thousand owed to him beyond the number
issued, he was prepared to consider offers. One broker left him a check
for twenty thousand dollars, another for nearly forty thousand. Wingrave
had no pity. He had gambled and won. He would accept nothing less
than par price. The air in his sitting room grew thick with curses and
tobacco smoke.
Aynesworth began by hating the whole business, but insensibly the
fascination of it crept over him. He grew used to hearing the various
forms of protest, of argument and abuse, which one and all left Wingrave
so unmoved. Sphinx-like he lounged in his chair, and listened to all.
He never condescended to justify his position, he never met argument
by argument. He had the air of being thoroughly bored by the whole
proceedings. But he exacted always his pound of flesh.
On the third afternoon, Aynesworth met on the stairs a young broker,
whom he had come across once or twice during his earlier dealings in the
shares. They had had lunch together, and Aynesworth had taken a fancy to
the boy--he was little more--fresh from Harvard and full of enthusiasm.
He scarcely recognized him for a moment. The fresh color had gone from
his cheeks, his eyes were set in a fixed, wild stare; he seemed suddenly
aged. Aynesworth stopped him.
“Hullo, Nesbitt!” he exclaimed. “What’s wrong?”
The young man would have passed on with a muttered greeting, but
Aynesworth turned round with him, and led the way into one of the
smaller smoking rooms. He called for drinks and repeated his question.
“Your governor has me six hundred Hardwells short,” Nesbitt answered
curtly.
“Six hundred! What does it mean?” Aynesworth asked.
“Sixty thousand dollars, or thereabouts,” the young man answered
despairingly. “His brokers won’t listen to me, and your governor--well,
I’ve just been to see him. I won’t call him names! And we thought that
some fool of an Englishman was burning his fingers with those shares.
I’m not the only one caught, but the others can stand it. I can’t, worse
luck!”
“I’m beastly sorry,” Aynesworth said truthfully. “I wish I could help
you.”
Nesbitt raised his head. A sudden light flashed in his eyes; he spoke
quickly, almost feverishly.
“Say, Aynesworth,” he exclaimed, “do you think you could do anything
with your governor for me? You see--it’s ruin if I have to pay up. I
wouldn’t mind--for myself, but I was married four months ago, and I
can’t bear the thought of going home--and telling her. All the money
we have between us is in my business, and we’ve got no rich friends
or anything of that sort. I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to be
hammered. I’ve been so careful, too! I didn’t want to take this on, but
it seemed such a soft thing! If I could get off with twenty thousand,
I’d keep my head up. I hate to talk like this. I’d go down like a man
if I were alone, but--but--oh! Confound it all--!” he exclaimed with an
ominous break in his tone.
Aynesworth laid his hand upon the boy’s arm.
“Look here,” he said, “I’ll try what I can do with Mr. Wingrave. Wait
here!”
Aynesworth found his employer alone with his broker, who was just
hastening off to keep an appointment. He plunged at once into his
appeal.
“Mr. Wingrave,” he said, “you have just had a young broker named Nesbitt
on.”
Wingrave glanced at a paper by his side.
“Yes,” he said. “Six hundred short! I wish they wouldn’t come to me.”
“I’ve been talking to him downstairs,” Aynesworth said. “This will break
him.”
“Then I ought not to have done business with him at all,” Wingrave said
coolly. “If he cannot find sixty thousand dollars, he has no right to
be in Wall street. I daresay he’ll pay, though! They all plead
poverty--curs!”
“I think Nesbitt’s case is a little different from the others,”
Aynesworth continued. “He is quite young, little more than a boy, and he
has only just started in business. To be hammered would be absolute
ruin for him. He seems such a decent young fellow, and he’s only just
married. He’s in an awful state downstairs. I wish you’d have another
talk with him. I think you’d feel inclined to let him down easy.”
Wingrave smiled coldly.
“My dear Aynesworth,” he said, “you astonish me. I am not interested
in this young man’s future or in his matrimonial arrangements. He has
gambled with me and lost. I presume that he would have taken my money
if I had been the fool they all thought me. As it is, I mean to have
his--down to the last cent!”
“He isn’t like the others,” Aynesworth protested doggedly. “He’s only
a boy--and it seems such jolly hard luck, doesn’t it, only four months
married! New York hasn’t much pity for paupers. He looks mad enough to
blow his brains out. Have him up, sir, and see if you can’t compromise!”
“Fetch him,” Wingrave said curtly.
Aynesworth hurried downstairs. The boy was walking restlessly up and
down the room. The look he turned upon Aynesworth was almost pitiful.
“He’ll see you again,” Aynesworth said hurriedly. “Come along.”
The boy wrung his hand.
“You’re a brick!” he declared.
THE HIDDEN HAND
Wingrave glanced up as they entered. He motioned Nesbitt to a chair by
his side, but the young man remained standing.
“My secretary tells me,” Wingrave said curtly, “that you cannot pay me
what you owe.”
“It’s more than I possess in the world, sir,” Nesbitt answered.
“It is not a large amount,” Wingrave said. “I do not see how you can
carry on business unless you can command such a sum as this.”
Nesbitt moistened his dry lips with his tongue.
“I have only been doing a very small business, sir,” he answered, “but
quite enough to make a living. I don’t speculate as a rule. Hardwells
seemed perfectly safe, or I wouldn’t have touched them. I sold at four.
They are not worth one. I could have bought thousands last week for two
dollars.”
“That is beside the question,” Wingrave answered. “If you do not pay
this, you have cheated me out of my profits for I should have placed the
commission with brokers who could. Why did you wish to see me again?”
“I thought that you might give me time,” Nesbitt answered, raising his
head and looking Wingrave straight in the face. “It seems rather a low
down thing to come begging. I’d rather cut my right hand off than do it
for myself, but I’ve--someone else to think about, and if I’m hammered,
I’m done for. Give me a chance, Mr. Wingrave! I’ll pay you in time.”
“What do you ask for?” Wingrave said.
“I thought that you might give me time,” Nesbitt said, “and I’ll pay you
the rest off with the whole of my profits every year.”
“A most absurd proposal,” Wingrave said coolly. “I will instruct my
brokers to take twenty thousand dollars down, and wait one week for the
balance. That is the best offer I can make you. Good day!”
The young man stood as though he were stunned.
“I--I can’t find it,” he faltered. “I can’t indeed.”
“Your resources are not my affair,” Wingrave said. “I shall instruct my
broker to do as I have said. If the money is not forthcoming, you know
the alternative.”
“You mean to ruin me, then?” Nesbitt said slowly.
“I mean to exact the payment of what is due to me,” Wingrave said
curtly. “If you cannot pay, it seems to me that I am the person to be
pitied--not you. Show Mr. Nesbitt out, Aynesworth.”
Nesbitt turned towards the door. He was very pale, but he walked
steadily. He did not speak another word to Wingrave.
“I’m beastly sorry,” Aynesworth said to him on the stairs. “I wish I
could help you!”
“Thank you,” Nesbitt answered. “No one can help me. I’m through.”
Aynesworth returned to the sitting room. Wingrave had lit a cigarette
and watched him as he arranged some papers.
“Quite a comedy, isn’t it?” he remarked grimly.
“It doesn’t present itself in that light to me,” Aynesworth answered.
Wingrave blew the smoke away from in front of his face. “Ah!” he said,
“I forgot that you were a sentimentalist. I look upon these things
from my own point of view. From yours, I suppose I must seem a very
disagreeable person. I admit frankly that the sufferings of other people
do not affect me in the slightest.”
“I am sorry for you,” Aynesworth said shortly. “If there is going to be
much of this sort of thing, though, I must ask you to relieve me of my
post. I can’t stand it.”
“Whenever you like, my dear fellow,” Wingrave answered. “I think
that you would be very foolish to leave me, though. I must be a most
interesting study.”
“You are--what the devil made you!” Aynesworth muttered.
Wingrave laid down his cigarette.
“I am what my fellows have made me,” he said slowly. “I tasted hell for
a good many years. It has left me, I suppose, with a depraved taste.
Ring up my brokers, Aynesworth! I want to speak to Malcolmson. He had
better come round here.”
The day dragged on. Aynesworth hated it all, and was weary long before
it was half over. Everyone who came was angry, and a good many came whom
Wingrave refused to see. Just before five o’clock, young Nesbitt entered
the room unannounced. Aynesworth started towards him with a little
exclamation. The young man’s evident excitement terrified him, and he
feared a tragedy. Malcolmson, too, half rose to his feet. Wingrave alone
remained unmoved.
Nesbitt walked straight up to the table at which Malcolmson and Wingrave
were sitting. He halted in front of the latter.
“Mr. Wingrave,” he said, “you will give me my receipt for those shares
for fifty-seven thousand six hundred dollars.”
Wingrave turned to a paper by his side, and ran his forefinger down the
list of names.
“Mr. Nesbitt,” he said. “Yes! sixty thousand dollars.”
The young man laid a slip of paper upon the table.
“That is a certified check for the amount,” he said. “Mr. Malcolmson,
please give me my receipt.”
“Ah!” Mr. Wingrave remarked. “I thought that you would find the money.”
Nesbitt bit his lip, but he said nothing till he had the receipt and
had fastened it up in his pocket. Then he turned suddenly round upon
Wingrave.
“Look here!” he said. “You’ve got your money. I don’t owe you a cent.
Now I’m going to tell you what I think of you.”
Wingrave rose slowly to his feet. He was as tall as the boy, long, lean,
and hard. His face expressed neither anger nor excitement, but there was
a slight, dangerous glitter in his deep-set eyes.
“If you mean,” he said, “that you are going to be impertinent, I would
recommend you to change your mind.”
Nesbitt for a moment hesitated. There was something ominous in the cool
courage of the older man. And before he could collect himself, Wingrave
continued:--
“I presume,” he said, “that you chose your own profession. You knew
quite well there was no place in it for men with a sense of the higher
morality. It is a profession of gamblers and thieves. If you’d won,
you’d have thought yourself a smart fellow and pocketed your winnings
fast enough. Now that you’ve lost--don’t whine. You sat down willingly
enough to play the game with me. Don’t call me names because you lost.
This is no place for children. Pocket your defeat, and be more careful
next time.”
Nesbitt was silent for a moment. Wingrave, cool and immovable, dominated
him. He gave a little laugh, and turned towards the door.
“Guess you’re right,” he declared; “we’ll let it go at that.”
Aynesworth followed him from the room.
“I’m awfully glad you’re out of the scrape,” he said.
Nesbitt caught him by the arm.
“Come right along,” he said. “I haven’t had a drink in the daytime for
a year, but we’re going to have a big one now. I say, do you know how I
got that money?”
Aynesworth shook his head.
“On easy terms, I hope.”
They sat down in the American Bar, and a colored waiter in a white linen
suit brought them whisky and Apollinaris in tall tumblers.
“Listen,” Nesbitt said. “My brain is on the reel still. I went back
to my office, and if it hadn’t been for the little girl, I should have
brought a revolver by the way. Old Johnny there waiting to see me, no
end of a swell, Phillson, the uptown lawyer. He went straight for me.
“‘Been dealing in Hardwells?’ he asked.
“I nodded.
“‘Short, eh?’
“‘Six hundred shares,’ I answered. There was no harm in telling him for
the Street knew well enough.
“‘Bad job,’ he said. ‘How much does Wingrave want?’
“‘Shares at par,’ I answered. ‘It comes to close on fifty-seven thousand
six hundred dollars.’
“‘I’m going to find you the money,’ he said.
“Then I can tell you the things in my office began to swim. I’d an idea
somehow that he was there as a friend, but nothing like this. I couldn’t
answer him.
“‘It’s a delicate piece of business,’ he went on. ‘In fact, the fewer
questions you ask the better. All I can say is there’s a chap in Wall
Street got his eye on you. Your old dad once helped him over a much
worse place than this. Anyhow, I’ve a check here for sixty thousand
dollars, and no conditions, only that you don’t talk.’
“‘But when am I to pay it back?’ I gasped.
“‘If my client ever needs it, and you can afford it, he will ask for
it.’ Phillson answered. ‘That’s all.’
“And before I could say another darned word, he was gone, and the check
was there on my desk.”
Aynesworth sipped his whisky and Apollinaris, and lit a cigarette.
“And they say,” he murmured, “that romance does not exist in Wall
Street. You’re a lucky chap, Nesbitt.”
“Lucky! Do you think I don’t realize it? Of course, I know the old
governor had lots of friends on the Street, but he was never in a
big way, and he got hit awfully hard himself before he died. I can’t
understand it anyway.”
“I wouldn’t try,” Aynesworth remarked, laughing. “By the bye, your
friend, whoever he was, must have got to know pretty quickly.”
Nesbitt nodded.
“I thought of that,” he said. “Of course, Phillsons are lawyers for
Malcolmson, Wingrave’s broker, so I daresay it came from him. Say,
Aynesworth, you don’t mind if I ask you something?”
“Not at all,” Aynesworth answered. “What is it?”
“Why the devil do you stop with a man like Wingrave? He doesn’t seem
your sort at all.”
Aynesworth hesitated.
“Wingrave interests me,” he answered. “He has had a curious life, and he
is a man with very strange ideas.”
Nesbitt finished his drink, and rose up.
“Well,” he said, “he’s not a man I should care to be associated with.
Not but what I daresay he was right upstairs. He’s strong, too, and he
must have a nerve. But he’s a brute for all that!”
Nesbitt went his way, and Aynesworth returned upstairs. Wingrave was
alone.
“Have we finished this miserable business?” Aynesworth asked.
“For the present,” Wingrave answered. “Mr. Malcolmson will supply
you with a copy of the accounts. See that Hardwell is credited with a
quarter share of the profits. Our dealings are over for the present.
Be prepared to start on Saturday for the West. We are going to look for
those bears.”
“But the mine?” Aynesworth exclaimed. “It belongs to you now. Aren’t you
going out to examine it?”
Wingrave shook his head.
“No,” he said, “I know nothing about mines. My visit could not teach me
anything one way or the other. I have sent a commission of experts. I am
tired of cities and money-making. I want a change.”
Aynesworth looked at him suddenly. The weariness was there indeed--was
it his fancy, or was it something more than weariness which shone out of
the dark, tired eyes?