They also serve who only stand and wait.
"Come down to my club and have a cigar!"
The Count stood under a yellow lamp enveloped in his fur-lined coat,
looking with heavy, deep-browed eyes at his young companion.
Fitz paused. The Count had been kind to Eve. Fitz had noticed his
manner towards the girl. He liked Cipriani de Lloseta--as many
did--without knowing why.
"Thanks," he said, "I should like to."
The Count's club was a small and a very select one. It was a club with
a literary tendency. The porter who took charge of their coats had the
air of a person who read the heavier monthly reviews. He looked upon
Fitz, as a man of outdoor tastes, with some misgiving.
The Count led the way up to the luxurious silent smoking-room, where a
few foreign novels and a host of newspapers littered the tables.
As they entered the room a man looked up from his paper with some
interest. He was a peculiar-looking man, with a keen face, streaked by
suffering--a face that was always ready to wince. This man was a
humorist, but he looked as if his own life had been a tragedy. He
continued to look at De Lloseta and Fitz with a quiet scrutiny which
was somewhat remarkable. It suggested the scrutiny of a woman who is
taking notes of another's dress.
More particularly perhaps he watched the Count, and the keen eyes had a
reflective look, as if they were handing that which they saw, back to
the brain behind them for purpose of storage.
The Count met his eyes and nodded gravely. With a little nod and a
sudden pleasant smile the other returned to the perusal of his evening
paper.
Cipriani de Lloseta drew forward a deep chair, and with a courteous
gesture invited Fitz to be seated. He took a similar chair himself,
and then leant forward, cigar-case in hand.
"You know Mallorca," he said.
Fitz took a cigar.
"Yes," he answered, turning and looking into the Count's face with a
certain honest interest. He was thinking of what Eve had said about
this man. "Yes--I know Mallorca."
The Count struck a match and lighted his cigar with the air of a
connoisseur.
"I am always glad," he said conversationally, "to meet any one who
knows Mallorca. It--was my home. Perhaps you knew?"
And through the blue smoke the quick dark eyes flashed a glance.
"I saw your name--on the map," returned Fitz.
The Count gave a little Spanish deprecatory nod and wave of the hand,
indicating that it was no fault of his that an historical name should
have attached itself to him.
"Do you take whisky--and soda?" inquired the Count.
"Thanks."
De Lloseta called the waiter and gave the order with a slight touch of
imperiousness which was one of the few attributes that stamped him as a
Spaniard. The feudal taint was still running in his veins.
"Tell me," he went on, turning to Fitz again, "what you know of the
island--what parts of it--and what you did there."
In some ways Fitz was rather a simple person.
"Oh!" he answered unconsciously. "I went to D'Erraha mostly. I used
to sail across from Ciudadela to Soller--along the coast, you know."
"And from Soller?"
"From Soller I rode by the Valdemosa road, and then across the mountain
and through that narrow valley up to the Val d'Erraha."
The Count was smoking thoughtfully.
"And you were happy there?" he said.
Fitz looked pensively into his long tumbler.
"Yes."
"I also," said the Count. Then he seemed to remember his duties as
host. "Is that cigar all right?" he asked.
"I think it is the best I have ever smoked," replied Fitz quietly; and
the Count smiled.
The two men sat there in a long silence--each thinking his own
thoughts. They were just the sort of men to do it. No other but
Cipriani de Lloseta would have sat with that perfect composure, wrapt
in an impenetrable Spanish silence, providing with grave dignity such a
very poor evening's entertainment. And Fitz seemed quite content. He
leant back, gravely smoking the good cigar. There seemed to be some
point of complete sympathy between them--possibly the little sunlit
island of the Mediterranean where they had both been happy.
The poem of a man's life is very deeply hidden, and civilisation is the
covert. The immediate outcome of civilisation is reserve and--nous
voila. Are we not increasing our educational facilities with a blind
insistence day by day? One wonders what three generations of cheap
education will do for the world. Already a middle-aged man can note
the slackening of the human tie. Railway directors, and other persons
whose pockets benefit by the advance of civilisation, talk a vast deal
of rubbish about bringing together the peoples of the world. You can
connect them, but you cannot bring them together. Moreover, a
connection is sometimes a point of divergence. In human affairs it is
more often so than otherwise.
True, a generation lay between these two men, but it was not that that
tied their tongues. It was partially the fact that Cipriani de Lloseta
had moved with the times--had learnt, perhaps, too well, to acquire
that reserve which is daily becoming more noticeable among men.
Nevertheless, it was he who spoke first.
"I asked you to come and smoke a cigar with me for a purpose," he said.
Fitz nodded.
"Yes," he answered; "I thought so."
A shadowy smile acknowledged this simple statement of a simple fact.
The Count leant forward on his seat, resting his somewhat hollow cheek
on his hand and his elbow on the arm of his chair.
"Some years ago," he said, "before you were born, I passed through
a--well, a bad time. One of those times, I take it, when a man finds
out the difference between a friend and an acquaintance. The
circumstances would not interest you. They are essentially personal.
Some men, and many women--I am not cynical, that is the last resource
of one who has himself to blame, I am merely stating a fact--many women
turned their backs upon me. There was, however, one man--an
Englishman--who held to me with that unflinching courage of his own
opinion which makes an Englishman what he is. I accepted nothing from
him at the time. In fact, he could do nothing for me. I think he
understood. An Englishman and a Spaniard have much in common. He is
dead now. It was Challoner."
Fitz nodded. The Count changed his position slightly.
"I want you to use what influence you have with Miss Challoner. She is
proud."
Fitz made no attempt to disclaim the implied influence.
"Yes," he said; "I know."
And he looked at the end of his cigar with a deep interest. The man
who loves a proud woman loves her pride. He is also a happy man,
because her pride will kill her vanity, and it is a woman's vanity that
spoils a husband's love.
"It would be a great satisfaction to me," the Count went on, "to pay
off in some small degree the debt of gratitude which I never even
acknowledged to Challoner. Eve"--he paused, and repeated the name with
a certain sense of enjoyment--"Eve is not fully equipped with worldly
wisdom. Thank God, for I hate a worldly-wise woman. She is hardly old
enough or--plain enough to fight her own battles."
Fitz gave a sudden, sharp sigh, which made the Count pause for a moment.
"You also have received kindness from Challoner," went on the elder
man, after a short silence.
Fitz nodded comprehensively.
"And, like myself," the Count continued, rather quickly, "you are
naturally interested in his daughter, and sorry for her in her great
change of circumstances. Now, it has occurred to me that together we
might do something towards helping her. You know her better than I do.
I only know that she is proud."
"Very much to her credit," put in Fitz, looking fixedly at his own
boots.
"Entirely so. And I respect her for it. Unfortunately, assistance
could hardly come from you--a young man. Whereas, I might be her
grandfather."
He looked up with a smile--keen, black-haired, lithe of frame--a young
man in appearance.
"We might help each other," he added, "you and I, quite alone. Captain
Bontnor is a very worthy old fellow, but--" and he shrugged his
shoulders. "We cannot leave her to the wayward charity of a capricious
woman!" he added, with sudden bluntness.
He looked rather wonderingly at Fitz, who did not respond to this
suggestion, as he had expected him to do. The coalition seemed so
natural and so eminently practical, and yet the sailor sat coldly
listening to each proposition as it fell from his companion's lips,
weighing it, sifting it with a judicial, indifferent apathy.
The Count de Lloseta threw himself back in his chair, and awaited, with
all the gravity of his race, the pleasure of his companion. At length
Fitz spoke, rather deliberately.
"I think," he said, "you mistake the footing upon which I stand with
respect to Miss Challoner. I shall be most happy to do all in my
power; but I tell you frankly that it does not amount to much. I am
indebted to her indirectly for some very pleasant visits to D'Erraha;
her father was very kind to me. Hardly sufficient to warrant anything
that would look like interference on my part."
The Count was too discreet a man to press the point any further.
"All this unfortunate difficulty would have been easily averted had I
been less stupid. I shall never cease to regret it."
He spoke conversationally, flicking the end of his cigar neatly into
the fire, and without looking at Fitz.
"I never foresaw the natural tendency of lawyers to complicate the
affairs of life. My man in Palma was unfortunately zealous."
Fitz nodded.
"Yes," he said, "I was there."
Cipriani de Lloseta glanced at him sharply.
"I am glad of that," he said. "It was very stupid of me. I ought to
have telegraphed to him to hold his tongue."
"But Miss Challoner could not have accepted the Val d'Erraha as a
present?"
"Oh yes, she could, if she had not known. These little things are only
a matter of sentiment."
Fitz leant forward, looking into the Count's face without attempting to
conceal his surprise.
"Do you mean to say you would have given it to her?" he asked.
"No; I should have paid it to her in settlement of a debt which I owed
to her father."
The Count moved rather uneasily in his chair. His eyes fell before his
companion's steady gaze.
"Another matter of sentiment," suggested Fitz.
De Lloseta shrugged his shoulders.
"If you will."
They lapsed into silence again. The Count was puzzled by Fitz, as Fitz
in his turn had been puzzled earlier in the evening by Eve. It was
merely the old story of woman the incomprehensible, and man the
superior--the lord of the universe--puzzled, completely mystified, made
supremely miserable or quite happy by her caprice of a moment.
It was a small thing that stood between these two men, preventing them
from frankly co-operating in the scheme which both had at heart. It
was nothing but the tone of a girl's voice, the studied silence of a
girl's eyes, which had once been eloquent.
It was getting late. A discreet clock on the mantelpiece declared the
hour of midnight in deliberate cathedral chime. Fitz looked up, but he
did not move. He liked Cipriani de Lloseta. He had been prepared to
do so, and now he had gone further than he had intended. He wanted him
to go on talking about Eve, for he thirsted in his dumbly enduring way
for more details of her life. But he would not revert to the subject.
Rather than that he would go on enduring.
While they were sitting thus in silence, the only other occupant of the
room--the man with the pain-drawn face--rose from his seat, helping his
legs with unsteady hands upon either arm of the chair. He threw the
paper down carelessly on the table, and came across the room towards
the Count de Lloseta. He was a surprisingly tall man when he stood up;
for in his chair he seemed to sink into himself. His hair was
grey--rather long and straggly--his eyes hazel, looking through
spectacles wildly. His cheeks were very hollow, his chin square and
bony. Here was a man of keen nerves and quick to suffer.
"Well," he said to Lloseta, "I haven't seen you for some time."
"I've been away."
The tall man looked down at him with the singular scrutiny already
mentioned.
"Spain?"
"Spain."
He turned away with a little nod, but stopped before he had gone many
paces.
"And when are you going to write those sketches of Spanish life?" he
asked, with a cheery society laugh, which sounded rather incongruous.
"Never, I suppose. Well, the loss is mine. Good-night, Lloseta."
He went away without looking back.
"Do you know who that is?" the Count asked Fitz when the door was
closed.
Fitz had risen, with his eye on the clock.
"No. But I seem to know his face."
The Count looked up with a smile.
"You ought to. That was John Craik."