A week later Doris Lancaster was sitting alone by the drawing-room fire,
a book on her lap. It was not so often that she had an evening to spend
in quietness; one of her mother's great aims in life was to have
"something on" at least six nights out of the seven. At the present
moment Mrs. Lancaster was in her boudoir, accepting and sending out
invitations for comparatively distant dates.
Sweetly the clock on the mantel struck nine, and Doris told herself that
now no one was likely to call. She lay back in the chair, a graceful
figure in pale green, stretched her pretty ankles to the glow, and sought
to escape certain gnawing thoughts in the pages of a novel which had won
from the reviewers such adjectives as "entrancing," "compelling,"
"intensely interesting."
And just then a servant announced "Mr. France."
Well, after all, she was not sorry to see Mr. France--or Teddy, as she
had called him for a good many years. He was a frequent visitor,
despite the fact that Mrs. Lancaster suffered him only because
everybody else seemed to like him. He was fair, tall, and lanky, and so
pleasant of countenance that it would not be worth while enumerating
his defective features.
Mrs. Lancaster disapproved of him for three reasons: first, he had only
two hundred a year plus a pittance from the insurance company that put
up, as he expressed it, with his services; second, he had been Alan
Craig's close friend; third, she suspected that he saw through her
affectations. That he had been openly in love with Doris since the days
of pigtails and short frocks troubled her not at all: he was too
hopelessly ineligible. And it had not troubled Doris for a long time--not
since Alan Craig had gone away. Since then Teddy had seemed to become
more of a friend and less of an admirer than ever.
"This is great luck," he remarked, seating himself in the opposite easy
chair with an enforced extension of immaculate pumps and silken sox.
(People often wondered how Teddy "did it" on the money.) "It's so seldom
one can find you alone nowadays. Well, how's things generally?"
"Pretty much the same, Teddy," she answered, with the smile that hurt
him. "Mother's busy as usual--"
"Out?"
"No; writing, I think."
"How's your father? I haven't seen him for an age."
"I wish he were fitter. He has had to stay in bed for a few days--he came
down for dinner to-night for the first time. Last week he had three
nights and a day in the train--with Mr. Bullard."
"Oh, I say! Bad enough without Bullard, but--"
"Oh, I'm so glad," she cried softly. "You don't like Mr. Bullard, Teddy.
I'm beginning to abhor the man."
"Keep on abhorring!"
Swiftly she looked at him. "You know something?"
He shook his head. "Not a thing, Doris. Merely my instinctive dislike.
I'm a sort of bow-wow, you know. Still, your mother approves of him, and
he is your father's friend."
"I sometimes feel it has been an unlucky friendship for father," she
said in a low voice, "and yet I have nothing to go on. I suppose I'm
horribly unjust, but I'd give anything to learn something positive
against the man."
"And yet," said the young man slowly and heavily, "sooner or later Mr.
Francis Bullard will ask you to marry him."
Doris threw up her head. "I'd sooner marry--" She paused.
"Me, for instance?"
"Don't be absurd, Teddy." She flushed slightly.
"Absurd, but serious," he quietly returned. "Doris, I came to-night to
ask you. It wouldn't keep any longer. One moment, please. Two things
happened yesterday. My father won the big law suit that has been our
nightmare for years; and I got a move-up in the office. Never was more
shocked in all my life. Mighty little to offer you, Doris--"
"Oh, don't speak about it."
"Well, I'll cut that bit out; but please let me finish. You know I've
been in love with you for ages, though I did my best to get it under when
a better man appeared; and I think you'll admit I haven't worried you
much since. And I'm perfectly aware that you can't give me what you gave
him.... Still, Doris, I'm not a bad fellow, and you could make me a finer
one, and--well, I'd hope not to bore you with my devotion and all that,
but, of course, you'd have to take that risk as well as your parents'
disapproval. Perhaps I ought to have waited longer, dear, but I didn't
imagine my chances would be any greater a year hence, and it has seemed
to me lately that--that you needed some one who would care for you before
and above everything else.... Doris, remembering how long I've loved you,
can't you trust me and take me for--for want of a better?"
His words had moved her, and moments passed before she could answer.
"Dear Teddy, it is true that I want to be cared for--no need to deny
it to you--but it wouldn't be right to take all you could give and
give nothing."
"You would give much without knowing it," he pleaded. "And you were not
made to be sorry all your life."
"I'm not going to make you sorry, Teddy."
"You're doing it as hard as you can!"
She smiled in spite of herself. "No," she said presently, "I've no
intention of shunning all joys and abandoning all hopes, but I can't do
what you ask, Teddy. I will tell you just one thing that you may not
know. Almost at the last moment before Alan went away I promised him I
would wait."
Teddy cleared his throat. "I didn't know, though I may have guessed....
But I do know, Doris--I felt it on my way here to-night--that Alan, if he
could look into my heart now, would give me his blessing. I'm not asking
to fill his place, you know."
"Oh, you make it very hard for me! You--you've been such a
faithful friend."
"Give in, Doris, give in to me!" He rose and stood looking down on her
bowed head. "Dear, I'd bring Alan back to you if I could. Don't you
believe that?"
"Oh, yes!"
"With all your heart?"
"With all my heart, Teddy."
"Then--" He stopped and took her hand. "Doris!" ...
He straightened up sharply. The door was opening. The servant announced--
"Mr. Bullard."
It was an awkward enough situation, but neither the girl nor the young
man was heavy-witted. Doris rose slowly, languidly, it seemed, and though
aware that her eyes must betray her, turned and greeted Bullard in cool,
even tones. The two men exchanged perfunctory nods.
"Thanks, but I won't sit down," said Bullard. "I called to enquire for
your father, and to see him, if at all possible. Is he feeling better
to-night?"
"I think he is in the library at present," she replied, "but he has not
yet got over his fatigue."
"Yes," he replied sympathetically, "he and I had too much trailing last
week, but business must not be shirked, Miss Doris."
She was a little startled by hearing her name from his lips; until now he
had addressed her with full formality. She was not to know that the sight
of her eyes when she had turned to meet him had informed him of something
unlooked for, and had put a period to his long-lived irresolution
regarding her. Francis Bullard, in fact, had suddenly realised that if he
wished to secure a wife in the only woman of whom he had ever thought
twice in that respect, he would have to act promptly, not to say firmly.
Accordingly, as though forgetting the stated purpose of his visit, he
dropped into a chair and chatted entertainingly enough until Mrs.
Lancaster made her appearance.
She offered to conduct him to her husband, and he allowed her to do so as
far as the hall. There he halted and said--
"You will do me a great favour by getting rid of Mr. France and remaining
with Miss Doris in the drawing-room until I return." In response to her
look of enquiry he added--"Then you will do me a further favour by
retiring."
"Really, Mr. Bullard, I must ask you to explain!"
"Your daughter is not going to marry a title--to begin with, at any
rate." He smiled and passed on.
She overtook him. "Have you something unpleasant to say to my husband?"
she demanded.
"I am going to return him some money he thought lost."
"How much?"
"Five hundred pounds."
"Is that all?"
"Patience!" he answered, and made his escape.
Lancaster, pencil in hand, was seated at his writing-table. On his
retiral from his business in South Africa he had indulged dreams of a
quiet room at home and the peaceful companionship of books, and he had
got the length of providing the nucleus of a library. But his income,
though large, had never been equal to the varied demands upon it, and the
room had become simply a chamber wherein he escaped the irritations of
society only to suffer the torments of secret anxieties, building up
futile schemes for his salvation, striving to extract hope from vain
calculations.
At the entrance of Bullard he lifted his head with a start, and into
his eyes came the question--"What new terror are you going to spring
upon me now?"
"Glad to see you are better," Bullard remarked, drawing a chair to the
table and seating himself. "I didn't intend to trouble you to-night, but
something arrived by the late afternoon delivery which I thought would
interest you. No need to be nervy. It's nothing to upset you." He threw a
bundle of notes and a registered envelope on the table. "Your five
hundred comes back to you, after all."
Lancaster eyed the notes, then took up the envelope and drew out a sheet
of paper of poor quality, bearing a few lines in a school-boyish hand.
"GREY HOUSE, LOCH LONG.
"3/11/13.
"_Sir,_--Herewith the sum of £990 which I accepted
from you the other night owing to a misunderstanding.
Without apologies for doubting
your honesty--Yours truly,
"J. CAW."
Lancaster drew a long breath. "So he was fooling us, Bullard."
"Not at all! Some one was fooling him!--only he has managed--I'm
convinced of that--to regain possession of the green box. As I impressed
on you just after the fiasco, there was some one in one of the presses,
and now it is evident that Caw captured that person after we had left.
Unfortunately, it means that a fourth person has knowledge of the
diamonds. Still, my friend, we have another chance."
"What? You don't mean to say--"
"Certainly, we shall try again,--we must! And the sooner the better! That
is, unless we find we can settle amicably with the invaluable Caw. His
note suggests that possibility, doesn't it? His impertinence gives me
encouragement."
"It is the letter," said Lancaster heavily, "of an honest man--"
"Up to the tune of a thousand pounds. A wise man, if you like, who
foresaw the possibility of the notes being stopped."
"You would not have dared do that."
"I had already written off my share as a bad debt," said Bullard, with a
smile, "but Caw was not to know that."
The older man rested his head upon his hand. "You cannot be certain," he
said slowly, "that the green box is still in the house."
"True. Otherwise I'd be tempted to produce Alan Craig's will and finish
the business. All the nonsense about the clock and the postponed division
could not prevent our taking possession of the house and everything in
it. Why, even that absurdly costly clock would be ours.... And yet
there's always the risk of--"
"Bullard, let us produce the will and dare the risk of losing the
diamonds. From the bottom of my heart I tell you, I will be content
with £25,000."
"So you think at the moment. But apart from your own feelings--not to
mention mine--what about Mrs. Lancaster's?"
"I--I have already told her we cannot go on living as we are doing."
"Yes? And her reply?"
Lancaster was mute.
"Have you, by any chance, mentioned to her the matter of
the!--a--debt to the--"
"For God's sake, don't torture!"
"I have no wish to do that," said Bullard quietly. "Let us change the
subject, which is not really urgent at present, for one which, I trust,
may be less disagreeable to you."
The host wiped his forehead. "What is it about?" he asked wearily.
"Your daughter."