Five hours after the despatch of that telegram Captain De Stancy was
rattling along the coast railway of the Riviera from Genoa to Nice.
He was returning to England by way of Marseilles; but before turning
northwards he had engaged to perform on Miss Power’s account a peculiar
and somewhat disagreeable duty. This was to place in Somerset’s hands a
hundred and twenty-five napoleons which had been demanded from her by a
message in Somerset’s name. The money was in his pocket--all in gold,
in a canvas bag, tied up by Paula’s own hands, which he had observed to
tremble as she tied it.
As he leaned in the corner of the carriage he was thinking over the
events of the morning which had culminated in that liberal response. At
ten o’clock, before he had gone out from the hotel where he had taken up
his quarters, which was not the same as the one patronized by Paula
and her friends, he had been summoned to her presence in a manner
so unexpected as to imply that something serious was in question.
On entering her room he had been struck by the absence of that
saucy independence usually apparent in her bearing towards him,
notwithstanding the persistency with which he had hovered near her for
the previous month, and gradually, by the position of his sister, and
the favour of Paula’s uncle in intercepting one of Somerset’s letters
and several of his telegrams, established himself as an intimate member
of the travelling party. His entry, however, this time as always,
had had the effect of a tonic, and it was quite with her customary
self-possession that she had told him of the object of her message.
‘You think of returning to Nice this afternoon?’ she inquired.
De Stancy informed her that such was his intention, and asked if he
could do anything for her there.
Then, he remembered, she had hesitated. ‘I have received a telegram,’
she said at length; and so she allowed to escape her bit by bit the
information that her architect, whose name she seemed reluctant to
utter, had travelled from England to Nice that week, partly to consult
her, partly for a holiday trip; that he had gone on to Monte Carlo, had
there lost his money and got into difficulties, and had appealed to her
to help him out of them by the immediate advance of some ready cash. It
was a sad case, an unexpected case, she murmured, with her eyes fixed on
the window. Indeed she could not comprehend it.
To De Stancy there appeared nothing so very extraordinary in Somerset’s
apparent fiasco, except in so far as that he should have applied to
Paula for relief from his distresses instead of elsewhere. It was a
self-humiliation which a lover would have avoided at all costs, he
thought. Yet after a momentary reflection on his theory of Somerset’s
character, it seemed sufficiently natural that he should lean
persistently on Paula, if only with a view of keeping himself linked to
her memory, without thinking too profoundly of his own dignity. That
the esteem in which she had held Somerset up to that hour suffered
a tremendous blow by his apparent scrape was clearly visible in her,
reticent as she was; and De Stancy, while pitying Somerset, thanked him
in his mind for having gratuitously given a rival an advantage which
that rival’s attentions had never been able to gain of themselves.
After a little further conversation she had said: ‘Since you are to be
my messenger, I must tell you that I have decided to send the hundred
pounds asked for, and you will please to deliver them into no hands but
his own.’ A curious little blush crept over her sobered face--perhaps it
was a blush of shame at the conduct of the young man in whom she had
of late been suspiciously interested--as she added, ‘He will be on the
Pont-Neuf at four this afternoon and again at eleven tomorrow. Can you
meet him there?’
‘Certainly,’ De Stancy replied.
She then asked him, rather anxiously, how he could account for Mr.
Somerset knowing that he, Captain De Stancy, was about to return to
Nice?
De Stancy informed her that he left word at the hotel of his intention
to return, which was quite true; moreover, there did not lurk in his
mind at the moment of speaking the faintest suspicion that Somerset had
seen Dare.
She then tied the bag and handed it to him, leaving him with a serene
and impenetrable bearing, which he hoped for his own sake meant an
acquired indifference to Somerset and his fortunes. Her sending the
architect a sum of money which she could easily spare might be set
down to natural generosity towards a man with whom she was artistically
co-operating for the improvement of her home.
She came back to him again for a moment. ‘Could you possibly get there
before four this afternoon?’ she asked, and he informed her that he
could just do so by leaving almost at once, which he was very willing
to do, though by so forestalling his time he would lose the projected
morning with her and the rest at the Palazzo Doria.
‘I may tell you that I shall not go to the Palazzo Doria either, if
it is any consolation to you to know it,’ was her reply. ‘I shall sit
indoors and think of you on your journey.’
The answer admitted of two translations, and conjectures thereon filled
the gallant soldier’s mind during the greater part of the journey. He
arrived at the hotel they had all stayed at in succession about six
hours after Somerset had left it for a little excursion to San Remo and
its neighbourhood, as a means of passing a few days till Paula should
write again to inquire why he had not come on. De Stancy saw no one he
knew, and in obedience to Paula’s commands he promptly set off on foot
for the Pont-Neuf.
Though opposed to the architect as a lover, De Stancy felt for him as
a poor devil in need of money, having had experiences of that sort
himself, and he was really anxious that the needful supply entrusted
to him should reach Somerset’s hands. He was on the bridge five minutes
before the hour, and when the clock struck a hand was laid on his
shoulder: turning he beheld Dare.
Knowing that the youth was loitering somewhere along the coast, for they
had frequently met together on De Stancy’s previous visit, the latter
merely said, ‘Don’t bother me for the present, Willy, I have an
engagement. You can see me at the hotel this evening.’
‘When you have given me the hundred pounds I will fly like a rocket,
captain,’ said the young gentleman. ‘I keep the appointment instead of
the other man.’
De Stancy looked hard at him. ‘How--do you know about this?’ he asked
breathlessly.
‘I have seen him.’
De Stancy took the young man by the two shoulders and gazed into his
eyes. The scrutiny seemed not altogether to remove the suspicion which
had suddenly started up in his mind. ‘My soul,’ he said, dropping his
arms, ‘can this be true?’
‘What?’
‘You know.’
Dare shrugged his shoulders; ‘Are you going to hand over the money or
no?’ he said.
‘I am going to make inquiries,’ said De Stancy, walking away with a
vehement tread.
‘Captain, you are without natural affection,’ said Dare, walking by his
side, in a tone which showed his fear that he had over-estimated that
emotion. ‘See what I have done for you. You have been my constant care
and anxiety for I can’t tell how long. I have stayed awake at night
thinking how I might best give you a good start in the world by
arranging this judicious marriage, when you have been sleeping as sound
as a top with no cares upon your mind at all, and now I have got into
a scrape--as the most thoughtful of us may sometimes--you go to make
inquiries.’
‘I have promised the lady to whom this money belongs--whose generosity
has been shamefully abused in some way--that I will deliver it into no
hands but those of one man, and he has not yet appeared. I therefore go
to find him.’
Dare laid his hand upon De Stancy’s arm. ‘Captain, we are both warm, and
punctilious on points of honour; this will come to a split between us if
we don’t mind. So, not to bring matters to a crisis, lend me ten pounds
here to enable me to get home, and I’ll disappear.’
In a state bordering on distraction, eager to get the young man out
of his sight before worse revelations should rise up between them, De
Stancy without pausing in his walk gave him the sum demanded. He soon
reached the post-office, where he inquired if a Mr. Somerset had left
any directions for forwarding letters.
It was just what Somerset had done. De Stancy was told that Mr. Somerset
had commanded that any letters should be sent on to him at the Hotel
Victoria, San Remo.
It was now evident that the scheme of getting money from Paula was
either of Dare’s invention, or that Somerset, ashamed of his first
impulse, had abandoned it as speedily as it had been formed. De Stancy
turned and went out. Dare, in keeping with his promise, had vanished.
Captain De Stancy resolved to do nothing in the case till further events
should enlighten him, beyond sending a line to Miss Power to inform her
that Somerset had not appeared, and that he therefore retained the money
for further instructions.