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_The Missionary_
BY
George Griffith
AUTHOR OF
"_The Angel of the Revolution_,"
"_The Rose of Judah_,"
"_The Destined Maid_,"
"_The Justice of Revenge_,"
"_Brothers of the Chain_,"
"_Captain Ishmael_," _etc., etc._
_London_
F. V. WHITE & CO., LTD.
14, Bedford Street, Strand, W.C.
1902
PRINTED BY KELLY'S DIRECTORIES LIMITED,
LONDON AND KINGSTON.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PROLOGUE 1
CHAPTER I. 4
CHAPTER II. 22
CHAPTER III. 31
CHAPTER IV. 48
CHAPTER V. 67
CHAPTER VI. 86
CHAPTER VII. 96
CHAPTER VIII. 106
CHAPTER IX. 115
CHAPTER X. 125
CHAPTER XI. 134
CHAPTER XII. 144
CHAPTER XIII. 156
CHAPTER XIV. 167
CHAPTER XV. 177
CHAPTER XVI. 188
CHAPTER XVII. 202
CHAPTER XVIII. 214
CHAPTER XIX. 222
CHAPTER XX. 230
CHAPTER XXI. 238
CHAPTER XXII. 249
CHAPTER XXIII. 260
CHAPTER XXIV. 276
CHAPTER XXV. 289
EPILOGUE. 302
THE MISSIONARY.
PROLOGUE.
"Oh--Eny!"
"Well, you needn't be angry, Vane. I kissed _you_ this morning, you
know."
"That's no reason why you should kiss that chap, too! You're _my_
sweetheart."
"Is she? Well, she won't be much longer, because I'm going to have her."
"Are you? Shut up, or I'll punch your head."
"You can't--and, anyhow, you daren't."
Smack!
It was a good swinging blow with the open hand across the cheek, and it
left a vivid flush behind it on the somewhat sallow skin.
"Oh, if you're going to fight I shall go away, and I shan't be friends
with either of you."
But as the two lads closed, the blue-eyed, golden-haired little beauty
only shrank back a little nearer to the after-wheelhouse of the homeward
bound P. and O. liner whose deck was the scene of this first act of the
tragedy of three lives. A bright flush came into her cheeks, and a new
light began to dance in her eyes as the first look of fright died out of
them. The breath came and went more quickly between the half-opened
lips with a low sibilant sound. They were pretty, well-cut lips, the
upper short and exquisitely curved, and the lower full with the promise
of a sensuous maturity.
She was only seven, but she was woman enough already to know that these
two lads were fighting for _her_--for the favour of her smiles and the
right to her kisses--and so she stayed.
She had heard in India how the tigers fought for their mates, and, with
the precocity of the Anglo-Indian child, she recognised now the likeness
between tigers and men--and boys. She was being fought for. These two
lads, albeit they had neither of them seen their eleventh birthday, were
using all their strength against each other, hammering each other's
faces with their fists, wrestling and writhing, now upstanding and now
on the deck at her feet, were not unlike the tigers she had heard her
father tell her mother about.
She saw the hatred in their eyes, red and swollen by the impact of
well-planted blows. She watched the gleam of their teeth between their
cut and bleeding lips. They hated each other because they loved her--or,
in their boyish way, most firmly believed they did. Their lips were cut
and bleeding because she had kissed them.
The fascination of the fight grew upon her. The hot young blood began to
dance in her veins. She found herself encouraging now one and then the
other--always the one who was getting the worst of it for the time
being--and when at last the younger and slighter but more wiry and
active of them, the one who had caught the other kissing her, took
adroit advantage of a roll of the ship and pitched his antagonist
backwards so heavily against the wheelhouse that he dropped
half-stunned to the deck, she looked proudly at the panting, bleeding
victor, and gasped:
"Oh, Vane, I'm so glad you've won. You haven't quite killed him, have
you? I suppose the captain would hang you if you did. I'm _so_ sorry it
was all about me. I'll never let any one else but you kiss me again.
Really I won't. You may kiss me now if you like. Take my handkerchief.
Oh, I don't mind the cuts. You did it for me. There! It was brave of
you, for he's bigger than you. Poor Reggie, let's help him up. I suppose
you'll both have to go to the doctor."
"We shall both get a jolly good licking more likely. Still, I don't care
as long as you won't let him kiss you again."
"No, Vane, indeed I won't, nor anyone else for ever and ever if you'll
only forgive me this time."
And then, for the first time since the fight began, her big bright blue
eyes filled and grew dim with tears.
CHAPTER I.
It was the evening of Boat-race day, and as usual that province of
Vanity Fair whose centre is Piccadilly Circus was more or less
completely given over to joyously boisterous troops of undergraduates
and 'Varsity men of all academic ranks whom the great event of the year
had brought together from all parts of the kingdom, and even from lands
beyond the sea.
The mild saturnalia which London annually permits in honour of the
historic struggle between the rival blues was at its height. The music
halls were crowded to their utmost capacity, and lusty-voiced
undergraduates joined enthusiastically, if not altogether tunefully, in
the choruses of the songs; but the enthusiasm was perhaps highest and
the crowd the greatest at the Palace, where start and race and the
magnificent finish with which the struggle had ended were being shown by
the American Biograph.
As the series of pictures followed each other on the screen, the cries
which a few hours before had been roaring along the two banks of the
river from Putney to Mortlake burst out anew from pit and gallery,
circles and stalls and boxes. Cambridge had won for once after a long
series of defeats, but the Oxford boys and men were cheering just as
lustily and yelling themselves just as hoarse as the others, for they
were all Englishmen and therefore good sportsmen.
The crush in the First Circle was terrific, but for the moment Vane
Maxwell was conscious neither of the heat nor the crowding. His whole
soul was in his eyes as he watched the weirdly silent and yet life-like
phantoms flitting across the screen. It was only when the finish had
faded into swift darkness and the thunders of applause had begun to die
down that he became aware of the fact that someone was standing on one
of his feet, and that just behind him someone else had got hold of his
arm and was holding it with a convulsive sort of clutch.
Just then there was a lull in the applause, and he caught a faintly
murmured "Oh, dear" in a feminine voice. He wrenched his foot free, and
turned round just in time to slip his arm round the waist of a fainting
girl and save her from falling.
The crush was loosening now, for the great attraction of the evening had
passed, and a general move was being made towards the bars.
"If you please there, this young lady's fainting. Give her as much room
as you can, please," he said loudly enough to be heard for some little
distance round.
A number of undergraduates of both Universities managed to immediately
clear a space about them, and one of his own college chums at Balliol
who had come in with him said, "Take her to the bar, Maxwell, and give
her a drop of brandy. Now, move up there, you fellows. Room for beauty
in distress--come along!"
A couple of the stalwart attendants had also arrived on the scene by
this time, and so a lane was easily made to the nearest bar. The girl
opened her eyes again, looked about her for a moment, and then
murmured:
"Oh, thank you so much, I think I can walk. I am getting all right now.
It was the crowd and the heat. Please don't trouble. It's very good of
you."
"It's no trouble at all," said Maxwell. "Come and let me give you a drop
of brandy. That'll put you all right."
As they went into the bar they were followed by not a few curious
glances. Men and lads looked at each other and smiled, and women looked
at them and each other, also smiling, but with plainer meaning, and one
or two expressed themselves openly as to the neatness with which the
whole affair had been managed.
Crowded as the bar was, Maxwell had no difficulty in getting a couple of
brandies and a split soda for himself and his companion. Two men sitting
at one of the tables had got up to let her sit down. One of them held
out his hand to Maxwell and said:
"Why, Vane, old man, is it you? In luck, as usual, I see." He said this
with a glance towards the girl which brought the blood to Maxwell's
cheeks. Still, he took the other's hand, and said good-humouredly:
"Good evening, Garthorne. Up for the race, I suppose? Fine fight, wasn't
it? I'm glad you won, it was getting a bit monotonous. Thanks for
letting us have the table. This young lady is not very well, felt a bit
faint in the crowd."
"I see," said Garthorne, with another look at her which Maxwell did not
altogether like. "Well, good night, old man. Be as good as you can."
As the two moved away Maxwell's memory went back to a scene which had
occurred behind the wheelhouse of a P. and O. liner about ten years
before, and, without exactly knowing why, he felt as if it would give
him a certain amount of satisfaction to repeat it. Then he turned to the
girl and said:
"I beg your pardon; I hope you haven't been waiting. You should have
taken a drink at once."
"Oh, thanks, that's all right. I'm a lot better now," she said, taking
up the tumbler and smiling over it at him. "Well, here's luck! It was
awfully good of you to get me out of that crowd. I believe I should have
fallen down if it hadn't been for you."
"Oh, please don't mention that," he said; "only too happy--I mean I was
very glad I was there to do it. Here's to your complete recovery."
As he drank their eyes met over the glasses. Until now he had not really
looked at her; things had been happening rather too rapidly for that.
But now, as he put his glass down and began to scrutinize the
half-saucy, half-demure, and altogether charming face on the other side
of the table, it suddenly dawned upon him that it was exceedingly like
his own.
The nut-brown hair was almost the same shade as his, but it had a gleam
of gold in it which his lacked. The dark hazel eyes were bigger and
softer, and were shaded by longer and darker lashes than his, but their
colour and expression were very similar. The rest of the face, too, was
very similar, only while his nose was almost perfectly straight, nearly
pure Greek in fact, hers was just the merest trifle _retrousse_.
The mouths and chins were almost identical save for the fact that
firmness and strength in his were replaced by softness and sweetness in
hers. Not that hers were lacking in firmness, for a skilled
physiognomist would have put her down at the first glance as a young
lady of very decided character; but the outlines were softer, the lips
were more delicate and more mobile, and, young as he was, there was a
gravity in his smile which was replaced in hers by a suspicion of
defiant recklessness which was not without its mournful meaning for
those who had eyes to see.
"That's done me a lot of good," she said, as she finished her brandy and
soda. "Now, I mustn't keep you from your friends any longer. I'm very
much obliged to you indeed. Good night!"
He rose as she did, and took the neatly-gloved little hand that she held
out to him over the table.
"I don't see why we should say good night just yet unless you
particularly wish it," he said. "I only came here with a lot of our
fellows to see the Biograph, and I shan't stop now that's over. I'm
getting jolly hungry, too. If you have no other engagement suppose we
were to go and have a bit of supper somewhere?"
For some reason or other which she was quite unable to define, these
words, although they were spoken with perfect politeness, and although
she had heard them scores of times before without offence, now almost
offended her. And yet there was no real reason why they should.
She had been out to supper with pretty nearly all sorts and conditions
of men. Why should she not go with this well-groomed, athletic-looking
young fellow who had already done her a considerable service, who was
obviously a gentleman, and whose face and expression had now begun to
strike her as so curiously like her own?
She really had no other engagement for the evening, and to refuse would
be, to say the least of it, ungracious; so, after a moment's
hesitation, she took her hand away and said with a quick upward glance
of her eyes:
"Very well, I was just beginning to think about supper myself when I
turned up out there in that absurd way, so we may as well have it
together. Where were you thinking of going? Suppose we were to try the
grill-room at the Troc. Of course everywhere will be pretty crowded
to-night, but we have as good a chance of getting a table there as
anywhere else. Besides, I know one or two of the waiters. I often go
there to lunch."
"Very well," he said; "come along." And in a few minutes more they were
rolling along in a hansom down Shaftesbury Avenue.
Vane Maxwell was in very good humour that night with himself and all the
world. He had taken a double first in Mods., in History and Classics,
after crowning a brilliant career at Eton with a Balliol Scholarship. He
was stroke of his college boat, and had worked her four places up the
river. In another year he might be in the 'Varsity Eight itself, and
help to avenge the defeat which the Dark Blues had just suffered. The
sweetheart he had won in that Homeric little battle behind the
wheelhouse had been faithful to him ever since. He had an abundance of
pocket money and the prospect of a fair fortune, and altogether the
world appeared to be a very pleasant place indeed to live in.
When they got into the cab the girl half expected that he would slip his
arm round her as others were wont to do when they had the chance, but he
didn't, and she liked him all the better for it. He did, however, put
his hand through her arm and draw her just a little closer to him. Then
he leant back in the cab, and, as the light from a big gin palace lamp
flashed on to her face, he said:
"Well, this _is_ jolly. I'm so glad you came. I feel just in the humour
for a good supper in pleasant society."
"Thank you," she said, with a little toss of her head; "but how do you
know my society is going to be pleasant?"
"Oh, it couldn't be anything else," he laughed. "You are far too pretty
not to be nice."
"Thanks," she said gravely. "Are all the pretty girls you know nice?
Don't you find some of them horribly conceited and dull? Lots of fellows
I know say so."
"Lots of fellows!" he echoed. "Then you have a pretty extensive
acquaintance----"
"Why, of course I have," she interrupted, cutting him short almost
roughly. Then she went on with a swift change of tone, "Don't you see
that a--a girl like me has _got_ to know plenty of fellows? It's--well,
it's business, and that's the brutal truth of it."
She turned her head away and looked out of the cab window as though she
didn't want him to see the expression that came over her face as she
said the last few words.
But though he did not see the change in her face, the change in her
voice struck him like a jarring note in a harmony that he was beginning
to find very pleasant. He felt a sort of momentary resentment. He knew,
of course, that it was the "brutal truth," but just then he disliked
being reminded of it--especially by her. She seemed a great deal too
nice for _that_ to be true of her. There was a little pause, rather an
awkward one, during which he tried to think of the proper thing to say.
Of course he didn't succeed, so he just blurted out:
"Oh, never mind about brutal truths just now, little girl."
There was another pause, during which she still kept her head turned
away. Then he went on with a happy inconsequence:
"By the way, has it struck you yet that we're rather like each other?"
"Is that a compliment to me or to yourself?" she said, half gravely, and
yet with a belying gleam of mischief in her eyes.
"Oh, a likeness like that could only be a compliment to me, of course,"
he replied, and before the conversation could proceed any farther the
cab stopped at the entrance to the Trocadero.
By great good luck they procured one of the little side tables in the
inner room just as another couple were leaving it. One of the waiters
had recognised her as she came in, and, with the astute alacrity of his
kind, had taken possession of them and pre-empted the table before
anyone else could get near it. There were, in fact, others waiting who
had a prior right, but the gentleman in the plum coat and gold buttons
made it impossible for the superintendent of the room to interfere by
saying to Maxwell in his blandest tone:
"Good evening, sir; it's all right, sir. This is the table you engaged."
"He's a smart youth, that Fritz," said the girl as they sat down. "These
fellows here know which side their bread's buttered on, and they look
after their own customers."
"Yes, he seems to know his business," said Maxwell, "and now I suppose
the question is, what are we going to have?"
Fritz had come back, and was swiftly and rapidly removing the debris
left behind by their predecessors. The girl looked up at him with an air
of familiarity which Maxwell didn't altogether like, and said:
"What's good for supper, Fritz? I am hungry."
"A few oysters, miss, grilled sole, and a nice little porterhouse steak
between two. How's that, miss?"
She looked across at Maxwell and nodded, and he said, "Yes, I think that
will do very nicely. Let's have the oysters at once, and some brown
bread and butter."
"Yes, sir, certainly. Any wine, sir?"
The list was presented, opened, of course, at the champagne page.
"You'll have something fizzy, won't you?" he said, looking up from the
list.
"I suppose we may as well," she said, "only I don't want you to think me
too extravagant."
"Nonsense," he laughed, and then he told the waiter to bring a bottle of
Kock Fils '89.
When the man had gone on his errand Maxwell said somewhat diffidently:
"By the way, we seem to be getting to know each other pretty well, but
we've not exactly been introduced. I mean we don't know each other's
names yet."
"Oh, introductions are not much in fashion in the world that I live in,"
she said with a little flush. "Of course you don't need telling which
half of the world that is."
For the moment he felt an unreasonable resentment, either at the words
or the half defiant way in which she spoke them. He was quite old enough
both in years and the ways of the world to know exactly what she meant,
and he was perfectly well aware that she would not have accepted his
invitation to supper any more than she would have been in the promenade
of a music hall unescorted if she had been what is conventionally
termed respectable. Yet somehow he wanted to forget the fact and treat
her with the respect he would have paid to any ordinary acquaintance in
his own social sphere.
This feeling was probably due both to an innate chivalry and to the fact
that one of his father's favourite precepts was, "My boy, whatever
company you're in, never forget that you're a gentleman." Mingled with
it there may also have been a dash of masculine vanity. The more he
looked at the girl the more striking did her likeness to himself appear.
Really, if he had had a sister she could not have been more like him,
but he knew that he was an only child, and, besides, that thought was
altogether unthinkable.
After a little pause, during which their eyes met and their cheeks
flushed in a somewhat boy-and-girlish fashion, he laughed a trifle
awkwardly and said:
"Well, then, we shall have to introduce ourselves, I suppose. My name is
Maxwell--Vane Maxwell."
"Vane!" she echoed, "how funny! My name is Vane too--Carol Vane. It's
not a sham one either, such as a lot of girls like me take. It's my
own--at least, I have always been called Carol, and Vane was my mother's
name."
"I see," said Maxwell, after another little pause, during which the
oysters came and the waiter opened the wine. When he had filled the two
glasses and vanished, Maxwell lifted his and said:
"Well, Miss Carol, it is rather curious that we should both have the
same names, and also, if I may say so without flattering myself too much,
be so much like each other. At any rate I shall venture to hope that
your little accident at the Palace has enabled me to make a very
charming acquaintance."
"That's very prettily put, Mr. Vane Maxwell," she said, nodding and
smiling at him over her glass. "And now that we've been introduced in a
sort of way, as we haven't got any more interesting subject to talk
about, suppose we talk about ourselves. Which are you, Oxford or
Cambridge?"
The conversation thus started rattled merrily along for over an hour.
Without thinking any disloyalty to his own Enid, who was now a fair and
stately maiden of eighteen, he found it quite impossible to resist the
strange charm of Miss Carol's manner. She was obviously a lady by
instinct, and she had also been educated after a sort. She had read
widely if not altogether wisely, and she seemed just as familiar with
the literature, or, at any rate, with the fiction of France and Italy as
she was with that of England.
This she explained was due to the fact that until she was about twelve,
that is to say some seven years ago, she had been constantly living and
wandering about in these two countries with her mother and sometimes
also with a gentleman who, as she put it, was pretty probably her
father. She explained further that at the mature age of thirteen she had
run away from a French school in which she had been placed by some
unknown agency and joined a wandering English circus-troop with which
she had travelled half over Europe, leading a more or less miserable
existence for some five years. She had then terminated her connection
with the Ring by going into housekeeping with an English art-student in
Paris. Meanwhile she had lost all trace of her mother, and had come to
the conclusion that she had by this time drunk herself to death.
"I scarcely ever knew her to be quite sober," she said pathetically,
and then she changed the subject.
It was not a very cheerful story, as story, but Miss Carol told it with
such a quaint humour and such a vivacity of expression and gesture that,
despite the under-note of tragedy, Maxwell thought it the most
interesting story he had ever heard in his life.
As the courses disappeared and the empty bottle of wine was succeeded by
a half bottle "just for the last," as Maxwell said, the conversation
grew gayer and perhaps also a trifle freer, although Miss Carol never
permitted herself any of those freedoms of expression with which too
many of the so-called Daughters of Delight vulgarise themselves so
hopelessly. When the half bottle was finished Maxwell wanted another,
and to this Miss Carol promptly and firmly objected.
"If you will excuse me saying so to a new acquaintance," she said, "I
wouldn't if I were you. We have both of us had enough of this stuff,
nice and all as it is--at least, I have, and I think I'm more used to it
than you. A coffee and liqueur if you like. That won't hurt us--in fact,
it'll do us good; but I can see something in your eyes that shouldn't be
there."
"What do you mean?" said Maxwell, a trifle offended. "Surely you're not
going to accuse me of the unpardonable crime of getting drunk in the
company of a lady."
"Thank you!" she said simply, and yet with a decided dignity. "No, I
don't mean that. It's a funny thing, you know," she went on, leaning her
elbows on the table and staring straight into his eyes, "but there's a
queer kind of light coming into your eyes, a sort of dancing, jumping
yellow flame that makes them look almost red. Well, your eyes are
almost exactly like mine, and mine are like my mother's, and whenever
she'd got so far on with drink that she couldn't stop I used to see that
light in her eyes. Of course I don't say that it means anything; still,
there it is. I used to call it the danger signal, and keep away from her
as much as I could till it was over, and I had to nurse her back to
something like life."
"That's rather approaching the creepy," said Maxwell, with an almost
imperceptible shrug of his shoulders. He had no feeling of offence now.
She looked so pretty and she spoke so earnestly that it was impossible
to be offended with her. Moreover, although he was far from even getting
drunk, he felt a dreamy sensation stealing over him which seemed to be
sapping his self-restraint and making him utterly careless of what he
did or what happened to him so long as it was only pleasant.
"Really, it is decidedly curious," he went on. "I hope I haven't got the
makings of a dipsomaniac in me. But I feel quite curiously happy, and I
believe I could just go on drinking and getting happier and happier
until I landed in Paradise with you standing just inside the gates to
welcome me."
"Don't!" she said almost sharply. "For goodness sake don't begin to talk
like that. That's just how my mother used to feel, just how she used to
talk, and she did go on--of course, there was no one to stop her. You
should have seen her a couple of days after--a savage, an animal, a wild
beast, only wild beasts don't get drunk. It's not a nice thing to say of
your mother, even such a mother as mine was, but it's true, and I'm
telling you because I like you, and it may do you some good."
"Thank you, Miss Carol! After that I shall certainly take your advice,"
he said, pouring his cognac into his coffee. "This is the last drink
to-night, and that reminds me; it's getting rather late. How about going
home?"
"I think it's about time," she said. "They close at twelve to-night, you
know. Which way do you go?"
"Which way do _you_ go?" he said, as he beckoned to the waiter for the
bill. "By the way, I was going to ask you--I hope you have never seen
that light, that danger signal, in your own eyes?"
She ignored his first question _in toto_, and replied:
"Yes, I saw it once when I got home after a pretty wild supper. It
frightened me so that I went 'T.T.' for nearly a month, and just now I
wouldn't drink another glass of that champagne if you gave me a thousand
pounds to drink it."
"Well, I'm sure I shan't ask you after what you've said," he laughed, as
he threw a couple of shillings on the plate which the waiter presented,
and took up his bill. Then he got up and helped her on with her cloak,
and as she shook her shapely shoulders into it he went on:
"But you haven't answered my question yet."
"Which question?" she said, turning sharply round.
"Which way do you go--or do you intend to stop out a bit later?" he
replied rather haltingly. "I thought perhaps I might have the
pleasure----"
"Of seeing me home?" she said, raising her eyes to his and flushing
hotly. "I'm afraid that's impossible. But go and get your coat and hat,
and let's go outside. It's horribly close in here."
He paid his bill at the pay-box near the door, and when they got out
into the street he took her by the arm and said, as they turned down
towards the Circus:
"And may I ask why it is impossible, Miss Carol. I thought just now you
said that you liked me a bit."
"So I do," she replied, with a little thrill in her voice; "and that's
just why, or partly why--and besides, we're too much alike. Why, we
might be brother and sister----"
"That is quite out of the question," he interrupted quickly; "I never
had a sister. I am an only child, and my mother died soon after I was
born. She died in India nearly twenty years ago."
"I can't help it," she said, almost passionately. "Of course we can't
possibly be any relation, the idea's absurd; but still, it's no use--I
couldn't, I daren't. Besides, have you forgotten what you were telling
me about your fight on the steamer with that man we met at the Palace?
Aren't you in love with the girl still? I quite understood you were
engaged to her."
"Yes," said Maxwell frankly, "I am, and perhaps I ought to be ashamed of
myself. That is two lessons you've taught me to-night, Miss Carol, and I
shan't forget either them or you. Still, I don't see why we shouldn't be
friends. Honestly, I like you very much, and you've said you like
me--why shouldn't we?"
"Yes, that's true; I like you all right," she replied with almost
embarrassing frankness; "but for all that it's something very different
from love at first sight. It's funny, but do you know, Vane--I suppose
if we're going to be friends I may call you Vane--although I think I
could get to like you very much in one way, however different things
were, I don't believe I could ever fall in love with you. But if you
only mean friends, just real pals, as we say in my half of the world, I
am there, always supposing that the friendship of such an entirely
improper young person as I am doesn't do you any harm."
"Harm, nonsense!" he said. "Why should it? Well, that's a bargain, and
now perhaps you won't object to tell me where you live."
"Oh, no, not now," she said. "I live at 15, Melville Gardens, Brook
Green, with a very nice girl that you may also be friends with if you're
good."
"Brook Green! Why, that's off the Hammersmith Road. We, that is to say
dad and myself, live in Warwick Gardens, a bit this side of Addison
Bridge, so if you really mean to go home we may as well get a hansom,
and you can drop me at Warwick Gardens and go on."
"Of course I mean to go home, and I think that would be a very good
arrangement."
They had crossed over to the pavement in front of the Criterion as she
said this. It was on the tip of Maxwell's tongue to ask her to come in
and have another drink. He certainly felt a greater craving for alcohol
than he had ever done in his life before, and if he had been alone he
might have yielded to it; but he was ashamed to do so after what he had
just said to her, so he hailed an empty cab that was just coming up to
the kerb. As he was handing his companion in, the door of the buffet
swung open, and Reginald Garthorne came out with two other Cambridge
men. They were all a trifle fresh, and as Garthorne recognised him he
called out:
"By-by, Maxwell. Don't forget to say your prayers."
Maxwell turned round angrily with his foot on the step. If he had had
that other drink that he wanted there would have been a row, but, as it
was, a word and a gesture from Miss Carol brought him into the cab.
There was an angry flush on her cheeks and a wicked light in her eyes,
but she said very quietly, "Do you know, I am glad you thrashed that
fellow once. He ought to be ashamed of himself shouting a thing like
that out here. I suppose he thinks himself a gentleman, too."
"Oh, that's all right," said Vane. "Garthorne's a bit screwed, that's
all. Everyone is to-night. But he's not at all a bad fellow. His father
was a soldier in India, and did some very good service. He has a staff
appointment at home. He's a baronet too--one of the old ones. His mother
comes of a good stock as well. We've been very good chums since that
first row. Fellows who fight as boys generally are."
"Oh, I daresay he's all right, but I didn't like it," said Miss Carol,
leaning back in the cab. "And now suppose you tell me something more
about yourself."
When the cab pulled up at the corner of Warwick Gardens and he said
good-night, he asked her for a kiss. She blushed like a
fourteen-year-old school girl as she replied:
"That's a great compliment, Vane, for I know how you mean it. But if you
don't mind I really think I'd rather not, at least not just yet. You
see, after all we've only known each other two or three hours. Wait
until you know me at least a little better before you ask again, and
then perhaps we'll see."
"Well, I daresay you're right, Miss Modesty," he laughed, as he got out.
"In fact, you always seem to be right. Good-night, Carol."
"Good-night, Vane." As he stepped backwards from the cab she leant
forward and smiled and waved her hand. A gentleman walking quickly from
the direction of the bridge looked up and saw her pretty laughing face
as the light of a lamp fell upon it. He stopped almost as suddenly as
though he had run up against some invisible obstacle, and passed his
hand across his eyes. Then the cab doors closed, the face vanished back
into the shadow of the interior, and, to his utter amazement, Maxwell
heard his father's voice say:
"God bless my soul. What a marvellous likeness!"