When she got home that night she found Gordon had arrived before her. He
was thoughtful, unusually subdued; most remarkable of all, was to be
seen, for he invariably went to bed as soon as he reached home after a
dinner or theatre, and never by any chance was he in a conversational
mood at such hours.
“Good time?” he asked.
“Very. I met the cream of the Colonial Office. It was thin but genuine
cream. Were you very late, and was she very annoyed?”
Such a query, ordinarily, would be ignored.
“Five minutes or so; the lady was naturally----”
“Peeved?” she suggested. “And it was a lady, after all? Gordon, let me
see her?”
He smiled.
“She wouldn’t interest you, Diana. She is rather an intellectual.”
Diana was not offended.
“The only thing I approve about the Bolsheviks is that they killed off
the _intelligentsia_ first,” she said without heat. “I suppose they got
tired of seeing their plays and hearing about their spiritual insides.
What do you talk about--Bimetallism or Free Will?”
He humoured her, being in a somewhat sympathetic mood. The strain of
holding friendship to lecture-hall level was beginning to tell.
“Books and people,” he said lightly. “And you?”
She threw her cloak over the back of a chair, pulled a stool to the fire
and sat down, warming her knees. Gordon, the soul of delicacy, strolled
out of the line of vision.
“We talked about tradesmen and the superiority of Australian beef and
the difficulty of finding servants and Mrs. Carter-Corrillo’s fearful
indiscretion--she went to France with the third secretary of the
Montenegrin Embassy. She was only there three days, but, as Lady
Pennefort said, there are twenty-four hours in every day. Some women are
fools--and most men. This young man’s career is ruined, even though he
swears that their mutual interest in the gravel deposits of Abbeville
was the explanation of the visit. They are both keen on geology.”
“And why shouldn’t that be the true explanation?” demanded Gordon
stoutly, his heart warming to the geological third secretary. “Why
should not men and women have mutual scientific interests?”
“We’ll hear what the judge says,” she answered complacently. “Mr.
Carter-Corrillo is suing for a divorce.”
“On what grounds--incompatibility of interest in strata?” sneered
Gordon.
“Don’t be silly. Conventions are the by-laws of society. It is presumed
that, if you break a by-law, you are capable of breaking the law.”
He stared, amazed at her cool inconsistency.
“Here are you, living, unchaperoned, in the house of a bachelor----”
“Cousins are different,” she said promptly. “Nobody suggests that the
third secretary is Mrs. Carter-Corrillo’s cousin. That would make a
difference. Besides, everybody knows how much you dislike me.”
“I don’t dislike you,” after a moment’s thought; “but if you think I do,
why do you stay?”
“I have a mission,” she said, with a finality of tone that brought the
subject out of discussion.
Gordon broke the news of his impending departure after breakfast the
next morning.
“I am thinking of running up to Scotland to have a shot at the birds,”
he said. He felt rather like a liar.
“What have they been doing?” she asked, her grey-blue eyes wide.
“Nothing. One shoots them at this season of the year. You have game laws
in Australia, I suppose?”
“I don’t know. I have shot wallaby and dingo and rabbits and things, but
never birds. To Scotland? That’s an awful long way. Gordon, I shall be
worried about you. There was a railway accident in the newspapers this
morning. You’ll send me a wire?”
“From every station,” he said sarcastically, and was ashamed of himself
when she thanked him so warmly.
“I’m glad--that is my eccentricity, a horrid fear that people I like are
in railway accidents. Of course, I could always wire to the
stationmaster to enquire about you, or to your hotel.”
Slowly it dawned upon Gordon Selsbury that in an unguarded and fatally
foolish moment he had enormously complicated a situation already far
from simple. To escape, to offer excuses, even to laugh off her anxiety,
simulated or real, was impossible. A solution came to him and was
instantly rejected. It came again because it was, in all the
circumstances, the only solution. But it was one that could only be
applied at the cost of his self-respect. Almost he cursed Heloise or
whoever was the fool who had suggested this mad excursion.
Trenter was laying out his master’s clothes for dinner when Gordon
strolled into his dressing-room.
“Um ... don’t go, Trenter. When did you have your holiday?”
“First week in April, sir.”
Gordon considered.
“Do you know Scotland?”
“Yes, sir; I’ve been with several house parties for the September
shooting.”
“Good. The fact is, Trenter, I’m going away on a--a peculiar mission. It
is a secret even from my most intimate friends. There are reasons, very
excellent reasons with which I need not trouble you, and which you
certainly would not understand, why I should go secretly to one place
whilst I am supposed to be at another.”
Trenter aimed wildly, but scored on the target at the first shot.
“A lady, sir?” he ventured respectfully, meaning no harm--offering, in
fact, a tribute to the known chivalry of the Selsburys.
“No!”
There was reason enough for the large and angry blush that darkened
Gordon’s face.
“No, of course not. Business. Nothing at all to do with a lady.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Trenter, and was.
“We won’t discuss my mission. What I want to say is this. Miss Ford, who
is rather of a nervous disposition, has asked me to send her wires at
intervals of the journey....”
“And you want me to go to Scotland and send them,” said Trenter
brilliantly. Gordon had never respected his servant’s intelligence so
much as he did at that moment.
“Exactly. It will save me a lot of worry. And,” he added mysteriously,
“if the wires fall into other hands, they will help deceive a Certain
Person!”
Trenter nodded wisely. He couldn’t guess who the Certain Person was:
even Gordon did not know. But lying grew easier with practice--he had
grown reckless.
“Not a word of this in the servants’ hall,” warned Gordon.
The servitor smiled. Gordon had not seen him smile before. It was a
strange sight.
“No, sir; I shall tell them that my aunt in Bristol is ill (which she
is) and that you’ve given me leave. How long do you want me to be away,
sir?”
“A week,” said Gordon.
Mr. Trenter went down to the servants’ hall importantly.
“The old man’s given me a week’s holiday to see my aunt. I’m leaving
to-morrow.”
Eleanor was constitutionally suspicious.
“Bit sudden, isn’t it? He’s going away to-morrow too. You men are
devils! Us women never know what you’re up to.”
Trenter smiled cryptically. It added to his self-confidence to be
suspected of devilish deeds.
“Noos verrong,” he said, and added the information: “French.”
“Is Miss Diana going?” asked the cook.
“With me or him?” demanded Trenter insolently. “She’s not going with
_him_! And do I blame him? No! She’s no lady, that’s my firm opinion.”
“Then keep it to yourself!” said Eleanor, shrill of voice. “I don’t want
you to say anything about Miss Diana!”
“You women stick together.” Trenter could not but admire the trait.
“And you men stick at nothing.” Eleanor’s sincerity gave sanction to
inconsequence. “She’s too good for him. I suppose you’re both off on
some gallivanting business? So far as I am concerned you’re welcome!
You’ve been an experience, and every girl ought to have experience--up
to a point. Your wife can have you.”
“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you forty million times that I’m not
married!” hissed Trenter. “I had to be married because he wanted a
married man for a butler, and if I’d said I was single I should have
lost the job. That temper of yours, my girl, is going to be your ruin.”
“Well, don’t talk disp--whatever the word is--about Miss Diana,” she
sulked.
“I don’t trouble my head about her, because I don’t think there’s
anybody in the world like you, Eleanor,” he urged.
She admitted later that there was much to be said for his point of
view.