PROFESSOR SINCLAIR’S DANCING ACADEMY
Mr. Sinclair, or as he preferred to be called, Professor Sinclair, waved a white kid glove in the direction of the dancing hall.
“This way, ladies and gentlemen!” he announced. “A beautiful valse just about to commence. Tickets, if you please! Ah! Glad to see you, Miss Cullingham! You’ll find—a friend of yours inside!”
There was a good deal of giggling as the girls came out from the little dressing room and joined their waiting escorts, who stood in a line against the wall, mostly struggling with refractory gloves. Mr. Sinclair, proprietor of the West Islington Dancing Academy, and host of these little gatherings—for a consideration of eighteenpence—did his best, by a running fire of conversation, to set everyone at their ease. He wore a somewhat rusty frock coat, black trousers, a white dress waistcoat, and a red tie. Evening dress was not DE RIGUEUR! The money at the door, and that everyone should behave as ladies and gentlemen, were the only things insisted upon.
Mr. Sinclair’s best smile and most correct bow was suddenly in evidence.
“Mademoiselle Violet!” he exclaimed to a lady who came in alone, “we are enchanted. We feared that you had deserted us. There is a young gentleman inside who is going to be made very happy. One shilling change, thank you. Won’t you step into the cloak room?”
The lady shook her head.
“If you don’t mind, Mr. Sinclair,” she said, “I would rather keep my hat and veil on. I can only stay for a few minutes. Is Mr. Richardson here, do you know? Ah! I can see him.”
She stepped past the Professor into the little dancing hall. A young lady was pounding upon a piano, a boy at her side was playing the violin. A few couples were dancing, but most of the company was looking on. The evening was young, and Mr. Sinclair, who later on officiated as M.C., had not yet made his attack upon the general shyness. The lady known as Mademoiselle Violet paused and looked around her. Suddenly she caught sight of a pale, anemic-looking youth, who was standing apart from the others, lounging against the wall. She moved rapidly towards him.
“How do you do, Mr. Richardson?” she said, holding out her hand.
He started, and a sudden rush of color streamed into his cheeks. He took her hand awkwardly, and he was almost speechless with nervousness.
“I don’t believe you’re at all glad to see me!” she remarked.
“Oh! Miss Violet!” he exclaimed. He would have said more, but the words stuck in his throat.
“Can we sit down somewhere?” she said. “I want to talk to you.”
There were one or two chairs placed behind a red drugget curtain, where adventurous spirits led their partners later in the evening. They found a place there, and the young man recovered his power of speech.
“Not glad to see you!” he exclaimed almost vehemently. “Why, what else do you suppose I come here for every Thursday evening? I never dance; they all make game of me because they know I come here on the chance of seeing you again. I’m a fool! I know that! You just amuse yourself here with me, and then you go away, back to your friends—and forget! And I hang about round here, like the silly ass that I am!”
“My dear—George!”
The young man blushed at the sound of his Christian name. He was mollified despite himself.
“I suppose it’s got to be the same thing all over again,” he declared resignedly. “You’ll talk to me and let me be near you—and make a fool of me all round; and then you’ll go away, and heaven knows when I’ll see you again. You won’t let me take you home, and won’t tell me where you live, or who your friends are. You do treat me precious badly, Miss Violet.”
“This time,” she said quietly, “it will not be the same. I have something quite serious to say to you.”
“Something serious—you? Go on!” he exclaimed in excitement.
“Have you found another place yet?”
“No. I haven’t really tried. I have a little money saved, and I could get one tomorrow if—”
She stopped him with a smiling gesture.
“I don’t mean that—yet,” she said. “I wanted to know whether it would be possible for you to go away for a little time, if someone paid all your expenses.”
“To go away!” he repeated blankly. “What for?”
Mademoiselle Violet leaned a little nearer to him.
“My mistress asked me yesterday,” she said, “if I knew anyone who could be trusted who would go away, at a moment’s notice, on an errand for her.”
“Your mistress,” he repeated. “You really are a lady’s maid, then, are you?”
“Of course!” she answered impatiently. “Haven’t I told you so before? Now what do you say? Will you go?”
“I dunno,” he answered thoughtfully. “If it had been for you, I don’t know that I’d have minded. I ain’t fond of traveling.”
“It is for me,” she interrupted hastily. “If I can find her anyone who will do what she wants, she will make my fortune. She has promised. And then—”
“Well, and then?”
Mademoiselle Violet looked at him thoughtfully.
“I should not make any promises,” she said demurely, “but things would certainly be different.”
The young man’s blood was stirred. Mademoiselle Violet stood to him for the whole wonderful world of romance, into which he had peered dimly from behind the counter of an Islington emporium. Her low voice—so strange to his ears after the shrill chatter of the young ladies of his acquaintance—the mystery of her coming and going, all went to give color to the single dream of his unimaginative life. Apart from her, he was a somewhat vulgar, entirely commonplace young man, of saving habits, and with some aptitude for business, in a small way. He had been well on his way to becoming a small but successful shopkeeper, thereby realizing the only ideals which had yet presented themselves to him, when Madame Violet had unconsciously intervened. Of what might become of him now he had no clear conception of himself.
“I’ll go!” he declared.
Mademoiselle Violet’s eyes flashed behind her veil. Her fingers touched his for a moment.
“It is a long way,” she said.
“I don’t care,” he answered valiantly.
“To—America!”
“America!” he gasped. “But—is this a joke, Miss Violet?”
She shook her head.
“Of course not! America is not a great journey.”
“But it will cost—”
She laughed softly.
“My mistress is very rich,” she said. “The cost does not matter at all. You will have all the money you can spend—and more.”
He felt himself short of breath, and bereft of words.
“Gee whiz!” he murmured.
They sat there in silence for a few moments. A promenading couple put their heads behind the screen, and withdrew with the sound of feminine giggling. Outside, the piano was being thumped to the tune of a popular polka.
“But what have I go to do?” he asked.
“To watch a man who will go out by the same steamer as you,” she answered. “Write to London, tell me what he does, how he spends his time, whether he is ill or well. You must stay at the same hotel in New York, and try and find out what his business is there. Remember, we want to know, my mistress and I, everything that he does.”
“Who is he?” he asked. “A friend of your mistress?”
“No!” she answered shortly, “an enemy. A cruel enemy—the cruelest enemy a woman could have!”
The subdued passion of her tone thrilled him. He felt himself bewildered—in touch with strange things. She leaned a little closer towards him, and that mysterious perfume, which was one of her many fascinations, dazed him with its sweetness.
“If you could send home word,” she whispered, “that he was ill, that anything had happened to him, that he was not likely to return—our fortunes would be made—yours and mine.”
“Stop!” he muttered. “You—phew! It’s hot here!”
He wiped the perspiration recklessly from his forehead with a red silk handkerchief.
“What made you come to me?” he asked. “I don’t even know the name of your mistress.”
“And you must not ask it,” she declared quietly. “It is better for you not to know. I came to you because you were a man, and I knew that I could trust you.”
Her flattery sank into his soul. No one else had ever called him a man. He felt himself capable of great things. To think that, but for the coming of this wonderful Mademoiselle Violet, he might even now have been furnishing a small shop on the outskirts of Islington, with collars and ties and gloves designed to attract the youth of that populous neighborhood!
“When do I start?” he asked with a coolness which surprised himself.
She drew a heavy packet from the recesses of the muff she carried.
“All the particulars are here,” she said. “The name of the steamer, the name of the man, and money. You will be told where to get more in New York, if you need it.”
He took it from her mechanically. She rose to her feet.
“You will remember,” she said, looking into his eyes.
“I ain’t likely to forget anything you’ve said tonight,” he answered honestly. “But look here! Let me take you home—just this once! Give me something to think about.”
She shook her head.
“I will give you something to hope for,” she whispered. “You must not come a yard with me. When you come back it will, perhaps—be different.”
He remained behind the partition, gripping the packet tightly. Mademoiselle Violet took a hasty adieu of Mr. Sinclair, and descended to the street. She walked for a few yards, and then turned sharply to the left. A hansom, into which she stepped at once, was waiting there. She wrapped herself hastily in a long fur coat which lay upon the seat, and thrust her hand through the trap door.
“St. Martin’s Schoolroom!” she told the cabman.
Apparently Mademoiselle Violet combined a taste for philanthropy with her penchant for Islington dancing halls. She entered the little schoolroom and made her way to the platform, dispensing many smiles and nods amongst the audience of the concert, which was momentarily interrupted for her benefit. She was escorted on to the platform by a young and earnest-looking clergyman, and given a chair in the center of the little group who were gathered there. And after the conclusion of the song, the clergyman expressed his gratification to the audience that a lady with so many calls upon her time, such high social duties, should yet find time to show her deep interest in their welfare by this most kind visit. After which, he ventured to call upon Lady Barrington to say a few words.
MEPHISTOPHELES ON A STEAMER
In some respects, the voyage across the Atlantic was a surprise to Aynesworth. His companion seemed to have abandoned, for the time at any rate, his habit of taciturnity. He conversed readily, if a little stiffly, with his fellow passengers. He divided his time between the smoke room and the deck, and very seldom sought the seclusion of his state room. Aynesworth remarked upon this change one night as the two men paced the deck after dinner.
“You are beginning to find more pleasure,” he said, “in talking to people.”
Wingrave shook his head.
“By no means,” he answered coldly. “It is extremely distasteful to me.”
“Then why do you do it?” Aynesworth asked bluntly.
Wingrave never objected to being asked questions by his secretary. He seemed to recognize the fact that Aynesworth’s retention of his post was due to a desire to make a deliberate study of himself, and while his own attitude remained purely negative, he at no time exhibited any resentment or impatience.
“I do it for several reasons,” he answered. “First, because misanthropy is a luxury in which I cannot afford to indulge. Secondly, because I am really curious to know whether the time will ever return when I shall feel the slightest shadow of interest in any human being. I can only discover this by affecting a toleration for these people’s society, which I can assure you, if you are curious about the matter, is wholly assumed.”
Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders.
“Surely,” he said, “you find Mrs. Travers entertaining?”
Wingrave reflected for a moment.
“You mean the lady with a stock of epigrams, and a green veil?” he remarked. “No! I do not find her entertaining.”
“Your neighbor at table then, Miss Packe?”
“If my affections have perished,” Wingrave answered grimly, “my taste, I hope, is unimpaired. The young person who travels to improve her mind, and fills up the gaps by reading Baedeker on the places she hasn’t been to, fails altogether to interest me!”
“Aren’t you a little severe?” Aynesworth remarked.
“I suppose,” Wingrave answered, “that it depends upon the point of view, to use a hackneyed phrase. You study people with a discerning eye for good qualities. Nature—and circumstances have ordered it otherwise with me. I see them through darkened glasses.”
“It is not the way to happiness,” Aynesworth said.
“There is no highroad to what you term happiness,” Wingrave answered. “One holds the string and follows into the maze. But one does not choose one’s way. You are perhaps more fortunate than I that you can appreciate Mrs. Travers’ wit, and find my neighbor, who has done Europe, attractive. That is a matter of disposition.”
“I should like,” Aynesworth remarked, “to have known you fifteen years ago.”
Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.
“I fancy,” he said, “that I was a fairly average person—I mean that I was possessed of an average share of the humanities. I have only my memory to go by. I am one of those fortunate persons, you see, who have realized an actual reincarnation. I have the advantage of having looked out upon life from two different sets of windows.—By the bye, Aynesworth, have you noticed that unwholesome-looking youth in a serge suit there?”
Aynesworth nodded.
“What about him?”
“I fancy that he must know—my history. He sits all day long smoking bad cigarettes and watching me. He makes clumsy attempts to enter into conversation with me. He is interested in us for some reason or other.”
Aynesworth nodded.
“Shocking young bounder,” he remarked. “I’ve noticed him myself.”
“Talk to him some time, and find out what he means by it,” Wingrave said. “I don’t want to find my biography in the American newspapers. It might interfere with my operations there. Here’s this woman coming to worry us! You take her off, Aynesworth! I shall go into the smoking room.”
But Mrs. Travers was not so easily to be disposed of. For some reason or other, she had shown a disposition to attach herself to Wingrave.
“Please put me in my chair,” she said to him, holding out her rug and cushion. “No! Not you, Mr. Aynesworth. Mr. Wingrave understands so much better how to wrap me up. Thanks! Won’t you sit down yourself? It’s much better for you out here than in the smoking room—and we might go on with our argument.”
“I thought,” Wingrave remarked, accepting her invitation after a moment’s hesitation, “that we were to abandon it.”
“That was before dinner,” she answered, glancing sideways at him. “I feel braver now.”
“You are prepared,” he remarked, “for unconditional surrender?”
She looked at him again. She had rather nice eyes, quite dark and very soft, and she was a great believer in their efficacy.
“Of my argument?”
He did not answer her for a moment. He had turned his head slightly towards her, and though his face was, as usual, expressionless, and his eyes cold and hard, she found nevertheless something of meaning in his steady regard. There was a flush in her cheek when she looked away.
“I am afraid,” she remarked, “that you are rather a terrible person.”
“You flatter me,” he murmured. “I am really quite harmless!”
“Not from conviction then, I am sure,” she remarked.
“Perhaps not,” he admitted. “Let us call it from lack of enterprise! The virtues are all very admirable things, but it is the men and women with vices who have ruled the world. The good die young because there is no useful work for them to do. No really satisfactory person, from a moral point of view, ever achieved greatness!”
She half closed her eyes.
“My head is going round,” she murmured. “What an upheaval! Fancy Mephistopheles on a steamer!”
“He was, at any rate, the most interesting of that little trio,” Wingrave remarked, “but even he was a trifle heavy.”
“Do you go about the world preaching your new doctrines?” she asked.
“Not I!” he answered. “Nothing would every make a missionary of me, for good or for evil, for the simple reason that no one else’s welfare except my own has the slightest concern for me.”
“What hideous selfishness!” she said softly. “But I don’t think—you quite mean it?”
“I can assure you I do,” he answered drily. “My world consists of myself for the central figure, and the half a dozen or so of people who are useful or amusing to me! Except that the rest are needed to keep moving the machinery of the world, they might all perish, so far as I was concerned.”
“I don’t think,” Mrs. Travers said softly, “that I should like to be in your world.”
“I can very easily believe you,” he answered.
“Unless,” she remarked tentatively, “I came to convert!”
He nodded.
“There is something in that,” he admitted. “It would be a great work, a little difficult, you know.”
“All the more interesting!”
“You see,” he continued, “I am not only bad, but I admire badness. My wish is to remain bad—in fact, I should like to be worse if I knew how. You would find it hard to make a start. I couldn’t even admit that a state of goodness was desirable!”
She looked at him curiously. The night air was perhaps getting colder, for she shivered, and drew the rug a little closer around her.
“You speak like a prophet,” she remarked.
“A prophet of evil then!”
She looked at him steadfastly. The lightness had gone out of her tone.
“Do you know,” she said, “I am almost sorry that I ever knew you?”
He shook his head.
“You can’t mean it,” he declared.
“Why not?”
“I have done you the greatest service one human being can render another! I have saved you from being bored!”
She nodded.
“That may be true,” she admitted. “But can you conceive no worse state in the world than being bored?”
“There is no worse state,” he answered drily. “I was bored once,” he added, “for ten years or so; I ought to know!”
“Were you married?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Not quite so bad as that,” he answered. “I was in prison!”
She turned a startled face towards him.
“Nonsense!”
“It is perfectly true,” he said coolly. “Are you horrified?”
“What did you do?” she asked in a low tone.
“I killed a man.”
“Purposely?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“He attacked me! I had to defend myself.”
She said nothing for several moments.
“Shall I go?” he asked.
“No! Sit still,” she answered. “I am frightened of you, but I don’t want you to go away. I want to think.... Yes! I can understand you better now! Your life was spoilt!”
“By no means,” he answered. “I am still young! I am going to make up for those ten years.”
She shook her head.
“You cannot,” she answered. “The years can carry no more than their ordinary burden of sensations. If you try to fill them too full, you lose everything.”
“I shall try what I can do!” he remarked calmly.
She rose abruptly.
“I am afraid of you tonight,” she said. “I am going downstairs. Will you give my rug and cushion to the deck steward? And—good night.”
She gave him her hand, but she did not look at him, and she hurried away a little abruptly.
Wingrave yawned, and lighting a cigar, strolled up and down the deck. A figure loomed out of the darkness and almost ran into him. It was the young man in the serge suit. He muttered a clumsy apology and hurried on.
A COCKNEY CONSPIRATOR
“The bar closes in ten minutes, sir!” the smoking room steward announced.
The young man who had been the subject of Wingrave’s remarks hastily ordered another drink, although he had an only half-emptied tumbler in front of him. Presently he stumbled out on to the deck. It was a dark night, and a strong head wind was blowing. He groped his way to the railing and leaned over, with his head half buried in his hands. Below, the black tossing sea was churned into phosphorescent spray, as the steamer drove onwards into the night.
Was it he indeed—George Richardson? He doubted it. The world of tape measures and calico counters seemed so far away; the interior of his quondam lodgings in a by-street of Islington, so unfamiliar and impossible. He felt himself swallowed up in this new and bewildering existence, of which he was so insignificant an atom, the existence where tragedy reared her gloomy head, and the shadows of great things loomed around him. Down there in the cold restless waste of black waters—what was it that he saw? The sweat broke out upon his forehead, the blood seemed turned to ice in his veins. He knew very well that his fancy mocked him, that it was not indeed a man’s white face gleaming on the crest of the waves. But none the less he was terrified.
Mr. Richardson was certainly nervous. Not all the brandy he had drunk—and he had never drunk half as much before in his life—afforded him the least protection from these ghastly fancies. The step of a sailor on the deck made him shiver; the thought of his empty state room was a horror. He tried to think of the woman at whose bidding he had left behind him Islington and the things that belonged to Islington! He tried to recall her soft suggestive whispers, the glances which promised more even than her spoken words, all the perfume and mystery of her wonderful presence. Her very name was an allurement. Mademoiselle Violet! How softly it fell from the lips!... God in heaven, what was that? He started round, trembling in every limb. It was nothing more than the closing of the smoking room door behind him. Sailors with buckets and mops were already beginning their nightly tasks. He must go to his state room! Somehow or other, he must get through the night...
He did it, but he was not a very prepossessing looking object when he staggered out on deck twelve hours later, into the noon sunshine. The chair towards which he looked so eagerly was occupied. He scarcely knew himself whether that little gulp of acute feeling, which shot through his veins, was of relief or disappointment. While he hesitated, Wingrave raised his head.
Wingrave did not, as a rule, speak to his fellow passengers. Of Richardson, he had not hitherto taken the slightest notice. Yet this morning, of all others, he addressed him.
“I believe,” he said, holding it out towards him, “that this envelope is yours. I found it under your chair.”
Richardson muttered something inarticulate, and almost snatched it away. It was the envelope of the fatal letter which Mademoiselle Violet had written him to Queenstown.
“Sit down, Mr. Richardson, if you are not in a hurry,” Wingrave continued calmly. “I was hoping that I might see you this morning. Can you spare me a few minutes?”
Richardson subsided into his chair. His heart was thumping against his ribs. Wingrave’s voice sounded to him like a far-off thing.
“The handwriting upon that envelope which I have just restored to you, Mr. Richardson, is well known to me,” Wingrave continued, gazing steadfastly at the young man whom he was addressing.
“The envelope! The handwriting!” Richardson faltered. “I—it was from—”
An instant’s pause. Wingrave raised his eyebrows.
“Ah!” he said. “We need not mention the lady’s name. That she should be a correspondent of yours, however, helps me to understand better several matters which have somewhat puzzled me lately. No! Don’t go, my dear sir. We must really have this affair straightened out.”
“What affair?” Richardson demanded, with a very weak attempt at bluster. “I don’t understand you—don’t understand you at all.”
Wingrave leaned a little forward in his chair. His eyebrows were drawn close together; his gaze was entirely merciless.
“You are not well this morning,” he remarked. “A little headache perhaps! Won’t you try one of these phenacetine lozenges—excellent things for a headache, I believe? Warranted, in fact, to cure all bodily ailments for ever! What! You don’t like the look of them?”
The young man cowered back in his chair. He was gripping the sides tightly with both hands, and the pallor of a ghastly fear had spread over his face.
“I—don’t know what you mean,” he faltered. “I haven’t a headache!”
Wingrave looked thoughtfully at the box between his fingers.
“If you took one of these, Mr. Richardson,” he said, “you would never have another, at any rate. Now, tell me, sir, how you came by them!”
“I know nothing about—” the young man began.
“Don’t lie to me, sir,” Wingrave said sharply. “I have been wondering what the —— you meant by hanging around after me, giving the deck steward five shillings to put your chair next mine, and pretending to read, while all the time you were trying to overhear any scraps of conversation between my secretary and myself. I thought you were simply guilty of impertinent curiosity. This, however, rather alters the look of affairs.”
“What does?” Richardson asked faintly. “That box ain’t mine.”
“Perhaps not,” Wingrave answered, “but you found it in my state room and filled it up with its present contents. My servant saw you coming out, and immediately went in to see what you had stolen, and report you. He found nothing missing, but he found this box full of lozenges, which he knows quite well was half full before you went in. Now, what was your object, Mr. Richardson, in tampering with that box upon my shelf?”
“I have—I have never seen it before,” Richardson declared. “I have never been in your state room!”
The deck steward was passing. Wingrave summoned him.
“I wish you would ask my servant to step this way,” he said. “You will find him in my state room.”
The man disappeared through the companion way. Richardson rose to his feet.
“I’m not going to stay here to be bullied and cross examined,” he declared. “I’m off!”
“One moment,” Wingrave said. “If you leave me now, I shall ask the captain to place you under arrest.”
Richardson looked half fearfully around.
“What for?”
“Attempted murder! Very clumsily attempted, but attempted murder none the less.”
The young man collapsed. Wingrave’s servant came down the deck.
“You sent for me, sir?” he inquired respectfully.
Wingrave pointed towards his companion.
“Was that the person whom you saw coming out of my state room?” he asked.
“Yes sir,” the man replied at once.
“You could swear to him, if necessary?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“That will do, Morrison.”
The man withdrew. Wingrave turned to his victim. “A few weeks ago,” he remarked, “I had a visit from the lady whose handwriting is upon that envelope. I had on the table before me a box of phenacetine lozenges. She naturally concluded that I was in the habit of using them. That lady has unfortunately cause to consider me, if not an enemy, something very much like it. You are in correspondence with her. Only last night you placed in my box of these lozenges some others, closely resembling them, but fortunately a little different in shape. Mine were harmless—as a matter of fact, a single one of yours would kill a man in ten minutes. Now, Mr. Richardson, what have you to say about all this? Why should I not send for the captain, and have you locked up till we arrive at New York?”
Richardson drew his handkerchief across his damp forehead.
“You can’t prove nothing,” he muttered.
“I am afraid that I must differ from you,” Wingrave answered. “We will see what the captain has to say.”
He leaned forward in his chair, to attract the attention of a seaman.
Richardson interposed.
“All right,” he said thickly. “Suppose I own up! What then?”
“A few questions—nothing terrifying. I am not very frightened of you.”
“Go on!”
“How did you become acquainted with the writer of that letter?”
Richardson hesitated.
“She came to a dancing class at Islington,” he said.
Wingrave’s face was expressionless, but his tone betrayed his incredulity.
“A dancing class at Islington! Nonsense!”
“Mind,” the young man asserted, “it was her mistress who put her up to this! It was nothing to do with her. It was for her mistress’s sake.”
“Do you know the mistress?” Wingrave asked.
“No; I don’t know her name even. Never heard it.”
“Your letter, then, was from the maid?”
“Of course, it was,” Richardson answered. “If you recognize the writing, you must know that yourself.”
Wingrave looked reflectively seaward. The matter was not entirely clear to him. Yet he was sure that this young man was telling the truth, so far as he could divine it.
“Well,” he said, “you have made your attempt and failed. If fortune had favored you, you might at this moment have been a murderer. I might have warned you, by the bye, that I am an exceedingly hard man to kill.”
Richardson looked uneasily around.
“I ain’t admitting anything, you know,” he said.
“Precisely! Well, what are you going to do now? Are you satisfied with your first reverse, or are you going to renew the experiment?”
“I’ve had enough,” was the dogged answer. “I’ve been made a fool of. I can see that. I shall return home by the next steamer. I never ought to have got mixed up in this.”
“I am inclined to agree with you,” Wingrave remarked calmly. “Do I understand that if I choose to forget this little episode, you will return to England by the next steamer?”
“I swear it,” Richardson declared.
“And in the meantime, that you make no further attempt of a similar nature?”
“Not I!” he answered with emphasis. “I’ve had enough.”
“Then,” Wingrave said, “we need not prolong this conversation. Forgive my suggesting, Mr. Richardson, that whilst I am on deck, the other side of the ship should prove more convenient for you!”
The young man rose, and without a word staggered off. Wingrave watched him through half-closed eyes, until he disappeared.
“It was worth trying,” he said softly to himself. “A very clever woman that! She looks forward through the years, and she sees the clouds gathering. It was a little risky, and the means were very crude. But it was worth trying!”
THE MOTH AND THE CANDLE
“Tomorrow morning,” Aynesworth remarked, “we shall land.”
Wingrave nodded.
“I shall not be sorry,” he said shortly.
Aynesworth fidgeted about. He had something to say, and he found it difficult. Wingrave gave him no encouragement. He was leaning back in his steamer chair, with his eyes fixed upon the sky line. Notwithstanding the incessant companionship of the last six days, Aynesworth felt that he had not progressed a single step towards establishing any more intimate relations between his employer and himself.
“Mrs. Travers is not on deck this afternoon,” he remarked a trifle awkwardly.
“Indeed!” Wingrave answered. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Aynesworth sat down. There was nothing to be gained by fencing.
“I wanted to talk about her, sir, if I might,” he said.
Wingrave withdrew his eyes from the sea, and looked at his companion in cold surprise.
“To me?” he asked.
“Yes! I thought, the first few days, that Mrs. Travers was simply a vain little woman of the world, perfectly capable of taking care of herself, and heartless enough to flirt all day long, if she chose, without any risk, so far as she was concerned. I believe I made a mistake!”
“This is most interesting,” Wingrave said calmly, “but why talk to me about the lady? I fancy that I know as much about her as you do.”
“Very likely; but you may not have realized the same things. Mrs. Travers is a married woman, with a husband in Boston, and two little children, of whom, I believe, she is really very fond. She is a foolish, good-natured little woman, who thinks herself clever because her husband has permitted her to travel a good deal, and has evidently been rather fascinated by the latitudinarianism of continental society. She is a little afraid of being terribly bored when she gets back to Boston, and she is very sentimental.”
“I had no idea,” Wingrave remarked, “that you had been submitting the lady and her affairs to the ordeal of your marvelous gift of analysis. I rather fancied that you took no interest in her at all.”
“I did not,” Aynesworth answered, “until last night.”
“And last night?” he repeated questioningly.
“I found her on deck—crying. She had been tearing up some photographs, and she talked a little wildly. I talked to her then for a little time.”
“Can’t you be more explicit?” Wingrave asked.
Aynesworth looked him in the face.
“She gave me the impression,” he said, “that she did not intend to return to her husband.”
Wingrave nodded.
“And what have you to say to me about this?” he asked.
“I have no right to say anything, of course,” Aynesworth answered. “You might very properly tell me that it is no concern of mine. Mrs. Travers has already compromised herself, to some extent, with the people on board who know her and her family. She never leaves your side for a moment if she can help it, and for the last two or three days she has almost followed you about. You may possibly derive some amusement from her society for a short time, but—afterwards!”
“Explain yourself exactly,” Wingrave said.
“Is it necessary?” Aynesworth declared brusquely. “Talk sensibly to her! Don’t encourage her if she should really be contemplating anything foolish!”
“Why not?”
“Oh, hang it all!” Aynesworth declared. “I’m not a moralist, but she’s a decent little woman. Don’t ruin her life for the sake of a little diversion!”
Wingrave, who had been holding a cigar case in his hand for the last few minutes, opened it, and calmly selected a cigar.
“Aren’t you a little melodramatic, Aynesworth?” he said.
“Sounds like it, no doubt,” his companion answered, “but after all, hang it, she’s not a bad little sort, and you wouldn’t care to meet her in Piccadilly in a couple of years’ time.”
Wingrave turned a little in his chair. There was a slight hardening of the mouth, a cold gleam in his eyes.
“That,” he remarked, “is precisely where you are wrong. I am afraid you have forgotten our previous conversations on this or a similar subject. Disconnect me in your mind at once from all philanthropic notions! I desire to make no one happy, to assist at no one’s happiness. My own life has been ruined by a woman. Her sex shall pay me where it can. If I can obtain from the lady in question a single second’s amusement, her future is a matter of entire indifference to me. She can play the repentant wife, or resort to the primeval profession of her sex. I should not even have the curiosity to inquire which.”
“In that case,” Aynesworth said slowly, “I presume that I need say no more.”
“Unless it amuses you,” Wingrave answered, “it really is not worth while.”
“Perhaps,” Aynesworth remarked, “it is as well that I should tell you this. I shall put the situation before Mrs. Travers exactly as I see it. I shall do my best to dissuade her from any further or more intimate intercourse with you.”
“At the risk, of course,” Wingrave said, “of my offering you—this?”
He drew a paper from his pocket book, and held it out. It was the return half of a steamer ticket.
“Even at that risk,” Aynesworth answered without hesitation.
Wingrave carefully folded the document, and returned it to his pocket.
“I am glad,” he said, “to find that you are so consistent. There is Mrs. Travers scolding the deck steward. Go and talk to her! You will scarcely find a better opportunity.”
Aynesworth rose at once. Wingrave in a few moments also left his seat, but proceeded in the opposite direction. He made his way into the purser’s room, and carefully closed the door behind him.
Mrs. Travers greeted Aynesworth without enthusiasm. Her eyes were resting upon the empty place which Wingrave had just vacated.
“Can I get your chair for you, Mrs. Travers,” Aynesworth asked, “or shall we walk for a few minutes?”
Mrs. Travers hesitated. She looked around, but there was obviously no escape for her.
“I should like to sit down,” she said. “I am very tired this morning. My chair is next Mr. Wingrave’s there.”
Aynesworth found her rug and wrapped it around her. She leaned back and closed her eyes.
“I shall try to sleep,” she said. “I had such a shocking night.”
He understood at once that she was on her guard, and he changed his tactics.
“First,” he said, “may I ask you a question?”
She opened her eyes wide, and looked at him. She was afraid.
“Not now,” she said hurriedly. “This afternoon.”
“This afternoon I may not have the opportunity,” he answered. “Is your husband going to meet you at New York, Mrs. Travers?”
“No!”
“Are you going direct to Boston?”
She looked at him steadily. There was a slight flush of color in her cheeks.
“I find your questions impertinent, Mr. Aynesworth,” she answered.
There was a short silence. Aynesworth hated his task and hated himself. But most of all, he pitied the woman who sat by his side.
“No!” he said, “they are not impertinent. I am the looker-on, you know, and I have seen—a good deal. If Wingrave were an ordinary sort of man, I should never have dared to interfere. If you had been an ordinary sort of woman, I might not have cared to.”
She half rose in her chair.
“I shall not stay here,” she began, struggling with her rug.
“Do!” he begged. “I am—I want to be your friend, really!”
“You are supposed to be his,” she reminded him.
He shook his head.
“I am his secretary. There is no question of friendship between us. For the rest, I told him that I should speak to you.”
“You have no right to discuss me at all,” she declared vehemently.
“None whatever,” he admitted. “I have to rely entirely upon your mercy. This is the truth. People are thrown together a good deal on a voyage like this. You and Mr. Wingrave have seen a good deal of one another. You are a very impressionable woman; he is a singularly cold, unimpressionable man. You have found his personality attractive. You fancy—other things. Wingrave is not the man you think he is. He is selfish and entirely without affectionate impulses. The world has treated him badly, and he has no hesitation in saying that he means to get some part of his own back again. He does not care for you, he does not care for anyone. If you should be contemplating anything ridiculous from a mistaken judgment of his character, it is better that you should know the truth.”
The anger had gone. She was pale again, and her lips were trembling.
“Men seldom know one another,” she said softly. “You judge from the surface only.”
“Mine is the critical judgment of one who has studied him intimately,” Aynesworth said. “Yours is the sentimental hope of one fascinated by what she does not understand. Wingrave is utterly heartless!”
“That,” she answered steadfastly, “I do not believe.”
“You do not because you will not,” he declared. “I have spoken because I wish to save you from doing what you would repent of for the rest of your days. You have the one vanity which is common to all women. You believe that you can change what, believe me, is unchangeable. To Wingrave, women are less than playthings. He owes the unhappiness of his life to one, and he would see the whole of her sex suffer without emotion. He is impregnable to sentiment. Ask him and I believe that he would admit it!”
She smiled and regarded him with the mild pity of superior knowledge.
“You do not understand Mr. Wingrave,” she remarked.
Aynesworth sighed. He realized that every word he had spoken had been wasted upon this pale, pretty woman, who sat with her eyes now turned seawards, and the smile still lingering upon her lips. Studying her for a moment, he realized the danger more acutely than ever before. The fretfulness seemed to have gone from her face, the weary lines from her mouth. She had the look of a woman who has come into the knowledge of better things. And it was Wingrave who had done this! Aynesworth for the first time frankly hated the man. Once, as a boy, he had seen a keeper take a rabbit from a trap and dash its brains out against a tree. The incident flashed then into his mind, only the face of the keeper was the face of Wingrave!