He ordered drinks in a spirit of the most cheerful philosophy. As he raised his glass to his lips, he looked at Aylmer with a quizzical smile.
“Now, Mr. Aylmer, you told me a little time ago that you were deeply interested in criminology. Why don’t you go upstairs and have a chat with the head of the police? You might give them a wrinkle, you know. Eileen would be awfully grateful to you if we could get back the ‘loot’ or catch the chaps who have made off with it.”
Mr. Quentin was rather mellow to-night, and he meant it all in chaff. The young man recognized his mood, but, for all that he spoke quite seriously.
“I don’t know that I have specialized in the methods of these rats d’hôtel. But I think there is one thing pretty certain. To engineer this coup as they have done, they must have been supplied with some information from inside. Somebody in the Continental is in league with them.”
Quentin spoke seriously in his turn. “Of course, that is an obvious conclusion. Amongst the servants, or possibly the guests, I do not doubt there is an accomplice. Poor Mrs. Scadden, who bedizened herself in season and out of season, presented herself as a very open target. I could not say that of my wife, who wore the few jewels she possessed in good taste and on the proper occasions. It must have been known they kept their gewgaws in their rooms, and they chose the quietest time of the evening to make their raid. Somehow, you know, I pity these crooks. If they only put their brains to legitimate uses, what a success they might make of their lives. I’m sorry our friend Whitefield left us so soon, he won’t hear of it till to-morrow morning, and then the affair will have lost its dramatic quality.”
Later, when they separated, Peyton had a little chat with his friend. “Quite mellow to-night, our good Quentin,” he said. “He’s a bit of a sportsman, isn’t he? Quite nice to his wife about replacing the trinkets. I thought old Martyn looked very savage over it all. And so you are convinced there is somebody inside here who is an accomplice in this job, eh?”
“I am pretty sure it could not have been carried out otherwise,” was Aylmer’s convincing answer.
Mr. Cyrus J. Whitefield learned the news next morning, and was very greatly disgusted when he knew that Mrs. Quentin was a victim. He did not express any commiseration for Mrs. Scadden, who, he learned, was fat and remarkably plain. His sympathies were for youth and beauty. With his usual bluntness, he went straight to the point, and inquired of Mrs. Quentin: “What did they sting you for, if it isn’t a rude question?”
He had addressed his wife, but Quentin answered quickly: “Oh, really nothing to write home about; I should say four hundred would cover it. My wife is very wise in this respect; she doesn’t leave her best jewelry in her box; she puts it on.”
Four hundred pounds was, of course, nothing to a man who thought in millions. He opened his mouth as if he were about to speak, then closed it again, apparently from the restraining influence of second thoughts. Peyton read him like a book. It had been on the tip of his tongue to say that he would write her a check for the amount and accompany her to buy the trinkets that were to replace the stolen ones. But he was not quite sure of his ground, and such an offer might mortally offend both husband and wife.
And here it may be mentioned that this very daring jewel robbery was relegated to the long list of similar mysteries. The thieves, expert at their business, had left not a single clue, and after trying their hardest, the police had to confess themselves baffled. Poor Mrs. Scadden, whose loss was very serious, was vituperative and inconsolable. Eileen adopted the philosophy of her husband. There were worse misfortunes than this.
“It’s less to look after,” she said gaily the next evening to Aylmer as they were dancing together. “What little I have got left, I can take care of without any trouble. I shan’t really be sorry if Richard doesn’t replace it; it would be a constant anxiety.”
She always spoke of her husband as Richard, and when he thought over it, Aylmer found himself coming to the conclusion that Quentin was a man whom nobody would have thought of calling by the familiar abbreviation of Dick. He was genial in a way, after dinner particularly so; but, there was a certain something about him that did not invite familiarity. You felt you could go to a certain point with him—but no farther. Nevertheless, he possessed a considerable personality.
Aylmer ran an appraising eye over her, as she gave utterance to these remarks. She did not bedizen herself like the Scotch widow, but what she wore represented a goodly sum. Her diamonds and pearls, though few, were of the first quality. The rats d’hôtel certainly had come off second best, so far as she was concerned. She carried at least a thousand pounds on her very charming person.
At the end of four days the millionaire departed, expressing his deep regret at having to leave such delightful society. He expressed those regrets in his usual loud voice to Mrs. Quentin, whose hand he appeared to be pressing very tenderly as he made his adieux. He might have intended to address the whole of the party through her, but his manner, as he bade the others good-by separately, did not indicate any particularly warm feeling.
Young Peyton, who seemed to pass his life in minute observations of his fellow creatures, had several remarks to make to his friend about the departed Whitefield.
“Laid it on pretty thick when he said good-by to Mrs. Quentin, didn’t he?” he observed. “He tolerates me because I am my father’s son; I should say he rather dislikes you than otherwise, for obvious reasons. He thinks the fair Eileen looks upon you with favor. That bounder, Martyn, I am certain, he cordially detests. Well, I am with him there. With regard to Quentin himself, I don’t quite know what his feelings are. I fancy he regards him as a nonentity.”
“He certainly did not take much notice of anybody except the lady,” said Aylmer. “I think you are right about myself. I can’t exactly say he was uncivil, but he appeared to ignore me as much as he possibly could.”
“Very rum chap Quentin, I can’t make him out,” resumed Peyton, pursuing his meditations. “I thought our friend J. Cyrus flirted with her in the most open way—a good bit beyond the limits of good taste, in my opinion. To do her justice, she didn’t respond; she gave me the impression she was trying to keep him off, and put him in his place, a difficult task with such a self-sufficient, overbearing chap. It must have been obvious enough to Quentin, as it was to everybody else, but he never seemed to resent it in the least. I used to see Martyn scowling at him as if he could murder him. But the husband looked on with his usual air of placid indifference.”
“Evidently not a jealous husband; perhaps he has got beyond the age of jealousy,” commented Aylmer.
“Well, you know, or probably you don’t know, the latest development. I only knew of it myself about half an hour before Whitefield left. I happened to be in the lounge while the two men were talking together. Whitefield remarked that he was pretty certain to pay a visit to London in a couple of months’ time. Quentin was on at him at once. Would he come over and dine with them at their Hampstead house? If it was too far out, they could put him up if he would stay a day or two. Whitefield seemed to think a bit, then said he couldn’t promise to stay with them, but he would certainly see something of them while he was in London. He would be busy, as he always was, but he would make time to get to Hampstead. Quentin appeared delighted and asked him if he could rely upon that as a promise. Whitefield’s answer was that he could. So evidently Quentin is going to hang on to him, and desires his better acquaintance. Of course, if he does go, it will be with the intention of renewing his flirtation with the lady. I’m sure he wouldn’t walk across the street to shake hands with Quentin if he were without his wife.”
That this agreeable, placid man was not by any means a jealous husband was proved next morning, when Aylmer came upon the couple in the lounge.
Quentin addressed the young man with his usual pleasant, rather grave smile. “I have got a lot of letters to write this morning, and Eileen, as is natural, wants to go out into the sunshine and fresh air. Martyn, as is usually his custom, has gone off on his own. What do you say to being her escort, that is if you are not engaged to your friend, young Peyton?”
Aylmer assented to the suggestion with alacrity. Having stayed on from the desire of discovering the cause of that uncontrollable agitation of the other morning, he naturally was ready to embrace any opportunity of being alone with Eileen, as it was impossible to venture the most distant allusion to the subject in the presence of a third party. How often had those words occurred to him: “Nobody can help me.” What mystery was hidden behind that despairing utterance?
They talked on trivial subjects to begin with. But presently he felt himself compelled to put a direct question in the hope of inviting confidence.
“How are you and Mr. Martyn getting on now? It has struck me that quite lately—dating back, in fact, from a certain morning when I came upon you in the lounge—your relations have been strained. Once you were an inseparable trio, but now he seems to absent himself, except at meals.”
She flushed a little, and then answered him in a tone of lightness that he felt sure was assumed.
“We certainly, at the moment, are not the best of friends. I think, on the whole, I am rather glad. Whatever his feelings may be for me, I have never had much liking for him. I suppose he thought his great friendship with Richard gave him a certain authority over me, which I very much resented. On that morning to which you have alluded, I had to put him in his place. But I am naturally a peace-loving person, and the task upset me very greatly.”
“I cannot tell you how much your distress, it seemed more like despair, affected me,” said Aylmer in a tone the obvious sincerity of which evidently made a deep impression on her. “You said I could not help you. But is that really true? Believe me when I tell you there is no service you could ask of me which I would not render if it were within my power.”
She looked at him long and searchingly, while the rapid rise and fall of her bosom testified to the emotion that simple speech had aroused in her. And in her eyes was that telltale light which comes only when a woman is interested in a man. For a moment the young man was sorry that he had gone so far, that he had not controlled himself better. Why had he not moderated the warmth of his manner, the tenderness in his voice? Why had he let her read his heart so plainly? He felt himself a cur for making thinly-veiled love to a married woman.
“Would you be my friend, if ever I needed one?” she asked presently in a voice that seemed almost caressing.
At that question, the tide of prudence which had suddenly surged within him rolled back again. He answered fervently that he would.
She spoke again after a brief pause. “I am not sure, but some day I may need a friend. I cannot read the future. But sometimes I fancy it may be dark and uncertain. I should like to think I had somebody to rely upon, if such a time ever came. I know you have a tender and chivalrous nature, most especially where women are concerned. I cannot say very much now. But if I told you a very great secret would you swear by all you hold sacred to respect my confidence?”
“Dictate to me any form of oath you please and I will take it,” was the reply.
Again that tender light in her eyes as her earnest gaze fixed itself upon him.
“I will exact no oath. Give me your word of honor, that will be enough for me. My instinct tells me I can trust you.”
He bowed his head. “As you choose,” he said simply. “What you tell me shall never be divulged to any human being.”
The words dropped slowly from her lips, as a deep flush stained the beautiful face. “Something within me, I know not what, impels me to tell you this secret. You know me, as everybody else does here, as Mrs. Quentin. But Richard Quentin is not my husband; we are not man and wife.”
CHAPTER FIVE
She noted his sudden recoil, the almost horrified expression in his face, as she made this astounding confession.
Her voice had in it a vibrating note of reproach when she spoke again. “Surely, you do not think that of me? If I were what you seem to suppose, I could not look you in the face. Listen while I tell you a strange, an astonishing story, but a true one.”
Ashamed of himself for having so swiftly harbored evil thoughts, he composed himself to listen.
“I told you after I left boarding-school he found me a home with some friends of his, a married couple who, I fancy, were under considerable obligations to him. I was not at all happy there, and I suppose I could not help showing it when he came to see me. I did not take to either the husband or the wife, and they did not take to me. I saw from the first they did not want me, and I expect it was the fear of offending Mr. Quentin that made them hesitate to give a point-blank refusal to his suggestion. Perhaps also the want of money, for, I soon found out they were poor and making a brave show on very little. Anyway, we never hit it off together from the day I entered their house to the day I left it.”
And, at this point, Aylmer said the thing he might have been expected to say, and he said it with obvious sincerity.
“I am pretty certain the fault must have been on their side. It seems to me that any normal person could get on with you. You seem so even-tempered, so adaptable.”
She thanked him with a smile. “One is never a fair judge of oneself; still, I do not think I am difficult. If they had given me a little encouragement instead of keeping me always at arm’s length, I fancy I could have made myself fairly at home. Richard, I could see, began to have his suspicions of the state of affairs, and one day rather sternly bade me tell him the truth—was I happy or not?
“I hated to trouble him more than I could help, after his extraordinary kindness to me. But, that day I was in unusually low spirits and could not pretend. My answer was a flood of tears which it was impossible for me to restrain. He was very, very fond of me—chiefly, I think, for my mother’s sake—and he was deeply touched by my outburst of grief. He soothed me as a kind father might soothe a child, and assured me that my unhappiness should not continue. He would think it well over, and find some means of ending it. I must wait patiently for a few days while he was making up his mind as to what should be done. At the end of three days he paid me another visit, and made me a most remarkable proposition.”
“I should have guessed that he would have asked you to marry him,” interposed Aylmer. “In the case of a guardian and a young, attractive ward, that is often the solution of an awkward position.”
“Yes, I was prepared for that myself. And I was so wretched at the time that, frankly speaking, if he had asked me to marry him, I should have consented, although my feeling for him was of a strictly filial nature. But, apparently, no such idea recommended itself to him. He discussed the project of having me to live with him as his ward, or better still, his adopted daughter. He did not favor this scheme, foresaw that it would give rise to all sorts of gossip and uncharitable comment.
“He alluded to the subject of marriage in a very delicate sort of way, saying that even if I were willing to overlook the disparity in our ages and make what must be, under the circumstances, an experiment of the most hazardous kind, he felt it would be his duty to protect me from any such rash impulse. For himself, there never had been but one woman in the world he wanted to marry, and she would not have him. That, of course, was my dear mother. As her heart had been buried in her husband’s grave, so his was buried in hers. He could never give to any other the love he had given to her.”
She paused for a second, and Aylmer could find nothing to say. Surely, from what he could guess was coming, there had never been a more extraordinary situation. The girl would have taken him for a husband; but, although he loved her in his own way, the man would not take her for a wife.
“There was, he concluded, only one feasible solution for the difficulty, one from which, when he first suggested it, I frankly recoiled. It was that we should present ourselves to the world as husband and wife. Nobody would know that our real relations were those of guardian and ward. In this way he would have a right to protect me, and the tongue of scandal would be effectually silenced.”
At that moment it seemed that her companion was on the point of interrupting. She apparently divined the nature of the comment to which he was about to give utterance, and she went on swiftly, as if in answer to it.
“Of course, if we had been ordinary people with plenty of friends and acquaintances, it would have been almost impossible to carry out such a project unless we actually had gone through the ceremony of marriage. But, in our case, the difficulty was removed by the fact that both of us led a life of singular isolation. I had no friends at all, my dear mother having carefully secluded me from the companionship of any of the people she knew in her adopted profession. I was estranged, through no fault of my own, from all my relations. I took no interest in them; they were entirely oblivious of even my existence.”
“I understand your position perfectly,” the young man said. “But was Mr. Quentin in an equally isolated state? Had he, like you, nobody to consider?”
“Strange as it may sound to you, he appeared to be equally alone in the world,” was the answer. “Ever since I have known him, he has been a singularly reticent man. Never to me, never to my mother, according to what she told me, has he divulged any details of his family, of his past history. All we knew was that he was a man of means who spent the greater part of his life in travel.”
“But your home is in England, is it not?” asked Aylmer, voicing his surprise. “Traveling abroad so much, he would pick up acquaintances about whom he would know as much, or rather as little, as they would know about him. But, surely, in his own country, he must have some intimates, like his friend Martyn, for instance.”
She shook her head emphatically. But, in spite of that action, it seemed to him there was just a shade of hesitation in her manner as she spoke. “He has just a very few old cronies who occasionally come to see him at Hampstead during the very short periods that we are in residence there. In a general way, he is averse to cultivating society, and he hates entertaining in his own house. He prefers this cosmopolitan life, and is content to consort for a brief space with birds of passage like himself.”
“And would you wish a different sort of existence? Or, are you as contented as he is?” asked Aylmer.
“I am not quite sure,” she said after a brief pause. “The constant flitting about has its bright side. One is hardly ever dull; there is always some sort of excitement in a continual change of scenes and people. But then I am very young yet. Later on, perhaps, I may feel the desire to settle down, to have a real home, a place you can look upon as a haven of peace.”
They walked on for a long time in silence. The young man was thinking swiftly, deeply, over the singular tale she had unfolded to him. Presently he spoke.
“And when you made this strange arrangement, did it ever occur to you that there might come a day when you might meet somebody you really cared for, when these extraordinary relations might become exceedingly irksome?”
A vivid blush overspread her face at this question.
“As I told you, at first I recoiled at the proposition. But he is a singularly persuasive man. He employed all his eloquence to overcome my reluctance, to prove to me it was the best way out of a most difficult situation. I don’t think, at the time, I probed very deeply into the future; I was too anxious to embrace any lot that promised me even moderate happiness. But, to do him justice, he was not unmindful of the contingency to which you have alluded.”
Aylmer heaved a sigh of relief. He had thought very hardly of Quentin for having taken advantage of the girl’s inexperience and unhappiness to lure her into a false and anomalous position, one which, in time, she might find to be insupportable. He hoped she had been left some chance of escape from such a bondage.
“Yes, he was very fair and considerate. He told me in the most delicate way that if the experiment did not result in my happiness, if in the course of time I came across one whom I really loved and who really loved me, he would put no obstacles in the way. On the contrary, he would do everything he could to smooth away the difficulties that would arise.”
A very singular man this Quentin, that was quite obvious, thought Aylmer. Still, it puzzled him why such a roundabout way should have been chosen. Granted that her living with him as his ward, or adopted daughter, might have given rise to scandalous comment, there were other methods by which he might have secured his object of providing for her. He was, apparently, a very well-off man; he could have made her an allowance sufficient to support herself, apart from him. This masquerading as man and wife seemed one of the very wildest of projects that could emanate from the brain of one who appeared to be perfectly sane and also a man of the world. The situation would be very difficult to explain convincingly to the most ardent lover, if such should come upon the scene later on. They might have no real friends who took any interest in their proceedings, but, in the course of their short nomadic life together they must have come across heaps of people to whom she was known as Mrs. Quentin, the supposed wife of a man old enough to be her father.
His thoughts were in such a whirl over this remarkable revelation that he found it difficult to collect them. The one thing that insistently presented itself to his mind was the fact that she was really a free woman, and that he was at liberty to woo her, if he chose.
“And you have told me all this,” he said at length, “because you have an instinct that some day you may want a friend. I do not wish to force your confidence in any way, but I should like to know if that instinct has some foundation in fact; in a word, that you are, even now, apprehending trouble of some kind.”
There was a long pause before she replied to him, and there seemed in her manner the same hesitation that he had noticed a little time before.
“I do not know if there is any foundation in fact. It is, I think, simply an instinct but one that I cannot reason myself out of.” She spoke a little incoherently. “I have told you because I trust you, and because you offered to be my friend.”
He spoke very seriously. “My dear Mrs. Quentin, again I repeat that I shall prove myself worthy of your trust.” He added with a boldness that surprised himself: “I shall always be a friend. But if you care to look a little closer you will find more than a friend.”
These expressive words seemed to arouse in her an intense agitation. Her bosom heaved; impulsively she laid her hand upon his arm, and, an almost piteous cry came from the lips that trembled with her emotion.
“Oh, no, please not now. I was afraid of that, or I think I should have made you my confidant sooner. We must remain just friends, firm and faithful friends.”
He looked at her long and searchingly. Was he mistaken, after all, in thinking that she had for him any warmer feeling than that of friendship? And yet, his friend Peyton, that shrewd observer, very plainly had hinted that she was not indifferent to him. She had told him she was a free woman. Why did she shrink from anything in the shape of an avowal on his part? Before that revelation, he would not have indulged in a hint of his feelings. But now there was no question of injury to the man who masqueraded as her husband.
“Do you mean that—?” he began in an agitated voice, but she did not allow him to complete his question.
“Oh, I beg of you not to press me further, not to question me.” Her tones, full of entreaty, were far from steady. “I am not mistress of myself, just now; you must have guessed what an effort it has cost me to make such a confession to you. Be content now with the knowledge that I esteem you more greatly than anybody I have ever met. I should make you very, very vain if I told you the high opinion I have formed of your character.”
“Must we always stop at friendship?” he asked gravely. “Is there no hope of anything warmer on your part?”
But to that question she would make no answer. She could only send him from her beautiful eyes that piteous and entreating look that forbade him to press her further.
And yet, although he was not naturally a very keen observer, certain things in her attitude, the depth of her agitation especially, seemed to suggest that she returned his affection, although her lips obstinately refused to confirm it. In spite of Quentin’s promise to release her from an intolerable situation, was she doubtful that he would keep his word when the crucial moment came? Or, was she thinking that, even if he kept faith with her, the difficulties of the new situation would still be very formidable?
She spoke presently in a lighter vein. “We shall not lose sight of each other as is usually the case in an acquaintance of the casual kind. We shall be going to England very shortly, and shall stay there for some little time. I am going to tell you a great secret, which you must be quite surprised at when you learn it from its proper source. Richard has made up his mind to ask you to visit us at our home at Hampstead; but, he is sure not to ask you till just before we say good-by here. Don’t let your manner betray that it is not the surprise he imagines.”
He gave her the required promise, while he meditated over the information she had given him. There seemed no limit to Quentin’s eccentricity. In England he was supposed to live the life of a recluse, shunning company and seeing none but a few old cronies. Yet, in a brief space, he had departed twice from his rules. He had asked Whitefield, an absolute stranger, to visit him, and now he was going to ask another stranger to be his guest. His conduct certainly was contradictory. What had he seen in either of these two men to arouse the desire of cultivating their society?
Of course he did not express these thoughts to her, but, he could not get them out of his mind. He would have liked dearly to have had Peyton’s alert young brain at work on this sudden change of front. But, of course, he could not take him into his confidence, as he could not betray the trust the beautiful young woman had reposed in him.
There was one point on which he was very curious—Did the ungenial Martyn know of this singular relation between the couple, or did he, like the rest, suppose them to be husband and wife in the ordinary meaning of that relationship?
He put the question bluntly to her, and her answer was that Martyn was not in the secret. She went even further than that in stating that nobody except himself understood the true nature of the situation. But, in spite of the strong fascination she exercised over him, he could not quite bring himself to believe her. There was a subtle something in her manner that roused his suspicions, that suggested there were certain things in which she did not intend to give him her complete confidence. He had an instinctive feeling that Martyn knew as much as he did himself. But after such an emphatic assurance, he felt it impossible to pursue the subject.
A later reference to that morning on which he had found her in tears did not lead to any satisfactory result. She treated the matter lightly, pretending there was really nothing in the incident, that she had happened to be in a somewhat hysterical mood, and had given way to an emotion that was not justified by anything that had taken place between her husband’s friend and herself.
One result of the confidential relations that so suddenly had been brought about was that, during the remainder of his stay at Ostend, Aylmer was a good deal more in her society. Martyn was still one of the party, but he continued to absent himself the greater part of the time. And Quentin seemed rather pleased than otherwise that his wife had found somebody who was ready always to keep her company when he was not disposed to be her escort.
On the night before the two young men left for England, Quentin took the opportunity, when alone with Aylmer, of inviting him to visit them later on in London.
“We shall be at Hampstead in about a month from now,” he told the young man. “And I will write to you as soon as we get there, and fix a day for you to come and dine.” He added, after a slight pause: “I hope that nice young fellow Peyton will not be offended if I don’t include him. But I think he is a bit too youthful for such an invitation to give him pleasure. And Eileen does not care for very young men.”
The next day he said good-by to the supposed husband and wife. His regret at parting with Eileen was tempered by the thought that he would soon be meeting her again. And this meeting would be independent of the invitation that Quentin had given him.
He was resolved to deliver her, by every means in his power, from this unnatural bondage, and to pursue this scheme, it would be necessary they should meet in secret. He had suggested this to her several times, and had been met by an agitated refusal. But, in the end, she had surrendered, and had promised to do what he asked.
CHAPTER SIX
On the night of his arrival in England, Aylmer dined with his friend Peyton at his father’s house in Wimbledon. Peyton senior had an exceedingly flourishing business, and was a man of considerable wealth. If he had been possessed of a pushing temperament, or had married an ambitious woman, he might have forced his way into the select circles of London society. But both he and his wife came from good, sound commercial stock and were content to abide by middle-class ideals. They did not care to expose themselves to the chance of being snubbed by their so-called social superiors, or to purchase a tepid toleration on account of their money-bags and by giving lavish entertainments.
“Some people like that sort of thing, are always straining every nerve to get out of their own sphere,” he would say when he discussed the subject with his friends. “But our inclinations don’t lie that way. Claude will be a rich man some day, and I dare say, if we worked for it, he could marry the daughter of some impecunious peer and be patronized by her relations. That wouldn’t suit me, and I hope he will never have any hankerings in that direction. He’d find more happiness with some nice girl of his own class. And the same applies to the two girls.”
He had brought up his children in these sturdy and independent principles, and, having inherited the sound common sense of their parents, they acquiesced very cheerfully in what some might have called his lack of ambition.
His eldest daughter, Laura, was married to a prosperous manufacturer in the Midlands. The younger, Kate, was engaged to a barrister some ten years her senior, who was fast securing a lucrative practice. Claude, the only son and youngest of the trio, at present, had no desire to settle down. There would be plenty of time for that, and when he did marry he might be reckoned upon to make a sensible choice.
And Mr. Peyton was perfectly happy in his mode of life, and his money gave him every comfort and luxury that he wanted. He was quite content to go to his office every day, to take his annual holiday abroad, to entertain his own particular business friends and be entertained by them, in return.
Certainly, it was a very comfortable house, or rather mansion, that he lived in, and staffed by a capable set of servants. The old gentleman spent his money lavishly and was fond of good living. But, not a year passed that he did not put by a considerable sum out of his big profits. With his sound commercial principles, he could no more have lived up to his income than he could have flown. According to his gospel, it was the duty of every man to work hard and save for his wife and children.
It was quite a family party, the host and hostess, the engaged daughter and her fiancé the rising barrister, and the two young men. Mr. Peyton liked Aylmer very much personally. But, to his son, he always expressed his profound regret that he led such an idle life, that he did not do something.
“I know he has plenty of money,” he would say, “but that ought to be an incentive to him to make more. My father left me a snug little sum, but I didn’t chuck the shop and go and live on the interest of it. I stuck to the business, and I shall stick to it as long as my mental and bodily faculties last. Better wear out than rust out, my dear boy.”
In the main, the young man agreed with his father, although he was not quite such a whole-hearted believer in the gospel of work as the old gentleman. Thanks to a superior education, he had developed more interests in life. The existence of Peyton senior was circumscribed by the area of his office; he cared nothing for art, literature, or music. Even a too long holiday bored him. Truth to tell, he had developed into something of a business machine. Claude had made up his mind that long before his father’s age he would enjoy a well-earned leisure, and amuse himself with distractions that did not appeal to the rigidly bourgeois mind, which has a tendency to hold self-culture at arm’s length as being an unprofitable occupation.
Aylmer was very fond of young Claude, but though he respected the parents exceedingly for many things, he found them a bit stodgy.
The old gentleman could talk only on two subjects, business and politics. On the latter he would discourse with considerable fervor. But, as he was a violent Tory of the die-hard school, and more than a little intolerant of more moderate opinion, it was difficult to listen to him with much satisfaction. Mrs. Peyton was a splendid housekeeper, and ran the establishment like a machine; but, in other respects she was quite a colorless person.
Kate Peyton had inherited the strong common sense of her parents, but she had grafted on to it a few artistic instincts. She liked really good literature and she was a talented musician. It was to be feared that neither her father nor mother enjoyed, to any extent, the classical music she expounded to them. Mrs. Peyton would secretly sigh for the good old waltzes of her girlhood, and her husband had no appreciation of any form of music, gay or severe.
The dinner was a somewhat slow affair. In fact, had it not been for the brilliant efforts of the barrister, a talker by profession, it would have been quite dull. He managed, however, to say enough for the whole party. Claude was a lively enough young fellow on ordinary occasions; but, when in the society of his parents, the stodginess of the atmosphere seemed to weigh him down. His sister was affected in the same way. She was quite an intelligent girl when she found herself in the society of congenial spirits; but she, too, felt the effect of the atmosphere created by these two well-meaning, but very limited, people.
When they all got to the drawing-room after a dinner that left nothing to be desired from the point of view of hospitality—the barrister, who was a great connoisseur of music, begged his fiancée to play for them. Knowing his tastes, she chose some lovely things from Chopin, which gave great pleasure to three people in the room. Poor old Mr. Peyton was observed to nod more than once during the performance, and Aylmer felt pretty sure, by the strained expression on the hostess’s face, that good manners alone prevented her from following the bad example.
After the music was over, they put in an hour in the billiard room, a handsome apartment done up in the choicest style. They played a game of pool, and here Mr. Peyton senior showed to much greater advantage. He was far the best player of the lot, and potted the balls one after another with the most deadly precision.
The barrister returned to town; he had a busy day in the Courts before him. Aylmer had been asked to spend the night, and the two young men went into the smoking room for a final chat and a drink.
“I’m afraid you’ve found it a bit heavy, old man,” remarked Claude to his friend. He had the greatest respect for his parents; but, in common with his sister, he was fully aware of their limitations. “The dear old boy is not cut out for general society, he isn’t giddy enough. Where he shines is when he has a snug little dinner-party of his business friends and can talk shop to his heart’s content. Now, let us have a good powwow. We can stop here as long as we like, for the best thing about him is that he allows his family to do practically what they like, no stupid restrictions or anything of that sort.”
Aylmer politely, if not quite truthfully, disclaimed any impression of “heaviness.” He said some very kind things about the old people, and expressed his pleasure at having met the future son-in-law, whom he considered a most excellent and cultivated fellow.
He thought it time to break to Peyton the news that Quentin had given him an invitation to Hampstead. He was not absolutely certain how Claude would take it, but he was pretty sure there was no paltry jealousy in his composition.
“I rather wonder he didn’t ask you,” he said a little lamely in conclusion. “But I expect you’re a bit too young for him to be quite at his ease with you. I am just the right medium, I suppose.”
When Peyton spoke there was certainly no evidence of pique at the fact that his friend had been preferred to himself. “I’m not at all certain I should have gone if I had been asked,” he said quietly. “Mrs. Quentin gave me to understand at the beginning of our acquaintance that she did not care for very young men, and it may be bad taste on my part, but I never had the slightest inclination to try to arouse her interest. Very charming and all that, but she always struck me as too much of an unknown quantity.
“With regard to the husband, agreeable and plausible as he is, there was something about the man—I can’t in the least define what it was—that failed to attract me. I never had any wish to cultivate a deeper acquaintance. And, of course, you will go? I need not ask that question.”
He looked very searchingly at his friend as he put the query, and Aylmer could not prevent a faint accession of color. “Oh, yes, I shall go,” he answered, assuming as careless a tone as he could with that keen gaze on him. “There is something about the couple that piques my curiosity; I should like to have peep at their home life. When you meet people amongst crowds, there is always something a trifle artificial about them.”
The younger man lowered his glance and made no further comment. But his thoughts were very busy. He had not failed to notice that during the last few days of their stay at Ostend, there had been a certain growth of intimacy in the relations between Eileen and his friend, a certain subtle change of manner in their demeanor towards each other which confirmed his worst fears. Privately, he thought Aylmer was more than foolish in running into obvious peril with a young woman whom he looked upon as a very dangerous siren.
With the calm, practical nature he had inherited from his hard-headed father, there was no chance of his ever involving himself in disastrous entanglements. But Aylmer was of a totally different temperament. That rather quiet manner of his hid a great faculty of romance, a strong tendency to impulse, to act on the spur of the moment. He was just the sort of man to fall an easy victim to the devastating influence of a great passion, to count the world well lost for the sake of love. Claude felt profoundly sorry that his friend ever had come across the Quentins.
And then his thoughts turned upon Quentin himself. He was no fool, this quiet, suave-spoken man. Surely, he must have seen what was so obvious to Peyton himself, that these two were more than ordinarily interested in each other. If he had seen it, why had he gone out of his way to throw them together? Truly, there was something about Quentin he did not fully comprehend.
It was with difficulty he refrained from uttering the words of wisdom which were surging within him, but which, for the best of reasons he forbore. He was well enough acquainted with human nature to know that anything he could say would be useless. A man deeply enamored pays no heed to advice, however sound it may be. Aylmer must know, as well as he did, the danger of the course he was pursuing, and was recklessly stifling his sane judgment. If he was to be saved, nobody could save him but himself.
And, although Aylmer was not as acute in many things as the younger man, he could form a pretty shrewd guess at what was passing in Peyton’s mind, as he sat there very silent, but with a pre-occupied look on his pleasant face. Yes, from his point of view, Peyton was quite right in thinking him a fool. But then, he did not know the real facts of the case, that Eileen was a free woman, free to love without injury to her supposed husband. If she had not made that startling confession to him, he was sure he would have had the strength to decline Quentin’s invitation. He was far too honorable to make love to the wife of another man, however much he adored her in secret.
The next morning, the three men went up to London, father and son to the City offices, Aylmer to his comfortable suite of rooms in Ryder Street, where he was received by his valet, who had taken his own holiday during the time his master was at Ostend.
The young man had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, not to mention relatives. And he was a popular member of three clubs. Therefore, there was no difficulty in filling up his time, in spite of the fact that he was, in Mr. Peyton’s sense of the word, an idle man. But the days seemed to go very slowly, the real truth being that he was awaiting with feverish anxiety the advent of that important letter from Eileen.
And at last it came. And brief as it was, he read it over half a dozen times, as is the way of ardent lovers. It told him that they had arrived in England four days ago, and she had taken the earliest opportunity of redeeming her promise. She would be waiting outside the Café Mario, the place at which they had appointed to meet, at half-past one.
Needless to say, she did not have to wait; for he took good care to be there before her. His heart beat as he saw the graceful, slender figure coming towards him. And they shook hands warmly, with just a little air of shyness on her side.
The Café Mario was an unpretentious restaurant in the heart of Soho. Of course, he would have preferred to take her to a more palatial establishment; but, when he had suggested the Berkeley or the Savoy, she had said both of those places were too public. He had rather wondered at this, at the time, as he had gathered that she and Quentin knew so few people. But she had been very insistent on the point that they must choose an unfrequented neighborhood.
The café was not very full, and they found a comfortable table at the end of the long narrow room; and, an intelligent waiter, who took them in hand, so to speak, recommended certain dishes in which the establishment excelled.
They were both a little shy at first. But, as the luncheon proceeded, their embarrassment wore off, and they appeared to become more reconciled to the novelty of the situation. But a certain nervousness showed itself in her as fresh patrons entered the place. She had the air of a child doing something which had been forbidden, and is in fear of being found out.
He commented on it at once. “You seem very nervous, dear,” he remarked. It was the first time he had addressed her so intimately, and a swift color came to her cheek. But he was sure she did not resent it. “Why should she?” he asked himself. Having met him in this clandestine fashion was sufficient proof that she cared for him, that she accepted him as a lover.
She smiled a little. “I am not so sure that this is such a safe place. I have heard two or three cronies of Richard’s speak in praise of the Soho restaurants. It would be dreadful if one of them took it into his head to pop in here this particular day.”
He comforted her by declaring that such a coincidence was improbable in the highest degree, and it seemed that she caught some of his confidence. Presently she told him some very interesting news. Quentin, that morning, had spoken of the projected visit to Hampstead, and had intimated his wish that she should write to Aylmer at once, and ask him down to dinner on the Wednesday of the following week. As Hampstead was rather a far cry for such a confirmed Londoner, he was being asked to stay the night.
“I posted that letter as I came along,” she told him in conclusion. “So I expect you will get it by the last post to-night. I suppose we may reckon on your acceptance?”
An eloquent look was his answer. She had got over her nervousness by now, and her manner was more assured. “I am rather glad that we shall have a little time to recover ourselves and get used to the situation. If you had been asked for to-morrow, I think I should have felt dreadfully guilty when we met at Hampstead. As it is, we shall have to keep guard over ourselves, for fear of something slipping out. For instance,” and here she blushed very prettily, “you must not repeat that word you used just now. That would give us away completely.”
“By Jove, it would,” said Aylmer, laughing. “And I shouldn’t know what excuses to make. If I had nieces, I might say I was so accustomed to using the word to them.”
They spent a very happy couple of hours, which she was supposed to have passed in looking at the shops. When they parted, she insisted that she should go out first, and he follow a minute or two later, in case of accidents. If they were not seen together, no tales could be told to Quentin.
Aylmer assented, adding boldly: “But some day we shall have to break the news to him.”
“Ah, some day,” she answered quickly, “but you must wait for me to choose that day. There is just one little thing I want to say to you before we part, a little secret that you ought to know. Richard tells everybody he is not a man of business, but in a certain sense that is untrue. He is very fond of speculation, in which he is not particularly successful. But he has a great belief in his own judgment, and he often invites his friends to join with him. I want you to promise me that if he makes any suggestion of this kind to you, you will firmly decline for any reason you may think fit to invent. Have nothing to do with his schemes, however plausible they may sound. Will you promise me now?”
He did as she asked him, rather marveling at this second confession, which seemed to throw a new light on Quentin’s character. If there was one thing on which he had especially insisted during their brief acquaintance, it was that he had no business aptitude. And yet, according to Eileen’s statement, in a certain sense he was a man of business, though not apparently a very successful one.
By the last post that evening, Eileen’s letter arrived. In it she gave him minute instructions how to find The Laurels, which was situated close to that ancient hostelry Jack Straw’s Castle.
On the appointed day he went to Hampstead by the tube railway as being the quicker way. He knew the neighborhood very well, having often rambled over the Heath and along the various roads that surrounded it, and he soon located the commodious, old-fashioned house standing back from the road in about a couple of acres of well-kept garden.
As he neared the big gate that opened on to a wide carriage drive, he saw a man advancing from the opposite direction. There was something peculiar about this person’s appearance which attracted Aylmer’s attention. He walked with a slight limp, was a little over middle height, and was dressed very shabbily. He was not quite seedy enough to be a tramp, and he was certainly not a workman. But what struck the young man most was the remarkable refinement of his face and figure, at strange variance with his worn and disreputable clothes.
He was nearer the gate by some yards than Aylmer, and on reaching it, he opened it with the air of a man who knew his way. Aylmer followed slowly, and saw him making for the front door. Then, apparently on a second thought, he swung round, and struck into the path leading to the kitchen entrance.
Aylmer rang the bell, wondering what manner of man this strange person could be who so quickly turned from the main entrance, as if the idea had struck him that his shabby attire would convey the idea of an incongruous visitor.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was some time before the ring at the bell was answered. Then, after a second summons, the door was opened by a very dignified butler who wore the old-fashioned side-whiskers, eschewing the more modern method of clean-shaving.
Aylmer decided from his experience, that this pleasant-looking person was a choice thing in butlers. He was respectful without being in the least servile. He took from the young man his hat and coat and showed him into the drawing-room, where, somewhat to his surprise, he found Eileen alone.
She rose, with just a faint suspicion of color in her cheek; no doubt she was thinking of their last meeting in the Soho restaurant and had not quite got over a certain guilty feeling.
“Welcome to The Laurels,” she said in her pretty, cheerful voice. “Richard will be back presently to echo my welcome. But he has been called away for a few moments to attend to some rather tiresome business. You must put up with me till he appears.”
How charming she was, he thought. What a knack she had of saying little depreciating things of herself which rather provoked a compliment. He answered her in a similar vein. “I shall be delighted to see Mr. Quentin when he comes but he has left a more than efficient substitute.”
The dignified butler presently appeared with tea and a decanter of whisky. The hostess put a question to him: “Is Mr. Quentin likely to be long, Dicks?”
Dicks answered her in a deep, mellow voice. “I am not quite sure, ma’am. Perhaps it would be better not to wait. And besides, he never takes tea.”
Naturally, this capable man was well acquainted with the habits of the household, and could give sound advice. Eileen turned to her guest. “Tea, Mr. Aylmer, or would you prefer a whisky-and-soda?”
Aylmer declared for the more harmless beverage. Eileen seemed pleased at his choice.
“I noticed, when we were at Ostend, you were what I should call an abstemious sort of man,” she said, speaking rather more seriously than was her usual custom. “I am very glad of it, for your own sake and that of others who are connected with you. In this house things are a bit the other way, too much so for my liking. Richard, in spite of that quaint manner of his, is a very temperamental person. He is always in a state of nerves, and they require soothing, with that”—she pointed with a contemptuous gesture to the decanter. “You heard Dicks say he never takes tea. When he does put in an appearance, he will pour himself out a very liberal dose of whisky.”
Another small revelation about the master of the house. And yet, was it quite a revelation? During their sojourn abroad, together, Aylmer had remarked that Quentin was a heavy drinker, not only at meals with the stimulus of food, but during the day.
“And the few people who find their way here,” went on Eileen in the same serious voice, “seem to be troubled with a similar weakness. And it runs through the house; the servants drink. Dicks is a most excellent servant, and never forgets himself, but that flush on his cheek is more than a symptom of good health. And his master puts temptation in his way.”
She was letting him into the inner secrets of the establishment with a rather embarrassing frankness, he thought. But later on at dinner he had an opportunity of understanding what she meant.
The drawing-room, a long, low-ceilinged apartment of considerable size, looked out upon the front garden. Aylmer could look right down to the gate. He kept his eyes open, expecting to see shortly the shabbily-dressed figure of the man with the refined face emerging on his way out, from the kitchen quarters. But many minutes passed and there was no sign of the man who earlier had arrested his attention. Probably some out-at-elbows relation of one of the servants, who had dropped in for refreshment of some sort. It was evidently a very hospitable house. From what Eileen had let fall, the servants could do much as they pleased under the rule of a too indulgent master.
Half an hour passed. Nobody came down the garden, and the host had not put in an appearance. Aylmer by no means resented his absence, as he much preferred to be alone with the charming young woman; but he could not help thinking it was somewhat strange behavior on a first visit. He had been asked especially to come early, and Quentin, surely, should have been there to receive him.
The suspicion of what her guest must be thinking seemed to arouse in Eileen a growing embarrassment. At length, unable to contain herself, she rose, and rang the bell sharply.
She spoke in an irritated tone to the butler when he answered the summons. “Please ask Mr. Quentin if he will be very much longer. We have finished tea. Mr. Aylmer has been here for over half an hour.”
In a few minutes Dicks returned. Mr. Quentin sent his most sincere apologies to his guest. He would be with them directly.
But, it was a good ten minutes after that message before he put in appearance; and, during that period, the man with the limp had not shown himself. Somehow, Aylmer could not help associating his host’s absence with that rather sinister-looking person.
When he arrived, he was full of contrition and cordiality. As soon as the greetings were over, he stretched out his hand to the decanter, and poured out a very liberal allowance of spirit, to which he added a quite small measure of soda-water. This he drained at one long gulp, and as he held the glass to his mouth, Aylmer noticed that his hand trembled. The young man fancied that his whole demeanor, since he had entered the room, evinced traces of some unusual inward agitation.
He seated himself in an easy chair, and began to talk in a rapid, jerky fashion. “I suppose one cannot escape small annoyances in this world. One shuts oneself up like a recluse, excludes commonplace persons from one’s life, only opens one’s doors to people with whom one feels a certain measure of affinity. And yet, careful as one may be, one can never wholly escape from disturbing things.”
While giving utterance to these cryptic words, he poured himself out another dose of ardent spirit, which this time he consumed in a more leisurely fashion. Aylmer stole a glance at Eileen, on whose brow was a distinct frown. She evidently did not approve of his recourse to stimulants as a remedy for his frayed nerves.
Aylmer found himself wondering if this tendency to drink was more than an infirmity; if it had grown into a vice. During the time they had been alone, he had asked Eileen if she felt more contented now that she was in England. Her answer had been of rather a hesitating character.
“In some ways, yes,” she had told him. “But I believe the other life suits Richard better. I don’t think the loneliness is very good for him; he is thrown too much on his own resources.”
He fancied he was able to read between the lines of that vague statement. In the crowded life of an hotel, Quentin was open to observation, he had to keep a control over his unfortunate impulses. Here, in this big house, with only one weak woman, hardly more than a girl, and a set of obsequious servants, he was responsible to nobody but himself. And the young man felt almost certain that, fond as the man must be of Eileen in his placid, paternal way, he did not allow her to exercise much influence over him. Quiet as he was, he conveyed the idea of obstinacy.
It was rather an embarrassing moment. Quentin had admitted that he had been upset, but he would not say frankly what had upset him. To create a diversion, Aylmer inquired after Martyn.
The commonplace question seemed to rouse Quentin from his disturbing reflections. He spoke in a brisker tone.
“Oh, very well, very well, indeed. I had a letter from him a couple of days before we left for England. He is making a leisurely journey through Italy. He never stops in one place for long, a bird of passage something like ourselves, but without any anchorage in his own country, such as Eileen and I have here.”
“Are you likely to make a long stay at Hampstead?”
Quentin seemed to hesitate. Eileen, from whose fair brow the frown had not wholly disappeared, answered for him.
“It is no use asking Richard that question; he couldn’t give you a reliable reply. He is a man of moods and impulses. To-day he might tell you we would stay a month, and next week he is as likely as not to give me twenty-four hours’ notice to pack up and be off to the end of the world.”
Quentin laughed good-humoredly at the petulance in her tone.
“Not quite so bad as that, my dear, surely. If the climate behaves itself, I think I could put in a good few weeks here. But of course, if we have an abominable spell of weather, I am afraid I shall want to set out for sunnier lands. I hate gloom and rain,” he concluded with a little shiver of disgust.
There were no more embarrassing moments, and presently the conversation flowed easily between them. The slight cloud disappeared from Eileen’s face, and she was again the sunny, charming young woman he had known at Ostend.
Aylmer thought how little one knows of people till one sees them in their own home. At the hotel they always had seemed an easy-going couple, not particularly devoted, perhaps, but always very pleasant to each other. On this, his first visit to them, in their strictly domestic surroundings, there had been a certain sub-acid note in Eileen’s demeanor to her supposed husband. Did he, in this more intimate environment, display, unchecked, certain qualities that aroused her resentment and caused her to show herself in a less attractive light? He could not, of course, bring himself to admit that she was at fault.
In due course they went in to dinner, Quentin apologizing for there being no other guest. “We are quite en famille, as you see, Mr. Aylmer, but I shall hope that you will not be too bored with us.”
The young man made some polite rejoinder, and the dinner proceeded, the dignified Dicks and the neat-looking parlormaid attending on the small party. The Laurels was not nearly so big a house as the Peytons’ mansion at Wimbledon, but it was a much more elegant one. The furniture at Wimbledon was solid and expensive, that of The Laurels evidently had been chosen by a person of very considerable taste and artistic leanings. The same applied to the dinner. There was more profusion at Mr. Peyton’s table: here there was a smaller menu, but the dishes harmonized better with each other. And the wines were especially choice. But in this respect Quentin, of course, had a serious rival, for the stockbroker dealt with a first-class wine-merchant, and was greatly assisted by him in his choice of vintages.
At a certain point in the repast, Eileen half rose with the intention of leaving the two men to themselves. But Quentin intervened. “My dear child, in a small party like this, let us dispense with that barbarous custom of separating the sexes just when we are really beginning to get convivial. Stay with us. I am sure Aylmer is too great an admirer of the ladies to object.”
Quentin had been by no means sparing in his enjoyment of the excellent wines to which his butler had helped him, and he was certainly by now in a most convivial mood. He set down his half-finished glass of port with genuine satisfaction.
“Help yourself, while it is here, Aylmer,” he cried, dropping the formal “Mister” in his jovial mood. “And persuade that little teetotaller to have a drop more. I have only a half-dozen bottles of it left, and I don’t know where to replace it. There’s nothing like it on the market at the present moment.”
But Eileen refused on the ground that, as she was no judge of wine, it would be wasted on her. Quentin turned round to the butler, who, so it seemed to Aylmer, had been lingering unnecessarily in the room. “Dicks, you must take away a glass of this to drink downstairs, you know it of old.”
The dignified butler brought not one but two glasses. For a moment his genial master looked uncertainly at the second glass, as if wondering why it was brought. Then he seemed to recollect himself. “And, of course, one for Mrs. Masters, the cook. She deserves it, for she surpassed herself in that vol-au-vent.”
Dicks, with a muttered word of thanks, left the room. Aylmer stole a glance at Eileen, and saw that the cloud had slightly returned to her face. She evidently did not approve of these free and easy relations between the servants and their master. Mr. Quentin might have restrained his good-heartedness on this particular evening.
When they crossed the hall, into the drawing-room, sounds of enjoyment were heard issuing from the regions of the kitchen. Even Quentin, with his lax notions of domestic discipline, frowned a little at the sound. “What an infernal row,” he said.
Eileen spoke very sharply. “It is perfectly disgraceful. Mr. Aylmer must be surprised at the way in which the house is run. And it is all your fault. You let them turn the place into a bear garden; you never exert your authority in the slightest degree.”
A rather obstinate look came over Quentin’s face; although he was in too jovial a mood to resent such plain speaking by any show of temper. “My dear, are you not more than a bit uncharitable? These poor devils are enjoying themselves downstairs, as we are enjoying ourselves upstairs, only our veneer of refinement enables us to disguise our feelings better.”
To these philosophical remarks, Eileen did not condescend to reply. But Aylmer surmised that there might be several things at The Laurels which did not meet with her approval. He rather wondered that she did not introduce greater order into the establishment herself. Was Quentin, in spite of his quiet, amiable manner, one of those obstinate men who will not be interfered with?
In the drawing-room she played and sang a little. But, neither her vocal nor instrumental performance was of a high order. Presently Quentin began to talk, and Aylmer was surprised to find what a very well-read and cultivated fellow he was when he fairly got himself launched forth. He wandered from politics to art, from art to literature and music, and was perfectly at home in every subject on which he touched.
It was rather a revelation to his guest, for at Ostend he never had let himself go, never poured forth the treasures of information with which he seemed so fully endowed. Even Eileen, in spite of her chagrin at the imperfect running of the establishment, seemed to forget her annoyance, and listened to him with evident pleasure. And, Aylmer was quite convinced that his host was a many-sided man.
The time passed quickly; and then, at a pause in the conversation, Quentin glanced at the clock. “I’m afraid I’ve been a sad monopolist this evening,” he remarked. “I see it is past eleven, and I have been talking most of the time. Are you a late bird, Aylmer? Living so much alone when in England, we get into the habit of going to bed early. Is it too soon for you?”
Aylmer replied politely in the negative. Quentin rang the bell for the butler to lock up the house, and “good-nights” were exchanged. As a matter of fact, eleven o’clock was rather an early hour for the young man, and when he got into bed, he felt very wakeful.
Naturally, he was more than a little excited by his first visit to the house which sheltered the object of his affections. He wondered much at the peculiar relations which existed between Eileen and this middle-aged man who passed as her husband. Now that real love had come to her, she was naturally dissatisfied; but before this period, had she enjoyed any measure of real happiness in such an unreal existence? Perhaps for this reason—for Quentin was too intelligent not to have surmised what she was feeling—she had been rushed about from place to place in the hope of providing her with amusement and distraction.
He fell into a doze presently, and then woke up with a sudden start. He lay wide awake, listening. Yes, surely, there was the sound of stealthy footfalls along the corridor outside his room and down the big staircase that led into the hall. Presently, straining his ears, he heard the front door opened very softly, and apparently it was not closed. He struck a match, and looked at his watch; it was a few minutes past two o’clock.
He peeped into the corridor, and made out that the door of one of the bedrooms was ajar. He knew it was the one in which Quentin slept, Eileen’s room being next to it. Quickly, he stepped across to the window and drew the blind a very little aside, so that he could see through to the garden.
It was a very bright night, the moon shining brilliantly, and he could see as plainly as if it were day.
Three men were clustered under the shade of a big tree close to the gate which opened on to the carriage-drive.
There was no mistaking those figures, dressed in the same clothes in which he had last seen them. They were Quentin, Dicks the butler, and the man with the limp. The three were engaged in animated conversation.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was evident a conference of considerable importance was taking place between this strangely assorted trio—Dicks, in his respectable butler’s dress, Quentin in the clothes he had worn at dinner, and the lame man in his shabby attire.
Quentin and the stranger seemed to be taking the most prominent part in the discussion, Dicks putting in a phrase now and again. The lame man appeared to emphasize his remarks with a wealth of gesture suggestive of a foreigner.
For something like twenty minutes, Aylmer watched this singular scene from his hiding-place. But, although the window was open at the top, they spoke in such low tones that he could not catch a scrap of their conversation. Then the party broke up. Dicks opened the gate, and advancing a little way into the road, looked carefully from left to right. Having satisfied himself there was nobody about, he gave a swift signal, and the man with the limp passed out, walking very quickly in spite of his infirmity.
After a brief period, during which Dicks leaned over the now shut gate, as if he were listening to the retreating footfalls of this strange guest, master and man returned to the house, side by side, still talking very earnestly, their conversation inaudible. Aylmer heard the hall door softly closed and the stealthy return of Quentin to his bedroom. Dicks presumably had returned to the servants’ quarters, which were approached by a separate staircase, at the rear of the building.
A decidedly mysterious happening, was his reflection, as the young man returned to his bed. He felt sure he had been right, at the start, in connecting his host’s absence with the sudden appearance of the man with the limp. He understood now why he had been detained so long at the front door; it was to enable Quentin to get out of the way. The whimsical thought came to him that the second port glass, which the host had not at first seemed to understand when Dicks brought it to him, was intended for this mysterious person secluded in some remote portion of the house, out of sight and sound of strangers.
Whatever the nature of the secret, Dicks, the suave and dignified butler—Dicks, of whom, in the little she had said about him, Eileen did not seem to hold a very high opinion—was in it.
After a great deal of cogitation, Aylmer began to dismiss it from his mind. Perhaps it was a family secret. Perhaps the shabbily-dressed man with the refined features was some disreputable connection of whom the well-to-do master of this elegant house, very naturally, was ashamed. Perhaps the poor wretch turned up, from time to time, to appeal to his compassion and obtain pecuniary assistance. If such were the case, he might find Dicks a valuable assistant, one who would loyally help him to keep the skeleton firmly locked up in the cupboard, even pass him off to the other servants as a broken-down connection of his own.
In this class of man there is a wonderful fidelity to an employer for whom he feels respect and gratitude. Quentin, he judged, was a master out of a thousand, likely to treat a servant of long standing more as a friend than an inferior. But, above all, he wondered if Eileen had heard anything of the night’s proceedings.
In the morning, when they met at breakfast, she asked him the very usual question that a solicitous hostess puts to her guest: “Did you sleep well, Mr. Aylmer?”
As the young man answered, he kept his eye on Quentin to note if what he said had any effect on him. “Quite well, thanks. Or, rather, I should say, as well as I ever do. I am a very light sleeper and wake up half a dozen times in the night. The slightest thing wakes me up. The best part of it is, I soon go off again.”
Quentin did not seem in the least affected by this statement, whatever his private thoughts might have been. “So you’re a light sleeper, are you?” he remarked in an indifferent voice. “I’m worse than that, I’m a very bad sleeper at the best of times. I don’t suppose I get a thorough night’s rest once in a month. Not like Eileen.”
The girl laughed easily. “No, I certainly don’t suffer from insomnia. I fall off as soon as my head touches the pillow; and there I stop till the force of habit makes me wake. The result of a good digestion and a clear conscience, I expect. Perhaps you men have neither.”
Aylmer was sure she was speaking the truth, and he felt a sense of relief. She had heard nothing of this strange episode of the night. Even if she did know something of what had led up to it, her loyalty to Quentin would naturally keep her silent. As for Quentin himself, faith in the man was shaken. He might or not be suffering from insomnia as he had alleged. But Aylmer felt he would require corroboration of the fact from some impartial source before he was ready to believe him.