Anna the Adventuress
by E. Phillips Oppenheim · English · Gutenberg #26596 · 374,590 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Anna the Adventuress
Author: E. Phillips Oppenheim
Release date: September 11, 2008 [eBook #26596]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26596
Credits: Produced by D. Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANNA THE ADVENTURESS ***
Produced by D. Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
ANNA
THE ADVENTURESS
By
E. Phillips Oppenheim
AUTHOR OF "THE SECRET", "THE TRAITORS", ETC.
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON AND MELBOURNE
MADE IN ENGLAND
_Printed in Great Britain by C. Tinling & Co., Ltd.,
Liverpool, London and Prescot._
ABOUT THE STORY
Annabel Pellissier, for reasons of her own, allows Sir John
Ferringhall to believe that she is her sister Anna. Anna lets the
deception continue and has to bear the burden of her sister's
reputation which, in Paris at any rate, is that of being a coquette.
Endless complications ensue when both sisters return to London.
This is one of the late E. Phillips Oppenheim's most intriguing
stories.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE CARPET-KNIGHT AND THE LADY 7
II THE ADVENTURE OF ANNABEL 15
III ANNA? OR ANNABEL? 20
IV THE TEMPERAMENT OF AN ARTIST 26
V "ALCIDE" 31
VI A QUESTION OF IDENTIFICATION 36
VII MISS PELLISSIER'S SUSPICIONS 41
VIII "WHITE'S" 45
IX BRENDON'S LUCK 54
X THE TRAGEDY OF AN APPETITE 61
XI THE PUZZLEMENT OF NIGEL ENNISON 66
XII THE POSTER OF "ALCIDE" 70
XIII "HE WILL NOT FORGET!" 76
XIV "THIS IS MY WIFE" 81
XV A MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE 89
XVI THE DISCOMFITURE OF SIR JOHN 96
XVII THE CHANGE IN "ALCIDE" 103
XVIII ANNABEL AND "ALCIDE" 109
XIX "THIS IS NOT THE END" 115
XX ANNA'S SURRENDER 121
XXI HER SISTER'S SECRET 126
XXII AN OLD FOOL 134
XXIII MONTAGUE HILL SEES LIGHT AT LAST 138
XXIV A CASE FOR THE POLICE 144
XXV THE STEEL EDGE OF THE TRUTH 150
XXVI ANNABEL IS WARNED 156
XXVII JOHN FERRINGHAM, GENTLEMAN 162
XXVIII THE HISSING OF "ALCIDE" 169
XXIX MONTAGUE HILL PLAYS THE GAME 174
XXX SIR JOHN'S NECKTIE 178
XXXI ANNA'S TEA PARTY 183
XXXII SIX MONTHS AFTER 188
ANNA THE ADVENTURESS
_Chapter I_
THE CARPET-KNIGHT AND THE LADY
The girl paused and steadied herself for a moment against a field
gate. Her breath came fast in little sobbing pants. Her dainty shoes
were soiled with dust and there was a great tear in her skirt. Very
slowly, very fearfully, she turned her head. Her cheeks were the
colour of chalk, her eyes were filled with terror. If a cart were
coming, or those labourers in the field had heard, escape was
impossible.
The terror faded from her eyes. A faint gleam of returning colour gave
her at once a more natural appearance. So far as the eye could reach,
the white level road, with its fringe of elm-trees, was empty. Away
off in the fields the blue-smocked peasants bent still at their toil.
They had heard nothing, seen nothing. A few more minutes, and she was
safe.
Yet before she turned once more to resume her flight she schooled
herself with an effort to look where it had happened. A dark mass of
wreckage, over which hung a slight mist of vapour, lay half in the
ditch, half across the hedge, close under a tree from the trunk of
which the bark had been torn and stripped. A few yards further off
something grey, inert, was lying, a huddled-up heap of humanity
twisted into a strange unnatural shape. Again the chalky pallor spread
even to her lips, her eyes became lit with the old terror. She
withdrew her head with a little moan, and resumed her flight. Away up
on the hillside was the little country railway station. She fixed her
eyes upon it and ran, keeping always as far as possible in the shadow
of the hedge, gazing fearfully every now and then down along the
valley for the white smoke of the train.
She reached the station, and mingling with a crowd of excursionists
who had come from the river on the other side, took her place in the
train unnoticed. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes.
Until the last moment she was afraid.
Arrived in Paris she remembered that she had not the money for a
_fiacre_. She was in ill trim for walking, but somehow or other she
made her way as far as the Champs Elysees, and sank down upon an empty
seat.
She had not at first the power for concealment. Her nerves were
shattered, her senses dazed by this unexpected shock. She sat there, a
mark for boulevarders, the unconscious object of numberless wondering
glances. Paris was full, and it was by no means a retired spot which
she had found. Yet she never once thought of changing it. A person of
somewhat artificial graces and mannerisms, she was for once in her
life perfectly natural. Terror had laid a paralyzing hand upon her,
fear kept her almost unconscious of the curious glances which she was
continually attracting.
Then there came briskly along the path towards her, an Englishman. He
was perhaps forty-five years of age. He was dressed with the utmost
care, and he set his feet upon the broad walk as though the action
were in some way a condescension. He was alert, well-groomed, and
yet--perhaps in contrast with the more volatile French type--there was
a suggestion of weight about him, not to say heaviness. He too looked
at the girl, slackened his pace and looked at her again through his
eye-glasses, looked over his shoulder after he had passed, and finally
came to a dead stop. He scratched his upper lip reflectively.
It was a habit of his to talk to himself. In the present case it did
not matter, as there was no one else within earshot.
"Dear me!" he said. "Dear me! I wonder what I ought to do. She is
English! I am sure of that. She is English, and apparently in some
distress. I wonder----"
He turned slowly round. He was inclined to be a good-natured person,
and he had no nervous fears of receiving a snub. The girl was pretty,
and apparently a lady.
"She cannot be aware," he continued, "that she is making herself
conspicuous. It would surely be only common politeness to drop her a
hint--a fellow countrywoman too. I trust that she will not
misunderstand me. I believe--I believe that I must risk it."
He stood before her, his hat in his hand, his head bent, his voice
lowered to a convenient pitch.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "but you appear to be a
fellow countrywoman of mine, and in some distress. Can I be of any
assistance? I can assure you that it would give me very much
pleasure."
Her first upward glance was one of terrified apprehension. When she
saw however that this man was a stranger, and obviously harmless, her
expression changed as though by magic. A delicate flush of colour
streamed into her cheeks. Her eyes fell, and then sought his again
with timid interest. Her natural instincts reasserted themselves. She
began to act.
"You are very kind," she said hesitatingly, "but I don't remember--I
don't think that I know you, do I?"
"I am afraid that you do not," he admitted, with a smile which he
meant to be encouraging. "You remind me of the story which they tell
against us over here, you know--of the Englishman who refused to be
saved from drowning because he was unacquainted with his rescuer.
Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Ferringhall--Sir John
Ferringhall."
There was genuine interest in her eyes now. Sir John saw it, and was
flattered.
"You are Sir John Ferringhall," she repeated. "Yes, I remember you
now. You were pointed out to me at--a few nights ago."
He was not in the least surprised. A millionaire and a knight, even
though his money has been made in carpets, is used to being a person
of interest.
"Very likely," he answered. "I am fairly well known here. I must
apologize, I suppose, for speaking to you, but your appearance
certainly indicated that you were in some sort of trouble, and you
were becoming--pardon me--an object of comment to the passers-by."
The girl sat up and looked at him with a curious twist at the corners
of her mouth--humorous or pathetic, he could not tell which. As though
accidentally she swept her skirts from a chair close drawn to her own.
Sir John hesitated. She was marvellously pretty, but he was not quite
sure--yet--that it was advisable for him to sit with her in so public
a place. His inclinations prompted him most decidedly to take the
vacant chair. Prudence reminded him that he was a county magistrate,
and parliamentary candidate for a somewhat difficult borough, where
his principal supporters were dissenters of strict principles who took
a zealous interest in his moral character. He temporized, and the girl
raised her eyes once more to his.
"You are the Sir John Ferringhall who has bought the Lyndmore estate,
are you not?" she remarked. "My father's sisters used once to live in
the old manor house. I believe you have had it pulled down, have you
not?"
"The Misses Pellissier!" he exclaimed. "Then your name----"
"My name is Pellissier. My father was Colonel Pellissier. He had an
appointment in Jersey, you know, after he left the army."
Sir John did not hesitate any longer. He sat down.
"Upon my word," he exclaimed, "this is most extraordinary. I----"
Then he stopped short, for he began to remember things. He was not
quite sure whether, after all, he had been wise. He would have risen
again, but for the significance of the action.
"Dear me!" he said. "Then some of your family history is known to me.
One of your aunts died, I believe, and the other removed to London."
The girl nodded.
"She is living there now," she remarked.
"Your father is dead too, I believe," he continued, "and your mother."
"Two years ago," she answered. "They died within a few months of one
another."
"Very sad--very sad indeed," he remarked uneasily. "I remember hearing
something about it. I believe that the common report was that you and
your sister had come to Paris to study painting."
She assented gently.
"We have a small studio," she murmured, "in the Rue de St. Pierre."
Sir John looked at her sideways. Her eyes were fixed upon the ground,
the pink colour coming and going in her cheeks was very delicate and
girlish. After all, this could never be the black sheep. He had been
quite right to sit down. It was astonishing how seldom it was that his
instincts betrayed him. He breathed a little sigh of satisfaction.
"Come," he continued, "the world after all is a very small place. We
are not altogether strangers, are we? I feel that under the
circumstances I have the right to offer you my advice, and if
necessary my help. I beg that you will consider me your friend."
She looked at him with fluttering eyelids--sweetly grateful. It was
such an unexpected stroke of fortune. Sir John was not used to such
glances, and he liked them.
"It is so difficult," she murmured, "so impossible to explain. Even to
my own brother--if I had one--I could not tell everything, and you,
although you are so kind, you are almost a stranger, aren't you?"
"No, no!" he protested. "You must not think of me as one. Try and
consider me your elder brother, or an old family friend, whichever you
like best."
She thanked him with one of her shy little glances. More than ever Sir
John was glad that he had sat down.
"It is very, very difficult," she continued, looking steadfastly at
the ground. "Only--I have come face to face--with something terrible,
and wholly unexpected trouble. I want to leave Paris to-day--this very
day. I want to leave it for ever."
He looked at her very gravely.
"But your sister?" he asked. "What of her? Have you quarrelled with
her?"
The girl shook her head.
"No," she answered. "I have not quarrelled with her. It is simply our
point of view which is altogether different. I want to get away--to go
to London. I cannot explain beyond that."
"Then I am sure," Sir John declared, "that I shall not ask you. I know
nothing about the matter, but I feel convinced that you are right. You
ought to have had better advice two years ago. Paris is not the place
for two young girls. I presume that you have been living alone?"
She sighed gently.
"My sister," she murmured, "is so independent. She is Bohemian to the
finger-tips. She makes me feel terribly old-fashioned."
Sir John smiled and congratulated himself upon his insight. He was so
seldom wrong.
"The next question, Miss Anna," he said, "is how am I to help you? I
am wholly at your disposal."
She looked up at him quickly. Her expression was a little changed,
less innocent, more discerning.
"Anna!" she repeated. "How do you know--why do you think that my name
is Anna?" He smiled in a quietly superior way.
"I think," he said, "that I am right. I am very good at guessing
names."
"I am really curious," she persisted. "You must have heard--have
you--oh, tell me, won't you?" she begged. "Have you heard things?"
The tears stood in her eyes. She leaned a little towards him. Nothing
but the publicity of the place and the recollection of that terrible
constituency kept him from attempting some perfectly respectful but
unmistakable evidence of his sympathy.
"I am afraid," he said gravely, "that your sister has been a little
indiscreet. It is nothing at all for you to worry about."
She looked away from him.
"I knew," she said, in a low despairing tone, "that people would
talk."
He coughed gently.
"It was inevitable," he declared. "It is not, of course, a pleasant
subject of conversation for you or for me, yet I think I may venture
to suggest to you that your sister's--er--indiscretions--have reached
a point which makes a separation between you almost a necessity."
She covered her face with her hands.
"It--it--must come," she faltered.
"I do not lay claim," he continued, "to any remarkable amount of
insight, but it is possible, is it not, that I have stumbled upon your
present cause of distress."
"You are wonderful!" she murmured.
He smiled complacently.
"Not at all. This is simply a chapter of coincidences. Now what I want
you to feel is this. I want you to feel that you have found a friend
who has a strong desire to be of service to you. Treat me as an elder
brother, if you like. He is here by your side. How can he help you?"
She threw such a look upon him that even he, Sir John Ferringhall,
carpet-merchant, hide-bound Englishman, slow-witted, pompous,
deliberate, felt his heart beat to music. Perhaps the Parisian
atmosphere had affected him. He leaned towards her, laid his hand
tenderly upon hers.
"I hope you realize," he went on, in a lower and less assured tone,
"that I am in earnest--very much in earnest. You must let me do
whatever I can for you. I shall count it a privilege."
"I believe you," she murmured. "I trust you altogether. I am going to
take you entirely at your word. I want to leave Paris to-day. Will you
lend me the money for my ticket to London?"
"With all the pleasure in the world," he answered heartily. "Let me
add too that I am thankful for your decision. You have somewhere to go
to in London, I hope."
She nodded.
"There is my aunt," she said. "The one who used to live at Lyndmore.
She will take me in until I can make some plans. It will be horribly
dull, and she is a very trying person. But anything is better than
this."
He took out his watch.
"Let me see," he said. "Your best route will be via Boulogne and
Folkestone at nine o'clock from the Gare du Nord. What about your
luggage?"
"I could get a few of my things, at any rate," she said. "My sister is
sure to be out."
"Very well," he said. "It is just six o'clock now. Supposing you fetch
what you can, and if you will allow me, I will see you off. It would
give me great pleasure if you would dine with me somewhere first."
She looked at him wistfully, but with some unwilling doubt in her
wrinkled forehead. It was excellently done, especially as she loved
good dinners.
"You are very kind to think of it," she said, "but--don't you think
perhaps--that I had better not?"
He smiled indulgently.
"My dear child," he said, "with me you need have no apprehension. I am
almost old enough to be your father."
She looked at him with uplifted eyebrows--a look of whimsical
incredulity. Sir John felt that after all forty-five was not so very
old.
"That sounds quite absurd," she answered. "Yet it is my last evening,
and I think--if you are sure that you would like to have me--that I
will risk it."
"We will go to a very quiet place," he assured her, "a place where I
have often taken my own sisters. You will be wearing your travelling
dress, and no doubt you would prefer it. Shall we say at half-past
seven?"
She rose from her chair.
"I will take a carriage," she said, "and fetch my things."
"Let us say that Cafe Maston, in the Boulevard des Italiennes, at
half-past seven then," he decided. "I shall be waiting for you there,
and in the meantime, if you will help yourself--pray don't look like
that. It is a very small affair, after all, and you can pay me back if
you will."
She took the pocket-book and looked up at him with a little impulsive
movement. Her voice shook, her eyes were very soft and melting.
"I cannot thank you, Sir John," she said. "I shall never be able to
thank you."
"Won't you postpone the attempt, then?" he said gallantly, "until I
have done something to deserve your gratitude? You will not
forget--seven-thirty, Cafe Maston, Boulevard des Italiennes."
She drove off in a little _fiacre_, nodding and smiling at Sir John,
who remained upon the Avenue. He too, when she had disappeared, called
a carriage.
"Hotel Ritz," he said mechanically to the coachman. "If only her
sister is half as pretty, no wonder that she has set the Parisians
talking."
_Chapter II_
THE ADVENTURE OF ANNABEL
The man spoke mercilessly, incisively, as a surgeon. Only he hated the
words he uttered, hated the blunt honesty which forced them from his
lips. Opposite, his pupil stood with bowed head and clasped hands.
"You have the temperament," he said. "You have the ideas. Your first
treatment of a subject is always correct, always suggestive. But of
what avail is this? You have no execution, no finish. You lack only
that mechanical knack of expression which is the least important part
of an artist's equipment, but which remains a tedious and absolute
necessity. We have both tried hard to develop it--you and I--and we
have failed. It is better to face the truth."
"Much better," she agreed. "Oh, much better."
"Personally," he went on, "I must confess to a great disappointment. I
looked upon you from the first as the most promising of my pupils. I
overlooked the mechanical imperfections of your work, the utter lack
of finish, the crudeness of your drawing. I said to myself, 'this will
come.' It seems that I was mistaken. You cannot draw. Your fingers are
even now as stiff as a schoolgirl's. You will never be able to draw.
You have the ideas. You are an artist by the Divine right of birth,
but whatever form of expression may come to you at some time it will
not be painting. Take my advice. Burn your palette and your easel.
Give up your lonely hours of work here. Look somewhere else in life.
Depend upon it, there is a place for you--waiting. Here you only waste
your time."
She was silent, and in the gloom of the dimly lit apartment he could
not see her face. He drew a little breath of relief. The worst was
over now. He continued tenderly, almost affectionately.
"After all, there are great things left in the world for you. Painting
is only one slender branch of the great tree. To-night all this may
seem hard and cruel. To-morrow you will feel like a freed woman.
To-morrow I shall come and talk to you again--of other things."
A man of infinite tact and kindness, he spoke his message and went.
The girl, with a little moan, crossed the room and threw open the
window.
She looked steadfastly out. Paris, always beautiful even in the
darkness, glittered away to the horizon. The lights of the Champs
Elysees and the Place de la Concorde, suggestive, brilliant,
seductive, shone like an army of fireflies against the deep cool
background of the night. She stood there with white set face and
nervously clenched fingers. The echo of those kindly words seemed
still to ring in her ears. She was crushed with a sense of her own
terrible impotency. A failure! She must write herself down a failure!
At her age, with her ambitions, with her artistic temperament and
creative instincts, she was yet to be denied all coherent means of
expression. She was to fall back amongst the ruck, a young woman of
talent, content perhaps to earn a scanty living by painting Christmas
cards, or teaching at a kindergarten. Her finger-nails dug into her
flesh. It was the bitterest moment of her life. She flung herself back
into the bare little room, cold, empty, comfortless. In a momentary
fury she seized and tore in pieces the study which remained upon the
easel. The pieces fell to the ground in a little white shower. It was
the end, she told herself, fiercely. And then, as she stood there,
with the fragments of the torn canvas at her feet, some even caught
upon her skirt, the door was thrown open, and a girl entered humming a
light tune.
The newcomer stopped short upon the threshold.
"Anna! What tragedy has happened, little sister? No lights, no supper,
no coffee--and, above all, no Mr. Courtlaw. How dreary it all looks.
Never mind. Come and help me pack. I'm off to England."
"Annabel, are you mad? To England! You are joking, of course. But come
in, dear. I will light the stove, and there shall be some coffee
presently."
"Coffee! Bah!"
The newcomer picked her way across the floor with daintily uplifted
skirts, and subsided into a deck chair of stretched canvas.
"I will not rob you of your coffee, most dutiful of sisters!" she
exclaimed. "I have had adventures--oh, more than one, I can assure
you. It has been a marvellous day--and I am going to England."
Anna looked at her sister gravely. Even in her painting smock and with
her disarranged hair, the likeness between the two girls was
marvellous.
"The adventures I do not doubt, Annabel," she said. "They seem to
come to you as naturally as disappointment--to other people. But to
England! What has happened, then?"
Already the terror of a few hours ago seemed to have passed away from
the girl who leaned back so lazily in her chair, watching the tip of
her patent shoe swing backwards and forwards. She could even think of
what had happened. Very soon she would be able to forget it.
"Happened! Oh, many things," she declared indolently. "The most
important is that I have a new admirer."
The wonderful likeness between the two girls was never less noticeable
than at that moment. Anna stood looking down upon her sister with
grave perturbed face. Annabel lounged in her chair with a sort of
insolent _abandon_ in her pose, and wide-open eyes which never
flinched or drooped. One realized indeed then where the differences
lay; the tender curves about Anna's mouth transformed into hard sharp
lines in Annabel's, the eyes of one, truthful and frank, the other's
more beautiful but with less expression--windows lit with dazzling
light, but through which one saw--nothing.
"A new admirer, Annabel? But what has that to do with your going to
England?"
"Everything! He is Sir John Ferringhall--very stupid, very
respectable, very egotistical. But, after all, what does that matter?
He is very much taken with me. He tries hard to conceal it, but he
cannot."
"Then why," Anna asked quietly, "do you run away? It is not like you."
Annabel laughed softly.
"How unkind!" she exclaimed. "Still, since it is better to tell you,
Sir John is very much in earnest, but his respectability is something
altogether too overpowering. Of course I knew all about him years ago,
and he is exactly like everybody's description of him. I am afraid,
Anna, just a little afraid, that in Paris I and my friends here might
seem a trifle advanced. Besides, he might hear things. That is why I
called myself Anna."
"You--you did what?" Anna exclaimed.
"Called myself Anna," the girl repeated coolly. "It can't make any
difference to you, and there are not half a dozen people in Paris who
could tell us apart."
Anna tried to look angry, but her mouth betrayed her. Instead, she
laughed, laughed with lips and eyes, laughed till the tears ran down
her cheeks.
"You little wretch!" she exclaimed weakly. "Why should I bear the
burden of your wickedness? Who knows what might come of it? I shall
permit nothing of the sort."
Annabel shrugged her shoulders.
"Too late, my dear girl," she exclaimed. "I gave your name. I called
myself Anna. After all, what can it matter? It was just to make sure.
Three little letters can't make a bit of difference."
"But it may matter very much indeed," Anna declared. "Perhaps for
myself I do not mind, but this man is sure to find out some day, and
he will not like having been deceived. Tell him the truth, Annabel."
"The truth!"
There was a brief but intense silence. Anna felt that her words had
become charged with a fuller and more subtle meaning than any which
she had intended to impart. "The truth!" It was a moment of
awkwardness between the two sisters--a moment, too, charged with its
own psychological interest, for there were secrets between them which
for many months had made their intercourse a constrained and difficult
thing. It was Annabel who spoke.
"How crude you are, Anna!" she exclaimed with a little sigh. "Sir John
is not at all that sort. He is the kind of man who would much prefer a
little dust in his eyes. But heavens, I must pack!"
She sprang to her feet and disappeared in the room beyond, from which
she emerged a few minutes later with flushed cheeks and dishevelled
hair.
"It is positively no use, Anna," she declared, appealingly. "You must
pack for me. I am sorry, but you have spoilt me. I can't do it even
decently myself, and I dare not run the risk of ruining all my
clothes."
Anna laughed, gave in and with deft fingers created order out of
chaos. Soon the trunk, portmanteau and hat box were ready. Then she
took her sister's hand.
"Annabel," she said, "I have never asked you for your confidence. We
have lived under the same roof, but our ways seem to have lain wide
apart. There are many things which I do not understand. Have you
anything to tell me before you go?"
Annabel laughed lightly.
"My dear Anna! As though I should think of depressing you with my long
list of misdeeds."
"You have nothing to tell me?"
"Nothing!"
So Annabel departed with the slightest of farewells, wearing a thick
travelling veil, and sitting far back in the corner of a closed
carriage. Anna watched her from the windows, watched the carriage jolt
away along the cobbled street and disappear. Then she stepped back
into the empty room and stood for a moment looking down upon the
scattered fragments of her last canvas.
"It is a night of endings," she murmured to herself. "Perhaps for me,"
she added, with a sudden wistful look out of the bare high window, "a
night of beginnings."
_Chapter III_
ANNA? OR ANNABEL?
Sir John was wholly unable to understand the laugh and semi-ironical
cheer which greeted his entrance to the smoking-room of the English
Club on the following evening. He stood upon the threshold, dangling
his eye-glasses in his fingers, stolid, imperturbable, mildly
interrogative. He wanted to know what the joke against him was--if
any.
"May I enquire," he asked smoothly, "in what way my appearance
contributes to your amusement? If there is a joke I should like to
share it."
A fair-haired young Englishman looked up from the depths of his easy
chair.
"You hear him?" he remarked, looking impressively around. "A joke!
Sir John, if you had presented yourself here an hour ago we should
have greeted you in pained silence. We had not then recovered from
thef shock. Our ideal had fallen. A sense of loss was amongst us.
Drummond," he continued, looking across at his _vis-a-vis_, "we look
to you to give expression to our sentiments. Your career at the bar
had given you a command of language, also a self-control not
vouchsafed to us ordinary mortals. Explain to Sir John our feelings."
Drummond, a few years older, dark, clean-shaven, with bright eyes and
humorous mouth, laid down his paper and turned towards Sir John. He
removed his cigarette from his lips and waved it gently in the air.
"Holcroft," he remarked, "in bald language, and with the usual
limitations of his clouded intellect, has still given some slight
expression to the consternation which I believe I may say is general
amongst us. We looked upon you, my dear Sir John, with reverence,
almost with awe. You represented to us the immaculate Briton, the one
Englishman who typified the Saxonism, if I may coin a word, of our
race. We have seen great and sober-minded men come to this unholy
city, and become degenerates. We have known men who have come here for
no other purpose than to prove their unassailable virtue, who have
strode into the arena of temptation, waving the--the what is it--the
white flower of a blameless life, only to exchange it with marvellous
facility for the violets of the Parisienne. But you, Ferringhall, our
pattern, an erstwhile Sheriff of London, a county magistrate, a
prospective politician, a sober and an upright man, one who, had he
aspired to it, might even have filled the glorious position of Lord
Mayor--James, a whisky and Apollinaris at once. I cannot go on. My
feelings overpower me."
"You all seem to be trying to pull my leg," Sir John remarked quietly.
"I suppose you'll come to the point soon--if there is one."
Drummond shook his head in melancholy fashion.
"He dissembles," he said. "After all, how easy the descent is, even
for the greatest of us. I hope that James will not be long with that
whisky and Apollinaris. My nerves are shaken. I require stimulant."
Sir John seated himself deliberately.
"I should imagine," he said, shaking out a copy of _The Times_, "that
it is your brain which is addled."
Drummond looked up with mock eagerness.
"This," he exclaimed, "must be either the indifference of an utterly
callous nature, or it may be--ye gods, it may be--innocence. Holcroft,
we may have been mistaken."
"Think not," that young man remarked laconically.
"I will put the question," Drummond said gravely. "Ferringhall, were
you or were you not dining last night at a certain restaurant in the
Boulevard des Italiennes with--_la petite_ Pellissier?"
Now indeed Sir John was moved. He sat up in his chair as though the
question had stung him. _The Times_ slipped from his fingers. His eyes
were bright, and his voice had in it an unaccustomed _timbre_.
"It is true," he said, "that I was dining last night at a restaurant
in the Boulevard des Italiennes, and it is true that my companion was
a young lady whose name is Pellissier. What of it?"
There was a shout of laughter. Sir John looked about him, and somehow
the laugh died away. If such a thing in connexion with him had been
possible they would have declared that he was in a towering rage. An
uncomfortable silence followed. Sir John once more looked around him.
"I repeat, gentlemen," he said, in an ominously low tone, "what of
it?"
Drummond shrugged his shoulders.
"You seem to be taking our little joke more seriously than it
deserves, Ferringhall," he remarked.
"I fail to see the joke," Sir John said. "Kindly explain it to me."
"Certainly! The thing which appeals to our sense of humour is the fact
that you and _la petite_ Pellissier were dining together."
"Will you tell me," Sir John said ponderously, "by what right you call
that young lady--_la petite_ Pellissier? I should be glad to know how
you dare to allude to her in a public place in such a disrespectful
manner!"
Drummond looked at him and smiled.
"Don't be an ass, Ferringhall," he said tersely. "Annabel Pellissier
is known to most of us. I myself have had the pleasure of dining with
her. She is very charming, and we all admire her immensely. She sings
twice a week at the 'Ambassador's' and the 'Casino Mavise'----"
Sir John held up his hand.
"Stop," he said. "You do not even know what you are talking about. The
young lady with whom I was dining last night was Miss Anna Pellissier.
Miss Annabel is her sister. I know nothing of that young lady."
There was a moment's silence. Drummond took up a cigarette and lit it.
"The young lady, I presume, told you that her name was Anna," he
remarked.
"It was not necessary," Sir John answered stiffly. "I was already
aware of the fact. I may add that the family is well known to me. The
two aunts of these young ladies lived for many years in the dower
house upon my estate in Hampshire. Under the circumstances you must
permit me to be the best judge of the identity of the young lady who
did me the honour, as an old family friend, of dining with me."
Like most men who lie but seldom, he lied well. Drummond smoked his
cigarette meditatively. He remembered that he had heard stories about
the wonderful likeness between these two sisters, one of whom was an
artist and a recluse, whilst the other had attached herself to a very
gay and a very brilliant little _coterie_ of pleasure-seekers. There
was a bare chance that he had been mistaken. He thought it best to let
the matter drop. A few minutes later Sir John left the room.
He walked out into the Champs Elysees and sat down. His cigar burnt
out between his fingers, and he threw it impatiently away. He had
seldom been more perturbed. He sat with folded arms and knitted brows,
thinking intently. The girl had told him distinctly that her name was
Anna. Her whole conduct and tone had been modest and ladylike. He went
over his interview with her again, their conversation at dinner-time.
She had behaved in every way perfectly. His spirits began to rise.
Drummond had made an abominable mistake. It was not possible for him
to have been deceived. He drew a little sigh of relief.
Sir John, by instinct and training, was an unimaginative person. He
was a business man, pure and simple, his eyes were fastened always
upon the practical side of life. Such ambitions as he had were
stereotyped and material. Yet in some hidden corner was a vein of
sentiment, of which for the first time in his later life he was now
unexpectedly aware. He was conscious of a peculiar pleasure in sitting
there and thinking of those few hours which already were becoming to
assume a definite importance in his mind--a place curiously apart from
those dry-as-dust images which had become the gods of his prosaic
life. Somehow or other his reputation as a hardened and unassailable
bachelor had won for him during the last few years a comparative
immunity from attentions on the part of those women with whom he had
been brought into contact. It was a reputation by no means deserved. A
wife formed part of his scheme of life, for several years he had been
secretly but assiduously looking for her. In his way he was critical.
The young ladies in the somewhat mixed society amongst which he moved
neither satisfied his taste nor appealed in any way to his affections.
This girl whom he had met by chance and befriended had done both. She
possessed what he affected to despise, but secretly worshipped--the
innate charm of breeding. The Pellissiers had been an old family in
Hampshire, while his grandfather had driven a van.
As in all things, so his thoughts came to him deliberately. He
pictured himself visiting the girl in this shabby little home of her
aunt's--she had told him that it was shabby--and he recalled that
delicious little smile with which she would surely greet him, a smile
which seemed to be a matter of the eyes as well as the lips. She was
poor. He was heartily thankful for it. He thought of his wealth for
once from a different point of view. How much he would be able to do
for her. Flowers, theatre boxes, carriages, the "open sesame" to the
whole world of pleasure. He himself, middle-aged, steeped in
traditions of the City and money-making, very ill-skilled in all the
lighter graces of life, as he himself well knew, could yet come to her
invested with something of the halo of romance by the almost magical
powers of an unlimited banking account. She should be lifted out of
her narrow little life, and it should be all owing to him. And
afterwards! Sir John drew his cigar from his lips, and looked upwards
where the white-lights flashed strangely amongst the deep cool green
of the lime-trees. His lips parted in a rare smile. Afterwards was the
most delightful part of all!...
If only there had not been this single torturing thought--a mere
pin-prick, but still curiously persistent. Suddenly he stopped short.
He was in front of one of the more imposing of the _cafes
chantants_--opposite, illuminated with a whole row of lights, was the
wonderful poster which had helped to make "Alcide" famous. He had
looked at it before without comprehension. To-night the subtle
suggestiveness of those few daring lines, fascinating in their very
simplicity, the head thrown back, the half-closed eyes--the inner
meaning of the great artist seemed to come to him with a rush. He
stood still, almost breathless. A slow anger burned in the man. It was
debauching, this--a devilish art which drew such strange allurements
from a face and figure almost Madonna-like in their simplicity.
Unwillingly he drew a little nearer, and became one of the group of
loiterers about the entrance. A woman touched him lightly on the arm,
and smiled into his face.
"Monsieur admires the poster?"
As a rule Sir John treated such advances with cold silence. This
woman, contrary to his custom, he answered.
"It is hateful--diabolical!" he exclaimed.
The woman shrugged her shoulders.
"It is a great art," she said in broken English. "The little English
girl is very fortunate. For what indeed does she do? A simple song, no
gesture, no acting, nothing. And they pay her. Monsieur is going
inside perhaps?"
But Sir John's eyes were still riveted upon the poster, and his heart
was beating with unaccustomed force. For just as though a vague
likeness is sometimes borne swiftly in upon one, so a vague
dissimilarity between the face on the poster and the heroine of his
thoughts had slowly crept into his consciousness. He drew a little
breath and stepped back. After all, he had the means of setting this
tormenting doubt at rest. She had mentioned the address where she and
her sister had lived. He would go there. He would see this sister. He
would know the truth then once and for all. He walked hastily to the
side of the broad pavement and summoned a _fiacre_.
_Chapter IV_
THE TEMPERAMENT OF AN ARTIST
"You may sit there and smoke, and look out upon your wonderful Paris,"
Anna said lightly. "You may talk--if you can talk cheerfully, not
unless."
"And you?" asked David Courtlaw.
"Well, if I find your conversation interesting I shall listen. If not,
I have plenty to think about," she answered, leaning back in her
chair, and watching the smoke from her own cigarette curl upwards.
"For instance?"
She smiled.
"How I am to earn enough _sous_ for my dinner to-morrow--or failing
that, what I can sell."
His face darkened.
"And yet," he said, "you bid me talk cheerfully, or not at all."
"Why not? Your spirits at least should be good. It is not you who runs
the risk of going dinnerless to-morrow."
He turned upon her almost fiercely.
"You know," he muttered, "you know quite well that your troubles are
far more likely to weigh upon me than my own. Do you think that I am
utterly selfish?"
She raised her eyebrows.
"Troubles, my friend," she exclaimed lightly. "But I have no
troubles."
He stared at her incredulously, and she laughed very softly.
"What a gloomy person you are!" she murmured. "You call yourself an
artist--but you have no temperament. The material cares of life hang
about your neck like a millstone. A doubt as to your dinner to-morrow
would make you miserable to-night. You know I call that positively
wicked. It is not at all what I expected either. On the whole, I think
that I have been disappointed with the life here. There is so little
_abandon_, so little real joyousness."
"And yet," he murmured, "one of the greatest of our writers has
declared that the true spirit of Bohemianism is denied to your sex."
"He was probably right," she declared. "Bohemianism is the least
understood word ever coined. I do not think that I have the Bohemian
spirit at all."
He looked at her thoughtfully. She wore a plain black dress, reaching
almost to her throat--her small oval face, with the large brown eyes,
was colourless, delicately expressive, yet with something mysterious
in its Sphinx-like immobility. A woman hard to read, who seemed to
delight in keeping locked up behind that fascinating rigidity of
feature the intense sensibility which had been revealed to him, her
master, only in occasional and rare moments of enthusiasm. She
reminded him sometimes of the one holy and ineffable Madonna, at
others of Berode, the great courtezan of her day, who had sent kings
away from her doors, and had just announced her intention of ending
her life in a convent.
"I believe that you are right," he said softly. "It is the worst of
including in our vocabulary words which have no definite meaning,
perhaps I should say of which the meaning varies according to one's
personal point of view. You, for instance, you live, you are not
afraid to live. Yet you make our Bohemianism seem like a vulgar
thing."
She stirred gently in her chair.
"My friend," she said, "I have been your pupil for two years. You have
watched all the uncouth creations of my brain come sprawling out upon
the canvas, and besides, we have been companions. Yet the fact remains
that you do not understand me at all. No, not one little bit. It is
extraordinary."
"It is," he replied, "the one humiliation of my life. My opportunities
have been immense, and my failure utter. If I had been your companion
only, and not your master, I might very well have been content to
accept you for what you seem. But there have been times, Anna, when
your work has startled me. Ill-drawn, without method or sense of
proportion, you have put wonderful things on to canvas, have drawn
them out of yourself, notwithstanding your mechanical inefficiency.
God knows how you did it. You are utterly baffling."
She laughed at him easily and mirthfully.
"Dear friend," she said, "do not magnify me into a physiological
problem. I should only disappoint you terribly some day. I think I
know where I am puzzling you now----"
"Then for Heaven's sake be merciful," he exclaimed. "Lift up one
corner of the curtain for me."
"Very well. You shall tell me if I am wrong. You see me here, an
admitted failure in the object to which I have devoted two years of my
life. You know that I am practically destitute, without means or any
certain knowledge of where my next meal is coming from. I speak
frankly, because you also know that no possible extremity would induce
me to accept help from any living person. You notice that I have
recently spent ten francs on a box of the best Russian cigarettes, and
that there are roses upon my table. You observe that I am, as usual,
fairly cheerful, and moderately amiable. It surprises you. You do not
understand, and you would like to. Very well! I will try to help you."
Her hand hung over the side of her chair nearest to him. He looked at
it eagerly, but made no movement to take it. During all their long
comradeship he had never so much as ventured to hold her fingers. This
was David Courtlaw, whose ways, too, had never been very different
from the ways of other men as regards her sex.
"You see, it comes after all," she continued, "from certain original
convictions which have become my religion. Rather a magniloquent term,
perhaps, but what else am I to say? One of these is that the most
absolutely selfish thing in the world is to give way to depression, to
think of one's troubles at all except of how to overcome them. I spend
many delightful hours thinking of the pleasant and beautiful things of
life. I decline to waste a single second even in considering the ugly
ones. Do you know that this becomes a habit?"
"If you would only teach us all," he murmured, "how to acquire it."
"I suppose people would say that it is a matter of temperament," she
continued. "With me I believe that it is more. It has become a part of
the order of my life. Whatever may happen to-morrow I shall be none
the better for anticipating its miseries to-day."
"I wonder," he said, a trifle irrelevantly, "what the future has in
store for you."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Is that not rather a profitless speculation, my friend?"
He seemed deaf to her interruption. His grey eyes burned under his
shaggy eyebrows. He leaned towards her as though anxious to see more
of her face than that faint delicate profile gleaming like marble in
the uncertain light.
"You were born for great things," he said huskily. "For great
passions, for great accomplishments. Will you find your destiny, I
wonder, or will you go through life like so many others--a wanderer,
knocking ever at empty doors, homeless to the last? Oh, if one could
but find the way to your heart."
She laughed gaily.
"Dear friend," she said, "remember that you are speaking to one who
has failed in the only serious object which she has ever sought to
accomplish. My destiny, I am afraid, is going to lead me into the
ruts."
He shook his head.
"You were never born," he declared, "to follow the well worn roads. I
wonder," he added, after a moment's pause, "whether you ever realize
how young you are."
"Young? I am twenty-four."
"Yet you are very young. Anna, why will you persist in this
single-handed combat with life?"
"Don't!" she cried.
"But I must, I will," he answered fiercely. "Oh, I know you would stop
me if you could. This time you cannot. You are the woman I love, Anna.
Let me make your future for you. Don't be afraid that I shall stunt
it. I will give you a broad free life. You shall have room to develop,
you shall live as you will, where you will, only give me the right to
protect you, to free you from all these petty material cares."
She laid her hand softly upon his.
"Dear friend," she said, "do you not think that you are breaking an
unspoken compact? I am very sorry. In your heart you know quite well
that all that you have said is useless."
"Ay," he repeated, looking away from her. "Useless--worse than
useless."
"You are foolish," she declared, with a note of irritability in her
tone. "You would appear to be trying to destroy a comradeship which
has been very, very pleasant. For you know that I have made up my mind
to dig a little way into life single-handed. I, too, want to
understand--to walk with my head in the light. Love is a great thing,
and happiness a joy. Let me go my own way towards them. We may
meet--who can tell? But I will not be fettered, even though you would
make the chains of roses. Listen."
She stopped short. There was a sharp knocking at the outside door.
Courtlaw rose to his feet.
"It is too late for visitors," she remarked. "I wonder would you mind
seeing who it is."
Courtlaw crossed the room and threw open the door. He had come to
Anna's rooms from a dinner party, and he was in evening dress. Sir
John, who was standing outside, looked past him at the girl still
sitting in the shadow.
"I believe," he said stiffly, "that these are the apartments of Miss
Pellissier. I must apologize for disturbing you at such an unseemly
hour, but I should be very much obliged if Miss Pellissier would allow
me a few minutes' conversation. My name is Ferringhall--Sir John
Ferringhall."
_Chapter V_
"ALCIDE"
Courtlaw took up his hat and coat at once, but Anna motioned him to
remain.
"Please stay," she said briefly. "Will you come in, Sir John. I
believe that I have heard my sister speak of you. This is my friend,
Mr. David Courtlaw--Sir John Ferringhall."
Sir John acknowledged the introduction without cordiality. He entered
the room with his usual deliberation, and looked covertly about him.
He noticed the two chairs close together. Anna was still holding her
cigarette between her fingers. Her likeness to her sister gave him at
first almost a shock; a moment afterwards he was conscious of a
wonderful sense of relief. For if the likeness between the sisters was
remarkable, the likeness between this girl and the poster which he had
come from studying was more remarkable still.
"I must repeat," Sir John said, "that I much regret disturbing you at
such an unseemly hour. My only excuse is that I missed my way here,
and I am leaving Paris early to-morrow morning."
"If your business with me is of any importance," Anna said calmly, "it
does not matter in the least about the hour. Have you brought me a
message from my sister? I understood, I believe, that she was seeing
you last night."
"Your sister," he answered, "did me the honour of dining with me last
night."
"Yes."
After all, it was not so easy. The girl's eyes never left his face.
She was civil, but she was obviously impatient to know his errand.
Afraid, no doubt, he thought grimly, that her other visitor would
leave.
"I believe," he said slowly, "that I shall do best to throw myself
upon your consideration and tell you the truth. I have recently made
your sister's acquaintance, and in the course of conversation I
understood from her that her Christian name was Anna. Some friends who
saw us dining together persist in alluding to her as Miss Annabel
Pellissier. I am guilty practically of the impertinence of coming to
ask you whether I misunderstood your sister."
"Is my sister's Christian name, then, of so much importance to you?"
she asked with a faint smile.
"The things involved in it are," he answered gravely.
She accepted his rejoinder with a brief nod. Courtlaw opened his lips,
but remained silent in the face of her imperative gesture. "Let me
hasten," she said, "to reassure you. My sister was scarcely likely to
make a mistake. She told you--the truth."
Courtlaw's walking stick, which he had been handling, fell with a
crash to the ground. He stooped to recover it, and his face was
hidden. Sir John felt and looked several years younger.
"I am much obliged to you," he said. "Really, I do not know why I
should have doubted it."
"Nor I," she remarked tersely.
He looked at her with a certain curiosity. She was a very elegant
young woman, slightly taller perhaps than her sister, and with an air
of reserved strength underneath her quiet face and manner which
Annabel may have lacked. It was hard to associate her with the stories
which he and all Paris had heard of "Alcide."
"You, then," he said, "are 'Alcide.' That wonderful poster--is of
you."
She lifted her eyebrows.
"I am sorry," she said, "if you find the likeness unsatisfactory. My
friends consider it wonderfully faithful. Have you any more questions
to ask me?"
Sir John, on his way down, had determined to hint to this young woman
that, providing certain contingencies which he had in his mind should
come to pass, he would be prepared to make her a handsome offer to
change her name. He found, however, that now the time had come he
utterly lacked the courage to attempt any such speech.
"None, I thank you," he answered. "I will not intrude upon you
further."
"Wait," she said.
He turned back at once.
"I have answered all your questions," she said. "Perhaps you will not
object to answering one for me. You have thought it worth while to
take some considerable pains to resolve for yourself my sister's
identity. May I ask the nature of your interest in her?"
He hesitated.
"It is not an easy matter," he said, "for me to offer you an
altogether adequate explanation. I have only seen your sister for a
very brief time, and I am a little past the age when a man does
headstrong things. At the same time, I must say that I am most anxious
to improve my acquaintance with her. I am a single man, and----"
"Thank you," she interrupted. "I will not ask you to explain further.
Good night."
He left at once, immensely relieved, yet scarcely satisfied with
himself as regarded his share of the interview with this young woman.
They heard his footsteps descending the stone staircase, growing
fainter and fainter. Then Courtlaw looked across at her with a white
puzzled face.
"Why did you lie to that man?" he asked fiercely. "How dared you do
yourself this injustice?"
"I did it for her sake," she answered. "It may be her salvation. I
believe that he will marry her."
"You would let him--knowing--all that you know?"
"Why not? She is my flesh and blood. She is more dear to me than
anything else. Perhaps if I had watched over her more closely, things
would have been different."
"You! Why, you have been an angel to her," he exclaimed impatiently.
"You know very well that she is selfish and pleasure-loving to the
backbone. You have made enough sacrifices for her surely without this.
Besides, you cannot tell where it will end. You have taken upon your
shoulders the burden of her misdeeds. You may have to carry them
further and longer than you think. Oh, it is unbearable."
The man's face was dark with passion. It was as though he were
personally aggrieved. His tone was rough, almost threatening. The girl
only smiled at him serenely, but she laid her hand for a moment
quietly upon his.
"Dear friend," she said, "this is a matter which you must leave to me
to do as I think best. Annabel is my only sister, you know, almost my
only relative. If I do not look after her, she has no one. And she is
very young, younger than her years."
It was significant of her influence over him that he answered her
calmly, although a storm of angry thoughts were struggling for
expression within him.
"Look after her! Why not? But you have done it all your life. You have
been her guardian angel. But even you cannot alter her character.
Annabel was born soulless, a human butterfly, if ever there was one.
The pursuit of pleasure, self-gratification, is an original instinct
with her. Blood and bone, body and spirit, she is selfish through and
through. Even you have not been able to hold her back. I speak no harm
of her. She is your sister, and God knows I wish her none. But----"
A look checked him.
"I know," she said quietly, "that Paris, where she has been so much
admired, is not a good place for her. That is why I am glad that she
has gone to London."
He rose from his chair, and walked restlessly up and down the room.
The passion of pent-up speech compelled action of some sort. There was
a black fear in his heart. He stopped before her suddenly.
"You, too," he said abruptly. "You mean to follow her. You will go to
London?"
"It is necessary," she answered. "You yourself have decided
that--apart from the question of Annabel."
He was suddenly calm.
"It is part of the irony of life," he said. "One is always playing the
surgeon, one kills always the thing one loves best. I meant to lie to
you. Would to God I had."
She shook her head.
"The surgeon's knife is surely a kindly weapon," she declared. "It was
best for me to know. Later on I could scarcely have forgiven you."
"And now--I am to lose you."
"For a little time," she answered. "I meant to say good-bye to you
to-night. Or, after all, is it worth while? The Channel is a little
broader than the Boulevards--but one crosses it sometimes."
He looked at her with white, set face.
"Yes," he said, "I shall come. That is very certain. But, after all,
it will be different. I think that I have become a drug drinker. I
need you every day. In the mornings I find labour easy because I am
going to see you. In the afternoon my brain and fingers leap to their
work because you have been with me. Anna, you shall not go. I cannot
let you go."
She threw away the end of her cigarette. Without turning or looking
in his direction she leaned forwards, her head supported upon her
fingers, her elbows upon her knees. She gazed steadily out of the
window at that arc of glittering lights. He made a quick movement
towards her, but she did not flinch. His arm fell to his side. The
effort of self-repression cost him a sob.
"David," she said, "you are not a coward, are you?"
"I do not know," he muttered. "The bravest of us have joints in our
armour."
"You are not a coward," she repeated, "or you would not be my friend.
A woman may choose any one for her lover, but for her friend she makes
no mistake. You are not a coward David, and you must not talk like
one. Put out your hand and bid me God-speed. It is the only way."
"I cannot do it!" he cried hoarsely. "I cannot part with you. You have
grown into my life. Anna----"
Again she stopped him, but this time it was not so easy. The man's
passion became almost unbearable at the thought of losing her. And
yet, as she rose slowly to her feet and stood looking at him with
outstretched hands, a strange mixture of expressions shining in her
wonderful eyes, he realized in some measure the strength of her
determination, felt the utter impotence of anything which he could say
to her. He forgot for the moment his own self-pity, the egotism of his
own passionate love. He took her hands firmly in his and raised them
to his lips.
"You shall go," he declared. "I will make of the days and weeks one
long morning, but remember the afternoon must come. Always remember
that."
Her hands fell to her side. She remained for a few moments standing as
though listening to his retreating footsteps. Then she turned, and
entering the inner room, commenced to dress hastily for the street.
_Chapter VI_
A QUESTION OF IDENTIFICATION
The little man with the closely-cropped beard and hair looked at her
keenly through his gold eye-glasses. He sat before a desk littered all
over with papers and official looking documents. The walls of the room
were lined with shelves, on which were glass jars, retorts, countless
bottles and many appliances of surgical science. A skeleton was
propped against the mantelpiece. The atmosphere seemed heavy with the
odour of drugs.
"You are Mademoiselle Pellissier?" he asked, without rising to his
feet.
Anna admitted the fact.
"We sent for you several hours ago," he remarked.
"I came directly I was disengaged," Anna answered. "In any case, there
is probably some mistake. I have very few friends in Paris."
He referred to a sheet of paper by his side.
"Your name and address were upon an envelope found in the pocket of an
Englishman who was brought here late last night suffering from serious
injuries," he said in a dry official tone. "As it is doubtful whether
the man will live, we should be glad if you would identify him."
"It is most unlikely that I shall be able to do so," Anna answered.
"To the best of my belief, I have not a single English acquaintance in
the city."
"My dear young lady," the official said irritably, "this man would not
have your name and address in his pocket without an object. You cannot
tell whether you know him or not until you have seen him. Be so good
as to come this way."
With a little shrug of the shoulders Anna followed him. They ascended
by a lift to one of the upper floors, passed through a long ward, and
finally came to a bed in the extreme corner, round which a screen had
been arranged. A nurse came hurrying up.
"He is quiet only this minute," she said to the official. "All the
time he is shouting and muttering. If this is the young lady, she can
perhaps calm him."
Anna stepped to the foot of the bed. An electric light flashed out
from the wall. The face of the man who lay there was clearly visible.
Anna merely glanced at the coarse, flushed features, and at once shook
her head.
"I have never seen him in my life," she said to the official. "I have
not the least idea who he is."
Just then the man's eyes opened. He saw the girl, and sprang up in
bed.
"Annabel at last," he shouted. "Where have you been? All these hours I
have been calling for you. Annabel, I was lying. Who says that I am
not Meysey Hill? I was trying to scare you. See, it is on my cards--M.
Hill, Meysey Hill. Don't touch the handle, Annabel! Curse the thing,
you've jammed it now. Do you want to kill us both? Stop the thing.
Stop it!"
Anna stepped back bewildered, but the man held out his arms to her.
"I tell you it was a lie!" he shouted wildly. "Can't you believe me? I
am Meysey Hill. I am the richest man in England. I am the richest man
in the world. You love money. You know you do, Annabel. Never mind,
I've got plenty. We'll go to the shops. Diamonds! You shall have all
that you can carry away, sacks full if you like. Pearls too! I mean
it. I tell you I'm Meysey Hill, the railway man. Don't leave me. Don't
leave me in this beastly thing. Annabel! Annabel!"
His voice became a shriek. In response to an almost imperative gesture
from the nurse, Anna laid her hand upon his. He fell back upon the
pillows with a little moan, clutching the slim white fingers fiercely.
In a moment his grasp grew weaker. The perspiration stood out upon his
forehead. His eyes closed.
Anna stepped back at once with a little gasp of relief. The hand which
the man had been holding hung limp and nerveless at her side. She held
it away from her with an instinctive repulsion, born of her
unconquerable antipathy to the touch of strangers. She began rubbing
it with her pocket-handkerchief. The man himself was not a pleasant
object. Part of his head was swathed in linen bandages. Such of his
features as were visible were of coarse mould. His eyes were set too
close together. Anna turned deliberately away from the bedside. She
followed the official back into his room.
"Well?" he asked her tersely.
"I can only repeat what I said before," she declared. "To the best of
my belief, I have never seen the man in my life."
"But he recognized you," the official objected.
"He fancied that he did," she corrected him coolly. "I suppose
delusions are not uncommon to patients in his condition."
The official frowned.
"Your name and address in his pocket was no delusion," he said
sharply. "I do not wish to make impertinent inquiries into your
private life. Nothing is of any concern of ours except the discovery
of the man's identity. He was picked up from amongst the wreckage of a
broken motor on the road to Versailles last night, and we have
information that a lady was with him only a few minutes before the
accident occurred."
"You are very unbelieving," Anna said coldly. "I hope you will not
compel me to say again that I do not know the man's name, nor, to the
best of my belief, have I ever seen him before in my life."
The official shrugged his shoulders.
"You decline to help us in any way, then," he said. "Remember that the
man will probably die. He had little money about him, and unless
friends come to his aid he must be treated as a pauper."
"I do not wish to seem unfeeling," Anna said, slowly, "but I can only
repeat that I am absolutely without concern in the matter. The man is
a stranger to me."
The official had no more to say. Only it was with a further and most
unbelieving shrug of the shoulders that he resumed his seat.
"You will be so good as to leave us your correct name and address,
mademoiselle," he said curtly.
"You have them both," Anna answered.
He opened the door for her with a faint disagreeable smile.
"It is possible, mademoiselle," he said, "that this affair is not yet
ended. It may bring us together again."
She passed out without reply. Yet she took with her an uneasy
consciousness that in this affair might lie the germs of future
trouble.
As she crossed the square, almost within a stone's throw of her
lodgings, she came face to face with Courtlaw. He stopped short with a
little exclamation of surprise.
"My dear friend," she laughed, "not so tragic, if you please."
He recovered himself.
"I was surprised, I admit," he said. "You did not tell me that you
were going out, or I would have offered my escort. Do you know how
late it is?"
She nodded.
"I heard the clock strike as I crossed the square," she answered. "I
was sent for to go to the Hospital St. Denis. But what are you doing
here?"
"Old Pere Runeval met me on your doorstep, and he would not let me go.
I have been sitting with him ever since. The Hospital St. Denis, did
you say? I hope that no one of our friends has met with an accident."
She shook her head.
"They wanted me to identify some one whom I had certainly never seen
before in my life, and to tell you the truth, they were positively
rude to me because I could not. Have you ever heard the name of Meysey
Hill?"
"Meysey Hill?" He repeated it after her, and she knew at once from his
tone and his quick glance into her face that the name possessed some
significance for him.
"Yes, I have heard of him, and I know him by sight," he admitted. "He
was a friend of your sister's, was he not?"
"I never heard her mention his name," she answered. "Still, of course,
it is possible. This man was apparently not sure whether he was Meysey
Hill or not."
"How long had he been in the hospital?" Courtlaw asked.
"Since last night."
"Then, whoever he may be, he is not Meysey Hill," Courtlaw said. "That
young man was giving a luncheon party to a dozen friends at the Cafe
de Paris to-day. I sat within a few feet of him. I feel almost
inclined to regret the fact."
"Why?" she asked.
"If one half of the stories about Meysey Hill are true," he answered,
"I would not stretch out my little finger to save his life."
"Isn't that a little extreme?"
"I am an extreme person at times. This man has an evil reputation. I
know of scandalous deeds which he has done."
Anna had reached the house where she lodged, but she hesitated on the
doorstep.
"Have you ever seen Annabel with him?" she asked.
"Never."
"It is odd that this man at the hospital should call himself Meysey
Hill," she remarked.
"If you wish," he said, "I will go there in the morning and see what
can be done for him."
"It would be very kind of you," she declared. "I am only sorry that I
did not ask you to go with me."
She rang the bell, and he waited by her side until she was admitted to
the tall, gloomy lodging-house. And ever after it struck him that her
backward smile as she disappeared was charged with some special
significance. The door closed upon her, and he moved reluctantly away.
When next he asked for her, some twelve hours later, he was told that
Mademoiselle had left. His most eager inquiries and most lavish bribes
could gain no further information than that she had left for England,
and that her address was--London.
_Chapter VII_
MISS PELLISSIER'S SUSPICIONS
"Anna!"
Anna kissed her sister and nodded to her aunt. Then she sat
down--uninvited--and looked from one to the other curiously. There was
something about their greeting and the tone of Annabel's exclamation
which puzzled her.
"I wish," she said, "that you would leave off looking at me as though
I were something grisly. I am your very dutiful niece, aunt, and your
most devoted sister, Annabel. I haven't murdered any one, or broken
the law in any way that I know of. Perhaps you will explain the state
of panic into which I seem to have thrown you."
Annabel, who was looking very well, and who was most becomingly
dressed, moved to a seat from which she could command a view of the
road outside. She was the first to recover herself. Her aunt, a faded,
anaemic-looking lady of somewhat too obtrusive gentility, was still
sitting with her hand pressed to her heart.
Annabel looked up and down the empty street, and then turned to her
sister.
"For one thing, Anna," she remarked, "we had not the slightest idea
that you had left, or were leaving Paris. You did not say a word about
it last week, nor have you written. It is quite a descent from the
clouds, isn't it?"
"I will accept that," Anna said, "as accounting for the surprise.
Perhaps you will now explain the alarm."
Miss Pellissier was beginning to recover herself. She too at once
developed an anxious interest in the street outside.
"I am sure, Anna," she said, "I do not see why we should conceal the
truth from you. We are expecting a visit from Sir John Ferringhall at
any moment. He is coming here to tea."
"Well?" Anna remarked calmly.
"Sir John," her aunt repeated, with thin emphasis, "is coming to see
your sister."
Anna drummed impatiently with her fingers against the arm of her
chair.
"Well!" she declared good-humouredly. "I shan't eat him."
Miss Pellissier stiffened visibly.
"This is not a matter altogether for levity, Anna," she said. "Your
sister's future is at stake. I imagine that even you must realize that
this is of some importance."
Anna glanced towards her sister, but the latter avoided her eyes.
"I have always," she admitted calmly, "taken a certain amount of
interest in Annabel's future. I should like to know how it is
concerned with Sir John Ferringhall, and how my presence intervenes."
"Sir John," Miss Pellissier said impressively, "has asked your sister
to be his wife. It is a most wonderful piece of good fortune, as I
suppose you will be prepared to admit. The Ferringhalls are of course
without any pretence at family, but Sir John is a very rich man, and
will be able to give Annabel a very enviable position in the world.
The settlements which he has spoken of, too, are most munificent. No
wonder we are anxious that nothing should happen to make him change
his mind."
"I still----"
Anna stopped short. Suddenly she understood. She grew perhaps a shade
paler, and she glanced out into the street, where her four-wheeler
cab, laden with luggage, was still waiting.
"Sir John of course disapproves of me," she remarked slowly.
"Sir John is a man of the world," her aunt answered coldly. "He
naturally does not wish for connexions which are--I do not wish to
hurt you feelings, Anna, but I must say it--not altogether desirable."
The irrepressible smile curved Anna's lips. She glanced towards her
sister, and curiously enough found in her face some faint reflection
of her own rather sombre mirth. She leaned back in her chair. It was
no use. The smile had become a laugh. She laughed till the tears stood
in her eyes.
"I had a visit from Sir John in my rooms," she said. "Did he tell you,
Annabel?"
"Yes."
"He mentioned the matter to me also," Miss Pellissier remarked
stiffly. "The visit seems to have made a most painful impression upon
him. To tell you the truth, he spoke to me very seriously upon the
subject."
Anna sprang up.
"I will be off," she declared. "My cab with all that luggage would
give the whole show away. Good-bye, aunt."
Miss Pellissier tried ineffectually to conceal her relief.
"I do not like to seem inhospitable, Anna," she said hesitatingly.
"And of course you are my niece just as Annabel is, although I am
sorry to learn that your conduct has been much less discreet than
hers. But at the same time, I must say plainly that I think your
presence here just now would be a great misfortune. I wish very much
that you had written before leaving Paris."
Anna nodded.
"Quite right," she said. "I ought to have done. Good-bye aunt. I'll
come and see you again later on. Annabel, come to the door with me,"
she added a little abruptly. "There is something which I must say to
you."
Annabel rose and followed her sister from the room. A maidservant held
the front door open. Anna sent her away.
"Annabel," she said brusquely. "Listen to me."
"Well?"
"Sir John came to me--that you know--and you can guess what I told
him. No, never mind about thanking me. I want to ask you a plain
question, and you must answer me faithfully. Is all that folly done
with--for ever?"
Annabel shivered ever so slightly.
"Of course it is, Anna. You ought to know that. I am going to make a
fresh start."
"Be very sure that you do," Anna said slowly. "If I thought for a
moment that there was any chance of a relapse, I should stop here and
tell him the truth even now."
Annabel looked at her with terrified eyes.
"Anna," she cried, "you must believe me. I am really in earnest. I
would not have him know--now--for the world."
"Very well," Anna said. "I will believe you. Remember that he's not at
all a bad sort, and to speak frankly, he's your salvation. Try and let
him never regret it. There's plenty to be got out of life in a decent
sort of way. Be a good wife to him. You can if you will."
"I promise," Annabel declared. "He is very kind, Anna, really, and not
half such a prig as he seems."
Anna moved towards the door, but her sister detained her.
"Won't you tell me why you have come to England?" she said. "It was
such a surprise to see you. I thought that you loved Paris and your
work so much."
A momentary bitterness crept into Anna's tone.
"I have made no progress with my work," she said slowly, "and the
money was gone. I had to ask Mr. Courtlaw for his true verdict, and he
gave it me. I have given up painting."
"Anna!"
"It is true, dear. After all there are other things. All that I regret
are the wasted years, and I am not sure that I regret them. Only of
course I must begin something else at once. That is why I came to
London."
"But what are you going to do--where are you going to live?" Annabel
asked. "Have you any money?"
"Lots," Anna answered laconically. "Never mind me. I always fall on my
feet, you know."
"You will let us hear from you--let us know where you are, very soon?"
Annabel called out from the step.
Anna nodded as she briskly crossed the pavement.
"Some day," she answered. "Run in now. There's a hansom coming round
the corner."
* * * * *
Anna sat back in her cab, but found it remain stationary.
"Gracious!" she exclaimed to herself. "I don't know where to go to."
The cabman, knocking with the butt end of his whip upon the window,
reminded her that he was in a similar predicament.
"Drive towards St. Pancras," she directed, promptly. "I will tell you
when to stop."
The cab rumbled off. Anna leaned forward, watching the people in the
streets. It was then for the first time she remembered that she had
said nothing to her sister of the man in the hospital.
_Chapter VIII_
"WHITE'S"
Northwards, away from the inhospitality of West Kensington, rumbled
the ancient four-wheel cab, laden with luggage and drawn by a wheezy
old horse rapidly approaching its last days. Inside was Anna, leaning
a little forward to watch the passers-by, bright-eyed, full to the
brim of the insatiable curiosity of youth--the desire to understand
and appreciate this new world in which she found herself. She was
practically an outcast, she had not even the ghost of a plan as to her
future, and she had something less than five pounds in her pocket. She
watched the people and hummed softly to herself.
Suddenly she thrust her head out of the window.
"Please stop, cabman," she ordered.
The man pulled up. It was not a difficult affair.
"Is this Montague Street, W.C.?" she asked.
The man looked as though he would have liked to deny it, but could
not.
"Stay where you are for a moment," she directed. "I want to find an
address."
The man contented himself with a nod. Anna rummaged about in her
dressing-case, and finally drew out a letter. On the envelope was
written--
Sydney Courtlaw, Esq.,
13, Montague St.
She put her head out of the window.
"Number 13, please, cabman."
"We've come past it, miss," the man answered, with a note of finality
in his gruff voice.
"Then turn round and go back there," she directed.
The man muttered something inaudible, and gathered up the reins. His
horse, which had apparently gone to sleep, preferred to remain where
he was. After a certain amount of manoeuvring, however, he was
induced to crawl around, and in a few minutes came to stop again
before a tall brightly-painted house, which seemed like an oasis of
colour and assertive prosperity in a long dingy row. This was number
13, Montague Street, familiarly spoken of in the neighbourhood as
"White's."
Anna promptly alighted with the letter in her hand. The door was
opened for her by a weary-looking youth in a striped jacket several
sizes too large for him. The rest of his attire was nondescript.
"Does Mr. Courtlaw, Mr. Sydney Courtlaw, live here, please?" Anna
asked him.
"Not home yet, miss," the young man replied. "Generally gets here
about seven."
Anna hesitated, and then held out the letter.
"I think that I will leave this letter for him," she said. "It is from
his brother in Paris. Say that I will call again or let him know my
address in London."
The young man accepted the letter and the message, and seemed about to
close the door when a lady issued from one of the front rooms and
intervened. She wore a black satin dress, a little shiny at the seams,
a purposeless bow of white tulle at the back of her neck, and a huge
chatelaine. She addressed Anna with a beaming smile and a very
creditable mixture of condescension and officiousness. Under the
somewhat trying incandescent light her cheeks pleaded guilty to a
recent use of the powder puff.
"I think that you were inquiring for Mr. Courtlaw," she remarked. "He
is one of our guests--perhaps I should say boarders here, but he
seldom returns before dinner-time. We dine at seven-thirty. Can I give
him any message for you?"
"Thank you," Anna answered. "I have a letter for him from his brother,
which I was just leaving."
"I will see that he gets it immediately on his return," the lady
promised. "You did not wish to see him particularly this evening,
then?"
Anna hesitated.
"Well, no," she answered. "To tell you the truth though, I am quite a
stranger in London, and it occurred to me that Mr. Courtlaw might have
been able to give me an idea where to stop."
The lady in black satin looked at the pile of luggage outside and
hesitated.
"Were you thinking of private apartments, a boarding-house or an
hotel?" she asked.
"I really had not thought about it at all," Anna answered smiling. "I
expected to stay with a relation, but I found that their arrangements
did not allow of it. I have been used to living in apartments in
Paris, but I suppose the system is different here."
The lady in black satin appeared undecided. She looked from Anna, who
was far too nice-looking to be travelling about alone, to that
reassuring pile of luggage, and wrinkled her brows thoughtfully.
"Of course," she said diffidently, "this is a boarding-house, although
we never take in promiscuous travellers. The class of guests we have
are all permanent, and I am obliged to be very careful indeed. But--if
you are a friend of Mr. Courtlaw's--I should like to oblige Mr.
Courtlaw."
"It is very nice of you to think of it," Anna said briskly. "I should
really like to find somewhere to stay, if it was only for a few
nights."
The lady stood away from the door.
"Will you come this way," she said, "into the drawing-room? There is
no one there just now. Most of my people are upstairs dressing for
dinner. The gentlemen are so particular now, and a good thing too, I
say. I was always used to it, and I think it gives quite a tone to an
establishment. Please sit down, Miss--dear me, I haven't asked you
your name yet."
"My name is Pellissier," Anna said, "Anna Pellissier."
"I am Mrs. White," the lady in black satin remarked. "It makes one
feel quite awkward to mention such a thing, but after all I think that
it is best for both parties. Could you give me any references?"
"There is Mr. Courtlaw," Anna said, "and my solicitors, Messrs. Le
Mercier and Stowe of St. Heliers. They are rather a long way off, but
you could write to them. I am sorry that I do not know any one in
London. But after all, Mrs. White, I am not sure that I could afford
to come to you. I am shockingly poor. Please tell me what your terms
are."
"Well," Mrs. White said slowly, "it depends a good deal upon what
rooms you have. Just now my best ones are all taken."
"So much the better," Anna declared cheerfully. "The smallest will do
for me quite well."
Mrs. White looked mysteriously about the room as though to be sure
that no one was listening.
"I should like you to come here," she said. "It's a great deal for a
young lady who's alone in the world, as I suppose you are at present,
to have a respectable home, and I do not think in such a case that
private apartments are at all desirable. We have a very nice set of
young people here too just at present, and you would soon make some
friends. I will take you for thirty-five shillings a week. Please
don't let any one know that."
"I have no idea what it costs to live in London," Anna said, "but I
should like very much to come for a short time if I might."
"Certainly," Mrs. White said. "Two days' notice shall be sufficient on
either side."
"And I may bring my luggage in and send that cabman away?" Anna asked.
"Dear me, what a relief! If I had had any nerves that man would have
trampled upon them long ago."
"Cabmen are so trying," Mrs. White assented. "You need have no further
trouble. The manservant shall bring your trunks in and pay the fare
too, if you like."
Anna drew out her purse at once.
"You are really a good Samaritan," she declared. "I am perfectly
certain that that man meant to be rude to me. He has been bottling it
up all the way from West Kensington."
Mrs. White rang the bell.
"Come upstairs," she said, "and I will show you your room. And would
you mind hurrying a little. You won't want to be late the first
evening, and it's ten minutes past seven now. Gracious, there's the
gong. This way, my dear--and--you'll excuse my mentioning it, but a
quiet blouse and a little chiffon, you know, will be quite sufficient.
It's your first evening, and early impressions do count for so much.
You understand me, I'm sure."
Anna was a little puzzled, but she only laughed.
"Perhaps, as I've only just arrived," she remarked, "I might be
forgiven if I do not change my skirt. I packed so hurriedly that it
will take me a long time to find my things."
"Certainly," Mrs. White assured her. "Certainly. I'll mention it.
You're tired, of course. This is your room. The gong will go at
seven-thirty. Don't be late if you can help it."
* * * * *
Anna was not late, but her heart sank within her when she entered the
drawing-room. It was not a hopeful looking group. Two or three
podgy-looking old men with wives to match, half-a-dozen overdressed
girls, and a couple of underdressed American ones, who still wore the
clothes in which they had been tramping half over London since
breakfast time. A sprinkling of callow youths, and a couple of
pronounced young Jews, who were talking loudly together in some
unintelligible jargon of the City. What had she to do with such as
these? She had hard work to keep a smiling face, as Mrs. White, who
had risen to greet her, proceeded with a formal, and from Anna's point
of view, a wholly unnecessary round of introductions. And then
suddenly--a relief. A young man--almost a boy, slight, dark, and with
his brother's deep grey eyes--came across the room to her.
"You must be the Miss Pellissier of whom David has told me so much,"
he said, shyly. "I am very glad that you have come here. I heard from
David about you only this morning."
"You are marvellously like your brother," Anna said, beaming upon him.
"I have a letter for you, and no end of messages. Where can we sit
down and talk?"
He led her across the room towards a window recess, in which a tall,
fair young man was seated with an evening paper in his hand.
"Let me introduce my friend to you," Courtlaw said. "Arthur, this is
Miss Pellissier--Mr. Brendon. Brendon and I are great chums," he went
on nervously. "We are clerks in the same bank. I don't think that the
rest of the people here like us very well, do they, Arthur, so we're
obliged to be friends."
Anna shook hands with Brendon--a young man also, but older and more
self-possessed than Sydney Courtlaw.
"Sydney is quite right, Miss Pellissier," he said. "He and I don't
seem to get on at all with our fellow-guests, as Mrs. White calls
them. You really ought not to stay here and talk to us. It is a most
inauspicious start for you."
"Dear me," Anna laughed, "how unfortunate! What ought I to do? Should
I be forgiven, do you think, if I were to go and hold that skein of
wool for the old lady in the yellow cap?"
"Don't speak of her irreverently," Brendon said, in an awed whisper.
"Her husband was a county councillor, and she has a niece who comes to
see her in a carriage. I wish she wouldn't look like that at us over
her glasses."
Horace, the manservant, transformed now into the semblance of a
correctly garbed waiter, threw open the door.
"Dinner is served, ma'am," he announced to Mrs. White.
There was no rush. Everything was done in a genteel and ordinary way,
but on the other hand, there was no lingering. Anna found herself next
Sydney Courtlaw, with his friend close at hand. Opposite to her was a
sallow-visaged young man, whose small tie seemed like a smudge of
obtusively shiny black across the front of a high close-drawn collar.
As a rule, Courtlaw told her softly, he talked right and left, and to
everybody throughout the whole of the meal--to-night he was almost
silent, and seemed to devote his whole attention to staring at Anna.
After the first courses however she scarcely noticed him. Her two new
friends did their best to entertain her.
"I can't imagine, Miss Pellissier," Brendon said, leaning towards her,
"whatever made you think of coming to stay if only for a week at a
Montague Street boarding-house. Are you going to write a novel?"
"Not I," she answered gaily. "I came to London unexpectedly, and my
friends could not take me in. I had a vague sort of idea that this was
the region where one finds apartments, so I told my cabman to drive in
this direction while I sat inside his vehicle and endeavoured to form
a plan of campaign. He brought me past this house, and I thought I
would call and leave your brother's letter. Then I saw Mrs. White----"
"No more," Sydney Courtlaw begged, laughingly. "You were booked of
course. An unexpected vacancy, wasn't it? Every one comes in on
unexpected vacancy."
"And they go?"
"When they get the chance. It really isn't so easy to go as it seems.
We have come to the conclusion, Brendon and I, that Mrs. White is
psychologically gifted. She throws a sort of spell over us all. We
struggle against it at first, but in the end we have to submit. She
calls us her guests, but in reality we are her prisoners. We simply
can't get away. There's that old gentleman at the end of the
table--Bullding his name is. He will tell you confidentially that he
simply hates the place. Yet he's been here for six years, and he's as
much a fixture as that sham mahogany sideboard. Everyone will grumble
to you confidentially--Miss Ellicot, she's our swagger young lady, you
know--up there, next to Miss White, she will tell you that it is so
out of the world here, so far away from everyone one knows. Old
Kesterton, choleric-looking individual nearly opposite, will curse the
cooking till he's black in the face, but he never misses a dinner.
The Semitic looking young man opposite, who seems to have been
committing you to memory piecemeal, will tell you that he was never so
bored in all his life as he has been here. Yet he stays. They all
stay!"
"And you yourself?"
Brendon laughed.
"Oh, we are also under the spell," he declared, "but I think that we
are here mainly because it is cheap. It is really cheap, you know. To
appreciate it you should try rooms."
"Is this a fair sample of the dinner?" Anna asked, who had the healthy
appetite of a strong young woman.
"It is, if anything, a little above the average," Brendon admitted.
Anna said nothing. The young man opposite was straining his ears to
listen to their conversation. Mrs. White caught her eye, and smiled
benignly down the table.
"I hope that Mr. Courtlaw is looking after you, Miss Pellissier," she
said.
"Admirably, thank you," Anna answered.
The young lady with frizzled hair, whom Brendon had pointed out to her
as Miss Ellicot, leaned forward from her hostess's side. She had very
frizzy hair indeed, very black eyebrows, a profusion of metallic
adornments about her neck and waist, and an engaging smile.
"We are so interested to hear, Miss Pellissier," she said, "that you
have been living in Paris. We shall expect you to tell us all what to
wear."
Anna smiled very faintly, and shook her head.
"I have come from a very unfashionable quarter," she said, "and I do
not think that I have been inside a milliner's shop for a year.
Besides, it is all reversed now, you know. Paris copies London."
Brendon leaned over confidentially.
"You are in luck, Miss Pellissier," he declared. "Your success here is
absolutely meteoric. Miss Ellicot has spoken to you, the great Mr.
Bullding is going to. For five minutes he has been trying to think of
something to say. I am not sure, but I believe that he has just
thought of something."
"May I be prepared?" Anna asked. "Which is Mr. Bullding?"
"Stout old gentleman four places down on the left. Look out, it's
coming."
Anna raised her eyes, and caught the earnest gaze of an elderly
gentleman with a double chin, a protuberant under lip, and a
snuff-stained coat.
"I was in Paris four years ago," Mr. Building announced solemnly. "It
rained the whole of the time, but we saw all the sights, and the place
never seemed dull."
"It takes a great deal of bad weather to depress the true Parisian,"
Anna admitted.
"A volatile temperament--yes, a volatile temperament," Mr. Bullding
repeated, rather struck with the phrase. "It is a pity that as nations
we are not more friendly."
Anna nodded and turned again to Courtlaw.
"I will not be drawn into a conversation with Mr. Bullding," she
declared. "I believe that he would bore me. Tell me, what are these
bananas and nuts for?"
"Dessert."
Anna laid down her serviette.
"Let us escape," she said. "Couldn't we three go out and have some
coffee somewhere? The thought of that drawing-room paralyses me."
Brendon laughed softly.
"We can," he said, "and we will. But it is only fair to warn you that
it isn't expected. Mrs. White is proud of her drawing-room evenings.
There is a musical programme, and we have the windows open and blinds
up, and a pink lamp shade over the piano lamp--a sort of advertisement
of the place, you know. Strangers look in and long, and neighbours are
moved to envy."
Anna hesitated no longer. She almost sprang to her feet. Conscious of
Mrs. White's surprise as she swung easily down the room, followed by
the two young men, she smiled a careless explanation at her.
"I am dying to renew my acquaintance with London, Mrs. White," she
remarked.
"You are not going out--this evening, I trust," that lady asked, a
trifle dismayed.
Anna did not pause, but she looked over her shoulder with slightly
lifted eyebrows.
"Why not? They tell me that London is impossible till after ten, and I
want my first impressions to be favourable."
"There will be some coffee and music in the drawing-room in a few
minutes," Mrs. White said.
"Thanks, I'm not very fond of coffee," Anna answered, "and I hate
music. Good night."
Mrs. White gasped, and then stiffened. Miss Ellicot, who sang ballads,
and liked Brendon to turn over the pages for her, tossed her head.
Anna passed serenely out.
_Chapter IX_
BRENDON'S LUCK
Anna sat in a chair in her room and sighed. She was alone, and the
mask of her unchanging high spirits was for the moment laid aside. She
was a little paler than when she had come to London, a little paler
and a little thinner. There were dark rims under her eyes, soft now
with unshed tears. For this three weeks had been the hardest of her
life. There had been disappointments and humiliations, and although
she hated to admit it even to herself, she was in desperate straits.
Nevertheless, she was still fighting.
"There is one thing I must concentrate on at the moment," she told
herself, "and that is how to pay my next week's bill to Mrs. White. It
ought not to be much. I have gone without dinner for three nights,
and--come in."
Sydney Courtlaw followed his timid knock. Anna raised her eyebrows at
the sight of him. He was in evening dress: swallow-tailed coat and
white tie.
"Is this a concession to Mrs. White?" she asked, laughing. "How
gratified she must have been! If only I had known I would have made an
effort to get home in time for dinner."
"Not exactly," he answered nervously. "Please forgive me coming up,
Miss Pellissier, but you have not been down to dinner for three
nights, and--Brendon and I--we were afraid that you might be unwell."
"Never better in my life," Anna declared briskly. "I had lunch very
late to-day, and I did not get home in time for dinner."
She smiled grimly at the recollection of that lunch--tea and roll at a
cheap cafe. Sydney was watching her eagerly.
"I'm glad you're all right," he said, "because we want you to do us a
favour. Brendon's had an awful stroke of luck."
"I'm delighted," she exclaimed. "Do tell me all about it."
"He only heard this afternoon," Sydney continued. "An uncle in New
York is dead, and has left him loads of money. A lawyer has come all
the way from America about it. We want to celebrate, and we want you
to help us. Brendon suggests supper at the Carlton. We meant to make
it dinner and a theatre, but you were not home. We thought of
starting in half an hour's time, and trying for a theatre somewhere on
the way."
"How delightful!" exclaimed Anna. "I should love to come. It is very
sweet of you to have waited for me. Run away now, please. I must see
if I have a gown fit to wear."
* * * * *
"This," Anna declared, as she sipped her wine and looked around her,
"reminds me more of Paris than any place I have yet seen. I suppose it
is the mirrors and decorations."
"And the people?" Brendon asked. "What do you think of them?"
Anna extended her critical survey and shrugged her shoulders.
"What can one say?" she exclaimed. "Did you ever see women so
weary-looking and so dowdy? They do not talk. They seem to spend their
time yawning and inspecting their neighbour's dresses through those
hateful glasses. It never seems to enter their heads to try and amuse
their menkind."
Two young men on their way down the room came suddenly to a standstill
before Anna. The foremost, tall, clean-shaven, perfectly groomed, half
extended his hand with a smile of recognition.
"Miss Pellissier, isn't it?" he said. "Glad to see you in London. No
idea that you were here, though."
Anna looked up with a doubtful smile of non-recognition.
"My name is certainly Pellissier," she said, "but I am very sorry--I
do not recognize you in the least."
The tall young man dropped his eye-glass and smiled.
"Had the pleasure of dining with you at the 'Ambassador's' one night,
before the show, you know--last September I think it was. Charley
Pevenill was our host. My name is Armytage--Lord Ernest Armytage."
Anna had suddenly stiffened. She regarded the young man coldly. Her
tone was icy.
"I am afraid that you are making a mistake," she said. "I was never at
any such dinner, and I am quite sure that I do not know you."
"Perhaps you remember me, Miss Pellissier," the second young man
interposed. "I had the pleasure of--er--meeting you more than once, I
believe."
A spot of colour flared in Anna's cheek as she glanced towards the
speaker. Something in his smile, in the cynical suggestiveness of his
deferential tone, maddened her.
"To the best of my belief," she said, with quiet dignity, "I have
never seen either of you before in my life."
For a fraction of a second the two young men hesitated. Then the
foremost bowed and passed on.
"I am exceedingly sorry," he said. "Pray accept my apologies."
"And mine," murmured his companion, with the smile still lingering
upon his lips.
They took their places at a distant table. Anna sat quite still for a
moment, and then the colour suddenly returned to her cheeks. She
laughed softly, and leaned across the table.
"Do not look so uncomfortable, both of you," she begged. "Those young
men startled me at first, because they knew my name. I am quite sure
though that they did not mean to be rude."
"Impudent beggars," Sydney growled. "I never wanted to kick any one so
much in my life as that second fellow."
"I think," Anna said, "that it was only his manner. Do look at this
tragedy in mauve, who has just come in. What can she be? The wife of a
country tradesman, or a duchess? And such a meek little husband too.
What can she have done to deserve such a fate? Oh!"
They both turned round at Anna's exclamation. A familiar figure was
making his way towards them. Sydney sprang up.
"Why, it's David!" he exclaimed. "Hullo!"
Courtlaw, haggard, his deep-set eyes more brilliant than ever, took
Anna's hand into his, and breathed a little close drawn sigh of
content. He was introduced to Brendon, and a chair was brought by an
attentive waiter. He declined supper, but took wine.
"Have you dropped from the skies?" Sydney asked wonderingly. "It was
only yesterday I had your letter, and you never mentioned coming
over."
"I had some unexpected business," Courtlaw answered shortly.
"And how did you find us here?"
"I called at Montague Street a few minutes after you had left. Mrs.
White told me where to find you."
He leaned back in his chair as though wearied. Yet either the rest or
the wine seemed already to have done him good. The lines about his
mouth gradually softened. He talked very little and rather absently.
In no way could he be said to contribute to the gaiety of the little
party. But when they were on their way out he whispered in Anna's ear.
"Please let me drive you home. I want to talk to you, and I must
return to-morrow."
Anna hesitated.
"We are Mr. Brendon's guests," she said, "and I scarcely think it
would be nice of me to leave him alone with Sydney."
Courtlaw turned abruptly to Brendon.
"Mr. Brendon," he said, "may I rob you of your guest just for the
drive home? I have only a few hours in England, and Miss Pellissier is
an old friend."
"By all means," Brendon answered. "We will follow you in another cab."
They passed out on to the pavement, and the commissionaire called a
hansom. The man looked closely at Anna as she crossed the footway, and
as he held her skirt from the wheel he pressed something into her
hand. Her fingers closed upon it instinctively. It was a letter. She
slipped it calmly into her pocket. The commissionaire smiled. It was a
sovereign easily earned.
The hansom drove off. Suddenly Anna felt her hand seized and
imprisoned in Courtlaw's burning fingers. She glanced into his face.
It was enough.
"I have stood it for a month, Anna," he exclaimed. "You will not even
answer my letters. I could not keep away any longer."
"Do you think that it was wise of you, or kind to come?" she asked
quietly.
"Wise! Kind! What mockery words are! I came because I had to. I cannot
live without you, Anna. Come back--you must come back. We can be
married to-morrow in Paris. There! You are trying to take your hand
away."
"You disappoint me," she said wearily. "You are talking like a boy.
What is the use of it? I do not wish to marry you. I do not wish to
return to Paris. You are doing your best to break our friendship."
"It is you," he cried, "you, who are talking folly, when you speak of
friendship between you and me. It is not the woman who speaks there.
It is the vapouring school girl. I tell you that I love you, Anna, and
I believe that you love me. You are necessary to me. I shall give you
my life, every moment and thought of my life. You must come back. See
what you have made of me. I cannot work, I cannot teach. You have
grown into my life, and I cannot tear you out."
Anna was silent. She was trembling a little. The man's passion was
infectious. She had to school herself to speak the words which she
knew would cut him like a knife.
"You are mistaken, David. I have counted you, and always hoped to
count you, the best of my friends. But I do not love you. I do not
love any one."
"I don't believe it," he answered hoarsely. "We have come too close
together for me to believe it. You care for me a little, I know. I
will teach you how to make that little sufficient."
"You came to tell me this?"
"I came for you," he declared fiercely.
The hansom sped through the crowded streets. Anna suddenly leaned
forward and looked around her.
"We are not going the right way," she exclaimed.
"You are coming my way," Courtlaw answered. "Anna," he pleaded, "be
merciful. You care for me just a little, I know. You are alone in the
world, you have no one save yourself to consider. Come back with me
to-night. Your old rooms are there, if you choose. I kept them on
myself till the sight of your empty chair and the chill loneliness of
it all nearly sent me mad."
Anna lifted her hand and pushed open the trap door.
"Drive to 13, Montague Street, cabman," she ordered.
The man pulled up his horse grumbling, and turned round. Courtlaw sat
with folded arms. He said nothing.
"My friend," she said, "no! Let me tell you this. Nothing would induce
me to marry you, or any man at present. I am a pauper, and as yet I
have not discovered how to earn money. I am determined to fight my own
little battle with the world--there must be a place for me somewhere,
and I mean to find it. Afterwards, it may be different. If I were to
marry you now I should feel a dependent being all my life--a sort of
parasitical creature without blood or muscle. I should lose every
scrap of independence--even my self-respect. However good you were to
me, and however happy I was in other ways, I should find this
intolerable."
"All these things," he muttered bitterly, "this desperate resolve to
take your life into your own hands, your unnatural craving for
independence, would never trouble you for a moment--if you really
cared."
"Then perhaps," she answered, with a new coldness in her tone,
"perhaps I really do not care. No, don't interrupt me. I think that I
am a little disappointed in you. You appear to be amongst those strong
enough in all ordinary matters, but who seem to think it quite
natural and proper to give in at once and play the weakling
directly--one cares. Do you think that it makes for happiness to force
oneself into the extravagant belief that love is the only thing in the
world worth having, and to sacrifice for it independence,
self-respect, one's whole scheme of life. I cannot do it, David.
Perhaps, as you say, I do not really care--but I cannot do it."
He was strangely silent. He did not even reply to her for several
minutes.
"I cannot reason with you," he said at last wearily. "I speak from my
heart, and you answer from your brain."
"Believe me that I have answered you wisely," she said, in a gentler
tone, "wisely for you too, as well as myself. And now you must go
back, take up your work and think all this over. Presently you will
see that I am right, and then you shall take your vacation over here,
and we will be good comrades again."
He smiled bitterly as he handed her from the cab. He declined to come
in.
"Will you tell Sydney that I will see him in the morning," he said. "I
am staying at the Savoy. He can come round there."
"You will shake hands with me, please," she begged.
He took her fingers and lifted his eyes to hers. Something he saw
there made him feel for a moment ashamed. He pressed the long shapely
hand warmly in his.
"Good-bye," he said earnestly. "Please forgive me. You are right.
Quite right."
She was able to go straight to her room without delay, and she at once
locked the door with a little sigh of relief. She found herself
struggling with a storm of tears.
A sob was strangled in her throat. She struggled fiercely not to give
way.
"Oh, I am lonely," she moaned. "I am lonely. If I could but----"
* * * * *
To escape from her thoughts she began to undress, humming a light tune
to herself, though her eyes were hot with unshed tears, and the sobs
kept rising in her throat. As she drew off her skirt she felt
something in the pocket, and remembered the letter which the
commissionaire at the Carlton had given her. She tore open the
envelope and read it.
"MY DEAR GIRL,--
"I am so sorry if we made asses of ourselves to-night. The fact
is I was so glad to see you again that it never occurred to me
that a little discretion might be advisable. I'm afraid I'm a
terribly clumsy fellow.
"I hope that you are going to allow me to see something of you
during your stay in London, for the sake of old times. Could you
come to tea at my rooms one afternoon, or would you dine with me
somewhere, and do a theatre? We could have a private room, of
course, if you do not wish to be seen about London, and a box at
the theatre. I often think of those delightful evenings in Paris.
May we not repeat them once, at any rate, in London?
"Ever yours,
"NIGEL ENNISON.
"P.S. My address is 94, Pall Mall."
Anna read, and her cheeks grew slowly scarlet. She crushed the letter
in her hand.
"I wonder," she murmured to herself, "if this is the beginning."
_Chapter X_
THE TRAGEDY OF AN APPETITE
Anna, notwithstanding her quiet clothes, a figure marvellously out of
accord with her surroundings, sat before a small marble-topped table
at a crowded A.B.C., and munched a roll and butter with hearty
appetite.
"If only I could afford another!" she thought regretfully. "I wonder
why I am always hungry nowadays. It is so ridiculous."
She lingered over her tea, and glancing around, a sudden reflection on
the change in her surroundings from the scene of her last night's
supper brought a faint, humorous smile to her lips.
"In two days," she reflected, "Mrs. White will present her bill. I
have one shilling and sevenpence halfpenny left. I have two days in
which to earn nearly thirty shillings--that is with no dinners, and
get a situation. I fancy that this is a little more than playing at
Bohemianism."
"So far," she continued, eyeing hungrily the last morsel of roll which
lay upon her plate, "my only chance of occupation has lain with a
photographer who engaged me on the spot and insulted me in half an
hour. What beasts men are! I cannot typewrite, my three stories are
still wandering round, two milliners have refused me as a lay figure
because business was so bad. I am no use for a clerk, because I do not
understand shorthand. After all, I fancy that I shall have to apply
for a situation as a nursery governess who understands French. Faugh!"
She took up the last morsel of roll, and held it delicately between
her long slim fingers. Then her white teeth gleamed, and her excuse
for remaining any longer before that little marble table was gone. She
rose, paid her bill, and turned westwards.
She walked with long swinging steps, scorning the thought of buses or
the tube. If ever she felt fatigue in these long tramps which had
already taken her half over London, she never admitted it. Asking her
way once or twice, she passed along Fleet Street into the Strand, and
crossed Trafalgar Square, into Piccadilly. Here she walked more
slowly, looking constantly at the notices in the shop windows. One she
entered and met with a sharp rebuff, which she appeared to receive
unmoved. But when she reached the pavement outside her teeth were
clenched, and she carried herself unconsciously an inch or so higher.
It was just then that she came face to face with Nigel Ennison.
He was walking listlessly along, well-dressed, _debonnair_,
good-looking. Directly he saw Anna he accosted her. His manner was
deferential, even eager. Anna, who was disposed to be sharply
critical, could find no fault with it.
"How fortunate I am, Miss Pellissier! All day I have been hoping that
I might run across you. You got my note?"
"I certainly received a note," Anna admitted.
"You were going to answer it?"
"Certainly not!" she said deliberately.
He looked at her with an expression of comical despair.
"What have I done, Miss Pellissier?" he pleaded. "We were good friends
in Paris, weren't we? You made me all sorts of promises, we planned
no end of nice things, and then--without a word to any one you
disappeared. Now we meet again, and you will scarcely look at me. You
seem altogether altered, too. Upon my word--you are Miss Pellissier,
aren't you?"
"I certainly am," she admitted.
He looked at her for a moment in a puzzled sort of way.
"Of course!" he said. "You have changed somehow--and you certainly are
less friendly."
She laughed. After all, his was a pleasant face, and a pleasant voice,
and very likely Annabel had behaved badly.
"Perhaps," she said, "it is the London climate. It depresses one, you
know."
He nodded.
"You look more like your old self when you smile," he remarked. "But,
forgive me, you are tired. Won't you come and have some tea with me?
There is a new place in Bond Street," he hastened to say, "where
everything is very well done, and they give us music, if that is any
attraction to you."
She hesitated and looked for a moment straight into his eyes. He
certainly bore inspection. He was tall and straight, and his
expression was good.
"I will come--with pleasure," she said, "if you will promise to treat
me as a new acquaintance--not to refer to--Paris--at all."
"I promise," he answered heartily. "Allow me."
He took his place by her side, and they talked lightly of London, the
shops and people. They found a cosy little table in the tea-rooms, and
everything was delicious. Anna, with her marvellous capacity for
enjoyment, ate cakes and laughed, and forgot that she had had tea an
hour or so ago at an A.B.C., or that she had a care in the world.
"By-the-bye," he said, presently, "your sister was married to old
Ferringhall the other day, wasn't she? I saw the notice in the
papers."
Anna never flinched. But after the first shock came a warm glow of
relief. After all, it was what she had been praying for--and Annabel
could not have known her address.
"My sister and I," she said slowly, "have seen very little of each
other lately. I fancy that Sir John does not approve of me."
Ennison shrugged his shoulders.
"Sort of man who can see no further than his nose," he remarked
contemptuously. "Fearful old fogey! I can't imagine any sister of
yours putting up with him for a moment. I thought perhaps you were
staying with them, as you did not seem particularly anxious to
recognize your old friends."
Anna shook her head.
"No, I am alone," she answered.
"Then we must try and make London endurable for you," he remarked
cheerfully. "What night will you dine and go to the theatre with
me?--and how about Hurlingham on Saturday?"
Anna shook her head.
"Thank you," she said coolly. "Those things are not for me just at
present."
He was obviously puzzled. Anna sighed as she reflected that her sister
had simply revelled in her indiscretions.
"Come," he said, "you can't be meaning to bury yourself. There must be
something we can do. What do you say to Brighton----"
Anna looked at him quietly--and he never finished his sentence.
"May I ask whether you are staying with friends in town?" he inquired
deferentially. "Perhaps your engagements are made for you."
"I am staying," she answered coolly, "at a small boarding-house near
Russell Square."
He dropped his eye-glass with a clatter.
"At a boarding-house?" he gasped.
She nodded.
"Yes. I am an independent sort of person," she continued, "and I am
engaged in an attempt to earn my own living. You don't happen to know
of any one, I suppose, who wants a nursery governess, or a
clerk--without shorthand--or a tryer-on, or a copyist, or----"
"For Heaven's sake stop, Miss Pellissier," he interrupted. "What a
hideous repertoire! If you are in earnest about wanting to earn money,
why on earth don't you accept an engagement here?"
"An engagement?" she queried.
"On the stage? Yes. You would not have the slightest difficulty."
She laughed softly to herself.
"Do you know," she confessed, "I never thought of that?"
He looked at her as though doubting even now whether she could
possibly be in earnest.
"I cannot conceive," he said, "how any other occupation could ever
have occurred to you. You do not need me to remind you of your success
at Paris. The papers are continually wondering what has become of
'Alcide.' Your name alone would fill any music hall in London."
Again that curious smile which puzzled him so much parted her lips for
a moment.
"Dear me," she said, "I fancy you exaggerate my fame. I can't imagine
Londoners--particularly interested in me."
He shrugged his shoulders. Even now he was not at all sure that she
was not playing with him. There were so many things about her which he
could not understand. She began to draw on her gloves thoughtfully.
"I am very much obliged for the tea," she said. "This is a charming
place, and I have enjoyed the rest."
"It was a delightful piece of good fortune that I should have met
you," he answered. "I hope that whatever your plans may be, you will
give me the opportunity of seeing something of you now and then."
"I am afraid," she said, preceding him down the narrow stairs, "that I
am going to be too busy to have much time for gadding about. However,
I daresay that we shall come across one another before long."
"That is provokingly indefinite," he answered, a little ruefully.
"Won't you give me your address?"
She shook her head.
"It is such a very respectable boarding-house," she said. "I feel
quite sure that Mrs. White would not approve of callers."
"I have a clue, at any rate," he remarked, smiling. "I must try the
Directory."
"I wish you good luck," she answered. "There are a good many Whites in
London."
"May I put you in a hansom?" he asked, lifting his stick.
"For Heaven's sake, no," she answered quickly. "Do you want to ruin
me? I shall walk back."
"I may come a little way, then?" he begged.
"If you think it worth while," she answered doubtfully.
Apparently he thought it very much worth while. Restraining with an
effort his intense curiosity, he talked of general subjects only,
trying his best to entertain her. He succeeded so well that they were
almost in Montague Street before Anna stopped short.
"Heavens!" she exclaimed. "I have brought you very nearly to my door.
Go back at once, please."
He held out his hand obediently.
"I'll go," he said, "but I warn you that I shall find you out."
For a moment she was grave.
"Well," she said. "I may be leaving where I am in a few days, so very
likely you will be no better off."
He looked at her intently.
"Miss Pellissier," he said, "I don't understand this change in you.
Every word you utter puzzles me. I have an idea that you are in some
sort of trouble. Won't you let me--can't I be of any assistance?"
He was obviously in earnest. His tone was kind and sympathetic.
"You are very good," she said. "Indeed I shall not forget your offer.
But just now there is nothing which you or anybody can do. Good-bye."
He was dismissed, and he understood it. Anna crossed the street, and
letting herself in at No. 13 with a latchkey went humming lightly up
to her room. She was in excellent spirits, and it was not until she
had taken off her hat, and was considering the question of dinner or
no dinner, that she remembered that another day had passed, and she
was not a whit nearer being able to pay her to-morrow's bill.
_Chapter XI_
THE PUZZLEMENT OF NIGEL ENNISON
Nigel Ennison walked towards his club the most puzzled man in London.
There could not, he decided, possibly be two girls so much alike.
Besides, she had admitted her identity. And yet--he thought of the
supper party where he had met Annabel Pellissier, the stories about
her, his own few minutes' whispered love-making! He was a
self-contained young man, but his cheeks grew hot at the thought of
the things which it had seemed quite natural to say to her then, but
which he knew very well would have been instantly resented by the girl
whom he had just left. He went over her features one by one in his
mind. They were the same. He could not doubt it. There was the same
airy grace of movement, the same deep brown hair and alabaster skin.
He found himself thinking up all the psychology which he had ever
read. Was this the result of some strange experiment? It was the
person of Annabel Pellissier--the soul of a very different order of
being.
He spent the remainder of the afternoon looking for a friend whom he
found at last in the billiard room of one of the smaller clubs to
which he belonged. After the usual laconic greetings, he drew him on
one side.
"Fred," he said, "do you remember taking me to dinner at the
'Ambassador's,' one evening last September, to meet a girl who was
singing there? Hamilton and Drummond and his lot were with us."
"Of course," his friend answered. "_La belle_ 'Alcide,' wasn't it?
Annabel Pellissier was her real name. Jolly nice girl, too."
Ennison nodded.
"I thought I saw her in town to-day," he said. "Do you happen to know
whether she is supposed to be here?"
"Very likely indeed," Captain Fred Meddoes answered, lighting a
cigarette. "I heard that she had chucked her show at the French places
and gone in for a reform all round. Sister's got married to that
bounder Ferringhall."
Ennison took an easy chair.
"What a little brick!" he murmured. "She must have character. It's no
half reform either. What do you know about her, Fred? I am
interested."
Meddoes turned round from the table on which he was practising shots
and shrugged his shoulders.
"Not much," he answered, "and yet about all there is to be known, I
fancy. There were two sisters, you know. Old Jersey and Hampshire
family, the Pellissiers, and a capital stock, too, I believe."
"Any one could see that the girls were ladies," Ennison murmured.
"No doubt about that," Meddoes continued. "The father was in the army,
and got a half-pay job at St. Heliers. Died short, I suppose, and the
girls had to shift for themselves. One went in for painting, kept
straight and married old Ferringhall a week or so ago--the Lord help
her. The other kicked over the traces a bit, made rather a hit with
her singing at some of those French places, and went the pace in a
mild, ladylike sort of way. Cheveney was looking after her, I think,
then. If she's over, he probably knows all about it."
Ennison looked steadily at the cigarette which he was tapping on his
forefinger.
"So Cheveney was her friend, you think, eh?" he remarked.
"No doubt about that, I fancy," Meddoes answered lightly. "He ran some
Austrian fellow off. She was quite the rage, in a small way, you know.
Strange, demure-looking young woman, with wonderful complexion and
eyes, and a style about her, too. Care for a hundred up?"
Ennison shook his head.
"Can't stop, thanks," he answered. "See you to-night, I suppose?"
He sauntered off.
"I'm damned if I'll believe it," he muttered to himself savagely.
But for the next few days he avoided Cheveney like the plague.
* * * * *
The same night he met Meddoes and Drummond together, the latter over
from Paris on a week's leave from the Embassy.
"Odd thing," Meddoes remarked, "we were just talking about the
Pellissier girl. Drummond was telling me about the way old Ferringhall
rounded upon them all at the club."
"Sounds interesting," Ennison remarked. "May I hear?"
"It really isn't much to tell," Drummond answered. "You know what a
fearful old prig Ferringhall is, always goes about as though the whole
world were watching him? We tried to show him around Paris, but he
wouldn't have any of it. Talked about his years, his position and his
constituents, and always sneaked off back to his hotel just when the
fun was going to begin. Well one night, some of us saw him, or thought
we saw him, at a cafe dining with 'Alcide,'--as a matter of fact, it
seems that it was her sister. He came into the club next day, and of
course we went for him thick. Jove, he didn't take to it kindly, I can
tell you. Stood on his dignity and shut us up in great style. It seems
that he was a sort of family friend of the Pellissiers, and it was the
artist sister whom he was with. The joke of it is that he's married to
her now, and cuts me dead."
"I suppose," Ennison said, "the likeness between the sisters must be
rather exceptional?"
"I never saw the goody-goody one close to, so I can't say," Drummond
answered. "Certainly I was a little way off at the cafe, and she had a
hat and veil on, but I could have sworn that it was 'Alcide.'"
"Is 'Alcide' still in Paris?" Ennison asked.
"Don't think so," Drummond answered. "I heard the other day that she'd
been taken in by some cad of a fellow who was cutting a great dash in
Paris, personating Meysey Hill, the great railway man. Anyhow, she's
disappeared for some reason or other. Perhaps Ferringhall has
pensioned her off. He's the sort of johnny who wouldn't care about
having a sister-in-law on the loose."
"Ennison here thought he saw her in London," Meddoes remarked.
Drummond nodded.
"Very likely. The two sisters were very fond of one another, I
believe. Perhaps Sir John is going to take the other one under his
wing. Who's for a rubber of whist?"
Ennison made so many mistakes that he was glad to cut out early in the
evening. He walked across the Park and called upon his sister.
"Is Lady Lescelles in?" he asked the butler.
"Her ladyship dined at home," the man answered. "I have just ordered a
carriage for her. I believe that her ladyship is going to Carey House,
and on to the Marquis of Waterford's ball," he added, hastily
consulting a diary on the hall table.
A tall elegantly dressed woman, followed by a maid, came down the
broad staircase.
"Is that you, Nigel?" she asked. "I hope you are going to Carey
House."
He shook his head, and threw open the door of a great dimly-lit
apartment on the ground floor.
"Come in here a moment, will you, Blanche," he said. "I want to speak
to you."
She assented, smiling. He was her only brother, and she his favourite
sister. He closed the door.
"I want to ask you a question," he said. "A serious question."
She stopped buttoning her glove, and looked at him.
"Well?"
"You and all the rest of them are always lamenting that I do not
marry. Supposing I made up my mind to marry some one of good enough
family, but who was in a somewhat doubtful position, concerning whose
antecedents, in fact there was a certain amount of scandal. Would you
stand by me--and her?"
"My dear Nigel!" she exclaimed. "Are you serious?"
"You know very well that I should never joke on such a subject. Mind,
I am anticipating events. Nothing is settled upon. It may be, it
probably will all come to, nothing. But I want to know whether in such
an event you would stand by me?"
She held out her hand.
"You can count upon me, Nigel," she said. "But for you Dad would never
have let me marry Lescelles. He was only a younger son, and you know
what trouble we had. I am with you through thick and thin, Nigel."
He kissed her, and handed her into the carriage. Then he went back to
his rooms and lit a cigar.
"There are two things to be done," he said softly to himself. "The
first is to discover what she is here for, and where she is staying.
The second is to somehow meet Lady Ferringhall. These fellows must be
right," he added thoughtfully, "and yet--there's a mystery somewhere."
_Chapter XII_
THE POSTER OF "ALCIDE"
On Saturday mornings there was deposited on the plate of each guest at
breakfast time, a long folded paper with Mrs. White's compliments.
Anna thrust hers into her pocket unopened, and for the first time left
the house without a smile upon her face. She was practically destitute
of jewellery. The few pence left in her purse would only provide a
very scanty lunch. Another day of non-success would mean many
disagreeable things.
And even she was forced to admit to herself that this last resource of
hers was a slender reed on which to lean. She mounted the stairs of
the theatrical agent's office with very much less than her usual
buoyancy, nor did she find much encouragement in the general
appearance of the room into which she was shown. There was already a
score or more of people there, some standing up and talking together,
others seated in chairs ranged along the wall. Beyond was another
door, on which was painted in black letters:
MR. EARLES,
Strictly Private
Every one stared at Anna. Anna stared back at every one with undaunted
composure. A young man with shiny frock coat and very high collar,
advanced towards her languidly.
"Want to see Mr. Earles?" he inquired.
"I do," Anna answered. "Here is my card. Will you take it in to him?"
The young man smiled in a superior manner.
"Have to take your turn," he remarked laconically. "There's twenty
before you, and Mr. Earles is going out at twelve sharp--important
engagement. Better come another morning."
"Thank you," Anna answered. "I will take my chance."
She removed some posters from a chair, and seated herself coolly. The
young man looked at her.
"Unless you have an appointment, which you haven't," he said, "you'll
only waste your time here."
"I can spare it," Anna answered suavely.
The young man entered into a lively little war of words with a
yellow-haired young person near the door. Anna picked up an ancient
magazine, and began to turn over the pages in a leisurely way. The
conversation which her entrance had interrupted began to buzz again
all around her. A quarter of an hour passed. Then the inner door
opened abruptly. A tall, clean-shaven man came out and walked rapidly
through the room, exchanging greetings right and left, but evidently
anxious to avoid being detained. Mr. Earles himself stood upon the
threshold of his sanctum, the prototype of the smart natty Jew, with
black hair, waxed moustache, and a wired flower in his button-hole. A
florid-looking young woman rose up and accosted him eagerly.
"I'm next, Mr. Earles," she exclaimed. "Been sitting on the doorstep
almost for two hours."
"In a minute, in a minute," he answered, his eyes fixed upon Anna.
"Reuben, come here."
The young man obeyed the summons. His employer retreated into the
further apartment, leaving the door ajar.
"What's that young lady's name--girl in dark brown, stranger here?"
Mr. Earles asked sharply.
The youth produced a crumpled-up card from his waistcoat pocket. A
sense of impending disaster was upon him. Mr. Earles glanced at it,
and his eyes flashed with anger.
"You blithering idiot!" he exclaimed.
Mr. Earles strode into the waiting-room. His face was wreathed in
smiles, his be-ringed hand was cordially outstretched.
"My dear Miss Pellissier," he said impressively, "this is an
unexpected pleasure. Come in! Come in, do. I must apologize for my
young puppy of a clerk. If I had known that you were here you should
not have been kept waiting for a second."
It took a good deal to surprise Anna, but it was all she could do to
follow Mr. Earles with composure into the inner room. There was a
little murmur of consternation from the waiting crowd, and the florid
young woman showed signs of temper, to which Mr. Earles was absolutely
indifferent. He installed Anna in a comfortable easy chair, and placed
his own between her and the door.
"Come," he said, "this is capital, capital. It was only a few months
ago that I told you you must come to London, and you only laughed at
me. Yet here you are, and at precisely the right moment, too.
By-the-bye," he added, in a suddenly altered tone, "I hope, I
trust--that you have not entered into any arrangements with any one
here?"
"I--oh no!" Anna said, a little faintly. "I have made no arrangements
as yet--none at all."
Mr. Earles recovered his spirits.
"Excellent!" he exclaimed. "Your arrival is really most opportune. The
halls are on the lookout for something new. By-the-bye, do you
recognize that?"
Anna looked and gasped. An enormous poster almost covered one side of
the wall--_the_ poster. The figure of the girl upon it in plain black
dress, standing with her hands behind her, was an undeniable and
astonishing likeness of herself. It was her figure, her style of
dress, her manner of arranging the hair. Mr. Earles regarded it
approvingly.
"A wonderful piece of work," he declared. "A most wonderful likeness,
too. I hope in a few days, Miss Pellissier, that these posters will be
livening up our London hoardings."
Anna leaned back in the chair and laughed softly. Even this man had
accepted her for "Alcide" without a moment's question. Then all the
embarrassments of the matter flashed in upon her. She was suddenly
grave.
"I suppose, Mr. Earles," she said, "that if I were to tell you that
although that poster was designed from a rough study of me, and
although my name is Pellissier, that nevertheless, I am not 'Alcide'
would you believe me?"
"You can try it on, if you like," Mr. Earles remarked genially. "My
only answer would be to ask you to look at that mirror and then at the
poster. The poster is of 'Alcide.' It's a duplicate of the French
one."
Anna got up and looked at the mirror and then at the poster. The
likeness was ridiculous.
"Well?" she said, sitting down again. "I want an engagement."
"Capital!" Mr. Earles declared. "Any choice as to which of the Halls?
You can pick and choose, you know. I recommend the 'Unusual.'"
"I have no choice," Anna declared.
"I can get you," Mr. Earles said, slowly, keeping his eyes fixed upon
her, "forty at the 'Unusual,' two turns, encores voluntary, six for
matinees. We should not bar any engagements at private houses, but in
other respects the arrangement must be exclusive."
"Forty what?" Anna asked bewildered.
"Guineas, of course," Mr. Earles answered, glibly. "Forty guineas a
week. I mentioned sixty, I believe, when I was in Paris, but there are
expenses, and just now business is bad."
Anna was speechless, but she had presence of mind enough to sit still
until she had recovered herself. Mr. Earles watched her anxiously. She
appeared to be considering.
"Of course," he ventured, "I could try for more at the 'Alhambra.' Very
likely they would give----"
"I should be satisfied with the sum you mention," Anna said quietly,
"but there are difficulties."
"Don't use such a word, my dear young lady," Mr. Earles said
persuasively. "Difficulties indeed. We'll make short work of them."
"I hope that you may," Anna answered enigmatically. "In the first
place, I have no objection to the posters, as they have no name on
them, but I do not wish to appear at all upon the stage as 'Alcide.'
If you engage me it must be upon my own merits. You are taking it for
granted that I am 'Alcide.' As a matter of fact, I am not."
"Excuse me," Mr. Earles said, "but this is rubbish."
"Call it what you like," Anna answered. "I can sing the songs 'Alcide'
sang, and in the same style. But I will not be engaged as 'Alcide' or
advertised under that name."
Mr. Earles scratched his chin for a moment thoughtfully. Then a light
seemed to break in upon him. He slapped his knee.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "Of course, I remember now. It was your
sister who married Sir John Ferringhall the other day, wasn't it?"
Anna nodded.
"It was," she admitted.
"You needn't say a word more," Mr. Earles declared. "I see the
difficulty. The old fool's been working on you through your sister to
keep off the stage. He's a prig to the finger-tips, is Sir
John--doesn't know what an artist is. It's awkward, but we'll get
round it somehow. Now I'll tell you what I propose. Let me run you for
six months. I'll give you, say, thirty-five guineas a week clear of
expenses, and half of anything you earn above the two turns a night.
What do you say?"
"I agree," Anna said coldly, "if you will make it three months."
"Better say six," Mr. Earles protested, seating himself before the
desk, and dipping his pen in the ink.
"Four," Anna decided firmly. "I shall not agree to six."
"It scarcely gives me a chance," Mr. Earles said, with a resigned
sigh, "but I shall rely upon you to stick to me so long as I do the
right thing by you. You can't do without an agent, and there's no one
can run you better than I can."
"You must also put in the agreement," Anna said, "that I do not
represent myself to be 'Alcide,' and that I am not advertised to the
public by that name."
Mr. Earles threw down his pen with a little exclamation.
"Come this way," he said.
He opened the door of still another room, in one corner of which was a
grand piano. He seated himself before it.
"Go to the far corner," he said, "and sing the last verse of _Les
Petites_."
He struck a note, and Anna responded. Playing with one hand he turned
on his stool to glance at her. Instinctively she had fallen into the
posture of the poster, her hands behind her, her head bent slightly
forward, her chin uplifted, her eyes bright with the drollery of the
song. Mr. Earles closed the piano with a little bang.
"You are a funny, a very funny young lady," he said, "but we waste
time here. You do not need my compliments. We will get on with the
agreement and you shall have in it whatever rubbish you like."
Anna laughed, and went back to her easy chair. She knew that her voice
was superior to Annabel's, and she had no further qualms. Whilst she
was wondering how to frame her request for an advance, Mr. Earles drew
out his cheque book.
"You will not object," he said, glancing towards her, "to accepting a
deposit. It is customary even where an agreement is drawn."
"I shall have no objection at all," Anna assured him.
He handed her a cheque for thirty-one pounds, ten shillings, and read
the agreement through to her. Anna took up the pen, and signed, after
a moment's hesitation,
A. PELLISSIER.
"I will send you a copy," Mr. Earles said, rubbing his hands together,
"by post. Now, will you do me the honour of lunching with me, Miss
Pellissier?"
Anna hesitated.
"Perhaps," he queried, "you wish to avoid being seen about with any
one--er--connected with the profession, under present circumstances.
If so, do not hesitate to tell me. Be frank, I beg you, Miss
Pellissier. I am already too much flattered that you should have given
me your confidence."
"You are very good, Mr. Earles," Anna said. "I think, perhaps if you
will excuse me, that we will defer the luncheon."
"Just as you wish," Mr. Earles declared good-humouredly, "but I shall
not let you go without drinking a glass of wine to our success."
He plunged into one of his drawers, and brought up a small gold-foiled
bottle. The cork came out with a loud pop, and Anna could not help
wondering how it must sound to the patient little crowd outside. She
drank her glass of wine, however, and clanked glasses good-naturedly
with Mr. Earles.
"You must leave me your address if you please," he said, as she rose
to go.
She wrote it down. He looked at it with uplifted eyebrows, but made no
remark.
"I shall probably want you to come down to the 'Unusual' to-morrow
morning," he said. "Bring any new songs you may have."
Anna nodded, and Mr. Earles attended her obsequiously to the door. She
descended the stairs, and found herself at last in the street--alone.
It was a brief solitude, however. A young man, who had been spending
the last hour walking up and down on the opposite side of the way,
came quickly over to her. She looked up, and recognized Mr. Brendon.
_Chapter XIII_
"HE WILL NOT FORGET!"
The external changes in Brendon following on his alteration of fortune
were sufficiently noticeable. From head to foot he was attired in the
fashionable garb of the young man of the moment. Not only that, but he
carried himself erect--the slight slouch which had bent his shoulders
had altogether disappeared. He came to her at once, and turning,
walked by her side.
"Now I should like to know," she said, looking at him with a quiet
smile, "what you are doing here? It is not a particularly inspiring
neighbourhood for walking about by yourself."
"I plead guilty, Miss Pellissier," he answered at once. "I saw you go
into that place, and I have been waiting for you ever since."
"I am not sure whether I feel inclined to scold or thank you," she
declared. "I think as I feel in a good humour it must be the latter."
He faced her doggedly.
"Miss Pellissier," he said, "I am going to take a liberty."
"You alarm me," she murmured, smiling.
"Don't think that I have been playing the spy upon you," he continued.
"Neither Sydney nor I would think of such a thing. But we can't help
noticing. You have been going out every morning, and coming home
late--tired out--too tired to come down to dinner. Forgive me, but you
have been looking, have you not, for some employment?"
"Quite true!" she answered. "I have found out at last what a useless
person I am--from a utilitarian point of view. It has been very
humiliating."
"And that, I suppose," he said, waving his stick towards Mr. Earles'
office, "was your last resource."
"It certainly was," she admitted. "I changed my last shilling
yesterday."
He was silent for a moment or two. His lips were tight drawn. His eyes
flashed as he turned towards her.
"Do you think that it is kind of you, Miss Pellissier," he said,
almost roughly, "to ignore your friends so? In your heart you know
quite well that you could pay Sydney or me no greater compliment than
to give us just a little of your confidence. We know London, and you
are a stranger here. Surely our advice would have been worth having,
at any rate. You might have spared yourself many useless journeys and
disappointments, and us a good deal of anxiety. Instead, you are
willing to go to a place like that where you ought not to be allowed
to think of showing yourself."
"Why not?" she asked quietly.
"The very question shows your ignorance," he declared. "You know
nothing about the stage. You haven't an idea what the sort of
employment you could get there would be like, the sort of people you
would be mixed up with. It is positively hateful to think of it."
She laid her fingers for a moment upon his arm.
"Mr. Brendon," she said, "if I could ask for advice, or borrow money
from any one, I would from you--there! But I cannot. I never could. I
suppose I ought to have been a man. You see, I have had to look after
myself so long that I have developed a terrible bump of independence."
"Such independence," he answered quickly, "is a vice. You see to what
it has brought you. You are going to accept a post as chorus girl, or
super, or something of that sort."
"You do not flatter me," she laughed.
"I am too much in earnest," he answered, "to be able to take this
matter lightly."
"I am rebuked," she declared. "I suppose my levity is incorrigible.
But seriously, things are not so bad as you think."
He groaned.
"They never seem so at first!" he said.
"You do not quite understand," she said gently. "I will tell you the
truth. It is true that I have accepted an engagement from Mr. Earles,
but it is a good one. I am not going to be a chorus girl, or even a
super. I have never told you so, or Sydney, but I can sing--rather
well. When my father died, and we were left alone in Jersey, I was
quite a long time deciding whether I would go in for singing
professionally or try painting. I made a wrong choice, it seems--but
my voice remains."
"You are really going on the stage, then?" he said slowly.
"In a sense--yes."
Brendon went very pale.
"Miss Pellissier," he said, "don't!"
"Why not?" she asked, smiling. "I must live, you know."
"I haven't told any one the amount," he went on. "It sounds too
ridiculous. But I have two hundred thousand pounds. Will you marry
me?"
Anna looked at him in blank amazement. Then she burst into a peal of
laughter.
"My dear boy," she exclaimed. "How ridiculous! Fancy you with all that
money! For heaven's sake, though, do not go about playing the Don
Quixote like this. It doesn't matter with me, but there are at least a
dozen young women in Mr. Earles' waiting-room who would march you
straight off to a registrar's office."
"You have not answered my question," he reminded her.
"Nor am I going to," she answered, smiling. "I am going to ignore it.
It was really very nice of you, but to-morrow you will laugh at it as
I do now."
"Is it necessary," he said, "for me to tell you----"
"Stop, please," she said firmly.
Brendon was silent.
"Do not force me to take you seriously," she continued. "I like to
think of your offer. It was impulsive and natural. Now let us forget
it."
"I understand," he said, doggedly.
"And you must please not look at me as though I were an executioner,"
she declared lightly. "I will tell you something if you like. One of
the reasons why I left Paris and came to London was because there was
a man there who wanted me to marry him. I really cared for him a
little, but I am absolutely determined not to marry for some time at
any rate. I do not want to get only a second-hand flavour of life. One
can learn and understand only by personal experience, by actual
contact with the realities of life. I did not want anything made
smooth and easy for me. That is why I would not marry this man whom I
did and whom I do care for a little. Later on--well then the time may
come. Then perhaps I shall send for him if he has not forgotten."
"I do not know who he is," Brendon said quietly, "but he will not
forget."
Anna shrugged her shoulders lightly.
"Who can tell?" she said. "Your sex is a terrible fraud. It is
generally deficient in the qualities it prides itself upon most. Men
do not understand constancy as women do."
Brendon was not inclined to be led away from the point.
"We will take it then," he said, "that you have refused or ignored
one request I have made you this morning. I have yet another. Let me
lend you some money. Between comrades it is the most usual thing in
the world, and I do not see how your sex intervenes. Let me keep you
from that man's clutches. Then we can look out together for such
employment--as would be more suitable for you. I know London better
than you, and I have had to earn my own living. You cannot refuse me
this."
He looked at her anxiously, and she met his glance with a dazzling
smile of gratitude.
"Indeed," she said, "I would not. But it is no longer necessary. I
cannot tell you much about it, but my bad times are over for the
present. I will tell you what you shall give me, if you like."
"Well?"
"Lunch! I am hungry--tragically hungry."
He called for a hansom.
"After all," he said, "I am not sure that you are not a very material
person."
"I am convinced of it," she answered. "Let us go to that little place
at the back of the Palace. I'm not half smart enough for the West
End."
"Wherever you like!" he answered, a little absently.
They alighted at the restaurant, and stood for a moment in the passage
looking into the crowded room. Suddenly a half stifled exclamation
broke from Anna's lips. Brendon felt his arm seized. In a moment they
were in the street outside. Anna jumped into a waiting hansom.
"Tell him to drive--anywhere," she exclaimed.
Brendon told him the name of a distant restaurant and sprang in by her
side. She was looking anxiously at the entrance to the restaurant. The
commissionaire stood there, tall and imperturbable. There was no one
else in the doorway. She leaned back in the corner of the cab with a
little sigh of relief. A smile flickered upon her lips as she glanced
towards Brendon, who was very serious indeed. Her sense of humour
could not wholly resist his abnormal gravity.
"I am so sorry to have startled you," she said, "but I was startled
myself. I saw someone in there whom I have always hoped that I should
never meet again. I hope--I am sure that he did not see me."
"He certainly did not follow you out," Brendon answered.
"His back was towards me," Anna said. "I saw his face in a mirror. I
wonder----"
"London is a huge place," Brendon said. "Even if he lives here you may
go all your life and never come face to face with him again."
_Chapter XIV_
"THIS IS MY WIFE"
Anna, notwithstanding her momentary fright in the middle of the day,
was in high spirits. She felt that for a time at any rate her
depressing struggle against continual failure was at an end. She had
paid her bill, and she had enough left in her purse to pay many such.
Beyond that everything was nebulous. She knew that in her new role she
was as likely as not to be a rank failure. But the relief from the
strain of her immediate necessities was immense. She had been in the
drawing-room for a few minutes before the gong had sounded, and had
chattered gaily to every one. Now, in her old place, she was doing her
best thoroughly to enjoy a most indifferent dinner.
"Your brother has gone?" she asked Sydney, between the courses.
He nodded.
"Yes. David left this afternoon. I do not think that he has quite got
over his surprise at finding you established here."
She laughed.
"After all, why should he be surprised?" she remarked. "Of course, one
lives differently in Paris, but then--Paris is Paris. I think that a
boarding-house is the very best place for a woman who wants to develop
her sense of humour. Only I wish that it did not remind one so much of
a second-hand clothes shop."
Sydney looked at her doubtfully.
"Now I suppose Brendon understands exactly what you mean," he
remarked. "He looks as though he did, at any rate. I don't! Please
enlighten me."
She laughed gaily--and she had a way when she laughed of throwing back
her head and showing her beautiful white teeth, so that mirth from her
was a thing very much to be desired.
"Look round the table," she said. "Aren't we all just odds and ends of
humanity--the left-overs, you know. There is something inconglomerate
about us. We are amiable to one another, but we don't mix. We can't."
"You and I and Brendon get on all right, don't we?" Sydney objected.
"But that's quite different," replied Anna. "You are neither of you in
the least like the ordinary boarding-house young man. You don't wear a
dinner coat with a flower in your button-hole, or last night's shirt,
or very glossy boots, nor do you haunt the drawing-room in the
evening, or play at being musical. Besides----"
She stopped short. She herself, and one other there, recognized the
interposition of something akin to tragedy. A thickly-set, sandy young
man, with an unwholesome complexion and grease-smooth hair, had
entered the room. He wore a black tail coat buttoned tightly over his
chest, and a large diamond pin sparkled in a white satin tie which had
seen better days. He bowed awkwardly to Mrs. White, who held out her
hand and beamed a welcome upon him.
"Now isn't this nice!" that lady exclaimed. "I'm sure we're all
delighted to see you again, Mr. Hill. I do like to see old friends
back here. If there's any one here whom you have not met I will make
you acquainted with them after dinner. Will you take your old place by
Miss Ellicot."
Miss Ellicot swept aside her skirts from the vacant chair and welcomed
the newcomer with one of her most engaging smiles.
"We were afraid that you had deserted us for good, Mr. Hill," she said
graciously. "I suppose Paris is very, very distracting. You must come
and tell me all about it, although I am not sure whether we shall
forgive you for not having written to any of us."
Mr. Hill was exchanging greetings with his hostess, and salutations
around the table.
"Thank you, ma'am. Glad to get back, I'm sure," he said briskly.
"Looks like old times here, I see. Sorry I'm a bit late the first
evening. Got detained in the City, and----"
Then he met the fixed, breathless gaze of those wonderful eyes from
the other side of the table, and he, too, broke off in the middle of
his sentence. He breathed heavily, as though he had been running. His
large, coarse lips drew wider apart. Slowly a mirthless and very
unpleasant smile dawned upon his face.
"Great Scott!" he exclaimed huskily. "Why--it's--it's you!"
Amazement seemed to dry up the torrents of his speech. The girl
regarded him with the face of a Sphinx. Only in her eyes there seemed
to be some apprehension of the fact that the young man's clothes and
manners were alike undesirable things.
"Are you speaking to me?" she asked calmly. "I am afraid that you are
making a mistake. I am quite sure that I do not know you."
A dull flush burned upon his cheeks. He took his seat at the table,
but leaned forward to address her. A note of belligerency had crept
into his tone.
"Don't know me, eh? I like that. You are--or rather you were----" he
corrected himself with an unpleasant little laugh, "Miss Pellissier,
eh?"
A little sensation followed upon his words. Miss Ellicot pursed her
lips and sat a little more upright. The lady whose husband had been
Mayor of Hartlepool looked at Anna and sniffed. Mrs. White became
conscious of a distinct sense of uneasiness, and showed it in her
face. She was obliged, as she explained continually to every one who
cared to listen, to be so very particular. On the other hand the two
young men who sat on either side of Anna were already throwing
murderous glances at the newcomer.
"My name," Anna replied calmly, "is certainly Pellissier, but I repeat
that I do not know you. I never have known you."
He unfolded his serviette with fingers which shook all the time. His
eyes never left her face. An ugly flush stained his cheeks.
"I've plenty of pals," he said, "who, when they've been doing Paris on
the Q.T., like to forget all about it--even their names. But you----"
Something seemed to catch his breath. He never finished his sentence.
There was a moment's breathless and disappointed silence. If only he
had known it, sympathy was almost entirely with him. Anna was no
favourite at No. 13 Montague Street.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"You appear," she said, without any sign of anger in her tone, and
with unruffled composure, "to be a very impertinent person. Do you
mind talking to some one else."
Mrs. White leaned forward in her chair with an anxious smile designed
to throw oil upon the troubled waters.
"Come," she said. "We mustn't have any unpleasantness, and Mr. Hill's
first night back amongst us, too. No doubt there's some little
mistake. We all get deceived sometimes. Mr. Hill, I hope you won't
find everything cold. You're a little late, you must remember, and we
are punctual people here."
"I shall do very well, thank you, ma'am," he answered shortly.
Sydney and Brendon vied with one another in their efforts to engage
Anna in conversation, and Miss Ellicot, during the momentary lull,
deemed it a favourable opportunity to recommence siege operations. The
young man was mollified by her sympathy, and flattered by the obvious
attempts of several of the other guests to draw him into conversation.
Yet every now and then, during the progress of the meal, his attention
apparently wandered, and leaning forward he glanced covertly at Anna
with a curious mixture of expressions on his face.
Anna rose a few minutes before the general company. At the same time
Sydney and Brendon also vacated their places. To reach the door they
had to pass the end of the table, and behind the chair where Mr. Hill
was seated. He rose deliberately to his feet and confronted them.
"I should like to speak to you for a few minutes," he said to Anna,
dropping his voice a little. "It is no good playing a game. We had
better have it over."
She eyed him scornfully. In any place her beauty would have been an
uncommon thing. Here, where every element of her surroundings was
tawdry and commonplace, and before this young man of vulgar origin and
appearance, it was striking.
"I do not know you," she said coldly. "I have nothing to say to you."
He stood before the door. Brendon made a quick movement forward. She
laid her hand upon his arm.
"Please don't," she said. "It really is not necessary. Be so good as
to let me pass, sir," she added, looking her obstructor steadily in
the face.
He hesitated.
"This is all rot!" he declared angrily. "You can't think that I'm fool
enough to be put off like this."
She glanced at Brendon, who stood by her side, tall and threatening.
Her eyebrows were lifted in expostulation. A faint, delightfully
humorous smile parted her lips.
"After all," she said, "if this person will not be reasonable, I am
afraid----"
It was enough. A hand of iron fell upon the scowling young man's
shoulder.
"Be so good as to stand away from that door at once, sir," Brendon
ordered.
Hill lost a little of his truculency. He knew very well that his
muscles were flabby, and his nerve by no means what it should be. He
was no match for Brendon. He yielded his place and struck instead with
his tongue. He turned to Mrs. White.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, to seem the cause of any disturbance, but this," he
pointed to Anna, "is my wife."
The sensation produced was gratifying enough. The man's statement was
explicit, and spoken with confidence. Every one looked at Anna. For a
moment she too had started and faltered in her exit from the room. Her
fingers clutched the side of the door as though to steady herself. She
caught her breath, and her eyes were lit with a sudden terror. She
recovered herself, however, with amazing facility. Scarcely any one
noticed the full measure of her consternation. From the threshold she
looked her accuser steadily and coldly in the face.
"What you have said is a ridiculous falsehood," she declared
scornfully. "I do not even know who you are."
She swept out of the room. Hill would have followed her, but Mrs.
White and Miss Ellicot laid each a hand upon his arm, one on either
side. The echoes of his hard, unpleasant laugh reached Anna on her way
upstairs.
* * * * *
It was a queer little bed-sitting-room almost in the roof, with a
partition right across it. As usual Brendon lit the candles, and
Sydney dragged out the spirit-lamp and set it going. Anna opened a
cupboard and produced cups and saucers and a tin of coffee.
"Only four spoonsful left," she declared briskly, "and your turn to
buy the next pound, Sydney."
"Right!" he answered. "I'll bring it to-morrow. Fresh ground, no
chicory, and all the rest of it. But--Miss Pellissier!"
"Well?"
"Are you quite sure that you want us this evening? Wouldn't you rather
be alone? Just say the word, and we'll clear out like a shot."
She laughed softly.
"You are afraid," she said, "that the young man who thinks that he is
my husband has upset me."
"Madman!"
"Blithering ass!"
The girl looked into the two indignant faces and held out both her
hands.
"You're very nice, both of you," she said gently. "But I'm afraid you
are going to be in a hopeless minority here as regards me."
They eyed her incredulously.
"You can't imagine," Sydney exclaimed, "that the people downstairs
will be such drivelling asses as to believe piffle like that."
Anna measured out the coffee. Her eyes were lit with a gleam of
humour. After all, it was really rather funny.
"Well, I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "I always notice that
people find it very easy to believe what they want to believe, and you
see I'm not in the least popular. Miss Ellicot, for instance,
considers me a most improper person."
"Miss Ellicot! That old cat!" Sydney exclaimed indignantly.
"Miss Ellicot!" Brendon echoed. "As if it could possibly matter what
such a person thinks of you."
Anna laughed outright.
"You are positively eloquent to-night--both of you," she declared.
"But, you see, appearances are very much against me. He knew my name,
and also that I had been living in Paris, and a man doesn't risk
claiming a girl for his wife, as a rule, for nothing. He was painfully
in earnest, too. I think you will find that his story will be
believed, whatever I say; and in any case, if he is going to stay on
here, I shall have to go away."
"Don't say that," Sydney begged. "We will see that he never annoys
you."
Anna shook her head.
"He is evidently a friend of Mrs. White's," she said, "and if he is
going to persist in this delusion, we cannot both remain here. I'd
rather not go," she added. "This is much the cheapest place I know of
where things are moderately clean, and I should hate rooms all by
myself. Dear me, what a nuisance it is to have a pseudo husband shot
down upon one from the skies."
"And such a beast of a one," Sydney remarked vigorously.
Brendon looked across the room at her thoughtfully.
"I wonder," he said, "is there anything we could do to help you to get
rid of him?"
"Can you think of anything?" Anna answered. "I can't! He appears to be
a most immovable person."
Brendon hesitated for a moment. He was a little embarrassed.
"There ought to be some means of getting at him," he said. "The fellow
seems to know your name, Miss Pellissier, and that you have lived in
Paris. Might we ask you if you have ever seen him, if you knew him at
all before this evening?"
She stood up suddenly, and turning her back to them, looked steadily
out of the window. Below was an uninspiring street, a thoroughfare of
boarding-houses and apartments. The steps, even the pavements, were
invaded by little knots of loungers driven outside by the unusual heat
of the evening, most of them in evening dress, or what passed for
evening dress in Montague Street. The sound of their strident voices
floated upwards, the high nasal note of the predominant Americans, the
shrill laughter of girls quick to appreciate the wit of such of their
male companions as thought it worth while to be amusing. A young man
was playing the banjo. In the distance a barrel-organ was grinding out
a _pot pourri_ of popular airs. Anna raised her eyes. Above the
housetops it was different. She drew a long breath. After all, why
need one look down. Always the other things remained.
"I think," she said, "that I would rather not have anything to say
about that man."
"It isn't necessary," they both declared breathlessly.
Brendon dismissed the subject with a wave of the hand. He glanced at
his watch.
"Let us walk round to Covent Garden," he suggested. "I daresay the
gallery will be full, but there is always the chance, and I know you
two are keen on Melba."
The girl shook her head.
"Not to-night," she said. "I have to go out."
They hesitated. As a rule their comings and goings were discussed with
perfect confidence, but on this occasion they both felt that there was
intent in her silence as to her destination. Nevertheless Sydney,
clumsily, but earnestly, had something to say about it.
"I am afraid--I really think that one of us ought to go with you," he
said. "That beast of a fellow is certain to be hanging about."
She shook her head.
"It is a secret mission," she declared. "There are policemen--and
buses."
"You shall not need either," Brendon said grimly. "We will see that he
doesn't follow you."
She thanked him with a look and rose to her feet.
"Go down and rescue the rags of my reputation," she said, smiling. "I
expect it is pretty well in shreds by now. To-morrow morning I shall
have made up my mind what to do."
_Chapter XV_
A MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE
Anna looked about her admiringly. It was just such a bedroom as she
would have chosen for herself. The colouring was green and white, with
softly shaded electric lights, an alcove bedstead, which was a miracle
of daintiness, white furniture, and a long low dressing-table littered
all over with a multitude of daintily fashioned toilet appliances.
Through an open door was a glimpse of the bathroom--a vision of
luxury, out of which Annabel herself, in a wonderful dressing-gown and
followed by a maid presently appeared.
"Too bad to keep you waiting," Annabel exclaimed. "I'm really very
sorry. Collins, you can go now. I will ring if I want you."
The maid discreetly withdrew, and Anna stood transfixed, gazing with
puzzled frown at her sister.
"Annabel! Why, what on earth have you been doing to yourself, child?"
she exclaimed.
Annabel laughed a little uneasily.
"The very question, my dear sister," she said, "tells me that I have
succeeded. Dear me, what a difference it has made! No one would ever
think that we were sisters. Don't you think that the shade of my hair
is lovely?"
"There is nothing particular the matter with the shade," Anna
answered, "but it is not nearly so becoming as before you touched it.
And what on earth do you want to darken your eyebrows and use so much
make-up for at your age? You're exactly twenty-three, and you're got
up as much as a woman of forty-five."
Annabel shrugged her shoulders.
"I only use the weeniest little dab of rouge," she declared, "and it
is really necessary, because I want to get rid of the 'pallor
effect.'"
Anna made no remark. Her disapproval was obvious enough. Annabel saw
it, and suddenly changed her tone.
"You are very stupid, Anna," she said. "Can you not understand? It is
of no use your taking my identity and all the burden of my iniquities
upon your dear shoulders if I am to be recognized the moment I show my
face in London. That is why I have dyed my hair, that is why I have
abandoned my role of _ingenuee_ and altered my whole style of dress.
Upon my word, Anna," she declared, with a strange little laugh, "you
are a thousand times more like me as I was two months ago than I am
myself."
A sudden sense of the gravity of this thing came home to Anna. Her
sister's words were true. They had changed identities absolutely. It
was not for a week or a month. It was for ever. A cold shiver came
over her. That last year in Paris, when Annabel and she had lived in
different worlds, had often been a nightmare to her. Annabel had taken
her life into her hands with gay _insouciance_, had made her own
friends, gone her own way. Anna never knew whither it had led
her--sometimes she had fears. It was her past now, not Annabel's.
"It is very good of you to come and see me, my dear sister," Annabel
remarked, throwing herself into a low chair, and clasping her hands
over her head. "To tell you the truth, I am a little dull."
"Where is your husband?" Anna asked.
"He is addressing a meeting of his constituents somewhere," Annabel
answered. "I do not suppose he will be home till late. Tell me how are
you amusing yourself?"
Anna laughed.
"I have been amusing myself up to now by trying to earn my living,"
she replied.
"I hope," Annabel answered lazily, "that you have succeeded.
By-the-bye, do you want any money? Sir John's ideas of pin money are
not exactly princely, but I can manage what you want, I dare say."
"Thank you," Anna answered coldly. "I am not in need of any. I might
add that in any case I should not touch Sir John's."
"That's rather a pity," Annabel said. "He wants to settle something on
you, I believe. It is really amusing. He lives in constant dread of a
reappearance of '_La Belle Alcide_,' and hearing it said that she is
his wife's sister. Bit priggish, isn't it? And if he only knew it--so
absurd. Tell me how you are earning your living here,
Anna--typewriting, or painting, or lady's companion?"
"I think," Anna said, "that the less you know about me the better. Is
all your house on the same scale of magnificence as this, Annabel?"
she asked, looking round.
Annabel shook her head.
"Most of it is ugly and frowsy," she declared, "but it isn't worth
talking about. I have made up my mind to insist upon moving from here
into Park Lane, or one of the Squares. It is absolutely a frightful
neighbourhood, this. If only you could see the people who have been to
call on me! Sir John has the most absurd ideas, too. He won't have
menservants inside the house, and his collection of carriages is only
fit for a museum--where most of his friends ought to be, by-the-bye. I
can assure you, Anna, it will take me years to get decently
established. The man's as obstinate as a mule."
Anna looked at her steadily.
"He will find it difficult no doubt to alter his style of living,"
she said. "I do not blame him. I hope you will always remember----"
Annabel held out her hands with a little cry of protest.
"No lecturing, Anna!" she exclaimed. "I hope you have not come for
that."
"I came," Anna answered, looking her sister steadily in the face, "to
hear all that you can tell me about a man named Hill."
Annabel had been lying curled up on the lounge, the personification of
graceful animal ease. At Anna's words she seemed suddenly to stiffen.
Her softly intertwined fingers became rigid. The little spot of rouge
was vivid enough now by reason of this new pallor, which seemed to
draw the colour even from her lips. But she did not speak. She made no
attempt to answer her sister's question. Anna looked at her curiously,
and with sinking heart.
"You must answer me, Annabel," she continued. "You must tell me the
truth, please. It is necessary."
Annabel rose slowly to her feet, walked to the door as though to see
that it was shut, and came back with slow lagging footsteps.
"There was a man called Montague Hill," she said hoarsely, "but he is
dead."
"Then there is also," Anna remarked, "a Montague Hill who is very much
alive. Not only that, but he is here in London. I have just come from
him."
Annabel no longer attempted to conceal her emotion. She battled with a
deadly faintness, and she tottered rather than walked back to her
seat. Anna, quitting her chair, dropped on her knees by her sister's
side and took her hand.
"Do not be frightened, dear," she said. "You must tell me the truth,
and I will see that no harm comes to you."
"The only Montague Hill I ever knew," Annabel said slowly, "is dead. I
know he is dead. I saw him lying on the footway. I felt his heart. It
had ceased to beat. It was a motor accident--a fatal motor accident
the evening papers called it. They could not have called it a fatal
motor accident if he had not been dead."
Anna nodded.
"Yes, I remember," she said. "It was the night you left Paris. They
thought that he was dead at first, and they took him to the hospital.
I believe that his recovery was considered almost miraculous."
"Alive," Annabel moaned, her eyes large with terror. "You say that he
is alive."
"He is certainly alive," Anna declared. "More than that, he arrived
to-day at the boarding-house where I am staying, greeted me with a
theatrical start, and claimed me--as his wife. That is why I am here.
You must tell me what it all means."
"And you?" Annabel exclaimed. "What did you say?"
"Well, I considered myself justified in denying it," Anna answered
drily. "He produced what he called a marriage certificate, and I
believe that nearly every one in the boarding-house, including Mrs.
White, my landlady, believes his story. I am fairly well hardened in
iniquity--your iniquity, Annabel--but I decline to have a husband
thrust upon me. I really cannot have anything to do with Mr. Montague
Hill."
"A--marriage certificate!" Annabel gasped.
Anna glanced into her sister's face, and rose to her feet.
"Let me get you some water, Annabel. Don't be frightened, dear.
Remember----"
Annabel clutched her sister's arm. She would not let her move. She
seemed smitten with a paroxysm of fear.
"A thick-set, coarse-looking young man, Anna!" she exclaimed in a
hoarse excited whisper. "He has a stubbly yellow moustache, weak eyes,
and great horrid hands."
Anna nodded.
"It is the same man, Annabel," she said. "There is no doubt whatever
about that. There was the motor accident, too. It is the same man, for
he raved in the hospital, and they fetched me. It was you, of course,
whom he wanted."
"Alive! In London!" Annabel moaned.
"Yes. Pull yourself together, Annabel! I must have the truth."
The girl on the lounge drew a long sobbing breath.
"You shall," she said. "Listen! There was a Meysey Hill in Paris, an
American railway millionaire. This man and he were alike, and about
the same age. Montague Hill was taken for the millionaire once or
twice, and I suppose it flattered his vanity. At any rate, he began to
deliberately personate him. He sent me flowers. Celeste introduced him
to me--oh, how Celeste hated me! She must have known. He--wanted to
marry me. Just then--I was nervous. I had gone further than I meant
to--with some Englishmen. I was afraid of being talked about. You
don't know, Anna, but when one is in danger one realizes that the--the
other side of the line is Hell. The man was mad to marry me. I heard
everywhere of his enormous riches and his generosity. I consented. We
went to the Embassy. There was--a service. Then he took me out to
Monteaux, on a motor. We were to have breakfast there and return in
the evening. On the way he confessed. He was a London man of business,
spending a small legacy in Paris. He had heard me sing--the fool
thought himself in love with me. Celeste he knew. She was chaffing him
about being taken for Meysey Hill, and suggested that he should be
presented to me as the millionaire. He told me with a coarse nervous
laugh. I was his wife. We were to live in some wretched London suburb.
His salary was a few paltry hundreds a year. Anna, I listened to all
that he had to say, and I called to him to let me get out. He laughed.
I tried to jump, but he increased the speed. We were going at a mad
pace. I struck him across the mouth, and across the eyes. He lost
control of the machine. I jumped then--I was not even shaken. I saw
the motor dashed to pieces against the wall, and I saw him pitched on
his head into the road. I leaned over and looked at him--he was quite
still. I could not hear his heart beat. I thought that he was dead. I
stole away and walked to the railway station. That night in Paris I
saw on the bills 'Fatal Motor Accidents.' _Le Petit Journal_ said that
the man was dead. I was afraid that I might be called upon as a
witness. That is why I was so anxious to leave Paris. The man who came
to our rooms, you know, that night was his friend."
"The good God!" Anna murmured, herself shaken with fear. "You were
married to him!"
"It could not be legal," Annabel moaned. "It couldn't be. I thought
that I was marrying Meysey Hill, not that creature. We stepped from
the Embassy into the motor--and oh! I thought that he was dead. Why
didn't he die?"
Anna sprang to her feet and walked restlessly up and down the room.
Annabel watched her with wide-open, terrified eyes.
"You won't give me away, Anna. He would never recognize me now. You
are much more like what I was then."
Anna stopped in front of her.
"You don't propose, do you," she said quietly, "that I should take
this man for my husband?"
"You can drive him away," Annabel cried. "Tell him that he is mad. Go
and live somewhere else."
"In his present mood," Anna remarked, "he would follow me."
"Oh, you are strong and brave," Annabel murmured. "You can keep him at
arm's length. Besides, it was under false pretences. He told me that
he was a millionaire. It could not be a legal marriage."
"I am very much afraid," Anna answered, "that it was. It might be
upset. I am wondering whether it would not be better to tell your
husband everything. You will never be happy with this hanging over
you."
Annabel moistened her dry lips with a handkerchief steeped in eau de
Cologne.
"You don't know him, Anna," she said with a little shudder, "or you
would not talk like that. He is steeped in the conventions. Every
slight action is influenced by what he imagines would be the opinion
of other people. Anything in the least irregular is like poison to
him. He has no imagination, no real generosity. You might tell the
truth to some men, but never to him."
Anna was thoughtful. A conviction that her sister's words were true
had from the first possessed her.
"Annabel," she said slowly, "if I fight this thing out myself, can I
trust you that it will not be a vain sacrifice? After what you have
said it is useless for us to play with words. You do not love your
husband, you have married him for a position--to escape from--things
which you feared. Will you be a faithful and honest wife? Will you do
your duty by him, and forget all your past follies? Unless, Annabel,
you can----"
"Oh, I will pledge you my word," Annabel cried passionately, "my
solemn word. Believe me, Anna. Oh, you must believe me. I have been
very foolish, but it is over."
"Remember that you are young still, and fond of admiration," Anna
said. "You will not give Sir John any cause for jealousy? You will
have no secrets from him except--concerning those things which are
past?"
"Anna, I swear it!" her sister sobbed.
"Then I will do what I can," Anna promised. "I believe that you are
quite safe. He has had brain fever since, and, as you say, I am more
like what you were then than you yourself are now. I don't think for a
moment that he would recognize you."
Annabel clutched her sister's hands. The tears were streaming down her
face, her voice was thick with sobs.
"Anna, you are the dearest, bravest sister in the world," she cried.
"Oh, I can't thank you. You dear, dear girl. I--listen."
They heard a man's voice outside.
"Sir John!" Annabel gasped.
Anna sprang to her feet and made for the dressing-room door.
"One moment, if you please!"
She stopped short and looked round. Sir John stood upon the threshold.
_Chapter XVI_
THE DISCOMFITURE OF SIR JOHN
Sir John looked from one to the other of the two sisters. His face
darkened.
"My arrival appears to be opportune," he said stiffly. "I was hoping
to be able to secure a few minutes' conversation with you, Miss
Pellissier. Perhaps my wife has already prepared you for what I wish
to say."
"Not in the least," Anna answered calmly. "We have scarcely mentioned
your name."
Sir John coughed. He looked at Annabel, whose face was buried in her
hands--he looked back at Anna, who was regarding him with an easy
composure which secretly irritated him.
"It is concerning--our future relations," Sir John pronounced
ponderously.
"Indeed!" Anna answered indifferently. "That sounds interesting."
Sir John frowned. Anna was unimpressed. Elegant, a little scornful,
she leaned slightly against the back of a chair and looked him
steadily in the eyes.
"I have no wish," he said, "to altogether ignore the fact that you are
my wife's sister, and have therefore a certain claim upon me."
Anna's eyes opened a little wider, but she said nothing.
"A claim," he continued, "which I am quite prepared to recognize. It
will give me great pleasure to settle an annuity for a moderate amount
upon you on certain conditions."
"A--what?" Anna asked.
"An annuity--a sum of money paid to you yearly or quarterly through my
solicitors, and which you can consider as a gift from your sister. The
conditions are such as I think you will recognize the justice of. I
wish to prevent a repetition of any such errand as I presume you have
come here upon this evening. I cannot have my wife distressed or
worried."
"May I ask," Anna said softly, "what you presume to have been the
nature of my errand here this evening?"
Sir John pointed to Annabel, who was as yet utterly limp.
"I cannot but conclude," he said, "that your errand involved the
recital to my wife of some trouble in which you find yourself. I
should like to add that if a certain amount is needed to set you free
from any debts you may have contracted, in addition to this annuity,
you will not find me unreasonable."
Anna glanced momentarily towards her sister, but Annabel neither spoke
nor moved.
"With regard to the conditions I mentioned," Sir John continued,
gaining a little confidence from Anna's silence, "I think you will
admit that they are not wholly unreasonable. I should require you to
accept no employment whatever upon the stage, and to remain out of
England."
Anna's demeanour was still imperturbable, her marble pallor untinged
by the slightest flush of colour. She regarded him coldly, as though
wondering whether he had anything further to say. Sir John hesitated,
and then continued.
"I trust," he said, "that you will recognize the justice of these
conditions. Under happier circumstances nothing would have given me
more pleasure than to have offered you a home with your sister. You
yourself, I am sure, recognize how impossible you have made it for me
now to do anything of the sort. I may say that the amount of the
annuity I propose to allow you is two hundred a year."
Anna looked for a moment steadily at her sister, whose face was still
averted. Then she moved towards the door. Before she passed out she
turned and faced Sir John. The impassivity of her features changed at
last. Her eyes were lit with mirth, the corners of her mouth quivered.
"Really, Sir John," she said, "I don't know how to thank you. I can
understand now these newspapers when they talk of your magnificent
philanthropy. It is magnificent indeed. And yet--you millionaires
should really, I think, cultivate the art of discrimination. I am so
much obliged to you for your projected benevolence. Frankly, it is the
funniest thing which has ever happened to me in my life. I shall like
to think of it--whenever I feel dull. Good-bye, Anna!"
Annabel sprang up. Sir John waved her back.
"Do I understand you then to refuse my offer?" he asked Anna.
She shot a sudden glance at him. Sir John felt hot and furious. It was
maddening to be made to feel that he was in any way the inferior of
this cool, self-possessed young woman, whose eyes seemed for a moment
to scintillate with scorn. There were one or two bitter moments in his
life when he had been made to feel that gentility laid on with a
brush may sometimes crack and show weak places--that deportment and
breeding are after all things apart. Anna went out.
* * * * *
Her cheeks burned for a moment or two when she reached the street,
although she held her head upright and walked blithely, even humming
to herself fragments of an old French song. And then at the street
corner she came face to face with Nigel Ennison.
"I won't pretend," he said, "that this is an accident. The fates are
never so kind to me. As a matter of fact I have been waiting for you."
She raised her eyebrows.
"Really," she said. "And by what right do you do anything of the
sort?"
"No right at all," he admitted. "Only it is much too late for you to
be out alone. You have been to see your sister, of course. How is
she?"
"My sister is quite well, thank you," she answered. "Would you mind
calling that hansom for me?"
He looked at it critically and shook his head.
"You really couldn't ride in it," he said, deprecatingly. "The horse's
knees are broken, and I am not sure that the man is sober. I would
sooner see you in a 'bus again."
She laughed.
"Do you mean to say that you have been here ever since I came?"
"I am afraid that I must confess it," he answered. "Idiotic, isn't
it?"
"Absolutely," she agreed coldly. "I wish you would not do it."
"Would not do what?"
"Well, follow buses from Russell Square to Hampstead."
"I can assure you," he answered, "that it isn't a habit of mine. But
seriously----"
"Well seriously?"
"Isn't it your own fault a little? Why do you not tell me your
address, and allow me to call upon you."
"Why should I? I have told you that I do not wish for acquaintances in
London."
"Perhaps not in a general way," he answered calmly. "You are quite
right, I think. Only I am not an acquaintance at all. I am an old
friend, and I declined to be shelved."
"Would you mind telling me," Anna asked, "how long I knew you in
Paris?"
He looked at her sideways. There was nothing to be learned from her
face.
"Well," he said slowly, "I had met you three times--before Drummond's
dinner."
"Oh, Drummond's dinner!" she repeated. "You were there, were you?"
He laughed a little impatiently.
"Isn't that rather a strange question--under the circumstances?" he
asked quietly.
Her cheeks flushed a dull red. She felt that there was a hidden
meaning under his words. Yet her embarrassment was only a passing
thing. She dismissed the whole subject with a little shrug of the
shoulders.
"We are both of us trenching upon forbidden ground," she said. "It was
perhaps my fault. You have not forgotten----"
"I have forgotten nothing?" he answered, enigmatically.
Anna hailed a bus. He looked at her reproachfully. The bus however was
full. They fell into step again. More than ever a sense of confusion
was upon Ennison.
"Last time I saw you," he reminded her, "you spoke, did you not, of
obtaining some employment in London."
"Quite true," she answered briskly, "and thanks to you I have
succeeded."
"Thanks to me," he repeated, puzzled. "I don't understand."
"No? But it is very simple. It was you who were so much amazed that I
did not try--the music hall stage here."
"You must admit," he declared, "that to us--who had seen you--the
thought of your trying anything else was amazing."
"At any rate," she declared, "your remarks decided me. I have an
engagement with a theatrical agent--I believe for the 'Unusual'."
"You are going to sing in London?" he said quietly.
"Yes."
For a moment or two he did not speak. Glancing towards him she saw
that a shadow had fallen upon his face.
"Tell me," she insisted, "why you look like that. You are afraid--that
here in London--I shall not be a success. It is that, is it not?"
"No," he answered readily. "It is not that. The idea of your being a
failure would never have occurred to me."
"Then why are you sorry that I am going to the 'Unusual'? I do not
understand."
Their eyes met for a moment. His face was very serious.
"I am sorry," he said slowly. "Why, I do not know."
"I positively insist upon knowing," she declared cheerfully. "The
sooner you tell me the better."
"It is very hard to explain," he answered. "I think that it is only an
idea. Only you seem to me since the time when I knew you in Paris to
have changed--to have changed in some subtle manner which I find at
times utterly bewildering. I find you an impenetrable enigma. I find
it impossible to associate you with--my little friend of the
'Ambassador's.' The things she said and did from you--seem impossible. I
had a sort of idea," he went on, "that you were starting life all over
again, and it seemed awfully plucky."
There was a long silence. Then Anna spoke more seriously than usual.
"I think," she said, "that I rather like what you have said. Don't be
afraid to go on thinking it. Even though I am going to sing at the
'Unusual' you may find that the 'Alcide,' whom you knew in Paris does
not exist any more. At the same time," she added, in a suddenly
altered tone, "it isn't anything whatever to do with you, is it?"
"Why not?" he answered. "You permitted me then to call you my friend.
I do not intend to allow you to forget."
They passed a man who stared at them curiously. Ennison started and
looked anxiously at Anna. She was quite unconcerned.
"Did you see who that was?" he asked in a low tone.
"I did not recognize him," Anna answered. "I supposed that he took off
his hat to you."
"It was Cheveney!" he said slowly.
"Cheveney!" she repeated. "I do not know any one of that name."
He caught her wrist and turned her face towards him. Her eyes were
wide open with amazement.
"Mr. Ennison!"
He released her.
"Good God!" he exclaimed. "Who are you--Annabel Pellissier or her
ghost?"
Anna laughed.
"If it is a choice between the two," she answered, "I must be Annabel
Pellissier. I am certainly no ghost."
"You have her face and figure," he muttered. "You have even her name.
Yet you can look Cheveney in the face and declare that you do not know
him. You have changed from the veriest butterfly to a woman--you wear
different clothes, you have the air of another world. If you do not
help me to read the riddle of yourself, Annabel, I think that very
soon I shall be a candidate for the asylum."
She laughed heartily, and became as suddenly grave.
"So Mr. Cheveney was another Paris friend, was he?" she asked.
"Don't befool me any more," he answered, almost roughly. "If any one
should know----you should! He was your friend. We were only--_les
autres_."
"That is quite untrue," she declared cheerfully. "I certainly knew him
no better than you."
"Then he--and Paris--lied," Ennison answered.
"That," she answered, "is far easier to believe. You are too
credulous."
Ennison had things to say, but he looked at her and held his tongue.
They turned the last corner, and almost immediately a man who had been
standing there turned and struck Ennison a violent blow on the cheek.
Ennison reeled, and almost fell. Recovering himself quickly his
instinct of self-defence was quicker than his recollection of Anna's
presence. He struck out from the shoulder, and the man measured his
length upon the pavement.
Anna sprang lightly away across the street. Brendon and Courtlaw who
had been watching for her, met her at the door. She pointed across the
road.
"Please go and see that--nothing happens," she pleaded.
"It is the first moment we have let him out of our sight," Brendon
exclaimed, as he hastened across the street.
Hill sat up on the pavement and mopped the blood from his cheek.
Ennison's signet-ring had cut nearly to the bone.
"What the devil do you mean by coming for me like that?" Ennison
exclaimed, glowering down upon him. "Serves you right if I'd cracked
your skull."
Hill looked up at him, an unkempt, rough-looking object, with broken
collar, tumbled hair, and the blood slowly dripping from his face.
"What do you mean, hanging round with my wife?" he answered fiercely.
Ennison looked down on him in disgust.
"You silly fool," he said. "I know nothing about your wife. The young
lady I was with is not married at all. Why don't you make sure before
you rush out like that upon a stranger?"
"You were with my wife," Hill repeated sullenly. "I suppose you're
like the rest of them. Call her Miss Pellissier, eh? I tell you she's
my wife, and I've got the certificate in my pocket."
"I don't know who you are," Ennison said quietly, "but you are a
thundering liar."
Hill staggered to his feet and drew a folded paper from his pocket.
"Marriage certificates don't tell lies, at any rate," he said. "Just
look that through, will you."
Ennison took the document, tore it half in two without looking at it,
and flung it back in Hill's face. Then he turned on his heel and
walked off.
_Chapter XVII_
THE CHANGE IN "ALCIDE"
"By-the-bye," his neighbour asked him languidly, "who is our hostess?"
"Usually known, I believe, as Lady Ferringhall," Ennison answered,
"unless I have mixed up my engagement list and come to the wrong
house."
"How dull you are," the lady remarked. "Of course I mean, who was
she?"
"I believe that her name was Pellissier," Ennison answered.
"Pellissier," she repeated thoughtfully. "There were some Hampshire
Pellissiers."
"She is one of them," Ennison said.
"Dear me! I wonder where Sir John picked her up."
"In Paris, I think," Ennison answered. "Only married a few months ago
and lived out at Hampstead."
"Heavens!" the lady exclaimed. "I heard they came from somewhere
outrageous."
"Hampstead didn't suit Lady Ferringhall," Ennison remarked. "They have
just taken this house from Lady Cellender."
"And what are you doing here?" the lady asked.
"Politics!" Ennison answered grimly. "And you?"
"Same thing. Besides, my husband has shares in Sir John's company. Do
you know, I am beginning to believe that we only exist nowadays by the
tolerance of these millionaire tradesmen. Our land brings us in
nothing. We have to get them to let us in for the profits of their
business, and in return we ask them to--dinner. By-the-bye, have you
seen this new woman at the 'Empire'? What is it they call
her--'Alcide?'"
"Yes, I have seen her," Ennison answered.
"Every one raves about her," Lady Angela continued. "For my part I can
see no difference in any of these French girls who come over here with
their demure manner and atrocious songs."
"'Alcide's' songs are not atrocious," Ennison remarked.
Lady Angela shrugged her shoulders.
"It is unimportant," she said. "Nobody understands them, of course,
but we all look as though we did. Something about this woman rather
reminds me of our hostess."
Ennison thought so too half an hour later, when having cut out from
one of the bridge tables he settled down for a chat with Annabel.
Every now and then something familiar in her tone, the poise of her
head, the play of her eyes startled him. Then he remembered that she
was Anna's sister.
He lowered his voice a little and leaned over towards her.
"By-the-bye, Lady Ferringhall," he said, "do you know that I am a very
great admirer of your sister's? I wonder if she has ever spoken to you
of me."
The change in Lady Ferringhall's manner was subtle but unmistakable.
She answered him almost coldly.
"I see nothing of my sister," she said. "In Paris our lives were far
apart, and we had seldom the same friends. I have heard of you from my
husband. You are somebody's secretary, are you not?"
It was plain that the subject was distasteful to her, but Ennison,
although famous in a small way for his social tact, did not at once
discard it.
"You have not seen your sister lately," he remarked. "I believe that
you would find her in some respects curiously altered. I have never in
my life been so much puzzled by any one as by your sister. Something
has changed her tremendously."
Annabel looked at him curiously.
"Do you mean in looks?" she asked.
"Not only that," he answered. "In Paris your sister appeared to me to
be a charming student of frivolity. Here she seems to have developed
into a brilliant woman with more character and steadfastness than I
should ever have given her credit for. Her features are the same, yet
the change has written its mark into her face. Do you know, Lady
Ferringhall, I am proud that your sister permits me to call myself her
friend."
"And in Paris----"
"In Paris," he interrupted, "she was a very delightful companion, but
beyond that--one did not take her seriously. I am not boring you, am
I?"
She raised her eyes to his and smiled into his face.
"You are not boring me," she said, "but I would rather talk of
something else. I suppose you will think me very unsisterly and
cold-hearted, but there are circumstances in connexion with my
sister's latest exploit which are intensely irritating both to my
husband and to myself."
He recognized the force, almost the passion, which trembled in her
tone, and he at once abandoned the subject. He remained talking with
her however. It was easy for him to see that she desired to be
agreeable to him. They talked lightly but confidentially until Sir
John approached them with a slight frown upon his face.
"Mr. Ennison," he said, "it is for you to cut in at Lady Angela's
table. Anna, do you not see that the Countess is sitting alone?"
She rose, and flashed a quick smile upon Ennison behind her husband's
back.
"You must come and see me some afternoon," she said to him.
He murmured his delight, and joined the bridge party, where he played
with less than his accustomed skill. On the way home he was still
thoughtful. He turned in at the club. They were talking of "Alcide,"
as they often did in those days.
"She has improved her style," someone declared. "Certainly her voice
is far more musical."
Another differed.
"She has lost something," he declared, "something which brought the
men in crowds around the stage at the 'Ambassador's.' I don't know what
you'd call it--a sort of witchery, almost suggestiveness. She sings
better perhaps. But I don't think she lays hold of one so."
"I will tell you what there is about her which is so fetching,"
Drummond, who was lounging by, declared. "She contrives somehow to
strike the personal note in an amazing manner. You are wedged in
amongst a crowd, perhaps in the promenade, you lean over the back, you
are almost out of sight. Yet you catch her eye--you can't seem to
escape from it. You feel that that smile is for you, the words are for
you, the whole song is for you. Naturally you shout yourself hoarse
when she has finished, and feel jolly pleased with yourself."
"And if you are a millionaire like Drummond," someone remarked, "you
send round a note and ask her to come out to supper."
"In the present case," Drummond remarked, glancing across the room,
"Cheveney wouldn't permit it."
Ennison dropped the evening paper which he had been pretending to
read. Cheveney strolled up, a pipe in his mouth.
"Cheveney wouldn't have anything to say about it, as it happens," he
remarked, a little grimly. "Ungracious little beast, I call her. I
don't mind telling you chaps that except on the stage I haven't set
eyes on her this side of the water. I've called half a dozen times at
her flat, and she won't see me. Rank ingratitude, I call it."
There was a shout of laughter. Drummond patted him on the shoulder.
"Never mind, old chap," he declared. "Let's hope your successor is
worthy of you."
"You fellows," Ennison said quietly, "are getting a little wild. I
have known Miss Pellissier as long as any of you perhaps, and I have
seen something of her since her arrival in London. I consider her a
very charming young woman--and I won't hear a word about Paris, for
there are things I don't understand about that, but I will stake my
word upon it that to-day Miss Pellissier is entitled not only to our
admiration, but to our respect. I firmly believe that she is as
straight as a die."
Ennison's voice shook a little. They were his friends, and they
recognized his unusual earnestness. Drummond, who had been about to
speak, refrained. Cheveney walked away with a shrug of the shoulders.
"I believe you are quite right so far as regards the present, at any
rate," someone remarked, from the depths of an easy chair. "You see,
her sister is married to Ferringhall, isn't she? and she herself must
be drawing no end of a good screw here. I always say that it's poverty
before everything that makes a girl skip the line."
Ennison escaped. He was afraid if he stayed that he would make a fool
of himself. He walked through the misty September night to his rooms.
On his way he made a slight divergence from the direct route and
paused for a moment outside the flat where Anna was now living. It was
nearly one o'clock; but there were lights still in all her windows.
Suddenly the door of the flat opened and closed. A man came out, and
walking recklessly, almost cannoned into Ennison. He mumbled an
apology and then stopped short.
"It's Ennison, isn't it?" he exclaimed. "What the devil are you doing
star-gazing here?"
Ennison looked at him in surprise.
"I might return the compliment, Courtlaw," he answered, "by asking why
the devil you come lurching on to the pavement like a drunken man."
Courtlaw was pale and dishevelled. He was carelessly dressed, and
there were marks of unrest upon his features. He pointed to where the
lights still burned in Anna's windows.
"What do you think of that farce?" he exclaimed bitterly. "You are one
of those who must know all about it. Was there ever such madness?"
"I am afraid that I don't understand," Ennison answered. "You seem to
have come from Miss Pellissier's rooms. I had no idea even that she
was a friend of yours."
Courtlaw laughed hardly. His eyes were red. He was in a curious state
of desperation.
"Nor am I now," he answered. "I have spoken too many truths to-night.
Why do women take to lies and deceit and trickery as naturally as a
duck to water?"
"You are not alluding, I hope, to Miss Pellissier?" Ennison said
stiffly.
"Why not? Isn't the whole thing a lie? Isn't her reputation, this
husband of hers, the 'Alcide' business, isn't it all a cursed juggle?
She hasn't the right to do it. I----"
He stopped short. He had the air of a man who has said too much.
Ennison was deeply interested.
"I should like to understand you," he said. "I knew Miss Pellissier in
Paris at the 'Ambassador's,' and I know her now, but I am convinced
that there is some mystery in connexion with her change of life. She
is curiously altered in many ways. Is there any truth, do you suppose,
in this rumoured marriage?"
"I know nothing," Courtlaw answered hurriedly. "Ask me nothing. I will
not talk to you about Miss Pellissier or her affairs."
"You are not yourself to-night, Courtlaw," Ennison said. "Come to my
rooms and have a drink."
Courtlaw refused brusquely, almost rudely.
"I am off to-night," he said. "I am going to America. I have work
there. I ought to have gone long ago. Will you answer me a question
first?"
"If I can," Ennison said.
"What were you doing outside Miss Pellissier's flat to-night? You were
looking at her windows. Why? What is she to you?"
"I was there by accident," Ennison answered. "Miss Pellissier is
nothing to me except a young lady for whom I have the most profound
and respectful admiration."
Courtlaw laid his hand upon Ennison's shoulder. They were at the
corner of Pall Mall now, and had come to a standstill.
"Take my advice," he said hoarsely. "Call it warning, if you like.
Admire her as much as you choose--at a distance. No more. Look at me.
You knew me in Paris. David Courtlaw. Well-balanced, sane, wasn't I?
You never heard anyone call me a madman? I'm pretty near being one
now, and it's her fault. I've loved her for two years, I love her now.
And I'm off to America, and if my steamer goes to the bottom of the
Atlantic I'll thank the Lord for it."
He strode away and vanished in the gathering fog. Ennison stood still
for a moment, swinging his latchkey upon his finger. Then he turned
round and gazed thoughtfully at the particular spot in the fog where
Courtlaw had disappeared.
"I'm d----d if I understand this," he said thoughtfully. "I never saw
Courtlaw with her--never heard her speak of him. He was going to tell
me something--and he shut up. I wonder what it was."
_Chapter XVIII_
ANNABEL AND "ALCIDE"
Lady Ferringhall lifted her eyes to the newcomer, and the greeting in
th
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