CHAPTER X
By this time he had concluded the alteration in his toilet which wasnecessary to assure his entrance into the hotel without occasioningcomment; and as Dollops had followed suit they readily passed muster,when they alighted, for an ordinary English gentleman accompanied by anordinary English manservant.
"What was the charge at the garage?" inquired Cleek of Dollops justpreviously to alighting.
"I dunno wot it runs to in this 'ere rum lingo of francs and sous, sir,"said Dollops, "but the garage gent he said it would amount to two poundsten in English money, so I'll have to leave you to work it out foryourself. The shuvver, he said sommink about 'poor boars'--which I'veheard is wot you has to give 'em as a tip to themselves, Gov'nor--so Ipromised him 'arf a crown to stop at 'tother end of that passage leadin'up from The Twisted Arm till he was wanted, sir. Made it a good tipbecause I wanted him to be there sure--it would have been a case of'nab' for us if he hadn't. Wasn't too much, was it, sir?"
"No," said Cleek--and let him see that it wasn't by giving the chauffeura pourboire of ten francs and sending him back to the garage with theimpression that he had had dealings with a millionaire.
Ten minutes later the hotel register bore the record of the arrival of"Mr. Philip Barch and servant"; and one attendant was engaged in showingthe servant into a neat little bedroom which was to be his resting-placeuntil morning while another was ushering the master into the suiteengaged by the Baron de Carjorac.
Three persons were there: the Baron, his daughter, and his daughter'scompanion; but Cleek saw but one--and that the only one who made nomovement, uttered no sound, when he came into the room. Curiously paleand curiously quiet, she stood with one arm resting on the mantelpieceand the other hanging by her side, looking at him--looking _for_ him, infact--but not saying one word, not making one sound. That she leftwholly to the baron and his daughter.
They, too, maintained, although with an effort, an appearance ofcomposure so long as the hotel servant was present; but in the momentthe door closed and the man was gone an overpowering excitement seizedand mastered them.
"Monsieur, for the love of God, don't tell me you have failed," imploredthe baron. "I have died a hundred deaths of torture and suspense sinceyour card was carried up. But if I am to hear bad news ... Oh, mycountry!"
"Don't cross bridges, baron, until you come to them," said Cleekcomposedly. "I gave Miss Lorne my promise that I would not leave Franceuntil I had done what she asked me to do; and--I am returning to Englandto-morrow by the noon boat. I have had an exciting evening, but it hashad its compensation. Here is something for you. I had a bit of a fightfor it, baron--look out that it doesn't get into the wrong hands again."
He had taken a small packet of torn papers from his pocket while he wasspeaking; now he put it into the baron's hand--not wholly without acertain sense of gratification, however, in the excitement and delightwhich the act called forth; for no man is utterly devoid of personalvanity, personal pride in his achievements, and this man was no lesshuman than his kind.
He let the tumult of excitement and joy wear itself out; he suffered thebaron's embraces--even the two rapturous kisses the man planted uponfirst one and then the other of his cheeks--he endured Mlle. Athalie'sexuberant hand-clapping and hand-shaking and the cyclonic and whollyGallic manner in which she deported herself when comparison with thefragments which the baron had still retained proved beyond all questionthat these were indeed the missing portions of the all-importantdocument; and not until these things were over did he so much as look atAilsa Lorne again.
She had taken no part in the general excitement, moved not one foot fromwhere she had been standing from the first. Even when Athalie dancedover and hugged her and showed the important fragments; even when shereproved her with a wondering, "Ah, you strange Anglais--you stone-coldAnglais! Is it possible that you can have blood in your veins and yettake wondrous things like this so calmly?"--even then, she merely smiledand remained standing just as she still was; her pallor not one whitlessened, her reserve but the merest shadow less apparent than it hadbeen before.
Cleek chose that moment to walk over to her, to lift his eyes to hers,and to stand looking at her questioningly. For now that he was close toher he could see that she was trembling nervously; that her calmness wasmerely an outward thing, and that under it nerves writhed and afrightened heart was beating thick and fast.
Was even the fancied moment in Paradise to be denied him then? That sucha woman could not, all in a moment--could not by just one act of heroismon his part--be won over and lured into complete forgetfulness of such apast as his, he realized to the fullest extent. Always he had beenconscious of that; but even so ... Ah, well, the meanest may hope, thelowest may at least look up; and even saints and angels were not abovesaying, "Well done!" to a soul that had struggled, to a sinner that haddone his best.
"I managed it, you see, Miss Lorne," he said, in a slightly loweredvoice, while the baron busied himself in looking for his cheque-book andAthalie bustled about in quest of ink and a pen. "It wasn't an easynight's work, and I'm a bit fagged out. So, as I leave in the morning,it will be good-bye as well as good-night."
She moved for the first time. The hand that lay upon the shelf of themantelpiece shook and closed quickly. She lifted up her head and lookedat him. Her eyes were misty and faint clouds of color were coming andgoing over her face.
"What is it?" he asked. "Surely, Miss Lorne, you--are not afraid of me?"
"No," she said, averting her face again. "Not of you but of myself. Thatis--I--" trying to laugh, but making a parody of it--"I was always moreor less of a coward, Mr. Cleek, but ..." She faced round again sharplyand held out her hand to him. "Will you let me thank you? Will you letme say that I must be merely a little child in intellect since it isonly now that I have begun to understand how natural it is that a poundof gold should inevitably outweigh an ounce of dirt? And will you pleaseunderstand that I am trying to thank you, trying to let you know that Iam very, very sorry if I ever hurt your feelings. I don't think I meantto. I couldn't see then so clearly as I do now. Please forgive me."
He took the hand she held out to him; and so had his moment in Paradiseafter all.
"Hurt me as often as you like, if it will always end like this," he saidwith a queer little laugh that seemed to come from the very depths ofhis chest. "As for that other time ... How could I have expected thatyou would take it in any other way, being what you are and I what I hadbeen? I am glad I told you. You could never have respected me for aninstant if you had found it out in any other way; and I want yourrespect: I want it very, very earnestly, Miss Lorne. If you can evergive it to me I'll do my best to be worthy of it."
She had withdrawn her hand from his and was drumming with herfinger-tips upon the mantelshelf. A little pucker was between hereyebrows, she was biting her under lip perplexedly, and appeared to behesitating. But of a sudden she twitched round her head sharply and asweep of red went up over her face.
"Shall I show you how much I do respect you, then?" she said. "One mayask of a friend things one would not dream of asking of a mereacquaintance, and so--Mr. Cleek, this night of horror has been too muchfor me. I know now that I can no longer remain in this position in thisdreadful city. I have already resigned my post, and will return toEngland, and--if I am not too late for it--make an effort to secure thepost of governess to Lady Chepstow's little son. I shall start in themorning. Will you play the part of friend and guide and see me safelyacross the Channel?"
"Do you mean that?" he asked, his face alight, his eyes shining. "Youwill let me have the privilege, the honour? What a queen you are! Yougive largesse with both hands when a simple coin would have been enough.Shall I secure your tickets? When will you have your luggage ready? Isthere anything you will need before you leave?"
She smiled at his enthusiasm, coloured anew, and again held out herhand.
"We will talk of all that in the morning," she said. "There will beplenty of time. Mlle. de Carjorac has promise
d to look after my effectsand to see that they are shipped on to me in due course. But now itreally must be good-night. I shall see you again at breakfast."
"At breakfast?" repeated Cleek, with a happy laugh. "I wonder if youunderstand that I shall be kicking my heels on my bedside until it isready?--that I shan't sleep a wink all night?"
And as events proved he came respectably close to living up to thatexuberant assertion--merely napping now and again, to wake up suddenlyand "moon" for an hour or so; and, between periodical inspections of hiswatch, to wonder if God ever made a night so long and slow-dragging asthis one.
It had its recompense, however; for all--or nearly all--the next day waspassed in company with _her_; and more than that he would not have askedof Heaven. Long before she rose he had made all arrangements for thejourney to Calais; and she was not a little gratified--yes, and touchedif the truth must be told--on arriving at the train, to find that he hadmade no effort to secure accommodations which would compel her to endurehis companionship alone from the Gare du Nord to the steamer, but hadconsiderately reserved seats in a compartment containing othertravellers, and had done everything in his power to relieve her of anypossible embarrassment and to insure her all possible comforts. Evenmagazines and pictorial papers were not omitted, but were there for herin plenty lest she might prefer an excuse for not indulging much inconversation; and there was also a huge bunch of La France roses boughtat the temporary flower market beside the Madeleine at daybreak thatmorning.
"They are beautiful, aren't they?" he said, as he laid them in her lap."Will it surprise you to learn that flowers are a passion with me, andthat I am a living refutation of the fallacy that 'there can be nothingvery wrong about a man who can cultivate a garden'?"
She looked up at him and smiled.
"I think nothing about you will surprise me--you are so many-sidedand--if you will pardon me saying it--so different from what oneimagines men of--of your calling to be," she said; and laughed a little,colouring divinely until her face was like the roses themselves. "Youtreat me as if I were a queen; and I am not used to Court manners.Where, if you please, did you acquire yours?"
"In the vast Kingdom of the World," he made answer, with just amomentary change of countenance--a mere suspicion of embarrassment:laughed off before she could be quite sure that it had had any realexistence. "Please remember that to appear to be what one is not, and toape manners foreign to one's real self is part of what you have sonicely, so euphemistically, termed 'my calling.' I am an Actor on theWorld's Stage, Miss Lorne; I should be but a very poor one if I couldnot accommodate myself to many roles."
"If you play them all so well as you do that of the _preux chevalier_,it is no wonder you are a success," she replied gaily, slipping thusinto easy conversation with him.
And so it fell out that the magazines and the illustrated papers werenot so much of a boon as both had fancied they might be when Cleekbrought them to her; for they had not even been opened when the trainran up to the quay side at Calais and brought them almost abreast of thechannel steamer.