CHAPTER II
A DRAMA OF THE PAVEMENT
The pitch of conversation had risen higher, still mingled with theintermittent popping of corks and the striking of matches. Blue wreathsof cigarette smoke were curling upwards--a delicate feeling of "abandon"was making itself felt amongst the roomful of people. The music grewsofter as the babel of talk grew in volume. The whole environment becametinged with a faint but genial voluptuousness. Densham was laughing overthe foibles of some mutual acquaintance; Wolfenden leaned back in hischair, smoking a cigarette and sipping his Turkish coffee. His eyesscarcely left for a moment the girl who sat only a few yards away fromhim, trifling with a certain dainty indifference with the little dishes,which one after the other had been placed before her and removed. He hadtaken pains to withdraw himself from the discussion in which his friendswere interested. He wanted to be quite free to watch her. To him she wascertainly the most wonderful creature he had ever seen. In every oneof her most trifling actions she seemed possessed of an original andcurious grace, even the way she held her silver fork, toyed with herserviette, raised her glass to her lips and set it down again--all theselittle things she seemed to him to accomplish with a peculiar andwonderful daintiness. Of conversation between her companion and herselfthere was evidently very little, nor did she appear to expect it. Hewas enjoying his supper with the moderation and minute care for trifleswhich denote the epicure, and he only spoke to her between the courses.She, on the other hand, appeared to be eating scarcely anything. Atlast, however, the waiter set before her a dish in which she wasevidently interested. Wolfenden recognised the pink frilled paper andsmiled. She was human enough then to care for ices. She bent over itand shrugged her shoulders--turning to the waiter who was hovering near,she asked a question. He bowed and removed the plate. In a moment or twohe reappeared with another. This time the paper and its contents werebrown. She smiled as she helped herself--such a smile that Wolfendenwondered that the waiter did not lose his head, and hand her pepper andsalt instead of gravely filling her glass. She took up her spoon anddeliberately tasted the contents of her plate. Then she looked acrossthe table, and spoke the first words in English which he had heard fromher lips--
"Coffee ice. So much nicer than strawberry!"
The man nodded back.
"Ices after supper are an abomination," he said. "They spoil the flavourof your wine, and many other things. But after all, I suppose it iswaste of time to tell you so! A woman never understands how to eat untilshe is fifty."
She laughed, and deliberately finished the ice. Just as she laid downthe spoon, she raised her eyes quietly and encountered Wolfenden's. Helooked away at once with an indifference which he felt to be badlyassumed. Did she know, he wondered, that he had been watching her likean owl all the time? He felt hot and uncomfortable--a veritableschoolboy at the thought. He plunged into the conversation betweenHarcutt and Densham--a conversation which they had been sustaining withan effort. They too were still as interested in their neighbours,although their positions at the table made it difficult for either toobserve them closely.
When three men are each thinking intently of something else, it is noteasy to maintain an intelligent discussion. Wolfenden, to create adiversion, called for the bill. When he had paid it, and they were readyto depart, Densham looked up with a little burst of candour--
"She's wonderful!" he exclaimed softly.
"Marvellous!" Wolfenden echoed.
"I wonder who on earth they can possibly be," Harcutt said almostpeevishly. Already he was being robbed of some part of his contemplatedsatisfaction. It was true that he would probably find the man's name onthe table-list at the door, but he had a sort of presentiment that thegirl's personality would elude him. The question of relationship betweenthe man and the girl puzzled him. He propounded the problem and theydiscussed it with bated breath. There was no likeness at all! Was thereany relationship? It was significant that although Harcutt was ascandalmonger and Wolfenden somewhat of a cynic, they discussed it withthe most profound respect. Relationship after all of some sort theremust be. What was it? It was Harcutt who alone suggested what toWolfenden seemed an abominable possibility.
"Scarcely husband and wife, I should think," he said thoughtfully, "yetone never can tell!"
Involuntarily they all three glanced towards the man. He was wellpreserved and his little imperial and short grey moustache were trimmedwith military precision, yet his hair was almost white, and hisage could scarcely be less than sixty. In his way he was quite asinteresting as the girl. His eyes, underneath his thick brows, were darkand clear, and his features were strong and delicately shaped. His handswere white and very shapely, the fingers were rather long, and he woretwo singularly handsome rings, both set with strange stones. By theside of the table rested the stick upon which he had been leaning duringhis passage through the room. It was of smooth, dark wood polished likea malacca cane, and set at the top with a curious, green, opalescentstone, as large as a sparrow's egg. The eyes of the three men had eachin turn been arrested by it. In the electric light which fell softlyupon the upper part of it, the stone seemed to burn and glow with apeculiar, iridescent radiance. Evidently it was a precious possession,for once when a waiter had offered to remove it to a stand at the otherend of the room, the man had stopped him sharply and drawn it a littlecloser towards him.
Wolfenden lit a fresh cigarette, and gazed thoughtfully into the littlecloud of blue smoke.
"Husband and wife," he repeated slowly. "What an absurd idea! Morelikely father and daughter!"
"How about the roses?" Harcutt remarked. "A father does not as a ruleshow such excellent taste in flowers!"
They had finished supper. Suddenly the girl stretched out her left handand took a glove from the table. Wolfenden smiled triumphantly.
"She has no wedding-ring," he exclaimed softly.
Then Harcutt, for the first time, made a remark for which he was neveraltogether forgiven--a remark which both the other men received inchilling silence.
"That may or may not be a matter for congratulation," he said, twirlinghis moustache. "One never knows!"
Wolfenden stood up, turning his back upon Harcutt and pointedly ignoringhim.
"Let us go, Densham," he said. "We are almost the last."
As a matter of fact his movement was made at exactly the right time.They could scarcely have left the room at the same moment as these twopeople, in whom manifestly they had been taking so great an interest.But by the time they had sent for their coats and hats from thecloak-room, and Harcutt had coolly scrutinised the table-list, theyfound themselves all together in a little group at the head of thestairs.
Wolfenden, who was a few steps in front, drew back to allow them topass. The man, leaning upon his stick, laid his hand upon the girl'ssleeve. Then he looked up at the man, and addressed Wolfenden directly.
"You had better precede us, sir," he said; "my progress is unfortunatelysomewhat slow."
Wolfenden drew back courteously.
"We are in no hurry," he said. "Please go on."
The man thanked him, and with one hand upon the girl's shoulder andwith the other on his stick commenced to descend. The girl had passedon without even glancing towards them. She had twisted a white lacemantilla around her head, and her features were scarcely visible--onlyas she passed, Wolfenden received a general impression of rustling whitesilk and lace and foaming tulle as she gathered her skirts together atthe head of the stairs. It seemed to him, too, that the somewhat closeatmosphere of the vestibule had become faintly sweet with the delicatefragrance of the white roses which hung by a loop of satin from herwrist.
The three men waited until they had reached the bend of the stairsbefore they began to descend. Harcutt then leaned forward.
"His name," he whispered, "is disenchanting. It is Mr. Sabin! Whoeverheard of a Mr. Sabin? Yet he looks like a personage!"
At the doors there was some delay. It was raining fast and thedepartures were a little congested. The three young men
still keptin the background. Densham affected to be busy lighting a cigarette,Wolfenden was slowly drawing on his gloves. His place was almost in aline with the girl's. He could see the diamonds flashing in her fairhair through the dainty tracery of the drooping white lace, and in amoment, through some slight change in her position, he could get abetter view of her face than he had been able to obtain even in thesupper-room. She was beautiful! There was no doubt about that! But therewere many beautiful women in London, whom Wolfenden scarcely pretendedto admire. This girl had something better even than supreme beauty.She was anything but a reproduction. She was a new type. She hadoriginality. Her hair was dazzlingly fair; her eyebrows, delicatelyarched, were high and distinctly dark in colour. Her head was perfectlyshaped--the features seemed to combine a delightful piquancy with asomewhat statuesque regularity. Wolfenden, wondering of what she in somemanner reminded him, suddenly thought of some old French miniatures,which he had stopped to admire only a day or two before, in a littlecurio shop near Bond Street. There was a distinct dash of somethingforeign in her features and carriage. It might have been French, orAustrian--it was most certainly not Anglo-Saxon!
The crush became a little less, they all moved a step or twoforward--and Wolfenden, glancing carelessly outside, found his attentionimmediately arrested. Just as he had been watching the girl, so was aman, who stood on the pavement side by side with the commissionaire,watching her companion. He was tall and thin; apparently dressed inevening clothes, for though his coat was buttoned up to his chin, hewore an opera hat. His hands were thrust into the loose pockets of hisovercoat, and his face was mostly in the shadows. Once, however, hefollowed some motion of Mr. Sabin's and moved his head a little forward.Wolfenden started and looked at him fixedly. Was it fancy, or was thereindeed something clenched in his right hand there, which gleamedlike silver--or was it steel--in the momentary flash of a passingcarriage-light? Wolfenden was puzzled. There was something, too, whichseemed to him vaguely familiar in the man's figure and person. He wascertainly waiting for somebody, and to judge from his expression hismission was no pleasant one. Wolfenden who, through the latter partof the evening, had felt a curious and unwonted sense of excitementstirring his blood, now felt it go tingling through all his veins. Hehad some subtle prescience that he was on the brink of an adventure. Heglanced hurriedly at his two companions; neither of them had noticedthis fresh development.
Just then the commissionaire, who knew Wolfenden by sight, turned roundand saw him standing there. Stepping back on to the pavement, he calledup the brougham, which was waiting a little way down the street.
"Your carriage, my lord," he said to Wolfenden, touching his cap.
Wolfenden, with ready presence of mind, shook his head.
"I am waiting for a friend," he said. "Tell my man to pass on a yard ortwo."
The man bowed, and the danger of leaving before these two people, inwhom his interest now was becoming positively feverish, was averted. Asif to enhance it, a singular thing now happened. The interest suddenlybecame reciprocal. At the sound of Wolfenden's voice the man with theclub foot had distinctly started. He changed his position and, leaningforward, looked eagerly at him. His eyes remained for a moment or twofixed steadily upon him. There was no doubt about the fact, singular initself though it was. Wolfenden noticed it himself, so did both Denshamand Harcutt. But before any remark could pass between them a little_coupe_ brougham had drawn up, and the man and the girl started forward.
Wolfenden followed close behind. The feeling which prompted him to doso was a curious one, but it seemed to him afterwards that he had evenat that time a conviction that something unusual was about to happen.The girl stepped lightly across the carpeted way and entered thecarriage. Her companion paused in the doorway to hand some silver to thecommissionaire, then he too, leaning upon his stick, stepped across thepavement. His foot was already upon the carriage step, when suddenlywhat Wolfenden had been vaguely anticipating happened. A dark figuresprang from out of the shadows and seized him by the throat; somethingthat glittered like a streak of silver in the electric light flashedupwards. The blow would certainly have fallen but for Wolfenden. He wasthe only person not wholly unprepared for something of the sort, and hewas consequently not paralysed into inaction as were the others. He wasso near, too, that a single step forward enabled him to seize theuplifted arm in a grasp of iron. The man who had been attacked was thenext to recover himself. Raising his stick he struck at his assailantviolently. The blow missed his head, but grazed his temple and fell uponhis shoulder. The man, released from Wolfenden's grasp by his convulsivestart, went staggering back into the roadway.
There was a rush then to secure him, but it was too late. Wolfenden,half expecting another attack, had not moved from the carriage door, andthe commissionaire, although a powerful man, was not swift. Like a catthe man who had made the attack sprang across the roadway, and into thegardens which fringed the Embankment. The commissionaire and a loitererfollowed him. Just then Wolfenden felt a soft touch on his shoulder. Thegirl had opened the carriage door, and was standing at his side.
"Is any one hurt?" she asked quickly.
"No one," he answered. "It is all over. The man has run away."
Mr. Sabin stooped down and brushed away some grey ash from the front ofhis coat. Then he took a match-box from his ticket-pocket, and re-litthe cigarette which had been crumpled in his fingers. His hand wasperfectly steady. The whole affair had scarcely taken thirty seconds.
"It was probably some lunatic," he remarked, motioning to the girl toresume her place in the carriage. "I am exceedingly obliged to you, sir.Lord Wolfenden, I believe?" he added, raising his hat. "But for yourintervention the matter might really have been serious. Permit me tooffer you my card. I trust that some day I may have a better opportunityof expressing my thanks. At present you will excuse me if I hurry. I amnot of your nation, but I share an antipathy with them--I hate a row!"
He stepped into the carriage with a farewell bow, and it drove off atonce. Wolfenden remained looking after it, with his hat in his hand.From the Embankment below came the faint sound of hurrying footsteps.