CHAPTER II.
"Probably." The answer was given with great hesitation. "If I go bythis train at all, that is to say."
"Have you any doubts?"
"Why, yes. To tell you the truth, I dread the journey. I have beendoing so ever since--since I felt it must be made. Now I find it everso much worse than I expected."
"Why is that, if I may ask?"
"You see, I am travelling alone, practically alone that is to say,with only my maid."
"And your child," I added rather casually, with no second thought, andI was puzzled to understand why the chance phrase evoked another vividblush.
"The child! Oh, yes, the child," and I was struck that she did not say"my" child, but laid rather a marked stress on the definite article.
"That of course increases your responsibility," I hazarded, and sheseized the suggestion.
"Quite so. You see how I am placed. The idea of going all that way inan empty train quite terrifies me."
"I don't see why it should."
"But just think. There will be no one in it, no one but ourselves. Wetwo lone women and you, single-handed. Suppose the five attendants andthe others were to combine against us? They might rob and murder us."
"Oh, come, come. You must not let foolish fears get the better of yourcommon sense. Why should they want to make us their victims? I believethey are decent, respectable men, the employes of a great company,carefully selected. At any rate, I am not worth robbing, are you? Haveyou any special reason for fearing thieves? Ladies are perhaps alittle too reckless in carrying their valuables about with them. Yourjewel-case may be exceptionally well lined."
"Oh, but it is not; quite the contrary," she cried with almosthysterical alacrity. "I have nothing to tempt them. And yet somethingdreadful might happen; I feel we are quite at their mercy."
"I don't. I tell you frankly that I think you are grossly exaggeratingthe situation. But if you feel like that, why not wait? Wait over foranother train, I mean?"
I am free to confess that, although my curiosity had been aroused, Iwould much rather have washed my hands of her, and left her and herbelongings, especially the more compromising part, the mysterioustreasure, behind at Calais.
"Is there another train soon?" she inquired nervously.
"Assuredly--by Boulogne. It connects with the train from Victoria at2.20 and the boat from Folkestone. You need only run as far asBoulogne with this Engadine train, and wait there till it starts. Ithink about 6 P.M."
"Will that not lose time?"
"Undoubtedly you will be two hours later at Basle, and you may losethe connection with Lucerne and the St. Gothard if you want to get onwithout delay. To Naples I think you said?"
"I did not say Naples. You said you were going to Naples," she repliedstiffly. "I did not mention my ultimate destination."
"Perhaps not. I have dreamt it. But I do not presume to inquire whereyou are going, and I myself am certainly not bound for Naples. But ifI can be of no further use to you I will make my bow. It is time forme to get back to the train, and for my part I don't in the least wantto lose the Engadine express."
She got up too, and walked out of the buffet by my side.
"I shall go on, at any rate as far as Boulogne," she volunteered,without my asking the question; and we got into our car together, sheentering her compartment and I mine. I heard her door bang, but I keptmine still open.
I smoked many cigarettes pondering over the curious episode and my newacquaintance. How was I to class her? A young man would have sworn shewas perfectly straight, that there could be no guile in thissweet-faced, gentle, well-mannered woman; and I, with my greaterexperience of life and the sex, was much tempted to do the same. Itwas against the grain to condemn her as all bad, a depredator, a womanwith perverted moral sense who broke the law and did evil things.
But what else could I conclude from the words I had heard drop fromher own lips, strengthened and confirmed as they were by theincriminating language of her companion?
"Bother the woman and her dark blue eyes. I wish I'd never come acrossher. A fine thing, truly, to fall in love with a thief. I hope toheaven she will really leave the train at Boulogne; we ought to begetting near there by now."
I had travelled the road often enough to know it by heart, and Irecognized our near approach only to realize that the train did notmean to stop. I turned over the leaves of Bradshaw and saw I had beenmistaken; the train skirted Boulogne and never entered the station.
"Well, that settles it for the present, anyhow. If she still wants toleave the train she must wait now until Amiens. That ought to suit herjust as well."
But it would not; at least, she lost no time in expressing herdisappointment at not being able to alight at Boulogne.
We had hardly passed the place when her maid's (or companion's) squarefigure filled the open doorway of my compartment, and in her strongdeep voice she addressed a brief summons to me brusquely andperemptorily:
"My lady wishes to speak to you."
"And pray what does 'my lady' want with me?" I replied carelessly,using the expression as a title of rank.
"She is not 'my lady,' but 'my' lady, my mistress, and simply Mrs.Blair." The correction and information were vouchsafed with coldself-possession. "Are you coming?"
"I don't really see why I should," I said, not too civilly. "Whyshould I be at her beck and call? If she had been in any trouble, anyserious trouble, such as she anticipated when talking to me at thebuffet, and a prey to imaginary alarms since become real, I shouldhave been ready to serve her or any woman in distress, but nothing ofthis could have happened in the short hour's run so far."
"I thought you were a gentleman," was the scornful rejoinder. "A nicesort of gentleman, indeed, to sit there like a stock or a stone when alady sends for you!"
"A lady!" There was enough sarcasm in my tone to bring a flush uponher impassive face, a fierce gleam of anger in her stolid eyes; andwhen I added, "A fine sort of lady!" I thought she would have struckme. But she did no more than hiss an insolent gibe.
"You call yourself an officer, a colonel? I call you a bounder, acommon cad."
"Be off!" I was goaded into crying, angrily. "Get away with you; Iwant to have nothing more to say to you or your mistress. I know whatyou are and what you have been doing, and I prefer to wash my hands ofyou both. You're not the kind of people I like to deal with or wish toknow."
She stared at me open-mouthed, her hands clenched, her eyes half outof her head. Her face had gone deadly white, and I thought she wouldhave fallen there where she stood, a prey to impotent rage.
Now came a sudden change of scene. The lady, Mrs. Blair, as I had justheard her called, appeared behind, her taller figure towering abovethe maid's, her face in full view, vexed with varying acute emotions,rage, grief, and terror combined.