Chapter II: At the Stage Door

I doubt if London could furnish another man—a father confessor excepted—who, in so brief a time, could have learnt from the young Lady Dillon so much of her history as did O’Hagan. Side by side, they paced up and down a comparatively quiet street dipping riverward, and the girl (for she was no more) confided in this man, whom, twenty minutes earlier, she had not known.

Does not that argue eloquently for my friend? Does it not make amends for much that seems harsh in his nature? For although, alas! women often are deceived in men, a woman’s instincts can never err in such case as this; a true woman, as this one, never pours out the trouble with which her heart is bursting, to a knave—to a blackguard. I defy you to confute me. Be it remembered that, by a trick of Fate—or shall we say Providence?—these two had friends in common. Nor be it forgot that, for fifty miles north, south, east and west of Dunnamore, “the honour of an O’Hagan” is a form of oath. But, nevertheless, I maintain that there is something grandly and expansively human—something splendid and true—in the nature of a man whom at such brief acquaintance a good woman _knows_ to be worthy of her confidence. Don’t you agree with me?

“Of course I remember your wedding!” said O’Hagan. “Bless my soul! you were a Miss Sheila Cavanagh! As a child you must have been at Dunnamore many a time! Why! we are quite old friends! You are not married three months, yet?”

“Ten weeks,” replied Lady Dillon, pathetically.

“And simply because your husband, Sir Brian, saw you walking in St. James’s Park with a gentleman——”

“He has not spoken to me—for four days!”—brokenly.

“And now he is waiting on the stage of the Novelty for a Miss Betty Chatterton, late of the Folly Theatre, whom formerly he admired——”

“—He used to go about with her a lot, I know!”

“And this gentleman with whom you were walking?”

Lady Dillon looked away.

“Ah,” said O’Hagan sadly, “you have been indiscreet. He was an old admirer?” (nod). “Persistent, unscrupulous?” (nod)—“and you were sending this fellow about his business?”

She looked up to him as, of old, looked Menippus Lycius to Apollonius of Tyana; as to one omniscient—yet, crowning wonder, as to a favourite brother. Such is the timbre of my friend’s exquisite sympathy. Is it not a divine gift?

“How can you possibly know that?”

“My dear Lady Dillon—you have told me! Does your husband know this person?”

“He knows _of_ him. But he has never even asked me his name. I thought he understood that I did not care and never had cared for the man. Oh! why did I see him? Why did I see him? But I feared that, unless I definitely dismissed him, he would compromise me!”

“My poor child!” He patted her arm, soothingly. There are phases of his patronage which are healing. One absorbs his condescension gratefully, as a penitent receiving absolution from a holy cardinal. “You see, your marriage was a family arrangement, and your husband is uncertain of your affections. This regrettable incident has convinced him—wrongly—that from your point of view it is merely a _mariage de convenance_. His flirtation is a harmless one. He is, I dare swear, eating his heart out! But the pride of the Dillons has him by the throat. My dear little lady—leave him to me!”

She looked up to him wonderingly again; but, with something of the touching confidence of a child, permitted him to conduct her Strandward.

“Captain O’Hagan! I could never, never explain to him! That is why I dare not speak! He would _never_ forgive me for seeing him again—would never understand——”

“Leave it entirely in my hands! _I_ will do the explaining! Simply accept my explanation, and decline in any way to enlarge upon it. You shall not be compromised, because I know you do not deserve it. Neither shall that hare-brained husband of yours compromise another girl out of mere _pique_.”

She said nothing to that. In the Strand, opposite the Novelty:

“That is your car yonder?” asked O’Hagan.

“Oh! don’t let Priestman see me!” cried Lady Dillon. “I was afraid he would see me when I spoke to that wretch at the door!”

“You are perfectly certain that your husband is in the theatre?”

“Yes! yes! I don’t know why I asked that man! But, indeed, I don’t know what possessed me at all! Oh! Captain O’Hagan, I am so miserable!”

“Boy!” said O’Hagan to a passing urchin—“tell the chauffeur of the Rolls Royce yonder, to pull around here!”

Off ran the boy.

“But——” began Lady Dillon.

O’Hagan patted her arm. The chauffeur, having received the boy’s message, could be seen looking in their direction. Presently he walked across to where they stood. Recognising Lady Dillon, he stared; then touched his cap.

“I ordered you to bring the car over,” said O’Hagan, icily.

“Sir Brian”——began the man.

“Did you understand my words?”

The chauffeur ran back, and in a few moments the big car was drawn up to the kerb. O’Hagan placed Lady Dillon comfortably in a cushioned corner.

“Good-night, dear Lady Dillon,” he said. “I will bring Brian home to you very shortly!”

Her wondering, tearful eyes never left his face. To the now deferential though badly embarrassed man:

“Home!” said O’Hagan.

Off moved the smoothly-running car. Whilst she could see him where he stood, Lady Dillon never took her eyes from the tall, cloaked figure of this old friend of old friends and one so newly found, of this astonishing Samaritan who had promised to restore to her the gladness of life. With picturesque head bowed he waited until the Rolls Royce was lost from view, one gloved hand resting upon the heavy ebony cane, the other, ungloved, dangling from two long fingers the monocle dependent on its black silk ribbon.

It is a never-ending source of regret to me that we have no Velasquez to-day. Captain the Hon. Bernard O’Hagan would inspire such an one to a great masterpiece.

My friend returned to the narrow alley-way, descended it, and stood before the unofficial deputy for the baggage-man, whose treatment of Lady Dillon had occasioned his just resentment. In his dealings with such as this, O’Hagan can be terrible. To him he addressed no word.

Dropping his monocle, he seized the fellow by the ear (with his gloved hand) and dragged the agonised face closely to his own haughty countenance. The feat was seemingly performed effortless—such is the outstanding wonder of that Judo, or Higher Jiu-jitsu, whereof Shashu Myuku of Nagasaki is the Grand Master. There are not six Europeans, O’Hagan will tell you, who have been initiated into the occultry of the Japanese super-force.

“You recently insulted a lady who inquired if Sir Brian Dillon had entered the stage-door. Down on your knees, you sot—and beg for pardon!”

Obedient to a power which, seemingly entering at the ear, proceeded thence through every tortured nerve of his person, rendering him helpless, inert, down dropped the big, hulking figure. It chanced that none was there to see. Yet the exhibition was an odd one.

“Repeat, after me, ‘I humbly beg, sir——’”

“Police!” gasped the man, and strove to get at O’Hagan with his hands.

Abruptly he dropped them; his big face grew livid. The Captain, holding the ear in that vice-grip, had merely turned it slightly backward. The man groaned; beads of perspiration started on his brow.

“Repeat, after me, ‘I humbly beg, sir, for the lady’s pardon.’”

Faintly:

“I humbly . . . beg, sir . . . for . . . my Gawd! . . . the lidy’s pardon!”

“And abjectly entreat you to forgive me!”

“And . . . abjec . . . abjec’y entreat . . . you to forgive . . . me!”

“Get up!”

The victim struggled erect. He met the quelling gaze.

“Any repetition of the offence means that my man will wait upon you—and bring a horse-whip!”

The fellow scrambled aside, and raised a quivering hand to his forehead. Captain O’Hagan, swinging his monocle, strode to the stage-door.

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