Chapter VII

Christopher was warmly welcomed at Hinterleys when he made his promised appearance there, about a fortnight after Gerald’s departure. He would have preferred postponing his visit altogether but for Gerald’s urgent request, made on the night before he had started for abroad. It all seemed very natural, however. Myrtile welcomed him without a shade of embarrassment, Lady Mary with her usual delightful friendliness, and Lord Hinterleys with more than his usual hospitality.

“Any news from the traveller?” Christopher asked, as they sat round the fire in the hall, before going up to change.

“Just a telegram yesterday from Petrograd,” Mary replied,--“‘_Arrived safely. Love._’”

“Satisfactory so far as it goes,” Christopher remarked.

“So far as it goes,” Lord Hinterleys grumbled, “but what on earth Gerald wants to go over to that barbarous country for, at this time of the year, I can’t possibly imagine. Who are these friends of his, Bent? Do you know anything about them?”

“Very little,” Christopher admitted. “I gather that they are Russian _emigrées_, but really I don’t know a thing more about them. Gerald seems to have made their acquaintance at Monte Carlo, when they were occupying the next villa to yours.”

“I saw them out driving once or twice,” Lord Hinterleys ruminated. “The girl was beautiful and looked well-born. The aunt might have been any one.”

“I think there is no doubt that they are aristocrats,” Christopher pronounced.

“Wasn’t there something rather strange about the way they left Monte Carlo?” Mary enquired, from the depths of her easy-chair.

“Strange but not discreditable,” he hastened to assure her. “Their steward had brought them out a large sum of money, which appears to have been all that they possessed in the world, and instead of handing it over, he gambled at the tables, lost it and committed suicide. The two women apparently sold all their jewellery, scrupulously paid their debts and disappeared. I believe Gerald discovered them living at a cheap hotel in South Kensington.”

“Don’t like the type,” Lord Hinterleys muttered.

“The girl is very attractive,” Myrtile ventured. “I used to see her driving sometimes with Gerald.”

“All the same, I can’t see why Gerald wants to go mixing himself up in their affairs,” his father observed pettishly, “especially in the middle of the shooting season.”

“He expects to be back before you shoot the coverts,” Mary reminded him. “I don’t know the reason for his journey to Russia any more than you do, but I don’t imagine he’ll want to stop there any longer than he can help.”

“I should think not,” Lord Hinterleys grumbled,--“a country of madmen and anarchists. I expect he’s there on some fool’s errand.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” Mary declared, laying down the book which she had been studying at intervals, “if Gerald didn’t know perfectly well what he was doing--if he hadn’t, in fact, stumbled upon some sort of a romance. The only time I have ever seen these two women, except in the distance at Monte Carlo, was at Ranelagh on a quiet day after the season was over; I expect Gerald had given them vouchers. They were walking about the gardens, and I was with Susan Armitage. Lord Armitage, as you know, was on the Staff at Petrograd in the old days. We met them crossing the lawn and I heard Susan give a little exclamation. Then she stopped quite short and stood almost to attention, looking steadfastly at the girl. I am perfectly certain that she was going to curtsey. I could see it in her eye. And I am perfectly certain, too, that this Madame de Ponière and her niece knew who she was. They took not the slightest notice, however, so Susan unbent and came along.”

“But surely you asked her who they were?” Lord Hinterleys enquired.

“Of course I did,” Mary assented. “Susan, however, was exceedingly mysterious. Since Jack began to fancy himself a diplomatist, she apes all his little ways. ‘I may be mistaken, my dear,’ she said. ‘In any case, the ladies did not desire to be recognised.’ I pressed her hard, but she wouldn’t even tell me who she thought they were. Before that I had asked Gerald if he would like me to go and see them, but he told me they were in great trouble and were not receiving anybody at present.”

“This is all very well and charitable and that sort of thing,” her father remarked, “but I don’t quite see why Gerald should have had to raise thirty thousand pounds within the last few weeks.”

“Frankly, I cannot think that these two women are responsible for it,” Mary declared. “Gerald told me, the day before he left, that they were still living in that poky little South Kensington place.”

“Young men are much better married, anyway,” Lord Hinterleys growled. “Why don’t you get married, Christopher? You could afford to, and a man like you, with a political future, needs a wife.”

Christopher smiled imperturbably.

“Give me time, sir,” he begged. “It’s different with Gerald. He has the estates, and very little else to think about.”

“Gerald’s an ass,” was the irritable reply. “He’s too fond of women to understand them, or even to realise when he comes across the right thing.”

“Gerald may have his faults,” his sister observed, “but at least he has spared us the usual musical comedy infliction. There goes the gong. Christopher, come into my room for a moment and I’ll show you those photographs.”

They trooped up the great oak staircase, and Mary led their guest into her own little boudoir. She closed the door carefully behind them.

“Christopher,” she said, “I am so glad you came. Honestly, I am anxious about Gerald. He came to see you, didn’t he, the night before he sailed?”

“He did,” was the cautious admission.

“He must have told you a little more than he told us,” she went on.

“Very little,” Christopher assured her. “He mumbled something about Russia being an uncertain country just now, and got me round to his rooms to witness his will. Of course, I don’t think there was any secret that he was going over on business connected with these two new friends of his. What that business is, though, I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“Honest?”

“Honest! If I were to make a guess, I should say he was going over to see if he could do anything about their estates, if they have any. On the other hand, if he’d been doing that, I should have expected him to have taken a lawyer.”

“Gerald in matters of business,” his sister sighed, “is a perfect idiot. I hope he isn’t going to get himself into trouble.”

“Well, they can’t eat him,” Christopher declared consolingly, “and they seem to have left off murdering people, at any rate for the present. Besides, they have common sense enough to know that molesting Englishmen is an expensive amusement, even in Russia.”

“You’re a dear, cheering-up sort of person,” Mary said gratefully. “And, Christopher, I haven’t had an opportunity of saying so before, but I am still very sorry.”

“Thank you, Mary.”

“You’ll have another try, I suppose? You’re a tenacious person.”

He shook his head.

“Never,” he answered firmly. “Myrtile is a strange little creature, but she was cast in the mould of all good women. She loves Gerald, and so long as she lives she will never love anybody else.”

“And Gerald----” Mary murmured.

“Gerald will never love any one,” Christopher interrupted, “not unless something changes him--trouble or some great disaster. It’s quite hopeless, Mary, and I know it. I have sealed the chamber down tight, and here I am, as you see, very much as usual.”

She pressed his arm.

“Dear old Christopher!--You’ll find you’re in the oak room at the end of the corridor, as usual. Howson, Gerald’s servant, is down here doing nothing. He will look after you. After dinner you must tell me about the election. I am so interested, and so is dad, when he can spare a moment from thinking about his pheasants. He is certain to insist upon Myrtile’s reading to him after dinner, and you and I will knock the balls about in the billiard room.”

Christopher would have been less than human if he had not realised the pleasure of having a very charming and attractive young woman, who was also his hostess, keenly interested in the one subject which was just then absorbing the whole of his time and attention. Mary knew a great deal about politics, and her shrewd comments were not only sympathetic but at times fairly helpful. They were left undisturbed throughout the whole of the evening in the billiard room, and Christopher was surprised at the ease with which he forgot that slim, frail figure with the haunting eyes and tremulous smile, who had sat opposite him at dinner. There is something about inevitability which sets its mark upon all enterprise and sensation. He knew perfectly well that Myrtile would never alter. She was as far removed from him as though she had become a beautiful picture or an exquisite piece of statuary. The conviction itself had a certain soothing effect. No man was ever known to sigh his heart out for the unattainable. With the merest chance of some alteration in her feelings, he would have been a persistent and unchanging lover. There was no chance, and he knew it. The disappointment was there, a dull pain in his heart whenever he thought of certain chambers in the building of that house of his future. But it was a pain of the past, a pain from which frequent escape was at least possible. He found the coming of the footman with whisky and soda that night unwelcome and surprising.

“Eleven o’clock!” he exclaimed. “Why, what has become of the evening?”

“Flatterer!” she laughed. “Never mind, I was just thinking the same myself. One game of billiards, and then to bed. You’ll have a long day to-morrow, for you’re walking in the morning, at any rate, and dad always relies upon you to do the outsides.--Here’s Myrtile come to wish us good night.”

“Haven’t you people played yet?” Myrtile enquired, looking at the unused table in surprise.

“Not yet,” Christopher replied. “Lady Mary and I have been talking politics.”

Myrtile made a little grimace.

“Politics!” she sighed. “Lord Hinterleys has tried to explain English politics to me, but I think that I am stupid. I do not think that I have ever heard of anything quite so dull.--Good night to you both. I am going to bed.”

She waved her hand and disappeared. Mary looked after her thoughtfully.

“Sometimes,” she said, “Myrtile presents herself to one as a problem. I wonder whether it is really for their happiness to transplant any one.”

“Don’t you think that Myrtile is happy?” Christopher asked.

Mary shook her head.

“No girl is really happy without love in her life,” she declared. “You can realise for yourself how little chance Myrtile has of ever being rewarded for her devotion.”

He frowned.

“Poor child!” he said. “But aren’t you a little sweeping, Mary? There are lots of girls who seem to get everything they want in life, and to be perfectly happy without a man--without caring for any one in particular, that is. Yourself, for instance?”

Mary selected a cue with great care.

“I suppose I am an exception,” she admitted. “Come along, I’ll play you one fifty up before I go to bed.”