Chapter EIGHT

It was evident a conference of considerable importance was taking place between this strangely assorted trio--Dicks, in his respectable butler’s dress, Quentin in the clothes he had worn at dinner, and the lame man in his shabby attire.

Quentin and the stranger seemed to be taking the most prominent part in the discussion, Dicks putting in a phrase now and again. The lame man appeared to emphasize his remarks with a wealth of gesture suggestive of a foreigner.

For something like twenty minutes, Aylmer watched this singular scene from his hiding-place. But, although the window was open at the top, they spoke in such low tones that he could not catch a scrap of their conversation. Then the party broke up. Dicks opened the gate, and advancing a little way into the road, looked carefully from left to right. Having satisfied himself there was nobody about, he gave a swift signal, and the man with the limp passed out, walking very quickly in spite of his infirmity.

After a brief period, during which Dicks leaned over the now shut gate, as if he were listening to the retreating footfalls of this strange guest, master and man returned to the house, side by side, still talking very earnestly, their conversation inaudible. Aylmer heard the hall door softly closed and the stealthy return of Quentin to his bedroom. Dicks presumably had returned to the servants’ quarters, which were approached by a separate staircase, at the rear of the building.

A decidedly mysterious happening, was his reflection, as the young man returned to his bed. He felt sure he had been right, at the start, in connecting his host’s absence with the sudden appearance of the man with the limp. He understood now why he had been detained so long at the front door; it was to enable Quentin to get out of the way. The whimsical thought came to him that the second port glass, which the host had not at first seemed to understand when Dicks brought it to him, was intended for this mysterious person secluded in some remote portion of the house, out of sight and sound of strangers.

Whatever the nature of the secret, Dicks, the suave and dignified butler--Dicks, of whom, in the little she had said about him, Eileen did not seem to hold a very high opinion--was in it.

After a great deal of cogitation, Aylmer began to dismiss it from his mind. Perhaps it was a family secret. Perhaps the shabbily-dressed man with the refined features was some disreputable connection of whom the well-to-do master of this elegant house, very naturally, was ashamed. Perhaps the poor wretch turned up, from time to time, to appeal to his compassion and obtain pecuniary assistance. If such were the case, he might find Dicks a valuable assistant, one who would loyally help him to keep the skeleton firmly locked up in the cupboard, even pass him off to the other servants as a broken-down connection of his own.

In this class of man there is a wonderful fidelity to an employer for whom he feels respect and gratitude. Quentin, he judged, was a master out of a thousand, likely to treat a servant of long standing more as a friend than an inferior. But, above all, he wondered if Eileen had heard anything of the night’s proceedings.

In the morning, when they met at breakfast, she asked him the very usual question that a solicitous hostess puts to her guest: “Did you sleep well, Mr. Aylmer?”

As the young man answered, he kept his eye on Quentin to note if what he said had any effect on him. “Quite well, thanks. Or, rather, I should say, as well as I ever do. I am a very light sleeper and wake up half a dozen times in the night. The slightest thing wakes me up. The best part of it is, I soon go off again.”

Quentin did not seem in the least affected by this statement, whatever his private thoughts might have been. “So you’re a light sleeper, are you?” he remarked in an indifferent voice. “I’m worse than that, I’m a very bad sleeper at the best of times. I don’t suppose I get a thorough night’s rest once in a month. Not like Eileen.”

The girl laughed easily. “No, I certainly don’t suffer from insomnia. I fall off as soon as my head touches the pillow; and there I stop till the force of habit makes me wake. The result of a good digestion and a clear conscience, I expect. Perhaps you men have neither.”

Aylmer was sure she was speaking the truth, and he felt a sense of relief. She had heard nothing of this strange episode of the night. Even if she did know something of what had led up to it, her loyalty to Quentin would naturally keep her silent. As for Quentin himself, faith in the man was shaken. He might or not be suffering from insomnia as he had alleged. But Aylmer felt he would require corroboration of the fact from some impartial source before he was ready to believe him.

Quentin was not quite so jovial as he had been on the previous evening, when he had been well primed with those very excellent vintages with which his butler had plied him so assiduously; but he was excessively genial. He begged his guest not to hurry away directly, to defer his departure till after lunch, and Eileen seconded the request. The young man could hardly refuse, as he felt from the manner of both that he was not outstaying his welcome.

“That’s all right, then. Now, I have got to put in an hour or two of work. I owe several letters. Suppose you and Eileen take a stroll this beautiful morning, and we three will join each other later,” was the suggestion of this exceedingly urbane and agreeable host.

No arrangement could have pleased Aylmer better. It did occur to him, as Eileen went upstairs to prepare for the excursion, that Mr. Quentin was not such an idle man as he represented himself to be. He had said he owed several letters. Was it not a little strange that a recluse should have such a large correspondence? Aylmer remembered that at Ostend he had spent a goodly portion of each day at the writing-table. There was something contradictory about the man.

Eileen came down presently, dressed in a pretty frock and picturesque hat that suggested Paris as their place of manufacture.

They strolled along till they found themselves at the charming highway known as the Spaniards Road, surely one of the most pleasant spots about London. Presently Aylmer ventured to press her to arrange with him a second meeting. In the hurry of parting on the first occasion, no reference had been made to the future.

She did not answer at once. The young man felt just a little resentful at her silence. “Perhaps you don’t want to repeat the experiment?” he said, speaking rather stiffly. An ardent lover, such as he was, is so prone to take offense easily.

There was a note of reproach in her voice. “Are you not a little unjust--you who are more considerate than the majority of men--in saying that to me? You must have seen how much I enjoyed myself; I certainly took no pains to conceal it. You know I would love to come.”

“Then why hesitate?” he asked with the logic of his sex.

A faint little sigh fluttered from her lips, as she turned her beautiful eyes on him. “The best of you never quite understand a woman, how she is sometimes afraid to grasp her own happiness. But you do know the strangeness, the difficulty of my position. How can I be sure that it is going to end happily, that I am not doing you a wrong in encouraging you?”

“But it seems to me plainer sailing than you will admit. You have Quentin’s promise that if you met somebody you really cared for he would put no obstacles in the way. I have not spoken quite so boldly before. But is it not a fact that you have met that somebody? Your actions tell me so, even if they have not been actually confirmed by your words.”

She spoke very gravely. “Oh, believe me, I have not been playing with you. My words shall carry confirmation now. I love you, I shall always love you, whether the ultimate issue of our relations be happiness or disaster.”

He pursued the advantage which her frank avowal had given him. “Then, there need not be the difficulty in the situation that you imagine, unless you believe that Quentin will go back on his promise. A certain amount of awkwardness, I admit. But will that affect us much if we truly love each other? And even if he should be disposed to play such a dastardly part, you are over age, you are your own mistress. You can defy him and come to the man you love.”

She laid her hand for a second upon his arm. “You put courage into me; I am afraid I am not a very brave person as a rule,” she said softly. “I will meet you again, when you wish.”

“Say this day week,” he cried eagerly. “And shall it be the same place, or another?”

“We may as well make it the same. There is a fate in these things; I am a firm believer in destiny. If we are to be found out, no precautions will avail us. Of that I am positive.”

Aylmer laughed his pleasant, optimistic laugh. “Well, my dear, if we are found out, I should be less sorry than you. It would precipitate matters, and we should be standing on firm ground.”

She made no answer to that suggestion, but he could sense that she felt alarm at the prospect of things reaching a climax. He wished he could get at the real reasons of that alarm, but there was a certain reserve in her which even his deep love could not dissolve.

When they returned to the house, she went up to her own room, and Mr. Quentin appeared from his sanctum, or study, or whatever he called the apartment in which he conducted his correspondence, and invited Aylmer in for a chat.

The whisky decanter was on the table, and a half-filled tumbler beside it. “My nerves are so bad, I have to take a little peg in the morning,” he explained by way of apology. “Very pleased if you will join me.”

Aylmer thanked him for his hospitable offer, but declined on the plea that he very rarely drank between meals. Quentin nodded his head approvingly.

“Quite right, my dear boy; stick to it. I wish I had never acquired the habit. Easier to get into than get out of. In fact, after a certain time, you _can’t_ get out of it, hard as you may try.”

No, it was evident that the man had outgrown the power of resistance. Aylmer felt very sorry for the refined, delicate young woman put into such an incongruous household. What pleasure or real companionship could there be between her and a man of such habits?

After a little desultory conversation, Quentin fired at the young man, a direct question. “Please don’t think I wish to display any impertinent curiosity in your private affairs, but I take it you are a man of some capital.”

From the hint Eileen had given him, the young man guessed to what end this question was leading. He replied briefly that he certainly had some capital and that he lived on the interest of it.

“I gathered so from something young Peyton let fall one day,” pursued Quentin. “As I think I have told you, I am in much the same position. I don’t possess a large circle of acquaintance, but I happen to have one or two old friends who are in the know, and they put me on to a good thing when it comes their way. Have you ever gone in for speculation?”

Aylmer answered somewhat coldly in the negative, adding that his natural inclination was against it.

“Quite so,” assented his host suavely. “I used to have the same feeling myself, when such a suggestion was first mooted to me. I said that a safe four per cent. was better than a problematical four hundred, that in the former case you could sleep sound at night without troubling about your investments. But I altered my opinion.”

“Perhaps that is the reason why you are troubled with insomnia now,” suggested the young man with a gentle sarcasm from which he could not refrain.

Recollecting what he had said at breakfast that morning, Quentin could not but realize the shrewdness of the thrust. “A palpable hit,” he admitted, “but it does not draw blood. I was just as bad a sleeper when I was only getting my four per cent. as now when my return is so much bigger. Anyway, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, you will admit that. For some years I have speculated on the advice of my friends, with the result that I have nearly doubled my capital.”

“You have had exceptional luck; I congratulate you,” remarked Aylmer dryly. “Most speculators I have heard of--apart from men of business who are financiers pure and simple--find themselves heavily mulcted in the long run. Like gamblers, they begin by winning and end in a heavy loss. You are evidently a keen man of affairs.”

“Not in the least, not in the least,” rejoined Quentin hastily; it was evident from his hurried manner he felt that his confidences were not meeting with the reception he had anticipated. “I am a wretched hand at figures, cannot understand an ordinary balance-sheet. My success is due to the friends I have mentioned, who know every move in the game, and are kind enough to let me take a hand in it.”

Aylmer preserved a disconcerting silence; and, after a brief pause, his companion played the card which he had been keeping up his sleeve all the time. Without any further circumlocution, he came to the point.

And while he was speaking in his soft, persuasive way, Aylmer was revolving in his mind a rather difficult problem. Quentin had stated distinctly that his speculations had been successful, that in a few years he nearly had doubled his capital. On the other hand, Eileen had said that they were unprofitable, although he was optimistic enough to persevere, in spite of his unfortunate experience. They could not both be speaking the truth. Could the man be telling a pack of barefaced lies? Or, had Eileen, from the best of motives, indulged in exaggeration, with the view of deterring her lover from taking a hand in an uncertain game?

“Of course, a man of your intelligence will guess that I have a motive in speaking to you on this subject. At the moment, I have a very exceptional opportunity offered to me from the same quarter that has put me on to so many good things. If I can put twenty thousand in hard cash on the table, I can get a small share in a speculation--it is a very big thing and nothing under that sum is of any use--there is a certainty of making a hundred per cent. profit at any period between now and the next twelve months.”

For want of something better to say, Aylmer remarked that twenty thousand was a considerable sum.

“It is,” admitted the speculator frankly. “And now I am coming to the point. It is more than I can conveniently lay my hands on just at this juncture. I could rake up ten thousand quite easily. It occurred to me that you might like to find the other ten, and we could go shares in the ultimate profit. I dare say you would like me to give you some details of this most promising scheme.”

At this point Aylmer thought it better to stop him. Even if Eileen had not gone out of her way to warn him, he would have turned a deaf ear to Quentin’s blandishments, on account of his unconquerable dislike to speculation in any shape or form. The gambling instinct was practically non-existent in him. He very occasionally played at cards for a small stake, and still more occasionally risked a modest sum on some big race. But, as he never hazarded more than he could well afford to lose, he could not, in any sense of the word, be called a gambler.

“It is awfully good of you to suggest it to me,” he said politely, “and if I had your speculative temperament, I should probably jump at the chance. But, this sort of thing makes no appeal to me. Besides, I am under a sort of pledge to my dear old father not to hazard the money he left me. He was always rubbing it into me that high interest meant bad security, and that it would be wise to be content with a modest return on my capital.”

There could be no doubt that Quentin was disappointed by the emphatic refusal, but he did not show it too obviously. “If you feel like that there is no more to be said. I am sorry for both our sakes, and I cannot think of anybody else to whom I could make the suggestion. Martyn has been with me in smaller things, and he loves a flutter. But I know the amount is beyond his resources. Ah, I hear the luncheon gong. By the way, not a word of this to Eileen. Like yourself, she has a great horror of speculation. She might be annoyed that I had spoken of the subject to you.”

He hardly had ceased speaking when Eileen came in, and Aylmer was relieved from having to give any positive assurance that he would respect his host’s wishes.

After luncheon he took his departure. Quentin, who had been as cordial as ever during the progress of the meal, offered his own car to take him home. But the offer was declined.

His host accompanied him to the gate and shook him warmly by the hand. “We have enjoyed your visit greatly, Aylmer; you must soon repeat it. Eileen will write to you again, shortly.”

The young man expressed in fitting terms the pleasure he had derived from his sojourn at The Laurels. He had felt rather embarrassed during that conversation in the study. But, it seemed that Quentin was too much a man of the world to resent the attitude his guest had taken up. Anyway, if he felt any resentment, he was clever enough to conceal it.

The next day Aylmer lunched in the city with young Peyton, who was curious as to how he had got on at Hampstead, and rather eager for details. Aylmer satisfied his friend’s curiosity as far as possible. But he carefully concealed two things--the mysterious advent of the man with the limp, and Quentin’s attempt to inveigle him into speculation. His feelings for Eileen made him disinclined to provoke any caustic comments upon the Quentin _ménage_.

On the day appointed, Eileen presented herself, as arranged, at the Café Mario.

“I was almost afraid I should have to disappoint you,” she told him. “Richard at breakfast time had strong leanings towards a day in the country. Fortunately, when he went to tap the barometer--he always does that before he ventures on a pleasure excursion--he found it distinctly unfavorable. You can guess what a flutter I was in while this was going on.”

Very shortly after they had begun their meal, she put to him a question. “You had a long talk with Richard in his study after we returned from our walk. Please tell me, did he make any suggestions of a financial nature to you?”

It was fortunate he had given no promise to Quentin in the matter, or he might have been puzzled how to reply. It was, therefore, with a clear conscience that he answered her.

“As a matter of fact, he did, and I declined to fall in with them.”

She pursued her inquiries further. “To what extent did he want you to commit yourself?”

“Ten thousand pounds.”

“Fearing that he might approach you, I spoke to him on the subject. I told him that I wanted to keep you as a friend, and that friendship was apt to be severed when men had money transactions together. He promised to respect my wishes.” She added bitterly: “Were his promises ever worth anything?”

So now he knew the reason why Quentin had entreated him to say nothing to her on the subject. Evidently, he was not a man to be relied on, one who did not shrink from double-dealing. That bitter exclamation about his promises being worthless revealed a great deal.

There was a strained look about Eileen for some little time; it was evident she was still brooding over the unfortunate incident. But, presently she recovered herself, and the cloud over her spirits rolled away. It was a couple of hours before they separated, and this time she allowed him to see her to the door.

He was saying a few words to her about their next meeting, when a man walked swiftly past them as they stood in the doorway; and, as he passed, he flung a rapid glance at them.

He saw her face grow suddenly pale, and a startled look came into her eyes. “What’s the matter?” he asked anxiously.

“Did you see that man who has just passed?” she asked in a hoarse voice.

He looked after the retreating figure, now some way down the street, and, somehow, it seemed familiar to him. “Is it somebody who knows you?”

“Somebody who knows us both,” was the agitated reply. “It was Martyn and he recognized us.”