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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Tempting of Tavernake, by E. Phillips Oppenheim
+(#12 in our series by E. Phillips Oppenheim)
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+Title: The Tempting of Tavernake
+
+Author: E. Phillips Oppenheim
+
+Release Date: February, 2004  [EBook #5091]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 24, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE TEMPTING OF TAVERNAKE ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Polly Stratton.
+
+
+
+THE TEMPTING OF TAVERNAKE BY E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK ONE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+DESPAIR AND INTEREST
+
+They stood upon the roof of a London boarding-house in the
+neighborhood of Russell Square--one of those grim shelters, the
+refuge of Transatlantic curiosity and British penury.  The girl
+--she represented the former race was leaning against the frail
+palisading, with gloomy expression and eyes set as though in
+fixed contemplation of the uninspiring panorama.  The young man
+--unmistakably, uncompromisingly English--stood with his back to
+the chimney a few feet away, watching his companion.  The silence
+between them was as yet unbroken, had lasted, indeed, since she
+had stolen away from the shabby drawingroom below, where a florid
+lady with a raucous voice had been shouting a music-hall ditty.
+Close upon her heels, but without speech of any sort, he had
+followed.  They were almost strangers, except for the occasional
+word or two of greeting which the etiquette of the establishment
+demanded.  Yet she had accepted his espionage without any protest
+of word or look.  He had followed her with a very definite
+object.  Had she surmised it, he wondered?   She had not turned
+her head or vouchsafed even a single question or remark to him
+since he had pushed his way through the trap-door almost at her
+heels and stepped out on to the leads.  Yet it seemed to him that
+she must guess.
+
+Below them, what seemed to be the phantasm of a painted city, a
+wilderness of housetops, of smoke-wreathed spires and chimneys,
+stretched away to a murky, blood-red horizon.  Even as they stood
+there, a deeper color stained the sky, an angry sun began to sink
+into the piled up masses of thick, vaporous clouds.  The girl
+watched with an air of sullen yet absorbed interest.  Her
+companion's eyes were still fixed wholly and critically upon her.
+Who was she, he wondered?   Why had she left her own country to
+come to a city where she seemed to have no friends, no manner of
+interest?   In that caravansary of the world's stricken ones she
+had been an almost unnoticed figure, silent, indisposed for
+conversation, not in any obvious manner attractive.  Her clothes,
+notwithstanding their air of having come from a first-class
+dressmaker, were shabby and out of fashion, their extreme
+neatness in itself pathetic.  She was thin, yet not without a
+certain buoyant lightness of movement always at variance with her
+tired eyes, her ceaseless air of dejection.  And withal she was a
+rebel.  It was written in her attitude, it was evident in her
+lowering, militant expression, the smouldering fire in her eyes
+proclaimed it.  Her long, rather narrow face was gripped between
+her hands; her elbows rested upon the brick parapet.  She gazed
+at that world of blood-red mists, of unshapely, grotesque
+buildings, of strange, tawdry colors; she listened to the medley
+of sounds--crude, shrill, insistent, something like the groaning
+of a world stripped naked--and she had all the time the air of
+one who hates the thing she looks upon.
+
+Tavernake, whose curiosity concerning his companion remained
+unappeased, decided that the moment for speech had arrived.  He
+took a step forward upon the soft, pulpy leads.  Even then he
+hesitated before he finally committed himself.  About his
+appearance little was remarkable save the general air of
+determination which gave character to his undistinguished
+features.  He was something above the medium height, broad-set,
+and with rather more thick black hair than he knew how to arrange
+advantageously.  He wore a shirt which was somewhat frayed, and
+an indifferent tie; his boots were heavy and clumsy; he wore also
+a suit of ready-made clothes with the air of one who knew that
+they were ready-made and was satisfied with them.  People of a
+nervous or sensitive disposition would, without doubt, have found
+him irritating but for a certain nameless gift--an almost
+Napoleonic concentration upon the things of the passing moment,
+which was in itself impressive and which somehow disarmed
+criticism.
+
+"About that bracelet!" he said at last.
+
+She moved her head and looked at him.  A young man of less
+assurance would have turned and fled.  Not so Tavernake.  Once
+sure of his ground he was immovable.  There was murder in her
+eyes but he was not even disturbed.
+
+"I saw you take it from the little table by the piano, you know,"
+he continued.  "It was rather a rash thing to do.  Mrs.
+Fitzgerald was looking for it before I reached the stairs.  I
+expect she has called the police in by now."
+
+Slowly her hand stole into the depths of her pocket and emerged.
+Something flashed for a moment high over her head.  The young man
+caught her wrist just in time, caught it in a veritable grip of
+iron.  Then, indeed, the evil fires flashed from her eyes, her
+teeth gleamed white, her bosom rose and fell in a storm of angry,
+unuttered sobs.  She was dry-eyed and still speechless, but for
+all that she was a tigress.  A strangely-cut silhouette they
+formed there upon the housetops, with a background of empty sky,
+their feet sinking in the warm leads.
+
+"I think I had better take it," he said.  "Let go."
+
+Her fingers yielded the bracelet--a tawdry, ill-designed affair
+of rubies and diamonds.  He looked at it disapprovingly.
+
+"That's an ugly thing to go to prison for," he remarked, slipping
+it into his pocket.  "It was a stupid thing to do, anyhow, you
+know.  You couldn't have got away with it--unless," he added,
+looking over the parapet as though struck with a sudden idea,
+"unless you had a confederate below."
+
+He heard the rush of her skirts and he was only just in time.
+Nothing, in fact, but a considerable amount of presence of mind
+and the full exercise of a strength which was continually
+providing surprises for his acquaintances, was sufficient to save
+her.  Their struggles upon the very edge of the roof dislodged a
+brick from the palisading, which went hurtling down into the
+street.  They both paused to watch it, his arms still gripping
+her and one foot pressed against an iron rod.  It was immediately
+after they had seen it pitch harmlessly into the road that a new
+sensation came to this phlegmatic young man.  For the first time
+in his life, he realized that it was possible to feel a certain
+pleasurable emotion in the close grasp of a being of the opposite
+sex.  Consequently, although she had now ceased to struggle, he
+kept his arms locked around her, looking into her face with an
+interest intense enough, but more analytical than emotional, as
+though seeking to discover the meaning of this curious throbbing
+of his pulses.  She herself, as though exhausted, remained quite
+passive, shivering a little in his grasp and breathing like a
+hunted animal whose last hour has come.  Their eyes met; then she
+tore herself away.
+
+"You are a hateful person," she said deliberately, "a hateful,
+interfering person.  I detest you."
+
+"I think that we will go down now," he replied.
+
+He raised the trap-door and glanced at her significantly.  She
+held her skirts closely together and passed through it without
+looking at him.  She stepped lightly down the ladder and without
+hesitation descended also a flight of uncarpeted attic stairs.
+Here, however, upon the landing, she awaited him with obvious
+reluctance.
+
+"Are you going to send for the police?" she asked without looking
+at him.
+
+"No," he answered.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"If I had meant to give you away I should have told Mrs.
+Fitzgerald at once that I had seen you take her bracelet, instead
+of following you out on to the roof."
+
+"Do you mind telling me what you do propose to do, then?" she
+continued still without looking at him, still without the
+slightest note of appeal in her tone.
+
+He withdrew the bracelet from his pocket and balanced it upon his
+finger.
+
+"I am going to say that I took it for a joke," he declared.
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"Mrs. Fitzgerald's sense of humor is not elastic," she warned
+him.
+
+"She will be very angry, of course," he assented, "but she will
+not believe that I meant to steal it."
+
+The girl moved slowly a few steps away.
+
+"I suppose that I ought to thank you," she said, still with
+averted face and sullen manner.  "You have really been very
+decent.  I am much obliged."
+
+"Are you not coming down?" he asked.
+
+"Not at present," she answered.  "I am going to my room."
+
+He looked around the landing on which they stood, at the
+miserable, uncarpeted floor, the ill-painted doors on which the
+long-forgotten varnish stood out in blisters, the jumble of
+dilapidated hot-water cans, a mop, and a medley of brooms and
+rags all thrown down together in a corner.
+
+"But these are the servants' quarters, surely," he remarked.
+
+"They are good enough for me; my room is here," she told him,
+turning the handle of one of the doors and disappearing.  The
+prompt turning of the key sounded, he thought, a little
+ungracious.
+
+With the bracelet in his hand, Tavernake descended three more
+flights of stairs and entered the drawing-room of the private
+hotel conducted by Mrs. Raithby Lawrence, whose husband, one
+learned from her frequent reiteration of the fact, had once
+occupied a distinguished post in the Merchant Service of his
+country.  The disturbance following upon the disappearance of the
+bracelet was evidently at its height.  There were at least a
+dozen people in the room, most of whom were standing up.  The
+central figure of them all was Mrs. Fitzgerald, large and florid,
+whose yellow hair with its varied shades frankly admitted its
+indebtedness to peroxide; a lady of the dashing type, who had
+once made her mark in the music-halls, but was now happily
+married to a commercial traveler who was seldom visible.  Mrs.
+Fitzgerald was talking.
+
+"In respectable boarding-houses, Mrs. Lawrence," she declared
+with great emphasis, "thefts may sometimes take place, I will
+admit, in the servants' quarters, and with all their temptations,
+poor things, it's not so much to be wondered at.  But no such
+thing as this has ever happened to me before--to have jewelry
+taken almost from my person in the drawing-room of what should be
+a well-conducted establishment.  Not a servant in the room,
+remember, from the moment I took it off until I got up from the
+piano and found it missing.  It's your guests you've got to look
+after, Mrs. Lawrence, sorry to say it though I am."
+
+Mrs. Lawrence managed here, through sheer loss of breath on the
+part of her assailant, to interpose a tearful protest.
+
+"I am quite sure," she protested feebly, "that there is not a
+person in this house who would dream of stealing anything,
+however valuable it was.  I am most particular always about
+references."
+
+"Valuable, indeed!" Mrs. Fitzgerald continued with increased
+volubility.  "I'd have you understand that I am not one of those
+who wear trumpery jewelry.  Thirty-five guineas that bracelet
+cost me if it cost a penny, and if my husband were only at home I
+could show you the receipt."
+
+Then there came an interruption of almost tragical interest.
+Mrs. Fitzgerald, her mouth still open, her stream of eloquence
+suddenly arrested, stood with her artificially darkened eyes
+riveted upon the stolid, self-composed figure in the doorway.
+Every one else was gazing in the same direction.  Tavernake was
+holding the bracelet in the palm of his hand.
+
+"Thirty-five guineas!" he repeated.  "If I had known that it was
+worth as much as that, I do not think that I should have dared to
+touch it."
+
+"You--you took it!" Mrs. Fitzgerald gasped.
+
+"I am afraid," he admitted, "that it was rather a clumsy joke.  I
+apologize, Mrs. Fitzgerald.  I hope you did not really imagine
+that it had been stolen."
+
+One was conscious of the little thrill of emotion which marked
+the termination of the episode.  Most of the people not directly
+concerned were disappointed; they were being robbed of their
+excitement, their hopes of a tragical denouement were frustrated.
+Mrs. Lawrence's worn face plainly showed her relief.  The lady
+with the yellow hair, on the other hand, who had now succeeded in
+working herself up into a towering rage, snatched the bracelet
+from the young man's fingers and with a purple flush in her
+cheeks was obviously struggling with an intense desire to box his
+ears.
+
+"That's not good enough for a tale!" she exclaimed harshly.  "I
+tell you I don't believe a word of it.  Took it for a joke,
+indeed!  I only wish my husband were here; he'd know what to do."
+
+"Your husband couldn't do much more than get your bracelet back,
+ma'am," Mrs. Lawrence replied with acerbity.  "Such a fuss and
+calling every one thieves, too!  I'd be ashamed to be so
+suspicious."
+
+Mrs. Fitzgerald glared haughtily at her hostess.
+
+"It's all very well for those that don't possess any jewelry and
+don't know the value of it, to talk," she declared, with her eyes
+fixed upon a black jet ornament which hung from the other woman's
+neck.  "What I say is this, and you may just as well hear it from
+me now as later.  I don't believe this cock-and-bull story of Mr.
+Tavernake's.  Them as took my bracelet from that table meant
+keeping it, only they hadn't the courage.  And I'm not referring
+to you, Mr. Tavernake," the lady continued vigorously, "because I
+don't believe you took it, for all your talk about a joke.  And
+whom you may be shielding it wouldn't take me two guesses to
+name, and your motive must be clear to every one.  The common
+hussy!"
+
+"You are exciting yourself unnecessarily, Mrs. Fitzgerald,"
+Tavernake remarked.  "Let me assure you that it was I who took
+your bracelet from that table."
+
+Mrs. Fitzgerald regarded him scornfully.
+
+"Do you expect me to believe a tale like that?" she demanded.
+
+"Why not?" Tavernake replied.  "It is the truth.  I am sorry that
+you have been so upset--"
+
+"It is not the truth!"
+
+More sensation!  Another unexpected entrance!  Once more interest
+in the affair was revived.  After all, the lookers-on felt that
+they were not to be robbed of their tragedy.  An old lady with
+yellow cheeks and jet black eyes leaned forward with her hand to
+her ear, anxious not to miss a syllable of what was coming.
+Tavernake bit his lip; it was the girl from the roof who had
+entered the room.
+
+"I have no doubt," she continued in a cool, clear tone, "that
+Mrs. Fitzgerald's first guess would have been correct.  I took
+the bracelet.  I did not take it for a joke, I did not take it
+because I admire it--I think it is hideously ugly.  I took it
+because I had no money."
+
+She paused and looked around at them all, quietly, yet with
+something in her face from which they all shrank.  She stood
+where the light fell full upon her shabby black gown and
+dejected-looking hat.  The hollows in her pale cheeks, and the
+faint rims under her eyes, were clearly manifest; but
+notwithstanding her fragile appearance, she held herself with
+composure and even dignity.  Twenty--thirty seconds must have
+passed whilst she stood there, slowly finishing the buttoning of
+her gloves.  No one attempted to break the silence.  She
+dominated them all--they felt that she had something more to say.
+Even Mrs. Fitzgerald felt a weight upon her tongue.
+
+"It was a clumsy attempt," she went on.  "I should have had no
+idea where to raise money upon the thing, but I apologize to you,
+nevertheless, Mrs. Fitzgerald, for the anxiety which my removal
+of your valuable property must have caused you," she added,
+turning to the owner of the bracelet, whose cheeks were once more
+hot with anger at the contempt in the girl's tone.  "I suppose I
+ought to thank you, Mr. Tavernake, also, for your well-meant
+effort to preserve my character.  In future, that shall be my
+sole charge.  Has any one anything more to say to me before I
+go?"
+
+Somehow or other, no one had.  Mrs. Fitzgerald was irritated and
+fuming, but she contented herself with a snort.  Her speech was
+ready enough as a rule, but there was a look in this girl's eyes
+from which she was glad enough to turn away.  Mrs. Lawrence made
+a weak attempt at a farewell.
+
+"I am sure," she began, "we are all sorry for what's occurred and
+that you must go--not that perhaps it isn't better, under the
+circumstances," she added hastily.  "As regards--"
+
+"There is nothing owing to you," the girl interrupted calmly.
+"You may congratulate yourself upon that, for if there were you
+would not get it.  Nor have I stolen anything else."
+
+"About your luggage?" Mrs. Lawrence asked.
+
+"When I need it, I will send for it," the girl replied.
+
+She turned her back upon them and before they realized it she was
+gone.  She had, indeed, something of the grand manner.  She had
+come to plead guilty to a theft and she had left them all feeling
+a little like snubbed children.  Mrs. Fitzgerald, as soon as the
+spell of the girl's presence was removed, was one of the first to
+recover herself.  She felt herself beginning to grow hot with
+renewed indignation.
+
+"A thief!" she exclaimed looking around the room.  "Just an
+ordinary self-convicted thief!  That's what I call her, and
+nothing else.  And here we all stood like a lot of ninnies.  Why,
+if I'd done my duty I'd have locked the door and sent for a
+policeman."
+
+"Too late now, anyway," Mrs. Lawrence declared.  "She's gone for
+good, and no mistake.  Walked right out of the house.  I heard
+her slam the front door."
+
+"And a good job, too," Mrs. Fitzgerald armed.  "We don't want any
+of her sort here--not those who've got things of value about
+them.  I bet she didn't leave America for nothing."
+
+A little gray-haired lady, who had not as yet spoken, and who
+very seldom took part in any discussion at all, looked up from
+her knitting.  She was desperately poor but she had charitable
+instincts.
+
+"I wonder what made her want to steal," she remarked quietly.
+
+"A born thief," Mrs. Fitzgerald declared with conviction,--"a
+real bad lot.  One of your sly-looking ones, I call her."
+
+The little lady sighed.
+
+"When I was better off," she continued, "I used to help at a soup
+kitchen in Poplar.  I have never forgotten a certain look we used
+to see occasionally in the faces of some of the men and women.  I
+found out what it meant--it was hunger.  Once or twice lately I
+have passed the girl who has just gone out, upon the stairs, and
+she almost frightened me.  She had just the same look in her
+eyes.  I noticed it yesterday--it was just before dinner, too
+-- but she never came down."
+
+"She paid so much for her room and extra for meals," Mrs.
+Lawrence said thoughtfully.  "She never would have a meal unless
+she paid for it at the time.  To tell you the truth, I was
+feeling a bit uneasy about her.  She hasn't been in the
+diningroom for two days, and from what they tell me there's no
+signs of her having eaten anything in her room.  As for getting
+anything out, why should she?   It would be cheaper for her here
+than anywhere, if she'd got any money at all."
+
+There was an uncomfortable silence.  The little old lady with the
+knitting looked down the street into the sultry darkness which
+had swallowed up the girl.
+
+"I wonder whether Mr. Tavernake knows anything about her," some
+one suggested.
+
+But Tavernake was not in the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A TETE-A-TETE SUPPER
+
+Tavernake caught her up in New Oxford Street and fell at once
+into step with her.  He wasted no time whatever upon
+preliminaries.
+
+"I should be glad," he said, "if you would tell me your name."
+
+Her first glance at him was fierce enough to have terrified a
+different sort of man.  Upon Tavernake it had absolutely no
+effect.
+
+"You need not unless you like, of course," he went on, "but I
+wish to talk to you for a few moments and I thought that it would
+be more convenient if I addressed you by name.  I do not remember
+to have heard it mentioned at Blenheim House, and Mrs. Lawrence,
+as you know, does not introduce her guests."
+
+By this time they had walked a score or so of paces together.
+The girl, after her first furious glance, had taken absolutely no
+notice of him except to quicken her pace a little.  Tavernake
+remained by her side, however, showing not the slightest sense of
+embarrassment or annoyance.  He seemed perfectly content to wait
+and he had not in the least the appearance of a man who could be
+easily shaken off.  From a fit of furious anger she passed
+suddenly and without warning to a state of half hysterical
+amusement.
+
+"You are a foolish, absurd person," she declared.  "Please go
+away.  I do not wish you to walk with me."
+
+Tavernake remained imperturbable.  She remembered suddenly his
+intervention on her behalf.
+
+"If you insist upon knowing," she said, "my name at Blenheim
+House was Beatrice Burnay.  I am much obliged to you for what you
+did for me there, but that is finished.  I do not wish to have
+any conversation with you, and I absolutely object to your
+company.  Please leave me at once."
+
+"I am sorry," he answered, "but that is not possible."
+
+"Not possible?" she repeated, wonderingly.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"You have no money, you have eaten no dinner, and I do not
+believe that you have any idea where you are going," he declared,
+deliberately.
+
+Her face was once more dark with anger.
+
+"Even if that were the truth," she insisted, "tell me what
+concern it is of yours?   Your reminding me of these facts is
+simply an impertinence."
+
+"I am sorry that you look upon it in that light," he remarked,
+still without the least sign of discomposure.  "We will, if you
+do not mind, waive the discussion for the moment.  Do you prefer
+a small restaurant or a corner in a big one?   There is music at
+Frascati's but there are not so many people in the smaller ones."
+
+She turned half around upon the pavement and looked at him
+steadfastly.  His personality was at last beginning to interest
+her.  His square jaw and measured speech were indices of a
+character at least unusual.  She recognized certain invincible
+qualities under an exterior absolutely commonplace.
+
+"Are you as persistent about everything in life?" she asked him.
+
+"Why not?" he replied.  "I try always to be consistent."
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"Leonard Tavernake," he answered, promptly.
+
+"Are you well off--I mean moderately well off?"
+
+"I have a quite sufficient income."
+
+"Have you any one dependent upon you?"
+
+"Not a soul," he declared.  "I am my own master in every sense of
+the word."
+
+She laughed in an odd sort of way.
+
+"Then you shall pay for your persistence," she said, ---"I mean
+that I may as well rob you of a sovereign as the restaurant
+people."
+
+"You must tell me now where you would like to go to," he
+insisted.  "It is getting late."
+
+"I do not like these foreign places," she replied.  "I should
+prefer to go to the grill-room of a good restaurant."
+
+"We will take a taxicab," he announced.  "You have no objection?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"If you have the money and don't mind spending it," she said, "I
+will admit that I have had all the walking I want.  Besides, the
+toe of my boot is worn through and I find it painful.  Yesterday
+I tramped ten miles trying to find a man who was getting up a
+concert party for the provinces."
+
+"And did you find him?" he asked, hailing a cab.
+
+"Yes, I found him," she answered, indifferently.  "We went
+through the usual programme.  He heard me sing, tried to kiss me
+and promised to let me know.  Nobody ever refuses anything in my
+profession, you see.  They promise to let you know."
+
+"Are you a singer, then, or an actress?"
+
+"I am neither," she told him.  "I said 'my profession' because it
+is the only one to which I have ever tried to belong.  I have
+never succeeded in obtaining an engagement in this country.  I do
+not suppose that even if I had persevered I should ever have had
+one."
+
+"You have given up the idea, then," he remarked.
+
+"I have given it up," she admitted, a little curtly.  "Please do
+not think, because I am allowing you to be my companion for a
+short time, that you may ask me questions.  How fast these taxies
+go!"
+
+They drew up at their destination--a well-known restaurant in
+Regent Street.  He paid the cabman and they descended a flight of
+stairs into the grill-room.
+
+"I hope that this place will suit you," he said.  "I have not
+much experience of restaurants."
+
+She looked around and nodded.
+
+"Yes," she replied, "I think that it will do."
+
+She was very shabbily dressed, and he, although his appearance
+was by no means ordinary, was certainly not of the type which
+inspires immediate respect in even the grill-room of a
+fashionable restaurant.  Nevertheless, they received prompt and
+almost ofcious service.  Tavernake, as he watched his companion's
+air, her manner of seating herself and accepting the attentions
+of the head waiter, felt that nameless impulse which was
+responsible for his having followed her from Blenheim House and
+which he could only call curiosity, becoming stronger.  An
+exceedingly matter-of-fact person, he was also by instinct and
+habit observant.  He never doubted but that she belonged to a
+class of society from which the guests at the boarding-house
+where they had both lived were seldom recruited, and of which he
+himself knew little.  He was not in the least a snob, this young
+man, but he found the fact interesting.  Life with him was
+already very much the same as a ledger account--a matter of
+debits and credits, and he had never failed to include among the
+latter that curious gift of breeding for which he himself, denied
+it by heritage, had somehow substituted a complete and
+exceedingly rare naturalness.
+
+"I should like," she announced, laying down the carte, "a fried
+sole, some cutlets, an ice, and black coffee."
+
+The waiter bowed.
+
+"And for Monsieur?"
+
+Tavernake glanced at his watch; it was already ten o'clock.
+
+"I will take the same," he declared.
+
+"And to drink?"
+
+She seemed indifferent.
+
+"Any light wine," she answered, carelessly, "white or red."
+
+Tavernake took up the wine list and ordered sauterne.  They were
+left alone in their corner for a few minutes, almost the only
+occupants of the place.
+
+"You are sure that you can afford this?" she asked, looking at
+him critically.  "It may cost you a sovereign or thirty
+shillings."
+
+He studied the prices on the menu.
+
+"I can afford it quite well and I have plenty of money with me,"
+he assured her, "but I do not think that it will cost more than
+eighteen shillings.  While we are waiting for the sole, shall we
+talk?   I can tell you, if you choose to hear, why I followed you
+from the boardinghouse."
+
+"I don't mind listening to you," she told him, "or I will talk
+with you about anything you like.  There is only one subject
+which I cannot discuss; that subject is myself and my own
+doings."
+
+Tavernake was silent for a moment.
+
+"That makes conversation a bit difficult," he remarked.  She
+leaned back in her chair.
+
+"After this evening," she said, "I go out of your life as
+completely and finally as though I had never existed.  I have a
+fancy to take my poor secrets with me.  If you wish to talk, tell
+me about yourself.  You have gone out of your way to be kind to
+me.  I wonder why.  It doesn't seem to be your role."
+
+He smiled slowly.  His face was fashioned upon broad lines and
+the relaxing of his lips lightened it wonderfully.  He had good
+teeth, clear gray eyes, and coarse black hair which he wore a
+trifle long; his forehead was too massive for good looks.
+
+"No," he admitted, "I do not think that benevolence is one of my
+characteristics."
+
+Her dark eyes were turned full upon him; her red lips, redder
+than ever they seemed against the pallor of her cheeks and her
+deep brown hair, curled slightly.  There was something almost
+insolent in her tone.
+
+"You understand, I hope," she continued, "that you have nothing
+whatever to look for from me in return for this sum which you
+propose to expend for my entertainment?"
+
+"I understand that," he replied.
+
+"Not even gratitude," she persisted.  "I really do not feel
+grateful to you.  You are probably doing this to gratify some
+selfish interest or curiosity.  I warn you that I am quite
+incapable of any of the proper sentiments of life."
+
+"Your gratitude would be of no value to me whatever," he assured
+her.
+
+She was still not wholly satisfied.  His complete stolidity
+frustrated every effort she made to penetrate beneath the
+surface.
+
+"If I believed," she went on, "that you were one of those men--
+the world is full of them, you know--who will help a woman with a
+reasonable appearance so long as it does not seriously interfere
+with their own comfort--"
+
+"Your sex has nothing whatever to do with it," he interrupted.
+"As to your appearance, I have not even considered it.  I could
+not tell you whether you are beautiful or ugly--I am no judge of
+these matters.  What I have done, I have done because it pleased
+me to do it."
+
+"Do you always do what pleases you?" she asked.
+
+"Nearly always."
+
+She looked him over again attentively, with an interest obviously
+impersonal, a trifle supercilious.
+
+"I suppose," she remarked, "you consider yourself one of the
+strong people of the world?"
+
+"I do not know about that," he answered.  "I do not often think
+about myself."
+
+"I mean," she explained, "that you are one of those people who
+struggle hard to get just what they want in life."
+
+His jaw suddenly tightened and she saw the likeness to Napoleon.
+
+"I do more than struggle," he affirmed, "I succeed.  If I make up
+my mind to do a thing, I do it; if I make up my mind to get a
+thing, I get it.  It means hard work sometimes, but that is all."
+
+For the first time, a really natural interest shone out of her
+eyes.  The half sulky contempt with which she had received his
+advances passed away.  She became at that moment a human being,
+self-forgetting, the heritage of her charms--for she really had a
+curious but very poignant attractiveness--suddenly evident.  It
+was only a momentary lapse and it was entirely wasted.  Not even
+one of the waiters happened to be looking that way, and Tavernake
+was thinking wholly of himself.
+
+"It is a good deal to say--that," she remarked, reflectively.
+
+"It is a good deal but it is not too much," he declared.  "Every
+man who takes life seriously should say it."
+
+Then she laughed--actually laughed--and he had a vision of
+flashing white teeth, of a mouth breaking into pleasant curves,
+of dark mirth-lit eyes, lustreless no longer, provocative,
+inspiring.  A vague impression as of something pleasant warmed
+his blood.  It was a rare thing for him to be so stirred, but
+even then it was not sufficient to disturb the focus of his
+thoughts.
+
+"Tell me," she demanded, "what do you do?   What is your
+profession or work?"
+
+"I am with a firm of auctioneers and estate agents," he answered
+readily,--"Messrs. Dowling, Spence & Company the name is.  Our
+offices are in Waterloo Place."
+
+"You find it interesting?"
+
+"Of course," he answered.  "Interesting?  Why not?  I work at
+it."
+
+"Are you a partner?"
+
+"No," he admitted.  "Six years ago I was a carpenter; then I
+became an errand boy in Mr. Dowling's office I had to learn the
+business, you see.  To-day I am a sort of manager.  In eighteen
+months' time--perhaps before that if they do not offer me a
+partnership--I shall start for myself."
+
+Once more the subtlest of smiles flickered at the corners of her
+lips.
+
+"Do they know yet?" she asked, with faint irony.
+
+"Not yet," he replied, with absolute seriousness.  "They might
+tell me to go, and I have a few things to learn yet.  I would
+rather make experiments for some one else than for myself.  I can
+use the results later; they will help me to make money."
+
+She laughed softly and wiped the tears out of her eyes.  They
+were really very beautiful eyes notwithstanding the dark rims
+encircling them.
+
+"If only I had met you before!" she murmured.
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Don't ask me," she begged.  "It would not be good for your
+conceit, if you have any, to tell you."
+
+"I have no conceit and I am not inquisitive," he said, "but I do
+not see why you laughed."
+
+Their period of waiting came to an end at this point.  The fish
+was brought and their conversation became disjointed.  In the
+silence which followed, the old shadow crept over her face.  Once
+only it lifted.  It was while they were waiting for the cutlets.
+She leaned towards him, her elbows upon the tablecloth, her face
+supported by her fingers.
+
+"I think that it is time we left these generalities," she
+insisted, "and you told me something rather more personal,
+something which I am very anxious to know.  Tell me exactly why
+so self-centered a person as yourself should interest himself in
+a fellow-creature at all.  It seems odd to me."
+
+"It is odd," he admitted, frankly.  "I will try to explain it to
+you but it will sound very bald, and I do not think that you will
+understand.  I watched you a few nights ago out on the roof at
+Blenheim House.  You were looking across the house-tops and you
+didn't seem to be seeing anything at all really, and yet all the
+time I knew that you were seeing things I couldn't, you were
+understanding and appreciating something which I knew nothing of,
+and it worried me.  I tried to talk to you that evening, but you
+were rude."
+
+"You really are a curious person," she remarked.  "Are you always
+worried, then, if you find that some one else is seeing things or
+understanding things which are outside your comprehension?"
+
+"Always," he replied promptly.
+
+"You are too far-reaching," she affirmed.  "You want to gather
+everything into your life.  You cannot.  You will only be unhappy
+if you try.  No man can do it.  You must learn your limitations
+or suffer all your days."
+
+"Limitations!" He repeated the words with measureless scorn.  "If
+I learn them at all," he declared, with unexpected force, "it
+will be with scars and bruises, for nothing else will content
+me."
+
+"We are, I should say, almost the same age," she remarked slowly.
+
+"I am twenty-five," he told her.
+
+"I am twenty-two," she said.  "It seems strange that two people
+whose ideas of life are as far apart as the Poles should have
+come together like this even for a moment.  I do not understand
+it at all.  Did you expect that I should tell you just what I saw
+in the clouds that night?"
+
+"No," he answered, "not exactly.  I have spoken of my first
+interest in you only.  There are other things.  I told a lie
+about the bracelet and I followed you out of the boarding-house
+and I brought you here, for some other for quite a different
+reason."
+
+"Tell me what it was," she demanded.
+
+"I do not know it myself," he declared solemnly.  "I really and
+honestly do not know it.  It is because I hoped that it might
+come to me while we were together, that I am here with you at
+this moment.  I do not like impulses which I do not understand."
+
+She laughed at him a little scornfully.
+
+"After all," she said, "although it may not have dawned upon you
+yet, it is probably the same wretched reason.  You are a man and
+you have the poison somewhere in your blood.  I am really not
+bad-looking, you know."
+
+He looked at her critically.  She was a little over-slim,
+perhaps, but she was certainly wonderfully graceful.  Even the
+poise of her head, the manner in which she leaned back in her
+chair, had its individuality.  Her features, too, were good,
+though her mouth had grown a trifle hard.  For the first time the
+dead pallor of her cheeks was relieved by a touch of color.  Even
+Tavernake realized that there were great possibilities about her.
+Nevertheless, he shook his head.
+
+"I do not agree with you in the least," he asserted firmly.
+"Your looks have nothing to do with it.  I am sure that it is not
+that."
+
+"Let me cross-examine you," she suggested.  "Think carefully now.
+Does it give you no pleasure at all to be sitting here alone with
+me?"
+
+He answered her deliberately; it was obvious that he was speaking
+the truth.
+
+"I am not conscious that it does," he declared.  "The only
+feeling I am aware of at the present moment in connection with
+you, is the curiosity of which I have already spoken."
+
+She leaned a little towards him, extending her very shapely
+fingers.  Once more the smile at her lips transformed her face.
+
+"Look at my hand," she said.  "Tell me--wouldn't you like to hold
+it just for a minute, if I gave it you?"
+
+Her eyes challenged his, softly and yet imperiously.  His whole
+attention, however, seemed to be absorbed by her finger-nails.
+It seemed strange to him that a girl in her straits should have
+devoted so much care to her hands.
+
+"No," he answered deliberately, "I have no wish to hold your
+hand.  Why should I?"
+
+"Look at me," she insisted.
+
+He did so without embarrassment or hesitation,--it was more than
+ever apparent that he was entirely truthful.  She leaned back in
+her chair, laughing softly to herself.
+
+"Oh, my friend Mr. Leonard Tavernake," she exclaimed, "if you
+were not so crudely, so adorably, so miraculously truthful, what
+a prig, prig, prig, you would be!  The cutlets at last, thank
+goodness!  Your cross-examination is over.  I pronounce you 'Not
+Guilty!"'
+
+During the progress of the rest of the meal, they talked very
+little.  At its conclusion, Tavernake discharged the bill, having
+carefully checked each item and tipped the waiter the exact
+amount which the man had the right to expect.  They ascended the
+stairs together to the street, the girl lingering a few steps
+behind.  On the pavement her fingers touched his arm.
+
+"I wonder, would you mind driving me down to the Embankment?" she
+asked almost humbly.  "It was so close down there and I want some
+air."
+
+This was an extravagance which he had scarcely contemplated, but
+he did not hesitate.  He called a taxicab and seated himself by
+her side.  Her manner seemed to have grown quieter and more
+subdued, her tone was no longer semi-belligerent.
+
+"I will not keep you much longer," she promised.  "I suppose I am
+not so strong as I used to be.  I have had scarcely anything to
+eat for two days and conversation has become an unknown luxury.
+I think--it seems absurd--but I think that I am feeling a little
+faint."
+
+"The air will soon revive you," he said.  "As to our
+conversation, I am disappointed.  I think that you are very
+foolish not to tell me more about yourself."
+
+She closed her eyes, ignoring his remark.  They turned presently
+into a narrower thoroughfare.  She leaned towards him.
+
+"You have been very good to me," she admitted almost timidly,
+"and I am afraid that I have not been very gracious.  We shall
+not see one another again after this evening.  I wonder--would
+you care to kiss me?"
+
+He opened his lips and closed them again.  He sat quite still,
+his eyes fixed upon the road ahead, until he had strangled
+something absolutely absurd, something unrecognizable.
+
+"I would rather not," he decided quietly.  "I know you mean to be
+kind but that sort of thing--well, I don't think I understand it.
+Besides," he added with a sudden na‹ve relief, as he clutched at
+a fugitive but plausible thought, "if I did you would not believe
+the things which I have been telling you."
+
+He had a curious idea that she was disappointed as she turned her
+head away, but she said nothing.  Arrived at the Embankment, the
+cab came slowly to a standstill.  The girl descended.  There was
+something new in her manner; she looked away from him when she
+spoke.
+
+"You had better leave me here," she said.  "I am going to sit
+upon that seat."
+
+Then came those few seconds' hesitation which were to count for a
+great deal in his life.  The impulse which bade him stay with her
+was unaccountable but it conquered.
+
+"If you do not object," he remarked with some stiffness, "I
+should like to sit here with you for a little time.  There is
+certainly a breeze."
+
+She made no comment but walked on.  He paid the man and followed
+her to the empty seat.  Opposite, some illuminated advertisements
+blazed their unsightly message across the murky sky.  Between the
+two curving rows of yellow lights the river flowed--black,
+turgid, hopeless.  Even here, though they had escaped from its
+absolute thrall, the far-away roar of the city beat upon their
+ears.  She listened to it for a moment and then pressed her hands
+to the side of her head.
+
+"Oh, how I hate it!" she moaned.  "The voices, always the voices,
+calling, threatening, beating you away!  Take my hands, Leonard
+Tavernake,--hold me."
+
+He did as she bade him, clumsily, as yet without comprehension.
+
+"You are not well," he muttered.
+
+Her eyes opened and a flash of her old manner returned.  She
+smiled at him, feebly but derisively.
+
+"You foolish boy!" she cried.  "Can't you see that I am dying?
+Hold my hands tightly and watch--watch!  Here is one more thing
+you can see--that you cannot understand."
+
+He saw the empty phial slip from her sleeve and fall on to the
+pavement.  With a cry he sprang up and, carrying her in his arms,
+rushed out into the road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+AN UNPLEASANT MEETING
+
+It was a quarter past eleven and the theatres were disgorging
+their usual nightly crowds.  The most human thoroughfare in any
+of the world's great cities was at its best and brightest.
+Everywhere commissionaires were blowing their whistles, the
+streets were thronged with slowly-moving vehicles, the pavements
+were stirring with life.  The little crowd which had gathered in
+front of the chemist's shop was swept away.  After all, none of
+them knew exactly what they had been waiting for.  There was a
+rumor that a woman had fainted or had met with an accident.
+Certainly she had been carried into the shop and into the inner
+room, the door of which was still closed.  A few passers-by had
+gathered together and stared and waited for a few minutes, but
+had finally lost interest and melted away.  A human thoroughfare,
+this, indeed, one of the pulses of the great city beating time
+night and day to the tragedies of life.  The chemist's assistant,
+with impassive features, was serving a couple of casual customers
+from behind the counter.  Only a few yards away, beyond the
+closed door, the chemist himself and a hastily summoned doctor
+fought with Death for the body of the girl who lay upon the
+floor, faint moans coming every now and then from her blue lips.
+
+Tavernake, whose forced inaction during that terrible struggle
+had become a burden to him, slipped softly from the room as soon
+as the doctor had whispered that the acute crisis was over, and
+passed through the shop out into the street, a solemn, dazed
+figure among the light-hearted crowd.  Even in those grim
+moments, the man's individualism spoke up to him.  He was puzzled
+at his own action, He asked himself a question--not, indeed, with
+regret, but with something more than curiosity and actual
+selfprobing--as though, by concentrating his mind upon his recent
+course of action, he would be able to understand the motives
+which had influenced him.  Why had he chosen to burden himself
+with the care of this desperate young woman?  Supposing she
+lived, what was to become of her?  He had acquired a certain
+definite responsibility with regard to her future, for whatever
+the doctor and his assistant might do, it was his own promptitude
+and presence of mind which had given her the first chance of
+life.  Without a doubt, he had behaved foolishly.  Why not vanish
+into the crowd and have done with it?  What was it to him, after
+all, whether this girl lived or died?  He had done his duty
+-- more than his duty.  Why not disappear now and let her take
+her chance?  His common sense spoke to him loudly; such thoughts
+as these beat upon his brain.
+
+Just for once in his life, however, his common sense exercised an
+altogether subordinate position.  He knew very well, even while
+he listened to these voices, that he was only counting the
+minutes until he could return.  Having absolutely decided that
+the only reasonable course left for him to pursue was to return
+home and leave the girl to her fate, he found himself back inside
+the shop within a quarter of an hour.  The chemist had just come
+out from the inner room, and looked up at his entrance.
+
+"She'll do now," he announced.
+
+Tavernake nodded.  He was amazed at his own sense of relief.
+
+"I am glad," he declared.
+
+The doctor joined them, his black bag in his hand, prepared for
+departure.  He addressed himself to Tavernake as the responsible
+person.
+
+"The young lady will be all right now," he said, "but she may be
+rather queer for a day or two.  Fortunately, she made the usual
+mistake of people who are ignorant of medicine and its effects --
+she took enough poison to kill a whole household.  You had better
+take care of her, young man," he added dryly.  "She'll be getting
+into trouble if she tries this sort of thing again."
+
+"Will she need any special attention during the next few days?"
+Tavernake asked.  "The circumstances under which I brought her
+here are a little unusual, and I am not quite sure--"
+
+"Take her home to bed," the doctor interrupted, "and you'll find
+she'll sleep it off.  She seems to have a splendid constitution,
+although she has let herself run down.  If you need any further
+advice and your own medical man is not available, I will come and
+see her if you send for me.  Camden, my name is; telephone number
+734 Gerrard."
+
+"I should be glad to know the amount of your fee, if you please,"
+Tavernake said.
+
+"My fee is two guineas," the doctor answered.
+
+Tavernake paid him and he went away.  Already the shadow of the
+tragedy was passing.  The chemist had joined his assistant and
+was busy dispensing drugs behind his counter.
+
+"You can go in to the young lady, if you like," he remarked to
+Tavernake.  "I dare say she'll feel better to have some one with
+her."
+
+Tavernake passed slowly into the inner room, closing the door
+behind him.  He was scarcely prepared for so piteous a sight.
+The girl's face was white and drawn as she lay upon the couch to
+which they had lifted her.  The fighting spirit was dead; she was
+in a state of absolute and complete collapse.  She opened her
+eyes at his coning, but closed them again almost immediately
+-- less, it seemed, from any consciousness of his presence than
+from sheer exhaustion.
+
+"I am glad that you are better," he whispered crossing the room
+to her side.
+
+"Thank you," she murmured almost inaudibly.
+
+Tavernake stood looking down upon her, and his sense of
+perplexity increased.  Stretched on the hard horsehair couch she
+seemed, indeed, pitifully thin and younger than her years.  The
+scowl, which had passed from her face, had served in some measure
+as a disguise.
+
+"We shall have to leave here in a few minutes," he said, softly.
+"They will want to close the shop."
+
+"I am so sorry," she faltered, "to have given you all this
+trouble.  You must send me to a hospital or the workhouse
+-- anywhere."
+
+"You are sure that there are no friends to whom I can send?" he
+asked.
+
+"There is no one!"
+
+She closed her eyes and Tavernake sat quite still on the end of
+her couch, his elbow upon his knee, his head resting upon his
+hand.  Presently, the rush of customers having ceased, the
+chemist came in.
+
+"I think, if I were you, I should take her home now," he
+remarked.  "She'll probably drop off to sleep very soon and wake
+up much stronger.  I have made up a prescription here in case of
+exhaustion."
+
+Tavernake stared at the man.  Take her home!  His sense of humor
+was faint enough but he found himself trying to imagine the faces
+of Mrs. Lawrence or Mrs. Fitzgerald if he should return with her
+to the boardinghouse at such an hour.
+
+"I suppose you know where she lives?" the chemist inquired
+curiously.
+
+"Of course," Tavernake assented.  "You are quite right.  I dare
+say she is strong enough now to walk as far as the pavement."
+
+He paid the bill for the medicines, and they lifted her from the
+couch.  Between them she walked slowly into the outer shop.  Then
+she began to drag on their arms and she looked up at the chemist
+a little piteously.
+
+"May I sit down for a moment?" she begged.  "I feel faint."
+
+They placed her in one of the cane chairs facing the door.  The
+chemist mixed her some sal volatile.
+
+"I am sorry," she murmured, "so sorry.  In a few minutes--I shall
+be better."
+
+Outside, the throng of pedestrians had grown less, but from the
+great restaurant opposite a constant stream of motor-cars and
+carriages was slowly bringing away the supper guests.  Tavernake
+stood at the door, watching them idly.  The traffic was
+momentarily blocked and almost opposite to him a motor-car, the
+simple magnificence of which filled him with wonder, had come to
+a standstill.  The chauffeur and footman both wore livery which
+was almost white.  Inside a swinging vase of flowers was
+suspended from the roof.  A man and a woman leaned back in
+luxurious easy-chairs.  The man was dark and had the look of a
+foreigner.  The woman was very fair.  She wore a long ermine
+cloak and a tiara of pearls.
+
+Tavernake, whose interest in the passing throngs was entirely
+superficial, found himself for some reason curiously attracted by
+this glimpse into a world of luxury of which he knew nothing;
+attracted, too, by the woman's delicate face with its uncommon
+type of beauty.  Their eyes met as he stood there, stolid and
+motionless, framed in the doorway.  Tavernake continued to stare,
+unmindful, perhaps unconscious, of the rudeness of his action.
+The woman, after a moment, glanced away at the shopwindow.  A
+sudden thought seemed to strike her.  She spoke through the tube
+at her side and turned to her companion.  Meanwhile, the footman,
+leaning from his place, held out his arm in warning and the car
+was slowly backed to the side of the pavement.  The lady felt for
+a moment in a bag of white satin which lay upon the round table
+in front of her, and handed a slip of paper through the open
+window to the servant who had already descended and was standing
+waiting.  He came at once towards the shop, passing Tavernake,
+who remained in the door-way.
+
+"Will you make this up at once, please?" he directed, handing the
+paper across to the chemist.
+
+The chemist took it in his hand and turned away mechanically
+toward the dispensing room.  Suddenly he paused, and, looking
+back, shook his head.
+
+"For whom is this prescription required?" he asked.
+
+"For my mistress," the man answered.  "Her name is there."
+
+"Where is she?"
+
+"Outside; she is waiting for it."
+
+"If she really wants this made up to-night," the chemist
+declared, "she must come in and sign the book."
+
+The footman looked across the counter, for a moment, a little
+blankly.
+
+"Am I to tell her that?" he inquired.  "It's only a sleeping
+draught.  Her regular chemist makes it up all right."
+
+"That may be," the man behind the counter replied, "but, you see,
+I am not her regular chemist.  You had better go and tell her
+so."
+
+The footman departed upon his errand without a glance at the girl
+who was sitting within a few feet of him.
+
+"I am very sorry, madam," he announced to his mistress, "that the
+chemist declines to make up the prescription unless you sign the
+book."
+
+"Very well, then, I will come," she declared.
+
+The woman, handed from the automobile by her servant, lifted her
+white satin skirts in both hands and stepped lightly across the
+pavement.  Tavernake stood on one side to let her pass.  She
+seemed to him to be, indeed, a creature of that other world of
+which he knew nothing.  Her slow, graceful movements, the shimmer
+of her skirt, her silk stockings, the flashing of the diamond
+buckles upon her shoes, the faint perfume from her clothes, the
+soft touch of her ermine as she swept by--all these things were
+indeed strange to him.  His eyes followed her with rapt interest
+as she approached the counter.
+
+"You wish me to sign for my prescription?" she asked the chemist.
+"I will do so, with pleasure, if it is necessary, only you must
+not keep me waiting long."
+
+Her voice was very low and very musical; the slight smile which
+had parted her tired lips, was almost pathetic.  Even the chemist
+felt himself to be a human being.  He turned at once to his
+shelves and began to prepare the drug.
+
+"I am sorry, madam, that it should have been necessary to fetch
+you in," he said, apologetically.  "My assistant will give you
+the book if you will kindly sign it."
+
+The assistant dived beneath the counter, reappearing almost
+immediately with a black volume and a pen and ink.  The chemist
+was engrossed upon his task; Tavernake's eyes were still riveted
+upon this woman, who seemed to him the most beautiful thing he
+had ever seen in life.  No one was watching the girl.  The
+chemist was the first to see her face, and that only in a looking
+glass.  He stopped in the act of mixing his drug and turned
+slowly round.  His expression was such that they all followed his
+eyes.  The girl was sitting up in her chair, with a sudden spot
+of color burning in her cheeks, her fingers gripping the counter
+as though for support, her eyes dilated, unnatural, burning in
+their white setting with an unholy fire.  The lady was the last
+to turn her head, and the bottle of eau-de-cologne which she had
+taken up from the counter, slipped with a crash to the floor.
+All expression seemed to pass from her face; the very life seemed
+drawn from it.  Those who were watching her saw suddenly an old
+woman looking at something of which she was afraid.
+
+The girl seemed to find an unnatural strength.  She dragged
+herself up and turned wildly to Tavernake.
+
+"Take me away," she cried, in a low voice.  "Take me away at
+once."
+
+The woman at the counter did not speak.  Tavernake stepped
+quickly forward and then hesitated.  The girl was on her feet now
+and she clutched at his arms.  Her eyes besought him.
+
+"You must take me away, please," she begged, hoarsely.  "I am
+well now--quite well.  I can walk."
+
+Tavernake's lack of imagination stood him in good stead then.  He
+simply did what he was told, did it in perfectly mechanical
+fashion, without asking any questions.  With the girl leaning
+heavily upon his arm, he stepped into the street and almost
+immediately into a passing taxicab which he had hailed from the
+threshold of the shop.  As he closed the door, he glanced behind
+him.  The woman was standing there, half turned towards him,
+still with that strange, stony look upon her lifeless face.  The
+chemist was bending across the counter towards her, wondering,
+perhaps, if another incident were to be drawn into his night's
+work.  The eau-de-cologne was running in a little stream across
+the floor.
+
+"Where to, sir?" the taxicab driver asked Tavernake.
+
+"Where to?" Tavernake repeated.
+
+The girl was clinging to his arm.
+
+"Tell him to drive away from here," she whispered, "to drive
+anywhere, but away from here."
+
+"Drive straight on," Tavernake directed, "along Fleet Street and
+up Holborn.  I will give you the address later on."
+
+The man changed his speed and their pace increased.  Tavernake
+sat quite still, dumfounded by these amazing happenings.  The
+girl by his side was clutching his arm, sobbing a little
+hysterically, holding him all the time as though in terror.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+BREAKFAST WITH BEATRICE
+
+
+The girl, awakened, perhaps, by the passing of some heavy cart
+along the street below, or by the touch of the sunbeam which lay
+across her pillow, first opened her eyes and then, after a
+preliminary stare around, sat up in bed.  The events of the
+previous night slowly shaped themselves in her mind.  She
+remembered everything up to the commencement of that drive in the
+taxicab.  Sometime after that she must have fainted.  And now
+-- what had become of her?  Where was she?
+
+She looked around her in ever-increasing surprise.  Certainly it
+was the strangest room she had ever been in.  The floor was dusty
+and innocent of any carpet; the window was bare and uncurtained.
+The walls were unpapered but covered here and there with strange-
+looking plans, one of them taking up nearly the whole side of the
+room--a very rough piece of work with little dabs of blue paint
+here and there, and shadings and diagrams which were absolutely
+unintelligible.  She herself was lying upon a battered iron
+bedstead, and she was wearing a very coarse nightdress.  Her own
+clothes were folded up and lay upon a piece of brown paper on the
+floor by the side of the bed.  To all appearance, the room was
+entirely unfurnished, except that in the middle of it was a
+hideous papier mache screen.
+
+After her first bewildered inspection of her surroundings, it was
+upon this screen that her attention was naturally directed.
+Obviously it must be there to conceal something.  Very carefully
+she leaned out of bed until she was able to see around the corner
+of it.  Then her heart gave a little jump and she was only just
+able to stifle an exclamation of fear.  Some one was sitting
+there--a man--sitting on a battered cane chair, bending over a
+roll of papers which were stretched upon a rude deal table.  She
+felt her cheeks grow hot.  It must be Tavernake!  Where had he
+brought her?  What did his presence in the room mean?
+
+The bed creaked heavily as she regained her former position.  A
+voice came to her from behind the screen.  She knew it at once.
+It was Tavernake's.
+
+"Are you awake?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she answered,--"yes, I am awake.  Is that Mr. Tavernake?
+Where am I, please?"
+
+"First of all, are you better?" he inquired.
+
+"I am better," she assured him, sitting up in bed and pulling the
+clothes to her chin.  "I am quite well now.  Tell me at once
+where I am and what you are doing over there."
+
+"There is nothing to be terrified about," Tavernake answered.
+"To all effects and purposes, I am in another room.  When I move
+to the door, as I shall do directly, I shall drag the screen with
+me.  I can promise you--"
+
+"Please explain everything," she begged, "quickly.  I am most
+-- uncomfortable."
+
+"At half-past twelve this morning," Tavernake said, "I found
+myself alone in a taxicab with you, without any luggage or any
+idea where to go to.  To make matters worse, you fainted.  I
+tried two hotels but they refused to take you in; they were
+probably afraid that you were going to be ill.  Then I thought of
+this room.  I am employed, as you know, by a firm of estate
+agents.  I do a great deal of work on my own account, however,
+which I prefer to do in secret, and unknown to any one.  For that
+reason, I hired this room a year ago and I come here most
+evenings to work.  Sometimes I stay late, so last month I bought
+a small bedstead and had it fixed up here.  There is a woman who
+comes in to clean the room.  I went to her house last night and
+persuaded her to come here.  She undressed you and put you to
+bed.  I am sorry that my presence here distresses you, but it is
+a large building and quite empty at night-time.  I thought you
+might wake up and be frightened, so I borrowed this screen from
+the woman and have been sitting here."
+
+"What, all night?" she gasped.
+
+"Certainly," he answered.  "The woman could not stop herself and
+this is not a residential building at all.  All the lower floors
+are let for offices and warehouses, and there is no one else in
+the place until eight o'clock."
+
+She put her hands to her head and sat quite still for a moment or
+two.  It was really hard to take everything in.
+
+"Aren't you very sleepy?" she asked, irrelevantly.
+
+"Not very," he replied.  I dozed for an hour, a little time ago.
+Since then I have been looking through some plans which interest
+me very much."
+
+"Can I get up?" she inquired, timidly.
+
+"If you feel strong enough, please do," he answered, with
+manifest relief.  "I shall move towards the door, dragging the
+screen in front of me.  You will find a brush and comb and some
+hairpins on your clothes.  I could not think of anything else to
+get for you, but, if you will dress, we will walk to London
+Bridge Station, which is just across the way, and while I order
+some breakfast you can go into the ladies' room and do your hair
+properly.  I did my best to get hold of a looking-glass, but it
+was quite impossible."
+
+The girl's sense of humor was suddenly awake.  She had hard work
+not to scream.  He had evidently thought out all these details in
+painstaking fashion, one by one.
+
+"Thank you," she said.  "I will get up immediately, if you will
+do as you say."
+
+He clutched the screen from the inside and dragged it towards the
+door.  On the threshold, he spoke to her once more.
+
+"I shall sit upon the stairs just outside," he announced.
+
+"I sha'n't be more than five minutes," she assured him.
+
+She sprang out of bed and dressed quickly.  There was nothing
+beyond where the screen had been except a table covered with
+plans, and a particularly hard cane chair which she dragged over
+for her own use.  As she dressed, she began to realize how much
+this matter-of-fact, unimpressionable young man had done for her
+during the last few hours.  The reflection affected her in a
+curious manner.  She became afflicted with a shyness which she
+bad not felt when he was in the room.  When at last she had
+finished her toilette and opened the door, she was almost
+tongue-tied.  He was sitting on the top step, with his back
+against the landing, and his eyes were closed.  He opened them
+with a little start, however, as soon as he heard her approach.
+
+"I am glad you have not been long," he remarked.  "I want to be
+at my office at nine o'clock and I must go and have a bath
+somewhere.  These stairs are rather steep.  Please walk
+carefully."
+
+She followed him in silence down three flights of stone steps.
+On each landing there were names upon the doors--two firms of hop
+merchants, a solicitor, and a commission agent.  The ground floor
+was some sort of warehouse, from which came a strong smell of
+leather.
+
+Tavernake opened the outside door with a small key and they
+passed into the street.
+
+"London Bridge Station is just across the way," he said.  "The
+refreshment room will be open and we can get some breakfast at
+once."
+
+"What time is it?" she asked.
+
+"About half-past seven."
+
+She walked by his side quite meekly, and although there were many
+things which she was longing to say, she remained absolutely
+without the power of speech.  Except that he was looking a little
+crumpled, there was nothing whatever in his appearance to
+indicate that he had been up all night.  He looked exactly as he
+had done on the previous day, he seemed even quite unconscious
+that there was anything unusual in their relations.  As soon as
+they arrived at the station, he pointed to the ladies'
+waiting-room.
+
+"If you will go in and arrange your hair there," he said, "I will
+go and order breakfast and have a shave.  I will be back here in
+about twenty minutes.  You had better take this."
+
+He offered her a shilling and she accepted it without hesitation.
+As soon as he had gone, however, she looked at the coin in her
+hand in blank wonder.  She had accepted it from him with perfect
+naturalness and without even saying "Thank you!"  With a queer
+little laugh, she pushed open the swinging doors and made her way
+into the waiting-room.
+
+In hardly more than a quarter of an hour she emerged, to find
+Tavernake waiting for her.  He had retied his tie, bought a fresh
+collar, had been shaved.  She, too, had improved her appearance.
+
+"Breakfast is waiting this way," he announced.
+
+She followed him obediently and they sat down at a small table in
+the station refreshment-room.
+
+"Mr. Tavernake," she asked, suddenly, "I must ask you something.
+Has anything like this ever happened to you before?"
+
+"Nothing," he assured her, with some emphasis.
+
+"You seem to take everything so much as a matter of course," she
+protested.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," she replied, a little feebly.  "Only -"
+
+She found relief in a sudden and perfectly natural laugh.
+
+"Come," he said, "that is better.  I am glad that you feel like
+laughing."
+
+"As a matter of fact," she declared, "I feel much more like
+crying.  Don't you know that you were very foolish last night?
+You ought to have left me alone.  Why didn't you?  You would have
+saved yourself a great deal of trouble."
+
+He nodded, as though that point of view did, in some degree,
+commend itself to him.
+
+"Yes," he admitted, "I suppose I should.  I do not, even now,
+understand why I interfered.  I can only remember that it didn't
+seem possible not to at the time.  I suppose one must have
+impulses," he added, with a little frown.
+
+"The reflection," she remarked, helping herself to another roll,
+"seems to annoy you."
+
+"It does," he confessed.  "I do not like to feel impelled to do
+anything the reason for which is not apparent.  I like to do just
+the things which seem likely to work out best for myself."
+
+"How you must hate me!" she murmured.
+
+"No, I do not hate you," he replied, "but, on the other hand, you
+have certainly been a trouble to me.  First of all, I told a
+falsehood at the boarding-house, and I prefer always to tell the
+truth when I can.  Then I followed you out of the house, which I
+disliked doing very much, and I seem to have spent a considerable
+portion of the time since, in your company, under somewhat
+extraordinary circumstances.  I do not understand why I have done
+this."
+
+"I suppose it is because you are a very good-hearted person," she
+remarked.
+
+"But I am not," he assured her, calmly.  "I am nothing of the
+sort.  I have very little sympathy with good-hearted people.  I
+think the world goes very much better when every one looks after
+himself, and the people who are not competent to do so go to the
+wall."
+
+"It sounds a trifle selfish," she murmured.
+
+"Perhaps it is.  I have an idea that if I could phrase it
+differently it would become philosophy."
+
+"Perhaps," she suggested, smiling across the table at him, "you
+have really done all this because you like me."
+
+"I am quite sure that it is not that," he declared.  "I feel an
+interest in you for which I cannot account, but it does not seem
+to me to be a personal one.  Last night," he continued, "when I
+was sitting there waiting, I tried to puzzle it all out.  I came
+to the conclusion that it was because you represent something
+which I do not understand.  I am very curious and it always
+interests me to learn.  I believe that must be the secret of my
+interest in you."
+
+"You are very complimentary," she told him, mockingly.  "I wonder
+what there is in the world which I could teach so superior a
+person as Mr. Tavernake?"
+
+He took her question quite seriously.
+
+"I wonder what there is myself," he answered.  "And yet, in a
+way, I think I know."
+
+"Your imagination should come to the rescue," she remarked.
+
+"I have no imagination," he declared, gloomily.
+
+They were silent for several minutes; she was still studying him.
+
+"I wonder you don't ask me any questions about myself," she said,
+abruptly.
+
+"There is only one thing," he answered, "concerning which I am in
+the least curious.  Last night in the chemist's shop--"
+
+"Don't!" she begged him, with suddenly whitening face.  "Don't
+speak of that!"
+
+"Very well," he replied, indifferently.  "I thought that you were
+rather inviting my questions.  You need not be afraid of any
+more.  I really am not curious about personal matters; I find
+that my own life absorbs all my interests."
+
+They had finished breakfast and he paid the bill.  She began to
+put on her gloves.
+
+"Whatever happens to me," she said, "I shall never forget that
+you have been very kind."
+
+She hesitated for a moment and then she seemed to realize more
+completely how really kind he had been.  There had been a certain
+crude delicacy about his actions which she had under-appreciated.
+She leaned towards him.  There was nothing left this morning of
+that disfiguring sullenness.  Her mouth was soft; her eyes were
+bright, almost appealing.  If Tavernake had been a judge of
+woman's looks, he must certainly have found her attractive.
+
+"I am very, very grateful to you," she continued, holding out her
+hand.  "I shall always remember how kind you were.  Good-bye!"
+
+"You are not going?" he asked.
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Why, you didn't imagine that you had taken the care of me upon
+your shoulders for the rest of your life?" she demanded.
+
+"No, I didn't imagine that," he answered.  "At the same time,
+what plans have you made?  Where are you going?"
+
+"Oh!  I shall think of something," she declared, indifferently.
+
+He caught the gleam in her eyes, the sudden hopelessness which
+fell like a cloud upon her face.  He spoke promptly and with
+decision.
+
+"As a matter of fact," he remarked, "you do not know yourself.
+You are just going to drift out of this place and very likely
+find your way to a seat on the Embankment again."
+
+Her lips quivered.  She had tried to be brave but it was hard.
+
+"Not necessarily," she replied.  "Something may turn up."
+
+He leaned a little across the table towards her.
+
+"Listen," he said, deliberately, "I will make a proposition to
+you.  It has come to me during the last few minutes.  I am tired
+of the boarding-house and I wish to leave it.  The work which I
+do at night is becoming more and more important.  I should like
+to take two rooms somewhere.  If I take a third, would you care
+to call yourself what I called you to the charwoman last night
+-- my sister?  I should expect you to look after the meals and my
+clothes, and help me in certain other ways.  I cannot give you
+much of a salary," he continued, "but you would have an
+opportunity during the daytime of looking out for some work, if
+that is what you want, and you would at least have a roof and
+plenty to eat and drink."
+
+She looked at him in blank amazement.  It was obvious that his
+proposition was entirely honest.
+
+"But, Mr. Tavernake," she protested, "you forget that I am not
+really your sister."
+
+"Does that matter?" he asked, without flinching.  "I think you
+understand the sort of person I am.  You would have nothing to
+fear from any admiration on my part--or anything of that sort,"
+he added, with some show of clumsiness.  "Those things do not
+come in my life.  I am ambitious to get on, to succeed and become
+wealthy.  Other things I do not even think about."
+
+She was speechless.  After a short pause, he went on.
+
+"I am proposing this arrangement as much for my own sake as for
+yours.  I am very well read and I know most of what there is to
+be known in my profession.  But there are other things concerning
+which I am ignorant.  Some of these things I believe you could
+teach me."
+
+Still speechless, she sat and looked at him for several moments.
+Outside, the station now was filled with a hurrying throng on
+their way to the day's work.  Engines were shrieking, bells
+ringing, the press of footsteps was unceasing.  In the dark, ill-
+ventilated room itself there was the rattle of crockery, the
+yawning of discontented-looking young women behind the bar, young
+women with their hair still in curl-papers, as yet unprepared for
+their weak little assaults upon the good-nature or susceptibility
+of their customers.  A queer corner of life it seemed.  She
+looked at her companion and realized how fragmentary was her
+knowledge of him.  There was nothing to be gathered from his
+face.  He seemed to have no expression.  He was simply waiting
+for her reply, with his thoughts already half engrossed upon the
+business of the day.
+
+"Really," she began, "I--"
+
+He came back from his momentary wandering and looked at her.  She
+suddenly altered the manner of her speech.  It was a strange
+proposition, perhaps, but this was one of the strangest of men.
+
+"I am quite willing to try it," she decided.  "Will you tell me
+where I can meet you later on?"
+
+"I have an hour and a half for luncheon at one o'clock," he said.
+"Meet me exactly at the southeast corner of Trafalgar Square.
+Would you like a little money?" he added, rising.
+
+"I have plenty, thank you," she answered.
+
+He laid half-a-crown upon the table and made an entry in a small
+memorandum book which he drew from his pocket.
+
+"You had better keep this," he said, "in case you want it.  I am
+going to leave you alone here.  You can find your way anywhere, I
+am sure, and I am in a hurry.  At one o'clock, remember.  I hope
+you will still be feeling better."
+
+He put on his hat and went away without a backward glance.
+Beatrice sat in her chair and watched him out of sight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+INTRODUCING Mrs. WENHAM GARDNER
+
+
+A very distinguished client was engaging the attention of Mr.
+Dowling, Senior, of Messrs. Dowling, Spence & Company,
+auctioneers and estate agents, whose offices were situated in
+Waterloo Place, Pall Mall.  Mr. Dowling was a fussy little man of
+between fifty and sixty years, who spent most of his time playing
+golf, and who, although he studiously contrived to ignore the
+fact, had long since lost touch with the details of his business.
+Consequently, in the absence of Mr. Dowling, Junior, who had
+developed a marked partiality for a certain bar in the locality,
+Tavernake was hastily summoned to the rescue from another part of
+the building, by a small boy violently out of breath.
+
+"Never see the governor in such a fuss," the latter declared,
+confidentially, "She's asking no end of questions and he don't
+know a thing."
+
+"Who is the lady?" Tavernake asked, on the way downstairs.
+
+"Didn't hear her name," the boy replied.  "She's all right,
+though, I can tell you--a regular slap-up beauty.  Such a
+motor-car, too!  Flowers and tables and all sorts of things
+inside.  By Jove, won't the governor tear his hair if she goes
+before you get there!"
+
+Tavernake quickened his steps and in a few moments knocked at the
+door of the private office and entered.
+
+His chief welcomed him with a gesture of relief.  The
+distinguished client of the firm, whose attention he was
+endeavoring to engage, had glanced toward the newcomer, at his
+first appearance, with an air of somewhat bored unconcern.  Her
+eyes, however, did not immediately leave his face.  On the
+contrary, from the moment of his entrance she watched him
+steadfastly.  Tavernake, stolid, unruffled, at that time without
+comprehension, approached the desk.
+
+"This is--er--Mr. Tavernake, our manager," Mr. Dowling announced,
+obsequiously.  "In the absence of my son, he is in charge of the
+letting department.  I have no doubt that he will be able to
+suggest something suitable.  Tavernake," he continued, "this
+lady,"--he glanced at a card in front of him--"Mrs. Wenham
+Gardner of New York, is looking for a town house, and has been
+kind enough to favor us with an inquiry."
+
+Tavernake made no immediate reply.  Mr. Dowling was shortsighted,
+and in any case it would never have occurred to him to associate
+nervousness, or any form of emotion, with his responsible
+manager.  The beautiful lady leaned back in her chair.  Her lips
+were parted in a slight but very curious smile, her fingers
+supported her cheek, her eyelids were contracted as she looked
+into his face.  Tavernake felt that their recognition was mutual.
+Once more he was back again in the tragic atmosphere of that
+chemist's shop, with Beatrice, half fainting, in his arms, the
+beautiful lady turned to stone.  It was an odd tableau, that, so
+vividly imprinted upon his memory that it was there before him at
+this very moment.  There was mystery in this woman's eyes,
+mystery and something else.
+
+"I don't seem to have come across anything down here which--er
+-- particularly attracts Mrs.--Mrs. Wenham Gardner," Mr. Dowling
+went on, taking up a little sheaf of papers from the desk.  "I
+thought, perhaps, that the Bryanston Square house might have
+suited, but it seems that it is too small, far too small.  Mrs.
+Gardner is used to entertaining, and has explained to me that she
+has a great many friends always coming and going from the other
+side of the water.  She requires, apparently, twelve bedrooms,
+besides servants' quarters."
+
+"Your list is scarcely up to date, sir," Tavernake reminded him.
+"If the rent is of no particular object, there is Grantham
+House."
+
+Mr. Dowling's face was suddenly illuminated.
+
+"Grantham House!" he exclaimed.  "Precisely!  Now I declare that
+it had absolutely slipped my memory for the moment--only for the
+moment, mind--that we have just had placed upon our books one of
+the most desirable mansions in the west end of London.  A most
+valued client, too, one whom we are most anxious to oblige. Dear,
+dear me!  It is very fortunate--very fortunate indeed that I
+happened to think of it, especially as it seems that no one had
+had the sense to place it upon my list.  Tavernake, get the plans
+at once and show them to--er--to Mrs. Gardner."
+
+Tavernake crossed the room in silence, opened a drawer, and
+returned with a stiff roll of papers, which he spread carefully
+out in front of this unexpected client.  She spoke then for the
+first time since he had entered the room.  Her voice was low and
+marvelously sweet.  There was very little of the American accent
+about it, but something in the intonation, especially toward the
+end of her sentences, was just a trifle un-English.
+
+"Where is this Grantham House?" she inquired.
+
+"Within a stone's throw of Grosvenor Square," Tavernake answered,
+briskly.  "It is really one of the most central spots in the west
+end.  If you will allow me!"
+
+For the next few minutes he was very fluent indeed.  With pencil
+in hand, he explained the plans, dwelt on the advantages of the
+location, and from the very reserve of his praise created an
+impression that the house he was describing was the one
+absolutely perfect domicile in the whole of London.
+
+"Can I look over the place?" she asked, when he had finished.
+
+"By all means," Mr. Dowling declared, "by all means.  I was on
+the point of suggesting it.  It will be by far the most
+satisfactory proceeding.  You will not be disappointed, my dear
+madam, I can assure you."
+
+"I should like to do so, if I may, without delay," she said.
+
+"There is no opportunity like the present," Mr. Dowling replied.
+"If you will permit me," he added, rising, "it will give me the
+greatest pleasure to escort you personally.  My engagements for
+the rest of the day happen to be unimportant.  Tavernake, let me
+have the keys of the rooms that are locked up.  The caretaker, of
+course, is there in possession."
+
+The beautiful visitor rose to her feet, and even that slight
+movement was accomplished with a grace unlike anything which
+Tavernake had ever seen before.
+
+"I could not think of troubling you so far, Mr. Dowling," she
+protested.  "It is not in the least necessary for you to come
+yourself.  Your manager can, perhaps, spare me a few minutes.  He
+seems to be so thoroughly posted in all the details," she added,
+apologetically, as she noticed the cloud on Mr. Dowling's brow.
+
+"Just as you like, of course," he declared.  "Mr. Tavernake can
+go, by all means.  Now I come to think of it, it certainly would
+be inconvenient for me to be away from the office for more than a
+few minutes.  Mr. Tavernake has all the details at his fingers'
+ends, and I only hope, Mrs. Gardner, that he will be able to
+persuade you to take the house.  Our client," he added, with a
+bow, "would, I am sure, be delighted to hear that we had secured
+for him so distinguished a tenant."
+
+She smiled at him, a delightful mixture of graciousness and
+condescension.
+
+"You are very good," she answered.  "The house sounds rather
+large for me but it depends so much upon circumstances.  If you
+are ready, Mr.--"
+
+"Tavernake," he told her.
+
+"Mr. Tavernake," she continued, "my car is waiting outside and we
+might go on at once."
+
+He bowed and held open the door for her, an office which he
+performed a little awkwardly.  Mr. Dowling himself escorted her
+out on to the pavement.  Tavernake stopped behind to get his hat,
+and passing out a moment afterwards, would have seated himself in
+front beside the chauffeur but that she held the door of the car
+open and beckoned to him.
+
+"Will you come inside, please?" she insisted.  "There are one or
+two questions which I might ask you as we go along.  Please
+direct the chauffeur."
+
+He obeyed without a word; the car glided off.  As they swung
+round the first corner, she leaned forward from among the
+cushions of her seat and looked at him.  Then Tavernake was
+conscious of new things.  As though by inspiration, he knew that
+her visit to the office of Messrs.  Dowling, Spence & Company had
+been no chance one.
+
+She remembered him, remembered him as the companion of Beatrice
+during that strange, brief meeting.  It was an incomprehensible
+world, this, into which he had wandered.  The woman's face had
+lost her languid, gracious expression.  There was something there
+almost akin to tragedy.  Her fingers fell upon his arm and her
+touch was no light one.  She was gripping him almost fiercely.
+
+"Mr. Tavernake," she said, "I have a memory for faces which
+seldom fails me.  I have seen you before quite lately.  You
+remember where, of course.  Tell me the truth quickly, please."
+
+The words seemed to leap from her lips.  Beautiful and young
+though she undoubtedly was, her intense seriousness had suddenly
+aged her face.  Tavernake was bewildered.  He, too, was conscious
+of a curious emotional disturbance.
+
+"The truth?  What truth do you mean?" he demanded.
+
+"It was you whom I saw with Beatrice!"
+
+"You saw me one night about three weeks ago," he admitted slowly.
+"I was in a chemist's shop in the Strand.  You were signing his
+book for a sleeping draught, I think."
+
+She shivered all over.
+
+"Yes, yes!" she cried.  "Of course, I remember all about it.  The
+young lady who was with you--what was she doing there?  Where is
+she now?"
+
+"The young lady was my sister," Tavernake answered stiffly.
+
+Mrs. Wenham Gardner looked, for a moment, as though she would
+have struck him.
+
+"You need not lie to me!" she exclaimed.  "It is not worth while.
+Tell me where you met her, why you were with her at all in that
+intimate fashion, and where she is now!"
+
+Tavernake realized at once that so far as this woman was
+concerned, the fable of his relationship with Beatrice was
+hopeless.  She knew!
+
+"Madam," he replied, "I made the acquaintance of the young lady
+with whom I was that evening, at the boarding-house where we both
+lived."
+
+"What were you doing in the chemist's shop?" she demanded.
+
+"The young lady had been ill," he proceeded deliberately,
+wondering how much to tell.  "She had been taken very ill indeed.
+She was just recovering when you entered."
+
+"Where is she now?" the woman asked eagerly.  "Is she still at
+that boarding-house of which you spoke?"
+
+"No," he answered.
+
+Her fingers gripped his arm once more.
+
+"Why do you answer me always in monosyllables?  Don't you
+understand that you must tell me everything that you know about
+her.  You must tell me where I can find her, at once."
+
+Tavernake remained silent.  The woman's voice had still that note
+of wonderful sweetness, but she had altogether lost her air of
+complete and aristocratic indifferenoe.  She was a very altered
+person now from the distinguished client who had first enlisted
+his services.  For some reason or other, he knew that she was
+suffering from a terrible anxiety.
+
+"I am not sure," he said at last, "whether I can do as you ask."
+
+"What do you mean?" she exclaimed sharply.
+
+"The young lady," he continued, "seemed, on the occasion to which
+you have referred, to be particularly anxious to avoid
+recognition.  She hurried out of the place without speaking to
+you, and she has avoided the subject ever since.  I do not know
+what her motives may have been, but I think that I should like to
+ask her first before I tell you where she is to be found."
+
+Mrs. Wenham Gardner leaned towards him.  It was certainly the
+first time that a woman in her apparent rank of life had looked
+upon Tavernake in such a manner.  Her forehead was a little
+wrinkled, her lips were parted, her eyes were pathetically,
+delightfully eloquent.
+
+"Mr. Tavernake, you must not--you must not refuse me," she
+pleaded.  "If you only knew the importance of it, you would not
+hesitate for a moment.  This is no idle curiosity on my part.  I
+have reasons, very serious reasons indeed, for wishing to
+discover that poor girl's whereabouts at once.  There is a
+possible danger of which she must be warned.  No one can do it
+except myself."
+
+"Are you her friend or her enemy?" Tavernake asked.
+
+"Why do you ask such a question?" she demanded.
+
+"I am only going by her expression when she saw you come into the
+chemist's shop," Tavernake persisted doggedly.
+
+"It is a cruel suggestion, that," the woman cried.  "I wish to be
+her friend, I am her friend.  If I could only tell you
+everything, you would understand at once what a terrible
+situation, what a hideous quandary I am in."
+
+Once more Tavernake paused for a few moments.  He was never a
+quick thinker and the situation was certainly an embarrassing one
+for him.
+
+"Madam," he replied at length, "I beg that you will tell me
+nothing.  The young lady of whom you have spoken permits me to
+call myself her friend, and what she has not told me herself I do
+not wish to learn from others.  I will tell her of this meeting
+with you, and if it is her desire, I will bring you her address
+myself within a few hours.  I cannot do more than that."
+
+Her face was suddenly cold and hard.
+
+"You mean that you will not!" she exclaimed angrily.  "You are
+obstinate.  I do not know how you dare to refuse what I ask."
+
+The car had come to a standstill.  He stepped out on to the
+pavement.
+
+"This is Grantham House, madam," he announced.  "Will you
+descend?"
+
+He heard her draw a quick breath between her teeth and he caught
+a gleam in her eyes which made him feel vaguely uneasy.  She was
+very angry indeed.
+
+"I do not think that it is necessary for me to do so," she said
+frigidly.  "I do not like the look of the house at all.  I do not
+believe that it will suit me."
+
+"At least, now that you are here," he protested, "you will, if
+you please, go over it.  I should like you to see the ballroom.
+The decorations are supposed to be quite exceptional."
+
+She hesitated for a moment and then, with a slight shrug of the
+shoulders, she yielded.  There was a note in his tone not exactly
+insistent, and yet dominant, a note which she obeyed although
+secretly she wondered at herself for doing so.  They passed
+inside the house and she followed him from room to room, leaving
+him to do all the talking.  She seemed very little interested but
+every now and then she asked a languid question.
+
+"I do not think that it is in the least likely to suit me," she
+decided at last.  "It is all very magnificent, of course, but I
+consider that the rent is exorbitant."
+
+Tavernake regarded her thoughtfully.
+
+"I believe," he said, " that our client might be disposed to
+consider some reduction, in the event of your seriously
+entertaining taking the house.  If you like, I will see him on
+the subject.  I feel sure that the amount I have mentioned could
+be reduced, if the other conditions were satisfactory."
+
+"There would be no harm in your doing so," she assented.  "How
+soon can you come and let me know'"
+
+"I might be able to ring you up this evening; certainly to-morrow
+morning," he answered.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I will not speak upon the telephone," she declared.  "I only
+allow it in my rooms under protest.  You must come and tell me
+what your client says.  When can you see him?"
+
+"It is doubtful whether I shall be able to find him this
+evening," he replied.  "It would probably be to-morrow morning."
+
+"You might go and try at once," she suggested.
+
+He was a little surprised.
+
+"You are really interested in the matter, then?" he inquired.
+
+"Yes, yes," she told him, "of course I am interested.  I want you
+to come and see me directly you have heard.  It is important.
+Supposing you are able to find your client to-night, shall you
+have seen the young lady before then?"
+
+"I am afraid not," he answered.
+
+"You must try," she begged, laying her fingers upon his shoulder.
+"Mr. Tavernake, do please try.  You can't realize what all this
+anxiety means to me.  I am not at all well and I am seriously
+worried about -about that young lady.  I tell you that I must
+have an interview with her.  It is not for my sake so much as
+hers.  She must be warned."
+
+"Warned?" Tavernake repeated.  "I really don't understand."
+
+"Of course you don't!" she exclaimed impatiently.  "Why should
+you understand?  I don't want to offend you, Mr. Tavernake," she
+went on hurriedly.  "I would like to treat you quite frankly.  It
+really isn't your place to make difficulties like this.  What is
+this young lady to you that you should presume to consider
+yourself her guardian?"
+
+"She is a boarding-house acquaintance," Tavernake confessed,
+"nothing more."
+
+"Then why did you tell me, only a moment ago, that she was your
+sister?" Mrs. Gardner demanded.
+
+Tavernake threw open the door before which they had been
+standing.
+
+"This," he said, "is the famous dancing gallery.  Lord Clumber is
+quite willing to allow the pictures to remain, and I may tell you
+that they are insured for over sixty thousand pounds.  There is
+no finer dancing room than this in all London."
+
+Her eyes swept around it carelessly.
+
+"I have no doubt," she admitted coldly, "that it is very
+beautiful.  I prefer to continue our discussion."
+
+"The dining-room," he went on, "is almost as large.  Lord Clumber
+tells us that he has frequently entertained eighty guests for
+dinner.  The system of ventilation in this room is, as you see,
+entirely modern."
+
+She took him by the arm and led him to a seat at the further end
+of the apartment.
+
+"Mr. Tavernake," she said, making an obvious attempt to control
+her temper, "you seem like a very sensible young man, if you will
+allow me to say so, and I want to convince you that it is your
+duty to answer my questions.  In the first place--don't be
+offended, will you?--but I cannot possibly see what interest you
+and that young lady can have in one another.  You belong, to put
+it baldly, to altogether different social stations, and it is not
+easy to imagine what you could have in common."
+
+She paused, but Tavernake had nothing to say.  His gift of
+silence amounted sometimes almost to genius.  She leaned so close
+to him while she waited in vain for his reply, that the ermine
+about her neck brushed his cheek.  The perfume of her clothes and
+hair, the pleading of her deep violet-blue eyes, all helped to
+keep him tongue-tied.  Nothing of this sort had ever happened to
+him before.  He did not in the least understand what it could
+possibly mean.
+
+"I am speaking to you now, Mr. Tavernake," she continued
+earnestly, "for your own good.  When you tell the young lady, as
+you have promised to this evening, that you have seen me, and
+that I am very, very anxious to find out where she is, she will
+very likely go down on her knees and beg you to give me no
+information whatever about her.  She will do her best to make you
+promise to keep us apart.  And yet that is all because she does
+not understand.  Believe me, it is better that you should tell me
+the truth.  You cannot know her very well, Mr. Tavernake, but she
+is not very wise, that young lady.  She is very obstinate, and
+she has some strange ideas.  It is not well for her that she
+should be left in the world alone.  You must see that for
+yourself, Mr. Tavernake."
+
+"She seems a very sensible young lady," he declared slowly.  "I
+should have thought that she would have been old enough to know
+for herself what she wanted and what was best for her."
+
+The woman at his side wrung her hands with a little gesture of
+despair.
+
+"Oh, why can't I make you understand!" she exclaimed, the emotion
+once more quivering in her tone.  "How can I--how can I possibly
+make you believe me?  Listen.  Something has happened of which
+she does not know--something terrible.  It is absolutely
+necessary, in her own interests as well as mine, that I see her,
+and that very shortly."
+
+"I shall tell her exactly what you say," Tavernake answered
+apparently unmoved.  "Perhaps it would be as well now if we went
+on to view the sleeping apartments."
+
+"Never mind about the sleeping apartments!" she cried quickly.
+"You must do more than tell her.  You can't believe that I want
+to bring harm upon any one.  Do I look like it?  Have I the
+appearance of a person of evil disposition?  You can be that
+young lady's best friend, Mr. Tavernake, if you will.  Take me to
+her now, this minute.  Believe me, if you do that, you will never
+regret it as long as you live."
+
+Tavernake studied the pattern of the parquet floor for several
+moments.  It was a difficult problem, this.  Putting his own
+extraordinary sensations into the background, he was face to face
+with something which he did not comprehend, and he disliked the
+position intensely.  After all, delay seemed safest.
+
+"Madam," he protested, "a few hours more or less can make but
+little difference."
+
+"That is for me to judge!" she exclaimed.  "You say that because
+you do not understand.  A few hours may make all the difference
+in the world."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"I will tell you exactly what is in my mind," he said,
+deliberately.  "The young lady was terrified when she saw you
+that night accidentally in the chemist's shop.  She almost
+dragged me away, and although she was almost fainting when we
+reached the taxicab, her greatest and chief anxiety was that we
+should get away before you could follow us.  I cannot forget
+this.  Until I have received her permission, therefore, to
+disclose her whereabouts, we will, if you please, speak of
+something else."
+
+He rose to his feet and glancing around was just in time to see
+the change in the face of his companion.  That eloquently
+pleading smile had died away from her lips, her teeth were
+clenched.  She looked like a woman struggling hard to control
+some overwhelming passion.  Without the smile her lips seemed
+hard, even cruel.  There were evil things shining out of her
+eyes.  Tavernake felt chilled, almost afraid.
+
+"We will see the rest of the house," she declared coldly.
+
+They went on from room to room.  Tavernake, recovering himself
+rapidly, master of his subject, was fluent and practical.  The
+woman listened, with only a terse remark here and there.  Once
+more they stood in the hall.
+
+"Is there anything else you would like to see?" he asked.
+
+"Nothing," she replied, "but there is one thing more I have to
+say."
+
+He waited in stolid silence.
+
+"Only a week ago," she went on, looking him in the face, "I told
+a man who is what you call, I think, an inquiry agent, that I
+would give a hundred pounds if he could discover that young woman
+for me within twenty-four hours."
+
+Tavernake started, and the smile came back to the lips of Mrs.
+Wenham Gardner.  After all, perhaps she had found the way!
+
+"A hundred pounds is a great deal of money," he said
+thoughtfully.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Not so very much," she replied.  "About a fortnight's rent of
+this house, Mr. Tavernake."
+
+"Is the offer still open?" he asked.
+
+She looked into his eyes, and her face had once more the
+beautiful ingenuousness of a child.
+
+"Mr. Tavernake," she said, "the offer is still open.  Get into
+the car with me and drive back to my rooms at the Milan Court,
+and I will give you a cheque for a hundred pounds at once.  It
+will be very easily earned and you may just as well take it, for
+now I know where you are employed, I could have you followed day
+by day until I discover for myself what you are so foolishly
+concealing.  Be reasonable, Mr. Tavernake."
+
+Tavernake stood quite still.  His arms were folded, he was
+looking out of the hall window at the smoky vista of roofs and
+chimneys.  From the soles of his ready-made boots to his
+ill-brushed hair, he was a commonplace young man.  A hundred
+pounds was to him a vast sum of money.  It represented a year's
+strenuous savings, perhaps more.  The woman who watched him
+imagined that he was hesitating.  Tavernake, however, had no such
+thought in his mind.  He stood there instead, wondering what
+strange thing had come to him that the mention of a hundred
+pounds, delightful sum though it was, never tempted him for a
+single second.  What this woman had said might be true.  She
+would probably be able to discover the address easily enough
+without his help.  Yet no such reflection seemed to make the
+least difference.  From the days of his earliest boyhood, from
+the time when he had flung himself into the struggle, money had
+always meant much to him, money not for its own sake but as the
+key to those things which he coveted in life.  Yet at that moment
+something stronger seemed to have asserted itself.
+
+"You will come?" she whispered, passing her arm through his.  "We
+will be there in less than five minutes, and I will write you the
+cheque before you tell me anything."
+
+He moved towards the door indeed, but he drew a little away from
+her.
+
+"Madam," he said, "I am sorry to seem so obstinate, but I thought
+I had made you understand some time ago.  I do not feel at
+liberty to tell you anything without that young lady's
+permission."
+
+"You refuse?" she cried, incredulously.  "You refuse a hundred
+pounds?"
+
+He opened the door of the car.  He seemed scarcely to have heard
+her.
+
+"At about eleven o'clock to-morrow morning," he announced, "I
+shall have the pleasure of calling upon you.  I trust that you
+will have decided to take the house."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
+
+
+Tavernake sat a few hours later at his evening meal in the tiny
+sitting-room of an apartment house in Chelsea.  He wore a black
+tie, and although he had not yet aspired to a dinner coat, the
+details of his person and toilet showed signs of a new attention.
+Opposite to him was Beatrice.
+
+"Tell me," she asked, as soon as the small maid-servant who
+brought in their first dish had disappeared, "what have you been
+doing all day?  Have you been letting houses or surveying land or
+book-keeping, or have you been out to Marston Rise?"
+
+It was her customary question, this.  She really took an interest
+in his work.
+
+"I have been attending a rich American client," he announced, "a
+compatriot of your own.  I went with her to Grantham House in her
+own motor-car.  I believe she thinks of taking it."
+
+"American!" Beatrice remarked.  "What was her name? "
+
+Tavernake looked up from his plate across the little table,
+across the bowl of simple flowers which was its sole decoration.
+
+"She called herself Mrs. Wenham Garner!"
+
+Away like a flash went the new-found peace in the girl's face.
+She caught at her breath, her fingers gripped the table in front
+of her.  Once more she was as he had known her first--pale, with
+great terrified eyes shining out of a haggard face.
+
+"She has been to you," Beatrice gasped, "for a house?  You are
+sure?"
+
+"I am quite sure," Tavernake declared, calmly.
+
+"You recognized her?"
+
+He assented gravely.
+
+"It was the woman who stood in the chemist's shop that night,
+signing her name in a book," he said.
+
+He did not apologize in any way for the shock he had given her.
+He had done it deliberately.  From that very first morning, when
+they had breakfasted together at London Bridge, he had felt that
+he deserved her confidence, and in a sense it was a grievance
+with him that she had withheld it.
+
+"Did she recognize you?"
+
+"Yes," he admitted.  "I was sent for into the office and found
+her there with the chief.  I felt sure that she recognized me
+from the first, and when she agreed to look at Grantham House,
+she insisted upon it that I should accompany her.  While we were
+in the motor-car, she asked me about you.  She wished for your
+address."
+
+"Did you give it to her?" the girl cried, breathlessly.
+
+"No; I said that I must consult you first."
+
+She drew a little sigh of relief.  Nevertheless, she was looking
+white and shaken.
+
+"Did she say what she wanted me for?"
+
+"She was very mysterious," Tavernake answered.  "She spoke of
+some danger of which you knew nothing.  Before I came away, she
+offered me a hundred pounds to let her know where you were."
+
+Beatrice laughed softly.
+
+"That is just like Elizabeth," she declared.  "You must have made
+her very angry.  When she wants anything, she wants it very badly
+indeed, and she will never believe that every person has not his
+price.  Money means everything to her.  If she had it, she would
+buy, buy, buy all the time."
+
+"On the face of it," Tavernake remarked, soberly, "her offer
+seemed rather an absurd one.  If she is in earnest, if she is
+really so anxious to discover your whereabouts, she will
+certainly be able to do so without my help."
+
+"I am not so sure," Beatrice replied.  "London is a great hiding
+place."
+
+"A private detective," he began,--
+
+Beatrice shook her head.
+
+"I do not think," she said, "that Elizabeth will care to employ a
+private detective.  Tell me, have you to see her upon this
+business again?"
+
+"I am going to her flat at the Milan Court to-morrow morning at
+eleven o'clock."
+
+Beatrice leaned back in her chair.  Presently she recommenced her
+dinner.  She had the air of one to whom a respite has been
+granted.  Tavernake, in a way, began to resent this continued
+silence of hers.  He had certainly hoped that she would at least
+have gone so far as to explain her anxiety to keep her
+whereabouts secret.
+
+"You must remember," he went on, after a short pause, "that I am
+in a somewhat peculiar position with regard to you, Beatrice.  I
+know so little that I do not even know how to answer in your
+interests such questions as Mrs. Wenham Gardner asked me.  I am
+not complaining, but is this state of absolute ignorance
+necessary?"
+
+A new thought seemed to come to Beatrice.  She looked at her
+companion curiously.
+
+"Tell me," she asked, "what did you think of Mrs. Wenham
+Gardner?"
+
+Tavernake answered deliberately, and after a moment's reflection.
+
+"I thought her," he said, "one of the most beautiful women I have
+ever seen in my life.  That is not saying very much, perhaps, but
+to me it meant a good deal.  She was exceedingly gracious and her
+interest in you seemed quite real and even affectionate.  I do
+not understand why you should wish to hide from such a woman."
+
+"You found her attractive?" Beatrice persisted.
+
+"I found her very attractive indeed," Tavernake admitted, without
+hesitation.  "She had an air with her.  She was quite different
+from all the women I have ever met at the boarding-house or
+anywhere else.  She has a face which reminded me somehow of the
+Madonnas you took me to see in the National Gallery the other
+day."
+
+Beatrice shivered slightly.  For some reason, his remark seemed
+to have distressed her.
+
+"I am very, very sorry," she declared, "that Elizabeth ever came
+to your office.  I want you to promise me, Leonard, that you will
+be careful whenever you are with her."
+
+Tavernake laughed.
+
+"Careful!" he repeated.  "She isn't likely to be even civil to me
+tomorrow when I tell her that I have seen you and I refuse to
+give her your address.  Careful, indeed!  What has a poor clerk
+in a house-agent's office to fear from such a personage?"
+
+The servant had reappeared with their second and last course.
+For a few moments they spoke of casual subjects.  Afterwards,
+however, Tavernake asked a question.
+
+"By the way," he said, "we are hoping to let Grantham House to
+Mrs. Wenham Gardner.  I suppose she must be very wealthy?"
+
+Beatrice looked at him curiously.
+
+"Why do you come to me for information?" she demanded.  "I
+suppose that she brought you references?"
+
+"We haven't quite got to that stage yet," he answered.  "Somehow
+or other, from her manner of talking and general appearance, I do
+not think that either Mr. Dowling or I doubted her financial
+position."
+
+"I should never have thought you so credulous a person," remarked
+Beatrice, with a smile.
+
+Tavernake was genuinely disturbed.  His business instincts were
+aroused.
+
+"Do you really mean that this Mrs. Wenham Gardner is not a person
+of substance?" he inquired.
+
+Beatrice shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"She is the wife of a man who had the reputation of being very
+wealthy," she replied.  "She has no money of her own, I am sure."
+
+"She still lives with her husband, I suppose?" Tavernake asked.
+
+Beatrice closed her eyes.
+
+"I know very little about her," she declared.  "Last time I
+heard, he had disappeared, gone away, or something of the sort."
+
+"And she has no money," Tavernake persisted, "except what she
+gets from him?  No settlement, even, or anything of that sort?"
+
+"Nothing at all," Beatrice answered.
+
+"This is very bad news," Tavernake remarked, thinking gloomily of
+his wasted day.  "It will be a great disappointment to Mr.
+Dowling.  Why, her motor-car was magnificent, and she talked as
+though money were no object at all.  I suppose you are quite sure
+of what you are saying?"
+
+Beatrice shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"I ought to know," she answered, grimly, "for she is my sister."
+
+Tavernake remained quite motionless for a minute, without speech;
+it was his way of showing surprise.  When he was sure that he had
+grasped the import of her words, he spoke again.
+
+"Your sister!" he repeated.  "There is a likeness, of course.
+You are dark and she is fair, but there is a likeness.  That
+would account," he continued, "for her anxiety to find you."
+
+"It also accounts," Beatrice replied, with a little break of the
+lips, "for my anxiety that she should not find me.  Leonard," she
+added, touching his hand for a moment with hers, "I wish that I
+could tell you everything, but there are things behind, things so
+terrible, that even to you, my dear brother, I could not speak of
+them."
+
+Tavernake rose to his feet and lit a cigarette--a new habit with
+him, while Beatrice busied herself with a small coffee-making
+machine.  He sat in an easy-chair and smoked slowly.  He was
+still wearing his ready-made clothes, but his collar was of the
+fashionable shape, his tie well chosen and neatly adjusted.  He
+seemed somehow to have developed.
+
+"Beatrice," he asked, "what am I to tell your sister to-morrow?"
+
+She shivered as she set his coffee-cup down by his side.
+
+"Tell her, if you will, that I am well and not in want," she
+answered.  "Tell her, too, that I refuse to send my address.
+Tell her that the one aim of my life is to keep the knowledge of
+my whereabouts a secret from her."
+
+Tavernake relapsed into silence.  He was thinking.  Mysteries had
+no attraction for him--he loathed them.  Against this one
+especially he felt a distinct grudge.  Nevertheless, some
+instinct forbade his questioning the girl.
+
+"Apart from more personal matters, then," he asked after some
+time, "you would not advise me to enter into any business
+negotiations with this lady?"
+
+"You must not think of it," Beatrice replied, firmly.  "So far as
+money is concerned, Elizabeth has no conscience whatever.  The
+things she wants in life she will have somehow, but it is all the
+time at other people's expense.  Some day she will have to pay
+for it."
+
+Tavernake sighed.
+
+"It is very unfortunate," he declared.  "The commission on the
+letting of Grantham House would have been worth having."
+
+"After all, it is only your firm's loss," she reminded him.
+
+"It does not appeal to me like that," he continued.  "So long as
+I am manager for Dowling & Spence, I feel these things
+personally.  However, that does not matter.  I am afraid it is a
+disagreeable subject for you, and we will not talk about it any
+longer."
+
+She lit a cigarette with a little gesture of relief.  She came
+once more to his side.
+
+"Leonard," she said, "I know that I am treating you badly in
+telling you nothing, but it is simply because I do not want to
+descend to half truths.  I should like to tell you all or
+nothing.  At present I cannot tell you all."
+
+"Very well," he replied, "I am quite content to leave it with you
+to do as you think best."
+
+"Leonard," she continued, "of course you think me unreasonable.
+I can't help it.  There are things between my sister and myself
+the knowledge of which is a constant nightmare to me.  During the
+last few months of my life it has grown to be a perfect terror.
+It sent me into hiding at Blenheim House, it reconciled me even
+to the decision I came to that night on the Embankment.  I had
+decided that sooner than go back, sooner than ask help from her
+or any one connected with her, I would do what I tried to do the
+time when you saved my life."
+
+Tavernake looked at her wonderingly.  She was, indeed, under the
+spell of some deep emotion.  Her memory seemed to have carried
+her back into another world, somewhere far away from this dingy
+little sitting-room which they two were sharing together, back
+into a world where life and death were matters of small moment,
+where the great passions were unchained, and men and women moved
+among the naked things of life.  Almost he felt the thrill of it.
+It was something new to him, the touch of a magic finger upon his
+eyelids.  Then the moment passed and he was himself again,
+matter-of-fact, prosaic.
+
+"Let us dismiss the subject finally," he said.  "I must see your
+sister on business to-morrow, but it shall be for the last time."
+
+"I think," she murmured, "that you will be wise."
+
+He crossed the room and returned with a newspaper.
+
+"I saw your music in the hall as I came in," he remarked.  "Are
+you singing to-night?"
+
+The question was entirely in his ordinary tone.  It brought her
+back to the world of every-day things as nothing else could have
+done.
+
+"Yes; isn't it luck?" she told him.  "Three in one week.  I only
+heard an hour ago."
+
+"A city dinner?" he inquired.
+
+"Something of the sort," she replied.  "I am to be at the
+Whitehall Rooms at ten o'clock.  If you are tired, Leonard,
+please let me go alone.  I really do not mind.  I can get a 'bus
+to the door, there and back again."
+
+"I am not tired," he declared.  "To tell you the truth, I
+scarcely know what it is to be tired.  I shall go with you, of
+course."
+
+She looked at him with a momentary admiration of his powerful
+frame, his strong, forceful face.
+
+"It seems too bad," she remarked, "after a long day's work to
+drag you out again."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"I really like to come," he assured her.  "Besides," he added,
+after a moment's pause, "I like to hear you sing."
+
+"I wonder if you mean that?" she asked, looking at him curiously.
+"I have watched you once or twice when I have been singing to
+you.  Do you really care for it?"
+
+"Certainly I do.  How can you doubt it?  I do not," he continued,
+slowly, "understand music, or anything of that sort, of course,
+any more than I do the pictures you take me to see, and some of
+the books you talk about.  There are lots of things I can't get
+the hang of entirely, but they all leave a sort of pleasure
+behind.  One feels it even if one only half appreciates."
+
+She came over to his chair.
+
+"I am glad," she said, a little wistfully, "that there is one
+thing I do which you like."
+
+He looked at her reprovingly.
+
+"My dear Beatrice," he said, "I often wish I could make you
+understand how extraordinarily helpful and useful to me you have
+been."
+
+"Tell me in what way?" she begged.
+
+"You have given me," he assured her, "an insight into many things
+in life which I had found most perplexing.  You see, you have
+traveled and I haven't.  You have mixed with all classes of
+people, and I have gone steadily on in one groove.  You have told
+me many things which I shall find very useful indeed later on."
+
+"Dear me," she laughed, "you are making me quite conceited!"
+
+"Anyhow," he replied, "I don't want you to look upon me,
+Beatrice, in any way as a benefactor.  I am much more comfortable
+here than at the boarding-house and it is costing no more money,
+especially since you began to get those singing engagements.  By
+the way, hadn't you better go and get ready?"
+
+She smothered a sigh as she turned away and went slowly upstairs.
+To all appearance, no person who ever breathed was more ordinary
+than this strong-featured, self-centered young man who had put
+out his arm and snatched her from the Maelstrom.  Yet it seemed
+to her that there was something almost unnatural about his
+unapproachability.  She was convinced that he was entirely
+honest, not only with regard to his actual relations toward her,
+but with regard to all his purposes.  Her sex did not even seem
+to exist for him.  The fact that she was good-looking, and with
+her renewed health daily becoming more so, seemed to be of no
+account to him whatever.  He showed interest in her appearance
+sometimes, but it was interest of an entirely impersonal sort.
+He simply expressed himself as satisfied or dissatisfied, as a
+matter of taste.  It came to her at that moment that she had
+never seen him really relax.  Only when he sat opposite to that
+great map which hung now in the further room, and wandered about
+from section to section with a pencil in one hand and a piece of
+rubber in another, did he show anything which in any way
+approached enthusiasm, and even then it was always the
+unmistakable enthusiasm born of dead things.  Suddenly she
+laughed at herself in the little mirror, laughed softly but
+heartily.  This was the guardian whom Fate had sent for her!  If
+Elizabeth had only understood!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Mr. PRITCHARD OF NEW YORK
+
+
+Later in the evening, Beatrice and Tavernake traveled together in
+a motor omnibus from their rooms at Chelsea to Northumberland
+Avenue.  Tavernake was getting quite used to the programme by
+now.  They sat in a dimly-lit waiting-room until the time came
+for Beatrice to sing.  Every now and then an excitable little
+person who was the secretary to some institution or other would
+run in and offer them refreshments, and tell them in what order
+they were to appear.  To-night there was no departure from the
+ordinary course of things, except that there was slightly more
+stir.  The dinner was a larger one than usual.  It came to
+Beatrice's turn very soon after their arrival, and Tavernake,
+squeezing his way a few steps into the dining-room, stood with
+the waiters against the wall.  He looked with curious eyes upon a
+scene with which he had no manner of sympathy.
+
+A hundred or so of men had dined together in the cause of some
+charity.  The odor of their dinner, mingled with the more
+aromatic perfume of the tobacco smoke which was already ascending
+in little blue clouds from the various tables, hung about the
+over-heated room, seeming, indeed, the fitting atmosphere for the
+long rows of guests.  The majority of them were in a state of
+expansiveness.  Their faces were redder than when they had sat
+down; a certain stiffness had departed from their shirt-fronts
+and their manners; their faces were flushed, their eyes watery.
+There were a few exceptions--paler-faced men who sat there with
+the air of endeavoring to bring themselves into accord with
+surroundings in which they had no real concern.  Two of these
+looked up with interest at the first note of Beatrice's song.
+The one was sitting within a few places of the chairman, and he
+was too far away for his little start to be noticed by either
+Tavernake or Beatrice.  The nearer one, however, Tavernake
+happened to be watching, and he saw the change in his expression.
+The man was, in his way, ugly.  His face was certainly not a good
+one, although he did not appear to share the immediate weaknesses
+of his neighbors.  To every note of the song he listened
+intently.  When it was over, he rose and came toward Tavernake.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said, "but did I not see you come in with
+the young lady who has just been singing?"
+
+"You may have," Tavernake answered.  "I certainly did come with
+her."
+
+"May I ask if you are related to her?"
+
+Tavernake had got over his hesitation in replying to such
+questions, by now.  He answered promptly.
+
+"I am her brother," he declared.
+
+The man produced a card.
+
+"Please introduce me to her," he begged, laconically.
+
+"Why should I?" Tavernake asked.  "I have no reason to suppose
+that she desires to know you."
+
+The man stared at him for a moment, and then laughed.
+
+"Well," he said, "you had better show your sister my card.  She
+is, I presume, a professional, as she is singing here.  My desire
+to make her acquaintance is purely actuated by business motives."
+
+Tavernake moved away toward the waiting-room.
+
+The man, who according to his card was Mr. Sidney Grier, would
+have followed him in, but Tavernake stopped him.
+
+"If you will wait here," he suggested, "I will see whether my
+sister desires to meet you."
+
+Once more Mr. Sidney Grier looked surprised, but after a second
+glance at Tavernake he accepted his suggestion and remained
+outside.  Tavernake took the card to Beatrice.
+
+"Beatrice," he announced, "there is a man outside who has heard
+you sing and who wants to be introduced."
+
+She took the card and her eyes opened wide.
+
+"Do you know who he is?" Tavernake asked.
+
+"Of course," she answered.  "He is a great producer of musical
+comedies.  Let me think."
+
+She stood with the card in her hand.  Some one else was singing
+now--an ordinary modern ballad of love and roses, rapture and
+despair.  They heard the rising and falling of the woman's voice;
+the clatter of the dinner had ceased.  Beatrice stood still
+thinking, her fingers clinching the card of Mr. Sidney Grier.
+
+"You must bring him in," she said to Tavernake finally.
+
+Tavernake went outside.
+
+"My sister will see you," he remarked, with the air of one who
+brings good news.
+
+Mr. Sidney Grier grunted.  He was not used to being kept waiting,
+even for a second.  Tavernake ushered him into the retiring room,
+and the other two musicians who were there stared at him as at a
+god.
+
+"This is the gentleman whose card you have, Beatrice," Tavernake
+announced.  "Mr. Sidney Grier--Miss Tavernake!"
+
+The man smiled.
+
+"Your brother seems to be suspicious of me," he declared.  "I
+found it quite difficult to persuade him that you might find it
+interesting to talk to me for a few minutes."
+
+"He does not quite understand," Beatrice answered.  "He has not
+much experience of musical affairs or the stage, and your name
+would not have any significance for him."
+
+Tavernake went outside and listened idly to the song which was
+proceeding.  It was a class of music which secretly he preferred
+to the stranger and more haunting notes of Beatrice's melodies.
+Apparently the audience was of his opinion, for they received it
+with a vociferous encore, to which the young lady generously
+replied with a music-hall song about "A French lady from over the
+water."  Towards the close of the applause which marked the
+conclusion of this effort, Tavernake felt himself touched lightly
+upon the arm.  He turned round.  By his side was standing the
+other dinner guest who had shown some interest in Beatrice.  He
+was a man apparently of about forty years of age, tall and
+broad-shouldered, with black moustache, and dark, piercing eyes.
+Unlike most of the guests, he wore a short dinner-coat and black
+tie, from which, and his slight accent, Tavernake concluded that
+he was probably an American.
+
+"Say, you'll forgive my speaking to you," he said, touching
+Tavernake on the arm.  "My name is Pritchard.  I saw you come in
+with the young lady who was singing a few minutes ago, and if you
+won't consider it a liberty, I'll be very glad indeed if you'll
+answer me one question."
+
+Tavernake stiffened insensibly.
+
+"It depends upon the question," he replied, shortly.
+
+"Well, it's about the young lady, and that's a fact," Mr.
+Pritchard admitted.  "I see that her name upon the programme is
+given as Miss Tavernake.  I was seated at the other end of the
+room but she seemed to me remarkably like a young lady from the
+other side of the Atlantic, whom I am very anxious to meet."
+
+"Perhaps you will kindly put your question in plain words,"
+Tavernake said.
+
+"Why, that's easy," Mr. Pritchard declared.  "Is Miss Tavernake
+really her name, or an assumed one?  I expect it's the same over
+here as in my country--a singer very often sings under another
+name than her own, you know," he added, noting Tavernake's
+gathering frown.
+
+"The young lady in question is my sister, and I do not care to
+discuss her with strangers," Tavernake announced.
+
+Mr. Pritchard nodded pleasantly.
+
+"Why, of course, that ends the matter," he remarked.  "Sorry to
+have troubled you, anyway."
+
+He strolled off back to his seat and Tavernake returned
+thoughtfully to the dressing-room.  He found Beatrice alone and
+waiting for him.
+
+"You've got rid of that fellow, then?" he inquired.
+
+Beatrice assented.
+
+"Yes; he didn't stay very long," she replied.
+
+"Who was he?" Tavernake asked, curiously.
+
+"From a musical comedy point of view," she said, "he was the most
+important person in London.  He is the emperor of stage-land.  He
+can make the fortune of any girl in London who is reasonably
+good-looking and who can sing and dance ever so little."
+
+"What did he want with you?" Tavernake demanded, suspiciously.
+
+"He asked me whether I would like to go upon the stage.  What do
+you think about it, Leonard?"
+
+Tavernake, for some reason or other, was displeased.
+
+"Would you earn much more money than by singing at these
+dinners?" he asked.
+
+"Very, very much more," she assured him.
+
+"And you would like the life?"
+
+She laughed softly.
+
+"Why not?  It isn't so bad.  I was on the stage in New York for
+some time under much worse conditions."
+
+He remained silent for a few minutes.  They had made their way
+into the street now and were waiting for an omnibus.
+
+"What did you tell him?" he asked, abruptly.
+
+She was looking down toward the Embankment, her eyes filled once
+more with the things which he could not understand.
+
+"I have told him nothing yet," she murmured.
+
+"You would like to accept?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I am not sure," she replied.  "If only - I dared!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+WOMAN'S WILES
+
+
+At eleven o'clock the next morning, Tavernake presented himself
+at the Milan Court and inquired for Mrs. Wenham Gardner.  He was
+sent at once to her apartments in charge of a page.  She was
+lying upon a sofa piled up with cushions, wrapped in a wonderful
+blue garment which seemed somehow to deepen the color of her
+eyes.  By her side was a small table on which was some chocolate,
+a bowl of roses, and a roll of newspapers.  She held out her hand
+toward Tavernake, but did not rise.  There was something almost
+spiritual about her pallor, the delicate outline of her figure,
+so imperfectly concealed by the thin silk dressing-gown, the
+faint, tired smile with which she welcomed him.
+
+"You will forgive my receiving you like this, Mr. Tavernake?" she
+begged.  "To-day I have a headache.  I have been anxious for your
+coming.  You must sit by my side, please, and tell me at once
+whether you have seen Beatrice."
+
+Tavernake did exactly as he was bidden.  The chair toward which
+she had pointed was quite close to the sofa, but there was no
+other unoccupied in the room.  She raised herself a little on the
+couch and turned towards him.  Her eyes were fixed anxiously upon
+his, her forehead slightly wrinkled, her voice tremulous with
+eagerness.
+
+"You have seen her?"
+
+"I have," he admitted, looking steadily into the lining of his
+hat.
+
+"She has been cruel," Elizabeth declared.  "I can tell it from
+your face.  You have bad news for me."
+
+"I do not know," Tavernake replied, "whether she has been cruel
+or not.  She refuses to allow me to tell you her address.  She
+begged me, indeed, to keep away from you altogether."
+
+"Why?  Did she tell you why?"
+
+"She says that you are her sister, that you have no money of your
+own and that your husband has left you," Tavernake answered,
+deliberately.
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"No, it is not all," he continued.  "As to the rest, she told me
+nothing definite.  It is quite clear, however, that she is very
+anxious to keep away from you."
+
+"But her reason?" Elizabeth persisted.  "Did she give you no
+reason?"
+
+Tavernake looked her in the face.
+
+"She gave me no reason," he said.
+
+"Do you believe that she is justified in treating me like this?"
+Elizabeth asked, playing nervously with a pendant which hung from
+her smooth, bare neck.
+
+"Of course I do," he replied.  "I am quite sure that she would
+not feel as she does unless you had been guilty of something very
+terrible indeed."
+
+The woman on the couch winced as though some one had struck her.
+A more susceptible man than Tavernake must have felt a little
+remorseful at the tears which dimmed for a moment her beautiful
+eyes.  Tavernake, however, although be felt a moment's
+uneasiness, although he felt himself assailed all the time by a
+curious new emotion which he utterly failed to understand, was
+nevertheless still immune.  The things which were to happen to
+him had not yet, arrived.
+
+"Of course," he continued, "I was very much disappointed to hear
+this, because I had hoped that we might have been able to let
+Grantham House to you.  We cannot consider the matter at all now
+unless you pay for everything in advance."
+
+She uncovered her eyes and looked at him.  People so direct of
+speech as this had come very seldom into her life.  She was
+conscious of a thrill of interest.  The study of men was a
+passion with her.  Here was indeed a new type!
+
+"So you think that I am an adventuress," she murmured.
+
+He reflected for a moment.
+
+"I suppose," he admitted, "that it comes to that.  I should not
+have returned at all if I had not promised.  If there is any
+message which you wish me to give your sister, I will take it,
+but I cannot tell you her address."
+
+She laid her hand suddenly upon his, and raising herself a little
+on the couch, leaned towards him.  Her eyes and her lips both
+pleaded with him.
+
+"Mr. Tavernake," she said slowly, "Beatrice is such a dear,
+obstinate creature, but she does not quite appreciate my
+position.  Do me a favor, please.  If you have promised not to
+give me her address let me at least know some way or some place
+in which I could come across her.  I am sure she will be glad
+afterwards, and I--I shall be very grateful."
+
+Tavernake felt that he was enveloped by something which he did
+not understand, but his lack of experience was so great that he
+did not even wonder at his insensibility.
+
+"I shall keep my word to your sister," he announced, "in the
+spirit as well as the letter.  It is quite useless to ask me to
+do otherwise."
+
+Elizabeth was at first amazed, then angry, how angry she scarcely
+knew even herself.  She had been a spoilt child, she had grown
+into a spoilt woman.  Men, at least, had been ready enough to do
+her bidding all her life.  Her beauty was of that peculiar kind,
+half seductive, half pathetic, wholly irresistible.  And now
+there had come this strange, almost impossible person, against
+the armor of whose indifference she had spent herself in vain.
+Her eyes filled with tears once more as she looked at him, and
+Tavernake became uneasy.  He glanced at the clock and again
+toward the door.
+
+"I think, if you will excuse me," he began,--
+
+"Mr. Tavernake," she interrupted, "you are very unkind to me,
+very unkind indeed."
+
+"I cannot help it," he answered.
+
+"If you knew everything," she continued, "you would not be so
+obstinate.  If Beatrice herself were here, if I could whisper
+something in her ear, she would be only too thankful that I had
+found her out.  Beatrice has always misunderstood me, Mr.
+Tavernake.  It is a little hard upon me, for we are both so far
+away from home, from our friends."
+
+"You can send her any message you like by me," Tavernake
+declared.  "If you like, I will wait while you write a letter.
+If you really have anything to say to her which might change her
+opinion, you can write it, can't you?"
+
+She looked down at her hands--very beautiful and well-kept hands
+--and sighed.  This young man, with his unusual imperturbability
+and hateful common sense, was getting on her nerves.
+
+"It is so hard to write things, Mr. Tavernake," she said, "but,
+of course, it is something to know that if the worst happens I
+can send her a letter.  I shall think about that for a short
+time.  Meanwhile, there is so much about her I would love to have
+you tell me.  She has no money, has she?  How does she support
+herself?"
+
+"She sings occasionally at concerts," Tavernake replied after a
+moment's pause.  "I suppose there is no harm in telling you
+that."
+
+Elizabeth leaned towards him.  She was very loth indeed to
+acknowledge defeat.  Once more her voice was deliciously soft,
+her forehead delicately wrinkled, her blue eyes filled with
+alluring light.
+
+"Mr. Tavernake," she murmured, "do you know that you are not in
+the least kind to me?  Beatrice and I are sisters, after all.
+Even she has admitted that.  She left me most unkindly at a
+critical time in my life; she misunderstood things; if I were to
+see her, I could explain everything.  I feel it very much that
+she is living apart from me in this city where we are both
+strangers.  I am anxious about her, Mr. Tavernake.  Does she want
+money?  If so, will you take her some from me?  Can't you suggest
+any way in which I could help her?  Do be my friend, please, and
+advise me."
+
+Life was certainly opening out for Tavernake.  The atmosphere by
+which he was surrounded, which she was deliberately creating
+around him, was the atmosphere of an unknown world.  It was a
+position, this, entirely novel to him.  Nevertheless, he did his
+best to cope with it intelligently.  He reflected carefully
+before he made any reply, he refused absolutely to listen to the
+strange voices singing in his ears, and he delivered his decision
+with his usual air of finality.
+
+"I am afraid," he said, "that since Beatrice refuses even to let
+you know her whereabouts, she would not wish to accept anything
+from you.  It seems a pity," he went on, the instincts of the
+money-saver stirring within him; "she is certainly none too well
+off."
+
+The lady on the couch sighed.
+
+"Beatrice has at least a friend," she murmured.  "It is a great
+deal to have a friend.  It is more than I have.  We are both so
+far from home here.  Often I am sorry that we ever left America.
+England is not a hospitable country, Mr. Tavernake."
+
+Again this painfully literal young man spoke out what was in his
+mind.
+
+"There was a gentleman in the motor-car with you the other
+night," he reminded her.
+
+She bit her lip.
+
+"He was just an acquaintance," she answered, "a man whom I used
+to know in New York, passing through London.  He called on me and
+asked me to go to the theatre and supper.  Why not?  I have had a
+terrible time during the last few months, Mr. Tavernake, and I am
+very lonely--lonelier than ever since my sister deserted me."
+
+Tavernake began to feel, ridiculous though it seemed, that in
+some subtle and inexplicable fashion he was in danger.  At any
+rate, he was hopelessly bewildered.  He did not understand why
+this very beautiful lady should look at him as though they were
+old friends, why her eyes should appeal to him so often for
+sympathy, why her fingers, which a moment ago were resting
+lightly upon his hand, and which she had drawn away with
+reluctance, should have burned him like pin-pricks of fire.  The
+woman who wishes to allure may be as subtle as possible in her
+methods, but a sense of her purpose, however vague it may be, is
+generally communicated to her wouldbe victim.  Tavernake was
+becoming distinctly uneasy.  He had no vanity.  He knew from the
+first that this beautiful creature belonged to a world far
+removed from any of which he had any knowledge.  The only
+solution of the situation which presented itself to him was that
+she might be thinking of borrowing money from him!
+
+"There was never a time in my life," she continued softly, "when
+I felt that I needed a friend more.  I am afraid that my sister
+has prejudiced you against me, Mr. Tavernake.  Beatrice is very
+young, and the young are not always sympathetic, you know.  They
+do not make allowances, they do not understand."
+
+"Why did you tell Mr. Dowling things which were not true?" he
+asked bluntly.
+
+She sighed, and looked down at the handkerchief with which she
+had been toying.
+
+"It was a very silly piece of conceit," she admitted, "but, you
+see, I had to tell him something."
+
+"Why did you come to the office at all?" he continued.
+
+"Do you really want to know that?" she whispered softly.
+
+"Well,--"
+
+"I will tell you," she went on suddenly.  "It sounds foolish, in
+a way, and yet it wasn't really, because, you see,"--she smiled
+at him--" I was anxious about Beatrice.  I saw you come out of
+the office that morning, and I recognized you at once.  I knew
+that it was you who had been with Beatrice.  I made an excuse
+about the house to come and see whether I could find you out."
+
+Tavernake, in whom the vanity was not yet born, missed wholly the
+significance of her smile, her trifling hesitation.
+
+"All that," he declared, "is no reason why you should have told
+Mr. Dowling that your husband was a millionaire and had given you
+carte blanche about taking a house."
+
+"Did I mention--my husband?"
+
+"Distinctly," he assured her.
+
+For the first time she had faltered in her speech.  Tavernake
+felt that she herself was shaken by some emotion.  Her eyes for a
+moment were strangely-lit; something had come into her face which
+he did not understand.  Then it passed.  The delightful smile,
+half deprecating, half appealing, once more parted her lips; the
+gleam of horror no longer shone in her blue eyes.
+
+"I am always so foolish about money," she declared, "so ignorant
+that I never know how I stand, but really I think that I have
+plenty, and a hundred or two more or less for rent didn't seem to
+matter much."
+
+It was a point of view, this, which Tavernake utterly failed to
+comprehend.  He looked at her in surprise.
+
+"I suppose," he protested, "you know how much a year you have to
+live on?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"It seems to vary all the time," she sighed.  "There are so many
+complications."
+
+He looked at her in amazement.
+
+"After all," he admitted, "you don't look as though you had much
+of a head for figures."
+
+"If only I had some one to help me!" she murmured.
+
+Tavernake moved uneasily in his chair.  His sense of danger was
+growing.
+
+"If you will excuse me now," he said, "I think that I must be
+getting back.  I am an employee at Dowling, Spence & Company's,
+you know, and my time is not quite my own.  I only came because I
+promised to."
+
+"Mr. Tavernake," she begged, looking at him full out of those
+wonderful blue eyes, "please do me a great favor."
+
+"What is it?" he asked with clumsy ungraciousness.
+
+"Come and see me, every now and then, and let me know how my
+sister is.  Perhaps you may be able to suggest some way in which
+I can help her."
+
+Tavernake considered the question for a moment.  He was angry
+with himself for the unaccountable sense of pleasure which her
+suggestion had given him.
+
+"I am not quite sure," he said, "whether I had better come.
+Beatrice seemed quite anxious that I should not talk about her to
+you at all.  She did not like my coming to-day."
+
+"You seem to know a great deal about my sister," Elizabeth
+declared reflectively.  "You call her by her Christian name and
+you appear to see her frequently.  Perhaps, even, you are fond of
+her."
+
+Tavernake met his questioner's inquiring gaze blankly.  He was
+almost indignant.
+
+"Fond of her!" he exclaimed.  "I have never been fond of any one
+in my life, or anything--except my work," he added.
+
+She looked at him a little bewildered at first.
+
+"Oh, you strange person!" she cried, her lips breaking into a
+delightful smile.  "Don't you know that you haven't begun to live
+at all yet?  You don't even know anything about life, and at the
+back of it all you have capacity.  Yes," she went on, "I think
+that you have the capacity for living."
+
+Her hand fell upon his with a little gesture which was half a
+caress.  He looked around him as though seeking for escape.  He
+was on his feet now and he clutched at his hat.
+
+"I must go," he insisted almost roughly.
+
+"Am I keeping you?" she asked innocently.  "Well, you shall go as
+soon as you please, only you must promise me one thing.  You must
+come back, say within a week, and let me know how my sister is.
+I am not half so brutal as you think.  I really am anxious about
+her.  Please!"
+
+"I will promise that," he answered.
+
+"Wait one moment, then," she begged, turning to the letters by
+her side.  "There is just something I want to ask you.  Don't be
+impatient--it is entirely a matter of business."
+
+All the time he was acutely conscious of that restless desire to
+get out of the room.  The woman's white arms, from which the
+sleeves of her blue gown had fallen back, were stretched towards
+him as she lazily turned over her pile of correspondence.  They
+were very beautiful arms and Tavernake, although he had had no
+experience, was dimly aware of the fact.  Her eyes, too, seemed
+always to be trying to reach some part of him which was dead, or
+as yet unborn.  He could feel her striving to get there, beating
+against the walls of his indifference.  Why should a woman wear
+blue stockings because she had a blue gown, he wondered idly.
+She was not like Beatrice, this alluring, beautiful woman, who
+lay there talking to him in a manner whose meaning came to him
+only in strange, bewildering flashes.  He could be with Beatrice
+and feel the truth of what he had once told her--that her sex was
+a thing which need not even be taken into account between them.
+With this woman it was different; he felt that she wished it to
+be different.
+
+"Perhaps you had better tell me about that matter of business
+next time I am here," he suggested, with an abruptness which was
+almost brusque.  "I must go now.  I do not know why I have stayed
+so long."
+
+She held out her fingers.
+
+"You are a very sudden person," she declared, smiling at his
+discomfiture.  "If you must go!"
+
+He scarcely touched her hand, anxious only to get away.  And then
+the door opened and a man of somewhat remarkable appearance
+entered the room with the air of a privileged person.  He was
+oddly dressed, with little regard to the fashion of the moment.
+His black coat was cut after the mode of a past generation, his
+collar was of the type affected by Gladstone and his fellow-
+statesmen, his black bow was arranged with studied negligence and
+he showed more frilled white shirt-front than is usual in the
+daytime.  His silk hat was glossy but broad-brimmed; his masses
+of gray hair, brushed back from a high, broad forehead, gave him
+almost a patriarchal aspect.  His features were large and fairly
+well-shaped, but his mouth was weak and his cheeks lacked the
+color of a healthy life.  Tavernake stared at him open-mouthed.
+He, for his part, looked at Tavernake as he might have looked at
+some strange wild animal.
+
+"A thousand apologies, dear Elizabeth!" be exclaimed.  "I
+knocked, but I imagine that you did not hear me.  Knowing your
+habits, it did not occur to me that you might be engaged at this
+hour of the morning."
+
+"It is a young man from the house agent's," she announced
+indifferently, "come to see me about a flat."
+
+"In that case," he suggested amiably, "I am, perhaps, not in the
+way."
+
+Elizabeth turned her head slightly and looked at him; he backed
+precipitately toward the door.
+
+"In a few minutes," he said.  "I will return in a few minutes."
+
+Tavernake attempted to follow his example.
+
+"There is no occasion for your friend to leave," he protested.
+"If you have any instructions for us, a note to the office will
+always bring some one here to see you."
+
+She sat up on the couch and smiled at him.  His obvious
+embarrassment amused her.  It was a new sort of game, this,
+altogether.
+
+"Come, Mr. Tavernake," she said, "three minutes more won't
+matter, will it?  I will not keep you longer than that, I
+promise."
+
+He came reluctantly a few steps back.
+
+"I am sorry," he explained, "but we really are busy this
+morning."
+
+"This is business," she declared, still smiling at him
+pleasantly.  "My sister has filled you with suspicions about me.
+Some of them may be justifiable, some are not.  I am not so rich
+as I should like some people to believe.  It is so much easier to
+live well, you know, when people believe that you are rolling in
+money.  Still, I am by no means a pauper.  I cannot afford to
+take Grantham House, but neither can I afford to go on living
+here.  I have decided to make a change, to try and economize, to
+try and live within my means.  Now will you bring me a list of
+small houses or flats, something at not more than say two or
+three hundred a year?  It shall be strictly a business
+proceeding.  I will pay you for your time, if that is necessary,
+and your commission in advance.  There, you can't refuse my offer
+on those terms, can you?"
+
+Tavernake remained silent.  He was conscious that his lack of
+response seemed both sullen and awkward, but he was for the
+moment tongue-tied.  His habit of inopportune self-analysis had
+once more asserted itself.  He could not understand the curious
+nature of his mistrust of this woman, nor could he understand the
+pleasure which her suggestion gave him.  He wanted to refuse, and
+yet he was glad to be able to tell himself that he was, after
+all, but an employee of his firm and not in a position to decline
+business on their behalf.
+
+She leaned a little towards him; her tone was almost beseeching.
+
+"You are not going to be unkind?  You will not refuse me?" she
+pleaded.
+
+"I will bring you a list," he answered heavily, "on the terms you
+suggest."
+
+"To-morrow morning?" she begged.
+
+"As soon as I am able," he promised.
+
+Then he escaped.  Outside in the corridor, the man who had
+interrupted his interview was walking backwards and forwards.
+Tavernake passed him without responding to his bland greeting.
+He forgot all about the lift and descended five flights of
+stairs. . . .
+
+A few minutes later, he presented himself at the office and
+reported that Mrs. Wenham Gardner had decided unfavorably about
+Grantham House, and that she was not disposed, indeed, to take
+premises of anything like such a rental.  Mr. Dowling was
+disappointed, and inclined to think that his employee had
+mismanaged the affair.
+
+"I wish that I had gone myself," he declared.  "She obviously
+wished me to, but it happened to be inconvenient.  By-the-bye,
+Tavernake, close the door, will you?  There is another matter
+concerning which I should like to speak to you."
+
+Tavernake did as he was bidden at once, without any disquietude.
+His own services to the firm were of such a nature that he had no
+misgiving whatever as to his employer's desire for a private
+interview.
+
+"It is about the Marston Rise estate," Mr. Dowling explained,
+arranging his pince nez.  "I believe that the time is coming when
+some sort of overtures should be made.  You know what has been in
+my mind for a very considerable time."
+
+Tavernake nodded.
+
+"Yes," he admitted, "I know quite well."
+
+"I did hear a rumor," Mr. Dowling continued, "that some one had
+bought one small plot on the outskirts of the estate.  I dare say
+it is not true, and in any case it is not worth while troubling
+about, but it shows that the public is beginning to nibble.  I am
+of opinion that the time is almost--yes, almost ripe for a move."
+
+"Do you wish me to do anything in the matter, sir?" Tavernake
+asked.
+
+"In the first place," Mr. Dowling declared, "I should like you to
+try to find out whether any of the plots have really been sold,
+and, if so, to whom, and what would be their price.  Can you do
+this during the week?"
+
+"I think so," Tavernake answered.
+
+"Say Monday morning," Mr. Dowling suggested, taking down his hat.
+"I shall be playing golf to-morrow and Friday, and of course
+Saturday.  Monday morning you might let me have a report."
+
+Tavernake went back to his office.  After all, then, things were
+to come to a crisis a little earlier than he had thought.  He
+knew quite well that that report, if he made it honestly, and no
+other idea was likely to occur to him, would effectually sever
+his connection with Messrs. Dowling, Spence & Company.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE PLOT THICKENS
+
+
+The man whom Tavernake had left walking up and down the corridor
+lost no time in presenting himself once more at the apartments of
+Mrs. Wenham Gardner.  He entered the suite without ceremony,
+carefully closing both doors behind him.  It became obvious then
+that his deportment on the occasion of his previous appearance
+had been in the nature of a bluff.  The air with which he looked
+across the room at the woman who watched him was furtive; the
+hand which laid his hat upon the table was shaking; there was a
+gleam almost of terror in his eyes.  The woman remained
+impassive, inscrutable, simply watching him.  After a moment or
+two, however, she spoke--a single monosyllable.
+
+"Well?"
+
+The man broke down.
+
+"Elizabeth," he exclaimed, "you are too--too ghastly!  I can't
+stand it.  You are unnatural."
+
+She stretched herself upon the couch and turned towards him.
+
+"Unnatural, am I?" she remarked.  "And what are you?"
+
+He sank into a chair.  He had become very flabby indeed.
+
+"What you are always calling me, I suppose," he muttered,--"a
+coward.  You have so little consideration, Elizabeth.  My health
+isn't what it was."
+
+His eyes had wandered longingly toward the cupboard at the
+further end of the apartment.  The woman upon the couch smiled.
+
+"You may help yourself," she directed carelessly.  "Perhaps then
+you will be able to tell me why you have come in such a state."
+
+He crossed the room in a few hasty steps, his head and shoulders
+disappeared inside the cupboard.  There was the sound of the
+withdrawal of a cork, the fizz of a sodawater syphon.  He
+returned to his place a different man.
+
+"You must remember my age, Elizabeth dear," he said,
+apologetically.  "I haven't your nerve--it isn't likely that I
+should have.  When I was twenty-five, there was nothing in the
+world of which I was afraid."
+
+She looked him over critically.
+
+"Perhaps I am not so absolutely courageous as you think," she
+remarked.  "To tell you the truth, there are a good many things
+of which I am afraid when you come to me in such a state.  I am
+afraid of you, of what you will do or say."
+
+"You need not be," he assured her hastily.  "When I am away from
+you, I am dumb.  What I suffer no one knows.  I keep it to
+myself."
+
+She nodded, a little contemptuously.
+
+"I suppose you do your best," she declared.  "Tell me, now, what
+is this fresh thing which has disturbed you?"
+
+Her visitor stared at her.
+
+"Does there need to be any fresh thing?" he muttered.
+
+"I suppose it is something about Wenham?" she asked.
+
+The man shivered.  He opened his lips and closed them again.  The
+woman's tone, if possible, grew colder.
+
+"I hope you are not going to tell me that you have disobeyed my
+orders," she said.
+
+"No," he protested, "no!  I was there yesterday.  I came back by
+the mail from Penzance.  I had to motor thirty miles to catch
+it."
+
+"Something has happened, of course," she went on, "something
+which you are afraid to tell 'me.  Sit up like a man, my dear
+father, and let me have the truth."
+
+"Nothing fresh has happened at all," he assured her.  "It is
+simply that the memory of the day I spent at that place and that
+the sight of him has got on my nerves till I can't sleep or think
+of anything else."
+
+"What rubbish!" she exclaimed.
+
+"You have only seen the place in fine weather," he continued,
+dropping his voice a little.  "Elizabeth, you have no idea what
+it is really like.  Yesterday morning I got out of the train at
+Bodmin and I motored through to the village of Clawes.  After
+that there were five miles to walk.  There's no road, only a sort
+of broken track, and for the whole of that five miles there isn't
+even a farm building to be seen and I didn't meet a human soul.
+There was a sort of pall of white-gray mists everywhere over the
+moor, sometimes so dense that I couldn't see my way, and you
+could stop and listen and there wasn't a thing to be heard, not
+even a sheep bell."
+
+She laughed softly.  .
+
+"My dear, foolish father," she murmured, "you don't understand
+what a rest cure is.  This is quite all right, quite as it should
+be.  Poor Wenham has been seeing too many people all his life
+-- that is why we have to keep him quiet for a time.  You can
+skip the scenery.  I suppose you got to the house at last?"
+
+"Yes, I got there," continued her father.  "You know what a
+bleak-looking place it is, right on the side of a bare hill--a
+square, gray stone place just the color of the hillside.  Well, I
+got there and walked in.  There was Ted Mathers, half dressed, no
+collar, with a bottle of whiskey on the table, playing some
+wretched game of cards by himself.  Elizabeth, what a brute that
+man is!"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Go on," she said.  "What about Wenham?"
+
+"He was there in a corner, gazing out of the window.  When I came
+he sprang up, but when he saw who it was, he--he tried to hide.
+He was afraid of me."
+
+"Why?" she asked.
+
+"He said that I--I reminded him of you."
+
+"Absurd!" she murmured.  "Tell me, how did he look?"
+
+"Ill, wretched, paler and thinner than ever, and wilder looking."
+
+"What did Mathers say about him?" she demanded.
+
+"What could he?  He told me that he cried all day and begged to
+be taken back to America."
+
+"No one goes near the place, I suppose?" she asked.
+
+"Not a soul.  A man comes from the village to sell things once a
+week.  Mathers knows when to expect him and takes care that
+Wenham is not around.  They are out of the world there--no road,
+no paths, nothing to bring even a tourist.  I could have imagined
+such a spot in Arizona, Elizabeth, but in England--no!"
+
+"Has he any amusements at all?" she inquired.
+
+The man's hands were shaking; once more his eyes went longingly
+toward the cupboard.
+
+"He has made--a doll," he said, "carved it out of a piece of wood
+and dressed it in oddments from his ties.  Mathers showed it to
+me as a joke.  Elizabeth, it was wonderful--horrible!"
+
+"Why?" she asked him.
+
+"It is you," he continued, moistening his lips with his tongue,
+"you, in a blue gown--your favorite shade.  He has even made blue
+stockings and strange little shoes.  He has got some hair from
+somewhere and parted it just like yours."
+
+"It sounds very touching," she remarked.
+
+The man was shivering again.
+
+"Elizabeth," he said, "I do not think that he means it kindly.
+Mathers took me up into his room.  He has made something there
+which looks like a scaffold.  The doll was hanging by a piece of
+string from the gallows.  Elizabeth!--my God, but it was like
+you!" he cried, suddenly dropping his head upon his arms.
+
+For a moment, a reflection of the terror which had seized him
+flashed in her own face.  It passed quickly away.  She laughed
+mockingly.
+
+"My dear father," she protested, "you are certainly not yourself
+this morning."
+
+"I saw you swinging," he muttered, "swinging by that piece of
+cord!  There was a great black pin through your heart.
+Elizabeth, if he should get away sometime!  If some one should
+come over from America and discover where he was!  If he should
+find us out!  Oh, my God, if he should find us out!"
+
+Elizabeth had risen to her feet.  She was standing now before the
+fire, her left elbow resting upon the mantelpiece, a trifle of
+silver gleaming in her right hand.
+
+"Father," she said, "there is no danger in life for those who
+know no fear.  Look at me."
+
+His eyes sought hers, fascinated.
+
+"If he should find me out," she continued, "it would be no such
+terrible thing, after all.  It would be the end."
+
+Her fingers disclosed the little ornament she was carrying--a
+tiny pistol.  She slipped it back into her pocket.  The man was
+wondering how such a thing as this came to be his daughter.
+
+"You have courage, Elizabeth," he whispered.
+
+"I have courage," she assented, "because I have brains.  I never
+allow myself to be in a position where I should be likely to get
+the worst of it.  Ever since the day when he turned so suddenly
+against me, I have been careful."
+
+Her father leaned towards her.
+
+"Elizabeth," he said, "I never really understood.  What was it
+that came over him so suddenly?  One day he was your slave, the
+next I think he would have murdered you if he could."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Honestly," she replied, "I felt it impossible to keep up the
+sham any longer.  I married Wenham Gardner in New York because he
+was supposed to be a millionaire and because it seemed to be the
+best thing to do, but as to living with him, I never meant that.
+You know how ridiculous his behavior was on the boat.  He never
+let me out of his sight, but swore that he was going to give up
+smoking and drinking and lead a new life for my sake.  I really
+believe he meant it, too."
+
+"Wouldn't it have been better, dear," her father suggested,
+timidly, "to have encouraged him?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"He was absolutely hopeless," she declared.  "You say that I have
+no nerves; that is because I do not allow myself to suffer.  If I
+had gone on living with Wenham, it would have driven me mad.  His
+habits, his manner of life, everything disgusted me.  Until I
+came to see so much of him, I never understood what the term
+'decadent' really can mean.  The very touch of him grew to be
+hateful.  No woman could live with such a man.  By the way, he
+signed the draft, I suppose?"
+
+Her father handed her a slip of paper, which she looked at and
+locked in her drawer.
+
+"Did he make any trouble about it?" she asked.
+
+The professor shivered.
+
+"He refused to sign it," he said, in a low tone, "swore he would
+never sign it.  Mathers sent me out for a few minutes, made me go
+into another room.  When I came back, he gave me the draft.  I
+heard him calling out."
+
+"Mathers certainly earns his money," she remarked, drily.
+
+He gazed at her with grudging admiration.  This was his daughter,
+his own flesh and blood.  Back through the years, for a moment,
+he seemed to see her, a child with hair down her back, sitting on
+his knee, listening to his stories, wondering at the little arts
+and tricks by which he had wrested their pennies and sixpennies
+from a credulous public.  Phrenologist, hypnotist, conjurer--all
+these things the great Professor Franklin had called himself.
+Often, from the rude stage where he had given his performance, he
+had terrified to death the women and children of his audience.
+It flashed upon him at that moment that never, even in the days
+of her childhood, had he seen fear in Elizabeth's face.
+
+"You should have been a man, Elizabeth," he muttered.
+
+She shook her head, smiling as though not ill-pleased at the
+compliment.
+
+"The power of a man is so limited," she declared.  "A woman has
+more weapons."
+
+"More weapons indeed," the professor agreed, as his eyes traveled
+over the slim yet wonderful perfection of her form, lingered for
+a moment at the little knot of lace at her throat, wrestled with
+the delicate sweetness of her features, struggling hard to think
+from whom among his ancestors could have come a creature so
+physically attractive.
+
+"More weapons, indeed," he repeated.  "Elizabeth, what a gift--
+what a gift!"
+
+"You speak," she replied, "as though it were an evil one."
+
+"I was only thinking," he said, "that it seems a pity.  You are
+so wonderful, we might have found an easier and a less dangerous
+way to fortune."
+
+She smiled.
+
+"The Bohemian blood in me, I suppose," she remarked.  "The
+crooked ways attract, you know, when one has been brought up as I
+was."
+
+"Your poor mother had no love for them," he reminded her.
+
+"Beatrice has inherited everything that belonged to my mother.  I
+am your own daughter, father.  You ought to be proud of me.  But
+there, I gave you another commission.  Is it true that Jerry is
+really here?"
+
+"He arrived in England on Wednesday on the Lusitania.  He has
+been in town all the time since."
+
+A distinct frown darkened her face.
+
+"He must have had my letter, then," she murmured, half to
+herself.
+
+"Without a doubt," her father admitted.  "Elizabeth, why do you
+take chances about seeing this man?  He was fond of you in New
+York, I know, but then he was fond of his brother, too.  He may
+not believe your story.  It may be dangerous."
+
+She smiled.
+
+"I think I can convince Jerry Gardner of anything I choose to
+tell him," she said.  "Besides, it is absolutely necessary that I
+have some information about Wenham's affairs.  He must have a
+great deal more money somewhere and I must find out how we are to
+get at it."
+
+The professor shook his head.
+
+"I don't like it," he muttered.  "Supposing he finds Beatrice!"
+
+Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Beatrice is made of silent stuff," she declared.  "I should
+never be afraid of her.  All the same, I wish I could find out
+just where she is.  It would look better if we were living
+together."
+
+The professor shook his head sadly.
+
+"She left us of her own free will," he said, "and I don't
+believe, Elizabeth, that she would ever come back again.  She
+knew very well what she was doing.  She knew that our views of
+life were not hers.  She didn't know half but she knew enough.
+You were quite right in what you said just now; Beatrice was more
+like her mother, and her mother was a good woman."
+
+"Really!" Elizabeth remarked, insolently.
+
+"Don't answer like that," he blustered, striking the table.  "She
+was your mother, too."
+
+The woman's face was inscrutable, hard, and flawless behind the
+little cloud of tobacco smoke.  The man began to tremble once
+more.  Every time he ventured to assert himself, a single look
+from her was sufficient to quell him.
+
+"Elizabeth," he muttered, "you haven't a heart, you haven't a
+soul, you haven't a conscience.  I wonder--what sort of a woman
+you are!"
+
+"I am your daughter," she reminded him, pleasantly.
+
+"I was never quite so bad as that," he went on, taking a large
+silk handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing his forehead.  "I
+had to live and times were hard.  I have cheated the public,
+perhaps.  I haven't been above playing at cards a little
+cleverly, or making something where I could out of the weaker
+men.  But, Elizabeth, I am afraid of you."
+
+"Men are generally afraid of the big stakes," she remarked,
+flicking the ash from her cigarette.  "They will cheat and lie
+for halfpennies, but they are bad gamblers when life or death
+-- the big things are in the balance.  Bah!" she went on.
+"Father, I want Jerry Gardner to come and see me."
+
+"If you can't make him come, my dear," the professor said, "I am
+sure it will be of no use my trying."
+
+"He has had my letter," she continued, half to herself; "he has
+had my letter and he does not come."
+
+"There is nothing to be done but wait," her father decided.
+
+"And meanwhile," she went on, "supposing he were to discover
+Beatrice, supposing they two were to come together; supposing he
+were to tell her what he knows and she were to tell him what she
+guessed!"
+
+The professor buried his face in his hands.  Elizabeth threw her
+cigarette away with an impatient gesture.
+
+"What an idiot I am!" she declared.  "What is the use of wasting
+time like this?"
+
+There was a knock at the door.  A trim-looking French maid
+presented herself.  She addressed her mistress in voluble French.
+A coiffeur and a manicurist were waiting in the next apartment;
+it was time that Madame habited herself.  The professor listened
+to these announcements with an air of half-admiring wonder.
+
+"I suppose I must be going," he said, rising to his feet.  "There
+is just one thing I should like to ask you, Elizabeth, if I may,
+before I go."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Who was the young man whom I met here just now?"
+
+"Why do you ask that?" she demanded.
+
+"I really do not know," her father replied, thoughtfully, "except
+that his appearance seemed a little singular.  In some respects
+he appeared so commonplace.  His clothes and bearing, in fact,
+were so ordinary that I was surprised to find him here with you.
+And, on the other hand, his face--you must remember, my dear,
+that this is entirely a professional instinct; I am still
+interested in faces--"
+
+"Quite so," she admitted.  "Go on.  The young man rather puzzles
+me myself.  I should like to hear what you make of him.  What did
+you think of his face?"
+
+"There was something powerful about it," he declared, "something
+dogged, splendid, narrow, impossible,--the sort of face which
+belongs to a man who achieves great things because he is too
+stupid to recognize failure, even when it has him in its arms and
+its fingers are upon his throat.  That young man has qualities,
+my dear, I am sure.  Mind you, at present they are dormant, but
+he has qualities."
+
+She led him to the door.
+
+"My dear father," she said, "sometimes I really respect you.  If
+you should come across that young man again, keep your eye upon
+him.  He knows one thing at least which I wish he would tell us
+-- he knows where Beatrice is."
+
+Her father looked at her in amazement.
+
+"He knows where Beatrice is and he has not told you?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"You tried to have him tell you and he refused?" the professor
+persisted.
+
+"Exactly," she admitted.
+
+Her father put on his hat.
+
+"I knew that young man was something out of the common."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE JOY OF BATTLE
+
+
+They sat on the trunk of a fallen tree, in the topmost corner of
+the field.  In the hedge, close at hand, was a commotion of
+birds.  In the elm tree, a little further away, a thrush was
+singing.  A soft west wind blew in their faces; the air
+immediately around them was filled with sunlight.  Yet almost to
+their feet stretched one of those great arms of the city--a
+suburb, with its miles of villas, its clanging of electric cars,
+its waste plots, its rows of struggling shops.  And only a little
+further away still, the body itself--the huge city, throbbing
+beneath its pall of smoke and cloud.  The girl, who had been
+gazing steadily downwards for several moments, turned at last to
+her companion.
+
+"Do you know," she said, "that this makes me think of the first
+night you spoke to me?  You remember it--up on the roof at
+Blenheim House?"
+
+Tavernake did not answer for a moment.  He was looking through a
+queerly-shaped instrument that he had brought with him at
+half-a-dozen stakes that he had laboriously driven into the
+ground some distance away.  He was absolutely absorbed in his
+task.
+
+"The main avenue," he muttered softly to himself.  "Yes, it must
+be a trifle more to the left.  Then we get all the offshoots
+parallel and the better houses have their southern aspect.  I beg
+your pardon, Beatrice, did you say anything?" he broke off
+suddenly.
+
+She smiled.
+
+"Nothing worth mentioning.  I was just thinking that it reminded
+me a little up here of the first time you and I ever talked
+together."
+
+He glanced down at the panorama below, with its odd jumble of
+hideous buildings, softened here and there with wreaths of
+sunstained smoke, its great blots of ugliness irredeemable,
+insistent.
+
+"It's different, of course," she went on.  "I remember, even now,
+the view from the house-top that night.  In a sense, it was finer
+than this; everything was more lurid and yet more chaotic; one
+simply felt that underneath all those mysterious places was some
+great being, toiling and struggling--Life itself, groaning
+through space with human cogwheels.  Up here one sees too much.
+Oh, my dear Leonard," she continued, "to think that you, too,
+should be one of the devastators!"
+
+He fitted his instrument into its case and replaced it in his
+pocket.
+
+"Come," he said, "you mustn't call me hard names.  I shall remind
+you of the man whose works you are making me read.  You know what
+he says--'The aesthete is, after all, only a dallier.  The world
+lives and progresses by reason of its utilitarians.'  This hill
+represents to me most of the things that are worth having in
+life."
+
+She laughed shortly.
+
+"You will cut down those hedges and drive away the birds to find
+a fresh home; you will plough up the green grass, cut out a
+street and lay down granite stones.  Then I see your ugly little
+houses coming up like mushrooms all over the place.  You are a
+vandal, my dear Leonard."
+
+"I am simply obeying the law," he answered.  "After all, even
+from your own point of view, I do not think that it is so bad.
+Look closer, and you will find that the hedges are blackened here
+and there with smuts.  The birds will find a better dwelling
+place further away.  See how the smoke from those factory
+chimneys is sending its smuts across these fields.  They are no
+longer country; they are better gathered in."
+
+She shivered.
+
+"There is something about life," she said, sadly, "which
+terrifies me.  Every force that counts seems to be destructive."
+
+Up the steep hill behind them came the puffing and groaning of a
+small motor-car.  They both turned their heads to watch it come
+into view.  It was an insignificant affair of an almost extinct
+pattern, a single cylinder machine with a round tonneau back.
+The engine was knocking badly as the driver brought it to a
+standstill a few yards away from them.  Involuntarily Tavernake
+stiffened as he saw the two men who descended from it, and who
+were already passing through the gate close to where they were.
+One was Mr. Dowling, the other the manager of the bank where they
+kept their account.  Mr. Dowling recognized his manager with
+surprise but much cordiality.
+
+"Dear me!" he exclaimed.  "Dear me, this is most fortunate!  You
+know Mr. Tavernake, of course, Belton?  My manager, Mr. Tavernake
+--Mr. Belton, of the London & Westminster Bank.  I have brought
+Mr. Belton up here, Tavernake, to have a look round, so that he
+may know what we mean to do with all the money we shall have to
+come and borrow, eh?"
+
+The bank manager smiled.
+
+"It is a very fine situation," he remarked.
+
+The eyes of the two men fell upon Beatrice, who had drawn a
+little to one side.
+
+"May we have the pleasure, Tavernake?  "Mr. Dowling said,
+graciously.  "You are not married, I believe?"
+
+"No, this is my sister," Tavernake answered, slowly,--"Mr. Belton
+and Mr. Dowling."
+
+The two men acknowledged the salute with some slight surprise.
+Beatrice, although her clothes were simple, had always the air of
+belonging to a different world.
+
+"Your brother, my dear Miss Tavernake," Mr. Dowling declared, "is
+a perfect genius at discovering these desirable sites.  This one
+I honestly consider to be the find of our lifetime.  We have
+now," he proceeded, turning to Mr. Belton, "certain information
+that the cars will run to whatever point we desire in this
+vicinity, and the Metropolitan Railway has also arranged for an
+extension of its system.  To-morrow I propose," Mr. Dowling
+continued, holding the sides of his coat and assuming a somewhat
+pompous manner, "to make an offer for the whole of this site.  It
+will involve a very large sum of money indeed, but I am convinced
+that it will be a remunerative speculation."
+
+Tavernake remained grimly silent.  This was scarcely the time or
+the place which he would have selected for an explanation with
+his employer.  There were signs, however, that the thing was to
+be forced upon him.
+
+"I am very pleased indeed to meet you here, Tavernake," Mr.
+Dowling went on, "pleased both for personal reasons and because
+it shows, if I may be allowed to say so, the interest which you
+take in the firm's business, that you should devote your holiday
+to coming and--er--surveying the scene of our exploits, so to
+speak.  Perhaps now that you are here you would be able to
+explain to Mr. Belton better than I should, just what it is that
+we propose."
+
+Tavernake hesitated for a moment.  Finally, however, he proceeded
+to make clear a very elaborate and carefully thought out building
+scheme, to which both men listened with much attention.  When he
+had finished, however, he turned round to Mr. Dowling, facing him
+squarely.
+
+"You will understand, sir," he concluded, "that a scheme such as
+I have pointed out could only be carried through if the whole of
+the property were in one person's hands.  I may say that the
+information to which you referred a few days ago was perfectly
+correct.  A considerable portion of the south side of the hill
+has already been purchased, besides certain other plots which
+would interfere considerably with any comprehensive scheme of
+building."
+
+Mr. Dowling's face fell at once; his tone was one of annoyance
+mingled with irritation.
+
+"Come, come," he declared, "this sounds very bad, Mr. Tavernake,
+very neglectful, very careless as to the interests of the firm.
+Why did we not keep our eye upon it?  Why did we not forestall
+this other purchaser, eh?  It appears to me that we have been
+slack, very slack indeed."
+
+Tavernake took a small book from his pocket.
+
+"You will remember, sir," he said, "that it was on the eleventh
+of May last year when I first spoke to you of this site."
+
+"Well, well," Mr. Dowling exclaimed, sharply, "what of it?"
+
+"You were starting out for a fortnight's golf somewhere,"
+Tavernake continued, "and you promised to look into the affair
+when you returned.  I spoke to you again but you declared that
+you were far too busy to go into the matter at all for the
+present, you didn't care about this side of London, you
+considered that we had enough on hand--in fact, you threw cold
+water upon the idea."
+
+"I may not have been very enthusiastic at first," Mr. Dowling
+admitted, grudgingly.  "Latterly, however, I have come round to
+your views."
+
+"There have been several articles in various newspapers, and a
+good deal of talk," Tavernake remarked, "which have been more
+effectual, I think, in bringing you round, than my advice.
+However, what I wish to say to you is this, sir, that when I
+found myself unable to interest you in this scheme, I went into
+it myself to some extent."
+
+"Went into it yourself?" Mr. Dowling repeated, incredulously.
+"What do you mean, Tavernake?  What do you mean, sir?"
+
+"I mean that I have invested my savings in the purchase of
+several plots of land upon this hillside," Tavernake explained.
+
+"On your own account?" Mr. Dowling demanded.  "Your savings,
+indeed!"
+
+"Certainly," Tavernake answered.  "Why not?"
+
+"But it's the firm's business, sir--the firm's, not yours!"
+
+"The firm had the opportunity," Tavernake pointed out, "and were
+not inclined to avail themselves of it.  If I had not bought the
+land when I did, some one else would have bought the whole of it
+long ago."
+
+Mr. Dowling was obviously in a furious temper.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me, sir," he exclaimed, "that you dared to
+enter into private speculations while still an employee of the
+firm?  It is a most unheard-of thing, unwarranted, ridiculous.  I
+shall require you, sir, to at once make over the plots of land to
+us--to the firm, you understand.  We shall give you your price,
+of course, although I expect you paid much more for it than we
+should have done.  Still, we must give you what you paid, and
+four per cent interest for your money."
+
+"I am sorry," Tavernake replied, "but I am afraid that I should
+require better terms than that.  In fact," he continued, "I do
+not wish to sell.  I have given a great deal of thought and time
+to this matter, and I intend to carry it out as a personal
+speculation."
+
+"Then you will carry it out, sir, from some other place than from
+within the walls of my office," Mr. Dowling declared, furiously.
+"You understand that, Tavernake?"
+
+"Perfectly," Tavernake answered.  "You wish me to leave you.  It
+is very unwise of you to suggest it, but I am quite prepared to
+go."
+
+"You will either resell me those plots at cost price, or you
+shall not set foot within the office again," Mr. Dowling
+insisted.  "It is a gross breach of faith, this.  I never heard
+of such a thing in all my life.  Most unprofessional, impossible
+behavior!"
+
+Tavernake showed no signs of anger--he simply turned a little
+away.
+
+"I shall not sell you my land, Mr. Dowling," he said, "and it
+will suit me very well to leave your employ.  You appear," he
+continued, "to expect some one else to do the whole of the work
+for you while you reap the entire profits.  Those days have gone
+by.  My business in the world is to make a fortune for myself,
+and not for you!"
+
+"How dare you, sir!" Mr. Dowling cried.  "I never heard such
+impertinence in my life."
+
+"You haven't done a stroke of work for five years," Tavernake
+went on, unmoved, "and my efforts have supplied you with a fairly
+good income.  In future, those efforts will be directed towards
+my own advancement."
+
+Mr. Dowling turned back toward the car.
+
+"Young man," he said, "you can brazen it out as much as you like,
+but you have been guilty of a gross breach of faith.  I shall
+take care that the exact situation is made known in all
+responsible quarters.  You'll get no situation with any firm with
+whom I am acquainted--I can promise you that.  If you have
+anything more to say to Dowling, Spence & Company, let it be in
+writing."
+
+They parted company there and then.  Tavernake and Beatrice went
+down the hill in silence.
+
+"Does this bother you at all?" she inquired presently.
+
+"Nothing to speak of," Tavernake answered.  "It had to come.  I
+wasn't quite ready but that doesn't matter."
+
+"What shall you do now?" she asked.
+
+"Borrow enough to buy the whole of the hill," he replied.
+
+She looked back.
+
+"Won't that mean a great deal of money?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"It will be a big thing, of course," he admitted.  "Never mind, I
+dare say I shall be able to interest some one in it.  In any
+case, I never meant Mr. Dowling to make a fortune out of this."
+
+They walked on in silence a little further.  Then she spoke
+again, with some hesitation.
+
+"I suppose that what you have done is quite fair, Leonard?"
+
+He answered her promptly, without any sign of offence at her
+question.
+
+"As a matter of fact," he confessed, "it is an unusual thing for
+any one in the employ of a firm of estate agents to make
+speculations on their own account in land.  In this case,
+however, I consider that I was justified.  I have opened up three
+building speculations for the firm, on each one of which they
+have made a great deal of money, and I have not even had my
+salary increased, or any recognition whatever offered me.  There
+is a debt, of course, which an employee owes to his employer.
+There is also a debt, however, which the employer owes to his
+employee.  In my case I have never been treated with the
+slightest consideration of any sort.  What I have done I shall
+stick to.  After all, I am more interested in making money for
+myself than for other people."
+
+They had reached the corner of the field now, and turning into
+the lane commenced the steep descent.  It was Sunday evening, and
+from all the little conventicles and tin churches below, the
+bells began their unmusical summons.  From further away in the
+distance came the more melodious chiming from the Cathedral and
+the city churches.  The shriller and nearer note, however,
+prevailed.  The whole medley of sound was a discord.  As they
+descended, they could see the black-coated throngs slowly moving
+towards the different places of worship.  There was something
+uninspiring about it all.  She shuddered.
+
+"Leonard," she said, "I wonder why you are so anxious to get on
+in the world.  Why do you want to be rich?"
+
+He was glancing back toward the hill, the light of calculations
+in his eyes.  Once more he was measuring out those plots of land,
+calculating rent, deducting interest.
+
+"We all seek different things," he replied tolerantly,--"some
+fame, some pleasure.  Mr. Dowling, for instance, has no other
+ambition than to muddle round the golf links a few strokes better
+than his partner."
+
+"And you?" she asked.
+
+"It is success I seek," he answered.  "Women, as a rule, do not
+understand.  You, for instance, Beatrice, are too sentimental.  I
+am very practical.  It is money that I want.  I want money
+because money means success."
+
+"And afterwards?" she whispered.
+
+He was attending to her no longer.  They were turning now into
+the broad thoroughfare at the bottom of the lane, at the end of
+which a tram-car was waiting.  He scribbled a few, final notes
+into his pocket-book.
+
+"To-morrow," he exclaimed, with the joy of battle in his tone,
+"to-morrow the fight begins in earnest!"
+
+Beatrice passed her hand through his arm.
+
+"Not only for you, dear friend, but for me," she said.  "For you?
+What do you mean?" he asked quickly.
+
+"I have been trying to tell you all day," she continued, "but you
+have been too engrossed.  Yesterday afternoon I went to see Mr.
+Grier at the Atlas Theatre.  I had my voice tried, and to-morrow
+night I am going to take a small part in the new musical comedy."
+
+Tavernake stared at her in something like consternation.  His
+ideas as to the stage and all that belonged to it were of a
+primitive order.  Mrs. Fitzgerald was perhaps as near as possible
+to his idea of the type.  He glanced incredulously at Beatrice
+-- slim, quietly dressed, yet with the unmistakable, to him
+mysterious, distinction of breeding.
+
+"You an actress!" he exclaimed.
+
+She laughed softly.
+
+"Dear Leonard," she said, "this is going to be a part of your
+education.  To-morrow night you shall come to the theatre and
+wait for me at the stage-door."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A BEWILDERING OFFER
+
+
+Elizabeth stood with her hands behind her back, leaning slightly
+against the writing-table.  The professor, with his broad-brimmed
+hat clinched in his fingers, walked restlessly up and down the
+little room.  The discussion had not been altogether a pleasant
+one.  Elizabeth was composed but serious, her father nervous and
+excited.
+
+"You are mad, Elizabeth!" he declared.  "Is it that you do not
+understand, or will not?  I tell you that we must go."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Where would you drag me to?" she asked.  "We certainly can't go
+back to New York."
+
+He turned fiercely upon her.
+
+"Whose fault is it that we can't?" he demanded.  "If it weren't
+for you and your confounded schemes, I could be walking down
+Broadway next week.  God's own city it is, too!" he muttered.  "I
+wish we'd never seen those two young men."
+
+"It was a pity, perhaps," she admitted, "yet we had to do
+something.  We were absolutely stonybroke, as they say over
+here."
+
+"Anyway, we've got to get out of this," the professor declared.
+
+"My dear father," she replied, "I will agree that if a new city
+or a new world could arise from the bottom of the
+
+Once more he struck the table.  Then he threw out his hands above
+his head with the melodramatic instinct which had always been
+strong in his blood.
+
+"Do you think that I am a fool?" he cried.  "Do you think I do
+not know that if there were not something moving in your brain
+you would think no more of that clerk, that bourgeois estate
+agent, than of the door-mat beneath your feet?  It is what I
+always complain about.  You make use of me as a tool.  There are
+always things which I do not understand.  He comes here, this
+young man, under a pretext, whether he knows it or not.  You talk
+to him for an hour at a time.  There should be nothing in your
+life which I do not know of, Elizabeth," he continued, his voice
+suddenly hoarse as he leaned towards her.  "Can't you see that
+there is danger in friendships for you and for me, there is
+danger in intimacies of any sort?  I share the danger; I have a
+right to share the knowledge.  This young man has no money of his
+own, I take it.  Of what use is he to us?"
+
+"You are too hasty, my dear father," she replied.  "Let me assure
+you that there is nothing at all mysterious about Mr. Tavernake.
+The simple truth is that the young man rather attracts me."
+
+The professor gazed at her incredulously.
+
+"Attracts you!  He!"
+
+"You have never perfectly understood me, my dear parent," she
+murmured.  "You have never appreciated that trait in my
+character, that strange preference, if you like, for the
+absolutely original.  Now in all my life I never met such a young
+man as this.  He wears the clothes and he has the features and
+speech of just such a person as you have described, but there is
+a difference."
+
+"A difference, indeed!" the professor interrupted roughly.  "What
+difference, I should like to know?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders lightly.
+
+"He is stolid without being stupid," she explained.  "He is
+entirely self-centered.  I smile at him, and he waits patiently
+until I have finished to get on with our business.  I have said
+quite nice things to him and he has stared at me without change
+of expression, absolutely without pleasure or emotion of any
+sort."
+
+"You are too vain, Elizabeth," her father declared.  "You have
+been spoilt.  There are a few people in the world whom even you
+might fail to charm.  No doubt this young man is one of them."
+
+She sighed gently.
+
+"It really does seem," she admitted, "as though you were right,
+but we shall see.  By-the-bye, hadn't you better go?  The five
+minutes are nearly up."
+
+He came over to her side, his hat and gloves in his hand,
+prepared for departure.
+
+"Will you tell me, upon your honor, Elizabeth," he begged, "that
+there is no other reason for your interest?  That you are not
+engaged in any fresh schemes of which I know nothing?  Things are
+bad enough as they are.  I cannot sleep, I cannot rest, for
+thinking of our position.  If I thought that you had any fresh
+plans on hand--"
+
+She flicked the ash from her cigarette and checked him with a
+little gesture.
+
+"He knows where Beatrice is," she remarked thoughtfully, "and I
+can't get him to tell me.  There is nothing beyond -- absolutely
+nothing." . . .
+
+When Tavernake was announced, Elizabeth was still smoking,
+sitting in an easy-chair and looking into the fire.  Something in
+her attitude, the droop of her head as it rested upon her
+fingers, reminded him suddenly of Beatrice.  He showed no other
+emotion than a sudden pause in his walk across the room.  Even
+that, however, in a person whose machinelike attitude towards her
+provoked her resentment, was noticeable.
+
+"Good morning, my friend!" she said pleasantly.  "You have
+brought me the fresh list?"
+
+"Unfortunately, no, madam," Tavernake answered.  "I have called
+simply to announce that I am not able to be of any further
+assistance to you in the matter."
+
+She looked at him for a moment without remark.
+
+"Are you serious, Mr. Tavernake?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," he replied.  "The fact is I am not in a position to help
+you.  I have left the employ of Messrs. Dowling, Spence &
+Company."
+
+"Of your own accord?" she inquired quietly.
+
+"No, I was dismissed," he confessed.  "I should have been
+compelled to leave in a very short time, but Mr. Dowling
+forestalled me."
+
+"Won't you sit down and tell me about it?" she invited.
+
+He looked her in the eyes, square and unflinching.  He was still
+able to do that!
+
+"It could not possibly interest you," he said.
+
+"And-- my sister?  You have seen her?"
+
+"I have seen your sister," Tavernake answered, without
+hesitation.
+
+"You have a message for me?"
+
+"None," he declared.
+
+"She refuses-- to be reconciled, then?"
+
+"I am afraid she has no friendly feelings towards you."
+
+"She gave you no reason?"
+
+"No direct reason," he admitted, "but her attitude is-- quite
+uncompromising."
+
+She rose and swept across the floor towards him.  With firm but
+gentle fingers she took his worn bowler hat and mended gloves
+from his hand.  Her gesture guided him towards a sofa.
+
+"Beatrice has prejudiced you against me," she murmured.  "It is
+not fair.  Please come and sit down-- for five minutes," she
+pleaded.  "I want you to tell me why you have quarrelled with
+that funny little man, Mr. Dowling."
+
+"But, madam,--" he protested.
+
+"If you refuse, I shall think that my sister has been telling you
+stories about me," she declared, watching him closely.
+
+Tavernake drew a little away from her but seated himself on the
+sofa which she had indicated.  He took up as much room as
+possible, and to his relief she did not persist in her first
+intention, which was obviously to seat herself beside him.
+
+"Your sister has told me nothing about you whatsoever," he said
+deliberately.  "At the same time, she asked me not to give you
+her address."
+
+"We will talk about that presently," she interrupted.  "In the
+first place, tell me why you have left your place."
+
+"Mr. Dowling discovered," he told her, in a matter-of-fact tone,
+"that I had been doing some business on my own account.  He was
+quite right to disapprove.  I have not been back to the office
+since he found it out."
+
+"What sort of business?" she asked.
+
+"The business of the firm is to buy property in undeveloped
+districts and sell it for building estate," he explained.  "I
+have been very successful hitherto in finding sites for their
+operations.  A short time ago, I discovered one so good that I
+invested all my own savings in buying certain lots, and have an
+option upon the whole.  Mr. Dowling found it out and dismissed
+me."
+
+"But it seems most unfair," she declared.
+
+"Not at all," he answered.  "In Mr. Dowling's place I should have
+done the same thing.  Every one with his way in life to make must
+look out for himself.  Strictly speaking, what I did was wrong.
+I wish, however, that I had done it before.  One must think of
+one's self first."
+
+"And now?" she inquired.  "What are you going to do now?"
+
+"I am going to find a capitalist or float a company to buy the
+rest of the site," he announced.  "After that, we must see about
+building.  There is no hurry about that, though.  The first thing
+is to secure the site."
+
+"How much money does it require?"
+
+"About twelve thousand pounds," he told her.
+
+"It seems very little," she murmured.
+
+"The need for money comes afterwards," he explained.  "We want to
+drain and plan and build without mortgages.  As soon as we are
+sure of the site, one can think of that.  My option only extends
+for a week or so."
+
+"Do you really think that it is a good speculation?" she asked.
+
+"I do not think about such matters," he answered, drily.  "I
+know."
+
+She leaned back in her chair, watching him for several seconds -
+admiring him, as a matter of fact.  The profound conviction of
+his words was almost inspiring.  In her presence, and she knew
+that she was a very beautiful woman, he appeared, notwithstanding
+his absence of any knowledge of her sex and his lack of social
+status, unmoved, wholly undisturbed.  He sat there in perfect
+naturalness.  It did not seem to him even unaccountable that she
+should be interested in his concerns.  He was not conceited or
+aggressive in any way.  His complete self-confidence lacked any
+militant impulse.  He was-- himself, impervious to surroundings,
+however unusual.
+
+"Why should I not be your capitalist?" she inquired slowly.
+
+"Have you as much as twelve thousand pounds that you want to
+invest?" he asked, incredulously.
+
+She rose to her feet and moved across to her desk.  He sat quite
+still, watching her without any apparent curiosity.  She unlocked
+a drawer and returned to him with a bankbook in her hand.
+
+"Add that up," she directed, "and tell me how much I have."
+
+He drew a lead pencil from his pocket and quickly added up the
+total.
+
+"If you have not given any cheques since this was made up," he
+said calmly, "you have a credit balance of thirteen thousand, one
+hundred and eighteen pounds, nine shillings and fourpence.  It is
+very foolish of you to keep so much money on current account.
+You are absolutely losing about eight pounds a week."
+
+She smiled.
+
+"It is foolish of me, I suppose," she admitted, "but I have no
+one to advise me just now.  My father knows no more about money
+than a child, and I have just had quite a large amount paid to me
+in cash.  I only wish we could get Beatrice to share some of
+this, Mr. Tavernake."
+
+He made no remark.  To all appearance, he had never heard of her
+sister.  She came and sat down by his side again.
+
+"Will you have me for a partner, Mr. Tavernake?" she whispered.
+
+Then, indeed, for a moment, the impassivity of his features
+relaxed.  He was frankly amazed.
+
+"You cannot mean this," he declared.  "You know nothing about the
+value of the property, nothing about the affair at all.  It is
+quite impossible."
+
+"I know what you have told me," she said.  "Is not that enough?
+You are sure that it will make money and you have just told me
+how foolish I am to keep so much money in my bank.  Very well,
+then, I give it to you to invest.  You must pay me quite a good
+deal of interest."
+
+"But you know nothing about me," he protested, "nothing about the
+property."
+
+"One must trust somebody," she replied.  "Why shouldn't I trust
+you?"
+
+He was nonplussed.  This woman seemed to have an answer for
+everything.  Besides, when once he had got over the
+unexpectedness of the thing, it was, of course, a wonderful
+stroke of fortune for him.  Then came a whole rush of thoughts, a
+glow which he thrust back sternly.  It would mean seeing her
+often; it would mean coming here to her rooms; it would mean,
+perhaps, that she might come to look upon him as a friend.  He
+set his teeth hard.  This was folly!
+
+"Have you any idea about terms?" he inquired.
+
+She laughed softly.
+
+"My dear friend," she said, "why do you ask me such a question?
+You know quite well that I am not competent to discuss terms with
+you.  Listen.  You are engaged in a speculation to carry out
+which you want the loan of twelve thousand pounds.  Draw up a
+paper in which you state what my share will be of the profits,
+what interest I shall get for my money, and give particulars of
+the property.  Then I will take it to my solicitor, if you insist
+upon it, although I am willing to accept what you think is fair."
+
+"You must take it to a solicitor, of course," he answered,
+thoughtfully.  "I may as well tell you at once, however, that he
+will probably advise you against investing it in such a way."
+
+"That will make no difference at all," she declared.  "Solicitors
+hate all investments, I know, except their horrid mortgages.
+There are only two conditions that I shall make."
+
+"What are they?" he asked.
+
+"The first is that you must not say a word of this to my sister."
+
+Tavernake frowned.
+
+"That is a little difficult," he remarked.  "It happens that your
+sister knows something about the estate and my plans."
+
+"There is no need to tell her the name of your partner,"
+Elizabeth said.  "I want this to be our secret entirely, yours
+and mine."
+
+Her hand fell upon his; he gripped the sides of his chair.  Again
+he was conscious of this bewildering, incomprehensible sensation.
+
+"And the other condition?" he demanded, hoarsely.
+
+"That you come sometimes and tell me how things are going on."
+
+"Come here?" he repeated.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Please!  I am very lonely.  I shall look forward to your
+visits."
+
+Tavernake rose slowly to his feet.  He held out his hand -she
+knew better than to attempt to keep him.  He made a speech which
+was for him gallant, but while he made it he looked into her eyes
+with a directness to which she was indeed unaccustomed.
+
+"I shall come," he said.  "I should have wanted to come, anyhow."
+
+Then he turned abruptly away and left the room.  It was the first
+speech of its sort which he had ever made in his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+TAVERNAKE BLUNDERS
+
+
+Tavernake felt that he had indeed wandered into an alien world as
+he took his place the following evening among the little crowd of
+people who were waiting outside the stage-door of the Atlas
+Theatre.  These were surroundings to which he was totally
+unaccustomed.  Two very handsome motor-cars were drawn up against
+the curb, and behind them a string of electric broughams and
+taxicabs, proving conclusively that the young ladies of the Atlas
+Theatre were popular in other than purely theatrical circles.
+
+The handful of young men by whom Tavernake was surrounded were of
+a genus unknown to him.  They were all dressed exactly alike,
+they all seemed to breathe the same atmosphere, to exhibit the
+same indifference towards the other loungers.  One or two more
+privileged passed in through the stage-door and disappeared.
+Tavernake contented himself with standing on the edge of the
+curbstone, his hands thrust into the pockets of his dark
+overcoat, his bowler hat, which was not quite the correct shape,
+slightly on the back of his head; his serious, stolid face
+illuminated by the gleam from a neighboring gas lamp.
+
+Presently, people began to emerge from the door.  First of all,
+the musicians and a little stream of stage hands.
+
+Then a girl's hat appeared in the doorway, and the first of the
+Atlas young ladies came out, to be claimed at once by her escort.
+Very soon afterwards, Beatrice arrived.  She recognized Tavernake
+at once and crossed over to him.
+
+"Well?" she asked.
+
+"You looked very nice," he said, slowly, as he led the way down
+the street.  "Of course, I knew about your singing, but
+everything else--seemed such a surprise."
+
+"For instance?"
+
+"Why, I mean your dancing," he went on, "and somehow or other you
+looked different on the stage."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"'Different' won't do for me," she persisted.  "I must have
+something more specific."
+
+"Well, then, you looked much prettier than I thought you were,"
+Tavernake declared, solemnly.  "You looked exceedingly nice."
+
+"You really thought so?" she asked, a little doubtfully.
+
+"I really thought so.  I thought you looked much nicer than any
+of the others."
+
+She squeezed his arm affectionately.
+
+"Dear Leonard," she said, "it's so nice to have you think so.  Do
+you know, Mr. Grier actually asked me out to supper."
+
+"What impertinence!" Tavernake muttered.
+
+Beatrice threw her head back and laughed.
+
+"My dear brother," she protested, "it was a tremendous
+compliment.  You must remember that it was entirely through him,
+too, that I got the engagement.  Four pounds a week I am going to
+have.  Just think of it!"
+
+"Four pounds a week is all very well," Tavernake admitted.  "It
+seems a great deal of money to earn like that.  But I don't think
+you ought to go out to supper with any one whom you know so
+slightly."
+
+"Dear prig!  You know, you are a shocking prig, Leonard."
+
+"Am I?" he answered, without offence, and with the air of one
+seriously considering the subject.
+
+"Of course you are.  How could you help it, living the sort of
+life you've led all your days?  Never mind, I like you for it.  I
+don't know whether I want to go out to supper with anybody--I
+really haven't decided yet--but if I did, it would certainly be
+better for me to go with Mr. Grier, because he can do me no end
+of good at the theatre, if he likes."
+
+Tavernake was silent for several moments.  He was conscious of
+feeling something which he did not altogether understand.  He
+only knew that it involved a strong and unreasonable dislike to
+Mr. Grier.  Then he remembered that he was her brother, that he
+had the right to speak with authority.
+
+"I hope that you will not go out to supper with any one," he
+said.
+
+She began to laugh but checked herself.
+
+"Well," she remarked, "that sounds very terrible.  Shall we take
+a 'bus?  To tell you the truth, I am dying of hunger.  We
+rehearsed for two hours before the performance, and I ate nothing
+but a sandwich--I was so excited."
+
+Tavernake hesitated a moment--he certainly was not himself this
+evening!
+
+"Would you like to have some supper at a restaurant," he asked,
+"before we go home?"
+
+"I should love it," she declared, taking his arm as they passed
+through a stream of people.  "To tell you the truth, I was so
+hoping that you would propose it."
+
+"I think," Tavernake said, deliberately, "that there is a place a
+little way along here."
+
+They pushed their way down the Strand and entered a restaurant
+which Tavernake knew only by name.  A small table was found for
+them and Beatrice looked about with delight.
+
+"Isn't this jolly!" she exclaimed, taking off her gloves.  "Why,
+there are five or six of the girls from the theatre here already.
+There are two, see, at the corner table, and the fair-haired girl
+--she is just behind me in the chorus."
+
+Tavernake glanced around.  The young women whom she pointed out
+were all escorted by men who were scrupulously attired in evening
+dress.  She seemed to read his thoughts as she laughed at him.
+
+"You stupid boy," she said.  "You don't suppose that I want to be
+like them, do you?  There are lots of things it's delightful to
+look on at, and that's all.  Isn't this fish good?  I love this
+place."
+
+Tavernake looked around him with an interest which he took no
+pains to conceal.  Certainly the little groups of people by whom
+they were surrounded on every side had the air of finding some
+zest in life which up to the present, at any rate, had escaped
+him.  They came streaming in, finding friends everywhere,
+laughing and talking, insisting upon tables in impossible places,
+calling out greetings to acquaintances across the room, chaffing
+the maitre d'h“tel who was hastening from table to table.  The
+gathering babel of voices was mingled every now and then with the
+popping of corks, and behind it all were the soft strains of a
+very seductive little band, perched up in the balcony.  Tavernake
+felt the color mounting into his cheeks.  It was true: there was
+something here which was new to him!
+
+"Beatrice," he asked her suddenly, "have you ever drunk
+champagne?"
+
+She laughed at him.
+
+"Often, my dear brother," she answered.  "Why?"
+
+"I never have," he confessed.  "We are going to have some now."
+
+She would have checked him but he had summoned a waiter
+imperiously and given his order.
+
+"My dear Leonard," she protested, "this is shocking
+extravagance."
+
+"Is it?" he replied.  "I don't care.  Tell me about the theatre.
+Were they kind to you there?  Will you be able to keep your
+place?"
+
+"The girls were all much nicer than I expected," she told him,
+"and the musical director said that my voice was much too good
+for the chorus.  Oh, I do hope that they will keep me!"
+
+"They would be idiots if they didn't," he declared, vigorously.
+"You sing better and you dance more gracefully and to me you
+seemed much prettier than any one else there."
+
+She laughed into his eyes.
+
+"My dear brother," she exclaimed, "your education is progressing
+indeed!  It is positively the first evening I have ever heard you
+attempt to make pretty speeches, and you are quite an adept
+already."
+
+"I don't know about that," he protested.  "I suppose it never
+occurred to me before that you were good-looking," he added,
+examining her critically, "or I dare say I should have told you
+so.  You see, one doesn't notice these things in an ordinary way.
+Lots of other people must have told you so, though."
+
+"I was never spoilt with compliments," she said.  "You see, I had
+a beautiful sister."
+
+The words seemed to have escaped her unconsciously.  Almost as
+they passed her lips, her expression changed.  She shivered, as
+though reminded of something unpleasant.  Tavernake, however,
+noticed nothing.  For the greater part of the day he had been
+sedulously fighting against a new and unaccustomed state of mind.
+He had found his thoughts slipping away, time after time, until
+he had had to set his teeth and use all his will power to keep
+his attention concentrated upon his work.  And now once more they
+had escaped, again he felt the strange stir in his blood.  The
+slight flush on his cheek grew suddenly deeper.  He looked past
+the girl opposite to him, out of the restaurant, across the
+street, into that little sitting-room in the Milan Court.  It was
+Elizabeth who was there in front of him.  Again he heard her
+voice, saw the turn of her head, the slow, delightful curve of
+the lips, the eyes that looked into his and spoke to him the
+first strange whispers of a new language.  His heart gave a quick
+throb.  He was for the moment transformed, a prisoner no longer,
+a different person, indeed, from the stolid, well-behaved young
+man who found himself for the first time in his life in these
+unaccustomed surroundings.  Then Beatrice leaned towards him, her
+voice brought him back to the present--not, alas, the voice which
+at that moment he would have given so much to have heard.
+
+"To-night," she murmured, "I feel as though we were at the
+beginning of new things.  We must drink a toast."
+
+Tavernake filled her glass and his own.
+
+"Luck to you in your new profession!" he said.
+
+"And here is one after your own heart, you most curious of men!"
+she exclaimed, a few seconds later.  "To the undiscovered in
+life!"
+
+He drained his glass and set it down empty.
+
+"The undiscovered," he muttered, looking around.  "It is a very
+good toast, Beatrice.  There are many things of which one might
+remain ignorant all one's life if one relied wholly upon one's
+own perceptions."
+
+"I believe," she agreed, "that if I had not appeared you were in
+great danger of becoming narrow."
+
+"I am sure of it," he answered, "but you see you came."
+
+She was thoughtful for a moment.
+
+"This reminds me just a little of that first dreary feast of
+ours," she said.  "You knew what it was like then to feed a
+genuinely starving girl.  And I was miserable, Leonard.  It
+didn't seem to me that there was any other end save one."
+
+"You've got over all that nonsense?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"Yes, I suppose so," she answered.  "You see, I've started life
+again and one gets stronger.  But there are times even now," she
+added, "when I am afraid."
+
+The mirth had suddenly died from her face.  She looked older,
+tired, and careworn.  The shadows were back under her eyes; she
+glanced around almost timorously.  He filled her glass.
+
+"That is foolishness," he said.  "Nothing nor anybody can harm
+you now."
+
+Some note in his voice attracted her attention.  Strong and
+square, with hard, forceful face, he sat wholly at his ease among
+these unfamiliar surroundings, a very tower of refuge, she felt,
+to the weak.  His face was not strikingly intellectual--she was
+not sure now about his mouth--but one seemed to feel that dogged
+nature, the tireless pains by which he would pursue any aim dear
+to him.  The shadows passed away from her mind.  What was dead
+was gone!  It was not reasonable that she should be haunted all
+her days by the ghosts of other people's sins.  The atmosphere of
+the place, the atmosphere of the last few hours, found its way
+again into her blood.  After all, she was young, the music was
+sweet, her pulses were throbbing to the tune of this new life.
+She drank her wine and laughed, her head beating time to the
+music.
+
+"We have been sad long enough," she declared.  "You and I, my
+dear serious brother, will embark in earnest now upon the paths
+of frivolity.  Tell me, how did things go to-day?"
+
+It flashed into his mind that he had great news, but that it was
+not for her.  About that matter there was still doubt in his
+mind, but he could not speak of it.
+
+"I have had an offer," he said guardedly.  "I cannot say much
+about it at present, for nothing is certain, but I am sure that I
+shall be able to raise the money somehow."
+
+His tone was calm and confident.  There was no self-assurance or
+bluster about it, and yet it was convincing.  She looked at him
+curiously.
+
+"You are a very positive person, Leonard," she remarked.  "You
+must have great faith in yourself, I think."
+
+He considered the question for a moment.
+
+"Perhaps I have," he admitted.  "I do not think that there is any
+other way to succeed."
+
+The atmosphere of the place was becoming now almost languorous.
+The band had ceased to play; little parties of men and women were
+standing about, bidding one another goodnight.  The lamps had
+been lowered, and in the gloom the voices and laughter seemed to
+have become lower and more insinuating; the lights in the eyes of
+the women, as they passed down the room on their way out, softer
+and more irresistible.
+
+"I suppose we must go," she said reluctantly.
+
+Tavernake paid his bill and they turned into the street.  She
+took his arm and they turned westward.  Even out here, the
+atmosphere of the restaurant appeared to have found its way.  The
+soberness of life, its harder and more practical side, was for
+the moment obscured.  It was not the daytime crowd, this, whose
+footsteps pressed the pavements.  The careworn faces of the
+money-seekers had vanished.  The men and women to whom life was
+something of a struggle had sought their homes--resting, perhaps,
+before they took up their labors again.  Every moment taxicabs
+and motor-cars whirled by, flashing upon the night a momentary
+impression of men in evening dress, of women in soft garments
+with jewels in their hair.  The spirit of pleasure seemed to have
+crept into the atmosphere.  Even the poorer people whom they
+passed in the street, were laughing or singing.
+
+Tavernake stopped short.
+
+"To-night," he declared, "is not the night for omnibuses.  We are
+going to have a taxicab.  I know that you are tired."
+
+"I should love it," she admitted.
+
+They hailed one and drove off.  Beatrice leaned back among the
+cushions and closed her eyes, her ungloved hand rested almost
+caressingly upon his.  He leaned forward.  There were new things
+in the world--he was sure of it now, sure though they were coming
+to him through the mists, coming to him so vaguely that even
+while he obeyed he did not understand.  Her full, soft lips were
+slightly parted; her heavily-fringed eyelids closed; her deep
+brown hair, which had escaped bounds a little, drooping over her
+ear.  His fingers suddenly clasped hers tightly.
+
+"Beatrice!" he whispered.
+
+She sat up with a start, her eyes questioning his, the breath
+coming quickly through her parted lips.
+
+"Once you asked me to kiss you, Beatrice," he said.  "To-night
+-- I am going to."
+
+She made no attempt to repulse him.  He took her in his arms and
+kissed her.  Even in that moment he knew that he had made a
+mistake.  Nevertheless, he kissed her again and again, crushing
+her lips against his.
+
+"Please let me go, Leonard," she begged at last.
+
+He obeyed at once.  He understood quite well that some strange
+thing had happened.  It seemed to him during those next few
+minutes that everything which had passed that night was a dream,
+that this vivid picture of a life more intense, making larger
+demands upon the senses than anything he had yet experienced, was
+a mirage, a thing which would live only in his memory, a life in
+which he could never take any part.  He had blundered; he had
+come into a new world and he had blundered.  A sense of guilt was
+upon him.  He had a sudden wild desire to cry out that it was
+Elizabeth whom he had kissed.  Beatrice was sitting upright in
+her place, her head turned a little away from him.  He felt that
+she was expecting him to speak--that there were inevitable words
+which he should say.  His silence was a confession.  He would
+have lied but the seal was upon his lips.  So the moment passed,
+and Tavernake had taken another step forward towards his destiny!
+. . .
+
+As he helped her out of the cab, her fingers tightened for a
+moment upon his hand.  She patted it gently as she passed out
+before him into the house, leaving the door open.  When he had
+paid the cabman and followed, she had disappeared.  He looked
+into the sitting-room; it was empty.  Overhead, he could hear her
+footsteps as she ascended to her room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+AN EVENING CALL
+
+
+In the morning, when he left for the city, she was not down.
+When he came home in the evening, she was gone.  Without removing
+his hat or overcoat, he took the letter which he found propped up
+on the mantelpiece and addressed to him to the window and read
+it.
+
+DEAR BROTHER LEONARD,--It wasn't your fault and I don't think it
+was mine.  If either of us is to blame, it is certainly I, for
+though you are such a clever and ambitious young person, you
+really know very little indeed of the world,--not so much, I
+think, as I do.  I am going to stay for a few nights, at any
+rate, with one of the girls at the theatre, who I know wants some
+one to share her tiny flat with her.  Afterwards, I shall see.
+
+Don't throw this letter in the fire and don't think me
+ungrateful.  I shall never forget what you did for me.  How could
+I?
+
+I will send you my address as soon as I am sure of it, or you can
+always write me to the theatre.
+
+                Good-bye, dear Leonard,
+                                        YOUR SISTER BEATRICE.
+
+Tavernake looked from the sheet of notepaper out across the gray
+square.  He knew that he was very angry, angry though he
+deliberately folded the letter up and placed it in his pocket,
+angry though he took off his overcoat and hung it up with his
+usual care; but his anger was with himself.  He had blundered
+badly.  This episode of his life was one which he had better
+forget.  It was absolutely out of harmony with all his ideas.  He
+told himself that he was glad Beatrice was gone.  Housekeeping
+with an imaginary sister in this practical world was an
+absurdity.  Sooner or later it must have come to an end.  Better
+now, before it had gone too far--better now, much better!  All
+the same, he knew that he was going to be very lonely.
+
+He rang the bell for the woman who waited upon them, and whom he
+seldom saw, for Beatrice herself had supplied their immediate
+wants.  He found some dinner ready, which he ate with absolute
+unconsciousness.  Then he threw himself fiercely into his work.
+It was all very well for the first hour or so, but as ten o'clock
+grew near he began to find a curious difficulty in keeping his
+attention fixed upon those calculations.  The matter of average
+rentals, percentage upon capital--things which but yesterday he
+had found fascinating--seemed suddenly irksome.  He could fix his
+attention upon nothing.  At last he pushed his papers away, put
+on his hat and coat, and walked into the street.
+
+At the Milan Court, the hall-porter received his inquiry for
+Elizabeth with an air of faint but well-bred surprise.
+Tavernake, in those days, was a person exceedingly difficult to
+place.  His clothes so obviously denoted the station in life
+which he really occupied, while the slight imperiousness of his
+manner, his absolute freedom from any sort of nervousness or
+awkwardness, seemed to bespeak a consideration which those who
+had to deal with him as a stranger found sometimes a little
+puzzling.
+
+"Mrs. Wenham Gardner is in her rooms, I believe, sir," the man
+said.  "If you will wait for a moment, I will inquire."
+
+He disappeared into his office, thrusting his head out, a moment
+or two later, with the telephone receiver still in his hand.
+
+"Mrs. Gardner would like the name again, sir, please," he
+remarked.
+
+Tavernake repeated it firmly.
+
+"You might say," he added, "that I shall not detain her for more
+than a few minutes."
+
+The man disappeared once more.  When he returned, he indicated
+the lift to Tavernake.
+
+"If you will go up to the fifth floor, sir," he said, " Mrs.
+Gardner will see you."
+
+Tavernake found his courage almost leaving him as he knocked at
+the door of her rooms.  Her French maid ushered him into the
+little sitting-room, where, to his dismay, he found three men,
+one sitting on the table, the other two in easy-chairs.
+Elizabeth, in a dress of pale blue satin, was standing before the
+mirror.  She turned round as Tavernake entered.
+
+"Mr. Tavernake shall decide!" she exclaimed, waving her hand to
+him.  " Mr. Tavernake, there is a difference of opinion about my
+earrings.  Major Post here,"--she indicated a distinguished-
+looking elderly gentleman, with carefully trimmed beard and
+moustache, and an eyeglass attached to a thin band of black
+ribbon--" Major Post wants me to wear turquoises.  I prefer my
+pearls.  Mr. Crease half agrees with me, but as he never agrees
+with any one, on principle, he hates to say so.  Mr. Faulkes is
+wavering.  You shall decide; you, I know, are one of those people
+who never waver."
+
+"I should wear the pearls," Tavernake said.
+
+Elizabeth made them a little courtesy.
+
+"You see, my dear friends," she declared, " you have to come to
+England, after all, to find a man who knows his own mind and
+speaks it without fear.  The pearls it shall be."
+
+"It may be decision," Crease drawled, speaking with a slight
+American accent, "or it may be gallantry.  Mr. Tavernake knew
+your own choice."
+
+"The last word, as usual," she sighed.  "Now, if you good people
+will kindly go on downstairs, I will join you in a few minutes.
+Mr. Tavernake is my man of business and I am sure he has
+something to say to me."
+
+She dismissed them all pleasantly.  As soon as the door was
+closed she turned to Tavernake.  Her manner seemed to become a
+shade less gracious.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I don't know why I came," Tavernake confessed bluntly.  "I was
+restless and I wanted to see you."
+
+She looked at him for a moment and then she laughed.  Tavernake
+felt a sense of relief; at least she was not angry.
+
+"Oh, you strangest of mortals!" she exclaimed, holding out her
+hands.  "Well, you see me--in one of my most becoming gowns, too.
+What do you think of the fit?"
+
+She swept round and faced him again with an expectant look.
+Tavernake, who knew nothing of women's fashions, still realized
+the superbness of that one unbroken line.
+
+"I can't think how you can move a step in it," he said, "but you
+look--"
+
+He paused.  It was as though he had lost his breath.  Then he set
+his teeth and finished.
+
+"You look beautiful," he declared.  "I suppose you know that.  I
+suppose they've all been telling you so."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"They haven't all your courage, dear Briton," she remarked, "and
+if they did tell me so, I am not sure that I should be convinced.
+You see, most of my friends have lived so long and lived so
+quickly that they have learned to play with words until one never
+knows whether the things they speak come from their hearts.  With
+you it is different."
+
+"Yes," Tavernake admitted, "with me it is different!"
+
+She glanced at the clock.
+
+"Well," she said, "you have seen me and I am glad to have seen
+you, and you may kiss my fingers if you like, and then you must
+run away.  I am engaged to have supper with my friends
+downstairs."
+
+He raised her fingers clumsily enough to his lips and kept them
+there for a moment.  When he let them go, she wrung them as
+though in pain, and looked at him.  She turned abruptly away.  In
+a sense she was disappointed.  After all, he was an easy victim!
+
+"Elise," she called out, "my cloak."
+
+Her maid came hurrying from the next room.  Elizabeth turned
+towards her, holding out her shoulders.  She nodded to Tavernake.
+
+"You know the way down, Mr. Tavernake?  I shall see you again
+soon, sha'n't I?  Good-night!"
+
+She scarcely glanced at him as she sent him away, yet Tavernake
+walked on air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A WARNING FROM Mr. PRITCHARD
+
+
+Tavernake hesitated for a moment under the portico of the Milan
+Court, looking out at the rain which had suddenly commenced to
+descend.  He scarcely noticed that he had a companion until the
+man who was standing by his side addressed him.
+
+"Say, your name is Tavernake, isn't it?"
+
+Tavernake, who had been on the point of striding away, turned
+sharply around.  The man who had spoken to him was wearing
+morning clothes of dark gray tweed and a soft Homburg hat.  His
+complexion was a little sallow and he was clean-shaven except for
+a slight black moustache.  He was smoking a black cigar and his
+accent was transatlantic.  Something about his appearance struck
+Tavernake as being vaguely familiar, but he could not at first
+recall where he had seen him before.
+
+"That is my name, certainly," Tavernake admitted.
+
+"I am going to ask you a somewhat impertinent question," his
+neighbor remarked.
+
+"I suppose you can ask it," Tavernake rejoined.  "I am not
+obliged to answer, am I?"
+
+The man smiled.
+
+"Come," he said, "that's honest, at any rate.  Are you in a hurry
+for a few minutes?"
+
+"I am in no particular hurry," Tavernake answered.  "What do you
+want?"
+
+"A few nights ago," the stranger continued, lowering his voice a
+little, "I met you with a young lady whose appearance, for some
+reason which we needn't go into, interested me.  To-night I
+happened to overhear you inquiring, only a few minutes ago, for
+the sister of the same young lady."
+
+"What you heard doesn't concern me in the least," Tavernake
+retorted.  "I should say that you had no business to listen."
+
+His companion smiled.
+
+"Well," he declared, "I have always heard a good deal about
+British frankness, and it seems to me that I'm getting some.
+Anyway, I'll tell you where I come in.  I am interested in Mrs.
+Wenham Gardner.  I am interested, also, in her sister, whom I
+think you know--Miss Beatrice Franklin, not Miss Tavernake!"
+
+Tavernake made no immediate reply.  The man was an American,
+without a doubt.  Perhaps he knew something of Beatrice.  Perhaps
+this was one of the friends of that former life concerning which
+she had told him nothing.
+
+"You are not, by any chance, proposing," Tavernake said at last,
+"to discuss either of these ladies with me?  I do not know you or
+what your business may be.  In any case, I am going now."
+
+The other laid his hand on Tavernake's shoulder.
+
+"You'll be soaked to the skin," he protested.  "I want you to
+come into the smoking-room here with me for a few minutes.  We
+will have a drink together and a little conversation, if you
+don't mind."
+
+"But I do mind," Tavernake declared.  "I don't know who you are
+and I don't want to know you, and I am not going to talk about
+Mrs. Gardner, or any other lady of my acquaintance, with
+strangers.  Good-night!"
+
+"One moment, please, Mr. Tavernake."
+
+Tavernake hesitated.  There was something curiously compelling in
+the other's smooth, distinct voice.
+
+"I'd like you to take this card," he said.  "I told you my name
+before but I expect you've forgotten it,--Pritchard--Sam
+Pritchard.  Ever heard of me before?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"Not to have heard of me in the United States," the other
+continued, with a grim smile, "would be a tribute to your
+respectability.  Most of the crooks who find their way over here
+know of Sam Pritchard.  I am a detective and I come from New
+York."
+
+Tavernake turned and looked the man over.  There was something
+convincing about his tone and appearance.  It did not occur to
+him to doubt for a moment a word of this stranger's story.
+
+"You haven't anything against her--against either of them?" he
+asked, quickly.
+
+"Nothing directly," the detective answered.  "All the same, you
+have been calling upon Mrs. Wenham Gardner this evening, and if
+you are a friend of hers I think that you had better come along
+with me and have that talk."
+
+"I will come," Tavernake agreed, "but I come as a listener.
+Remember that I have nothing to tell you.  So far as you are
+concerned, I do not know either of those ladies."
+
+Pritchard smiled.
+
+"Well," he said, "I guess we'll let it go at that.  All the same,
+if you don't mind, we'll talk.  Come this way and we'll get to
+the smoking-room through the hotel.  It's under cover."
+
+Tavernake moved restlessly in his chair.
+
+"What the devil is all this talk about crooks!" he exclaimed
+impatiently.  "I didn't come here to listen to this sort of
+thing.  I am not sure that I believe a word of what you say."
+
+"Why should you," Pritchard remarked, "without proof?  Look
+here."
+
+He drew a leather case from his pocket and spread it out.  There
+were a dozen photographs there of men in prison attire.  The
+detective pointed to one, and with a little shiver Tavernake
+recognized the face of the man who had been sitting at the right
+hand of Elizabeth.
+
+"You don't mean to say," he faltered, "that Mrs. Gardner--"
+
+The detective folded up his case and replaced it in his pocket.
+
+"No," he said, "we haven't any photographs of your lady friend
+there, nor of her sister.  And yet, it may not be so far off."
+
+"If you are trying to fasten anything upon those ladies,--"
+Tavernake began, threateningly.
+
+The detective laughed and patted him on the shoulder.
+
+"It isn't my business to try and fasten things upon any one," he
+interrupted.  "At the same time, you seem to be a friend of Mrs.
+Wenham Gardner, and it is just as well that some one should warn
+her."
+
+"Warn her of what?" Tavernake asked.
+
+The detective looked at his cigar meditatively.
+
+"Make her understand that there is trouble ahead," he replied.
+
+Tavernake sipped his whiskey and soda and lit a cigarette.  Then
+he turned in his chair and looked thoughtfully at his companion.
+Pritchard was a striking-looking man, with hard, clean-cut
+features--a man of determination.
+
+"Mr. Pritchard, I am a clerk in an estate office.  My people were
+work-people and I am trying to better myself in the world.  I
+haven't learned how to beat about a subject, but I have learned a
+little of the world, and I know that people such as you are not
+in the habit of doing things without a reason.  Why the devil
+have you brought me in here to talk about Mrs. Gardner and her
+sister?  If you've anything to say, why don't you go to Mrs.
+Gardner herself and say it?  Why do you come and talk to
+strangers about their affairs?  I am here listening to you, but I
+tell you straight I don't like it."
+
+Pritchard nodded.
+
+"Say, I am not sure that I don't like that sort of talk," he
+declared.  "I know all about you, young man.  You're in Dowling &
+Spence's office and you've got to quit.  You've got an estate you
+want financing.  Miss Beatrice Franklin was living under your
+roof--as your sister, I understand--until yesterday, and Mrs.
+Gardner, for some reason of her own, seems to be doing her best
+to add you to the list of her admirers.  I am not sure what it
+all means but I could make a pretty good guess.  Here's my point,
+though.  You're right.  I didn't bring you here for your health.
+I brought you here because you can do me a service and yourself
+one at the same time, and you'll be doing no one any harm, nobody
+you care about, anyway.  I have no grudge against Miss Beatrice.
+I'd just as soon she kept out of the trouble that's coming."
+
+"What is this service?" Tavernake asked.
+
+Pritchard for the moment evaded the point.
+
+"I dare say you can understand, Mr. Tavernake," he said, "that in
+my profession one has to sometimes go a long way round to get a
+man or a woman just where you want them.  Now we merely glanced
+at that table as we came in, and I can tell you this for gospel
+truth--there isn't one of that crowd that I couldn't, if I liked,
+haul back to New York on some charge or another.  You wonder why
+I don't do it.  I'll tell you.  It's because I am waiting
+-- waiting until I can bring home something more serious,
+something that will keep them out of the way for just as long as
+possible.  Do you follow me, Mr. Tavernake?"
+
+"I suppose I do," Tavernake answered, doubtfully.  "You are only
+talking of the men, of course?"
+
+Pritchard smiled.
+
+"My young friend," he agreed, "I am only talking of the men.  At
+the same time, I guess I'm not betraying any confidence, or
+telling you anything that Mrs. Wenham Gardner doesn't know
+herself, when I say that she's doing her best to qualify for a
+similar position."
+
+"You mean that she is doing something against the law!" Tavernake
+exclaimed, indignantly.  "I don't believe it for a moment.  If
+she is associating with these people, it's because she doesn't
+know who they are."
+
+Pritchard flicked the ash from his cigar.
+
+"Well," he said, "every man has a right to his own opinions, and
+for my part I like to hear any one stick up for his friends.  It
+makes no odds to me.  However, here are a few facts I am going to
+bring before you.  Four months ago, one of the turns at a
+vaudeville show down Broadway consisted of a performance by a
+Professor Franklin and his two daughters, Elizabeth and Beatrice.
+The professor hypnotized, told fortunes, felt heads, and the
+usual rigmarole.  Beatrice sang, Elizabeth danced.
+
+People came to see the show, not because it was any good but
+because the girls, even in New York, were beautiful."
+
+"A music-hall in New York!" Tavernake muttered.
+
+The detective nodded.
+
+"Among the young bloods of the city," he continued, "were two
+brothers, as much alike as twins, although they aren't twins,
+whose names were Wenham and Jerry Gardner.  There's nothing in
+fast life which those young men haven't tried.  Between them, I
+should say they represented everything that was known of
+debauchery and dissipation.  The eldest can't be more than
+twenty-seven to-day, but if you were to see them in the morning,
+either of them, before they had been massaged and galvanized into
+life, you'd think they were little old men, with just strength
+enough left to crawl about.  Well, to cut a long story short,
+both of them fell in love with Elizabeth."
+
+"Brutes!" Tavernake interjected.
+
+"I guess they found Miss Elizabeth a pretty tough nut to crack,"
+the detective went on.  "Anyhow, you know what her price was from
+her name, which is hers right enough.  Wenham, who was a year
+younger than his brother, was the first to bid it.  Three months
+ago, Mr. and Mrs. Wenham Gardner, Miss Beatrice, and the devoted
+father left New York in the Lusitania and came to London."
+
+"Where is this Wenham Gardner, then?" Tavernake demanded.
+
+Pritchard took his cigar case from his pocket and selected
+another cigar.
+
+"Say, that's where you strike the nail right on the head," he
+remarked.  "Where is this Wenham Gardner?
+
+I don't mind telling you, Mr. Tavernake, that to discover his
+whereabouts is exactly what I am over on this side for.  I have a
+commission from the family to find out, and a blank cheque to do
+it with."
+
+"Do you mean that he has disappeared, then?" asked Tavernake.
+
+"Off the face of the earth, sir," Pritchard replied.  "Something
+like two months ago, the young married couple, with Miss
+Beatrice, started for a holiday tour somewhere down in the west
+of England.  A few days after they started, Miss Beatrice comes
+back to London alone.  She goes to a boarding-house, is
+practically penniless, but she has shaken her sister--has, I
+believe, never spoken with her since.  A little later, Elizabeth
+alone turns up in London.  She has plenty of money, more money
+than she has ever had the control of before in her life, but no
+husband."
+
+"So far, I don't see anything remarkable about that," Tavernake
+interposed.
+
+"That may or may not be," Pritchard answered, drily.  "This
+creature, Wenham Gardner--I hate to call him a man--was her
+abject slave--up till the time they reached London, at any rate.
+He would never have quit of his own accord.  He stopped quite
+suddenly communicating with all his friends.  None of their
+cables, even, were answered."
+
+"Why don't you go and ask Mrs. Gardner where he is?" Tavernake
+demanded bluntly.
+
+"I have already," Pritchard declared, "taken that liberty.  With
+tears in her eyes, she assured me that after some slight quarrel,
+in which she admits that she was the one to blame, her husband
+walked out of the house where they were staying, and she has not
+seen him since.  She was quite ready with all the particulars,
+and even implored me to help find him."
+
+"I cannot imagine," Tavernake said, "why any one should
+disbelieve her."
+
+The detective smiled.
+
+"There are a few little outside circumstances," he remarked,
+looking at the ash of his cigar.  "In the first place, how do you
+suppose that this young Wenham Gardner spent the last week of his
+stay in New York?"
+
+"How should I know?" Tavernake replied, impatiently.
+
+"By realizing every cent of his property on which he could lay
+his hands," the detective continued.  "It isn't at any time an
+easy business, and the Gardner interest is spread out in many
+directions, but he must have sailed with something like forty
+thousand pounds in hard cash.  A suspicious person might presume
+that that forty thousand pounds has found its way to the stronger
+of the combination."
+
+"Anything else?" Tavernake asked.
+
+"I won't worry you much more," the detective answered.  "There
+are a few other circumstances which seem to need explanation, but
+they can wait.  There is one serious one, however, and that is
+where you come in."
+
+"Indeed!" Tavernake remarked.  "I was hoping you would come to
+that soon."
+
+"The two sisters, Beatrice and Elizabeth, have been together ever
+since we can learn anything of their history.  Those people who
+don't understand the disappearance of Wenham Gardner would like
+to know why they quarreled and parted, why Beatrice is keeping
+away from her sister in this strange manner.  I personally, too,
+should like to know from Miss Beatrice when she last saw Wenham
+Gardner alive."
+
+"You want me to ask Miss Beatrice these things?" Tavernake
+demanded.
+
+"It might come better from you," Pritchard admitted.  "I have
+written her to the theatre but naturally she has not replied."
+
+Tavernake looked curiously at his companion.
+
+"Do you really suppose," he asked, "that, even granted there were
+any unusual circumstances in connection with that quarrel--do you
+seriously suppose that Beatrice would give her sister away?"
+
+The detective sighed.
+
+"No doubt, Mr. Tavernake," he said, "these young ladies are
+friends of yours, and perhaps for that reason you are a little
+prejudiced in their favor.  Their whole bringing-up and
+associations, however, have certainly not been of a strict order.
+I cannot help thinking that persuasion might be brought to bear
+upon Miss Beatrice, that it might be pointed out to her that a
+true story is the safest."
+
+"Well, if you've finished," Tavernake declared, "I'd like to tell
+you what I think of your story.  I think it's all d -d silly
+nonsense!  This Wenham Gardner, by your own saying, was half mad.
+There was a quarrel and he's gone off to Paris or somewhere.  As
+to your suggestions about Mrs. Gardner, I think they're
+infamous."
+
+Pritchard was unmoved by his companion's warmth.
+
+"Why, that's all right, Mr. Tavernake," he affirmed.  "I can
+quite understand your feeling like that just at first.  You see,
+I've been among crime and criminals all my days, and I learn to
+look for a certain set of motives when a thing of this sort
+happens.  You've been brought up among honest folk, who go the
+straightforward way about life, and naturally you look at the
+same matter from a different point of view.  But you and I have
+got to talk this out.  I want you to understand that those very
+charming young ladies are not quite the class of young women whom
+you know anything about.  Mind you, I haven't a word to say
+against Miss Beatrice.  I dare say she's as straight as they make
+'em.  But--you must take another whiskey and soda, Mr. Tavernake.
+Now, I insist upon it.  Tim, come right over here."
+
+Mr. Pritchard seemed to have forgotten what he was talking about.
+The room had been suddenly invaded.  The whole of the little
+supper party, whose individual members he had pointed out to his
+companion, came trooping into the room.  They were all apparently
+on the best of terms with themselves, and they all seemed to make
+a point of absolutely ignoring Pritchard's presence.  Elizabeth
+was the one exception.  She was carrying a tiny Chinese spaniel
+under one arm; with the fingers of her other hand she held a
+tortoise-shell mounted monocle to her eye, and stared directly at
+the two men.  Presently she came languidly across the room to
+them.
+
+"Dear me," she said, "I had no idea that even your wide circle of
+acquaintances, Mr. Pritchard, included my friend, Mr. Tavernake."
+
+The two men rose to their feet.  Tavernake felt confused and
+angry.  It was as though he had been playing the traitor in
+listening, even for a moment, to these stories.
+
+"Mr. Pritchard introduced himself to me only a few minutes ago,"
+he declared.  "He brought me in here and I have been listening to
+a lot of rubbish from him of which I don't believe a single
+word."
+
+She flashed a wonderful smile upon him.
+
+"Mr. Pritchard is so very censorious," she murmured.  "He takes
+such a very low view of human nature.  After all, though, I
+suppose we must not blame him.  I think that as men and women we
+do not exist to him.  We are simply the pegs by means of which he
+can climb a little higher in the esteem of his employers."
+
+Pritchard took up his soft hat and stick.
+
+"Mrs. Gardner," he said, "I will confess that I have been wasting
+my time with this young man.  You are a trifle severe upon me.
+You may find, and before long, that I am your best friend."
+
+She laughed delightfully.
+
+"Dear Mr. Pritchard," she exclaimed, "it is a strange thought,
+that!  If only I dared hope that some day it might come true!"
+
+"More unlikely things, madam, are happening every hour," the
+detective remarked.  "The world--our little corner of it, at any
+rate--is full of anomalies.  There might even come a time to any
+one of us three when liberty was more dangerous than the prison
+cell itself."
+
+He nodded carelessly to Tavernake, and with a bow to Elizabeth
+turned and left the room.  Elizabeth remained as though turned to
+stone, looking after him as he descended the stairs.
+
+"The man is a fool!" Tavernake cried, roughly.
+
+Elizabeth shook her head and sighed.
+
+"He is something far more ineffective," she said.  "He is just a
+little too clever."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER, XV
+
+GENERAL DISCONTENT
+
+
+Elizabeth did not at once rejoin her friends.  Instead, she sank
+on to the low settee close to where she had been standing, and
+drew Tavernake down to her side.  She waved her hand across at
+the others, who were calling for her.
+
+"In a moment, dear people," she said.
+
+Then she leaned back among the cushions and laughed at her
+companion.
+
+"Tell me, Mr. Tavernake," she asked, "don't you feel that you
+have stepped into a sort of modern Arabian Nights?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh, I know Mr. Pritchard's weakness," she continued.  "He loves
+to throw a glamour around everything he says or does.  Because he
+honors me by interesting himself in my concerns, he has probably
+told you all sorts of wonderful things about me and my friends.
+A very ingenious romancer, Mr. Pritchard, you know.  Confess,
+now, didn't he tell you some stories about us?"
+
+She might have spared herself the trouble of beating about the
+bush.  There was no hesitation about Tavernake.
+
+"He said that your friends were every one of them criminals,"
+Tavernake declared, "and he admitted that he was working hard at
+the present moment to discover that you were one, too."
+
+She laughed softly but heartily.
+
+"I wonder what was his object," she remarked, "in taking you into
+his confidence."
+
+"He happened to know," Tavernake explained, "that I was intimate
+with your sister.  He wanted me to ask Beatrice a certain
+question."
+
+Elizabeth laughed no more.  She looked steadfastly into his eyes.
+
+"And that question?"
+
+"He wanted me to ask Beatrice why she left you and hid herself in
+London."
+
+She tried to smile but not very successfully.
+
+"According to his story," Tavernake continued, "you and Beatrice
+and your husband were away together somewhere in the country.
+Something happened there, something which resulted in the
+disappearance of your husband.  Beatrice came back alone and has
+not been near you since.  Soon afterwards, you, too, came back
+alone.  Mr. Gardner has not been seen or heard of."
+
+Elizabeth was bending over her dog, but even Tavernake,
+unobservant though he was, could see that she was shaken.
+
+"Pritchard is a clever man, generally," she remarked,
+"diabolically clever.  Why has he told you all this, I wonder?
+He must have known that you would probably repeat it to me.  Why
+does he want to show me his hand?"
+
+"I have no idea," Tavernake replied.  "These matters are all
+beyond me.  They do not concern me in any way.  I am not keeping
+you from your friends?  Please send me away when you like."
+
+"Don't go just yet," she begged.  "Sit with me for a moment.
+Can't you see," she added, whispering, "that I have had a shock?
+Sit with me.  I can't go back to those others just yet."
+
+Tavernake did as he was bidden.  The woman at his side was still
+caressing the little animal she carried.  Watching her, however,
+Tavernake could see that her bosom was rising and falling
+quickly.  There was an unnatural pallor in her cheeks, a
+terrified gleam in her eyes.  Nevertheless, these things passed.
+In a very few seconds she was herself again.
+
+"Come," she said, "it is not often that I give way.  The only
+time I am ever afraid is when there is something which I do not
+understand.  I do not understand Mr. Pritchard to-night.  I know
+that he is my enemy.  I cannot imagine why he should talk to you.
+He must have known that you would repeat all he said.  It is not
+like him.  Tell me, Mr. Tavernake, you have heard all sorts of
+things about me.  Do you believe them?  Do you believe--it's
+rather a horrible thing to ask, isn't it?" she went on hurriedly,
+--"do you believe that I made away with my husband?"
+
+"You surely do not need to ask me that question," Tavernake
+answered, fervently.  "I should believe your word, whatever you
+told me.  I should not believe that you could do anything wrong."
+
+Her hand touched his for a moment and he was repaid.
+
+"Don't think too well of me," she begged.  "I don't want to
+disappoint you."
+
+Some one pushed open the swing doors and she started nervously.
+It was only a waiter who passed through into the bar.
+
+"What I think of you," Tavernake said slowly, "nothing could
+alter, but because I am stupid, I suppose, there is quite a good
+deal that I cannot understand.  I cannot understand, for
+instance, why they should suspect you of having anything to do
+with your husband's disappearance.  You can prove where you were
+when he left you?"
+
+"Quite easily," she answered, "only, unfortunately, no one seems
+to have seen him go.  He timed his departure so cunningly that he
+apparently vanished into thin air.  Even then," she continued,
+"but for one thing I don't suppose that any one would have had
+suspicions.  I dare say Mr. Pritchard told you that before we
+left New York my husband sold out some of his property and
+brought it over to Europe with him in cash.  We had both
+determined that we would live abroad and have nothing more to do
+with America.  It was not I who persuaded him to do this.  It
+made no difference to me.  If he had run away and left me, the
+courts would have given me money.  If he had died and I had been
+a widow, he would have left me his property.  But simply because
+there was all this money in our hands, and because he
+disappeared, his people and this man Pritchard suspect me."
+
+"It is wicked," he muttered.
+
+She turned slowly towards him.
+
+"Mr. Tavernake," she said, "do you know that you can help me very
+much indeed?"
+
+"I only wish I could," he replied.  "Try me."
+
+"Can't you see," she went on, "that the great thing against me is
+that Beatrice left me suddenly when we were on that wretched
+expedition, and came back alone?  She is in London, I know, quite
+close to me, and still she hides.  Pritchard asks himself why.
+Mr. Tavernake, go and tell her what people are saying, go and
+tell her everything that has happened, let her understand that
+her keeping away is doing me a terrible injury, beg her to come
+and let people see that we are reconciled, and warn her, too,
+against Pritchard.  Will you do this for me?"
+
+"Of course I will," Tavernake answered.  "I will see her
+to-morrow."
+
+Elizabeth drew a little sigh of relief.
+
+"And you'll let me know what she says?" she asked, rising.
+
+"I shall be only too glad to," Tavernake assured her.
+
+"Good-night!"
+
+She looked up into his face with a smile which had turned the
+heads of hardened stagers in New York.  No wonder that Tavernake
+felt his heart beat against his ribs!  He took her hands and held
+them for a moment.  Then he turned abruptly away.
+
+"Good-night!" he said.
+
+He disappeared through the swing doors.  She strolled across the
+room to where her friends were sitting in a circle, laughing and
+talking.  Her father, who had just come in and joined them,
+gripped her by the arm as she sat down.
+
+"What does it mean?" he demanded, with shaking voice.  "Did you
+see that he was there with Pritchard--your young man--that
+wretched estate agent's clerk?  I tell you that Pritchard was
+pumping him for all he was worth."
+
+"My dear father," she whispered, coldly, "don't be melodramatic.
+You give yourself away the whole time.  Go to bed if you can't
+behave like a man."
+
+The lights had been turned low, there was no one else in the
+room.  The little old gentleman with the eyeglass leaned forward.
+
+"Have you any notion, my dear Elizabeth," he asked, "why our
+friend Pritchard is so much in evidence just at present?"
+
+"Not on account of you, Jimmy," she answered, "nor of any one
+else here, in fact.  The truth is he has conceived a violent
+admiration for me--an admiration so pronounced, indeed, that he
+hates to let me out of his sight."
+
+They all laughed uproariously.  Then Walter Crease, the
+journalist, leaned forward,--a man with a long, narrow face,
+yellow-stained fingers, and hollow cheekbones.  He glanced around
+the room before he spoke, and his voice sounded like a hoarse
+whisper.
+
+"See here," he said, "seems to me Pritchard is getting mighty
+awkward.  He hasn't got his posse around him in this country,
+anyway."
+
+There was a dead silence for several seconds.  Then the little
+old gentleman nodded solemnly.
+
+"I am a trifle tired of Pritchard myself," he admitted, "and he
+certainly knows too much.  He carries too much in his head to go
+around safely."
+
+The eyes of Elizabeth were bright.
+
+"He treats us like children," she declared.  "To-night he has
+told the whole of my affairs to a perfect stranger.  It is
+intolerable!"
+
+The little party broke up soon after.  Only Walter Crease and the
+man called Jimmy Post were left talking, and they retired into
+the window-seat, whispering together.
+
+Tavernake, with his hands thrust deep in his overcoat pockets,
+left the hotel and strode along the Strand.  Some fancy seized
+him before he had gone many paces, and turning abruptly to the
+left he descended to the Embankment.  He made his way to the very
+seat upon which he had sat once before with Beatrice.  With
+folded arms he leaned back in the corner, looking out across the
+river, at the curving line of lights, at the black, turgid
+waters, the slowly-moving hulk of a barge on its way down the
+stream.  It was a new thing, this, for him to have to accuse
+himself of folly, of weakness.  For the last few days he had
+moved in a mist of uncertainty, setting his heel upon all
+reflection, avoiding every issue.  To-night he could escape those
+accusing thoughts no longer; to-night he was more than ever
+bitter with himself.  What folly was this which had sprung up in
+his life--folly colossal, unimaginable, as unexpected as though
+it had fallen a thunderbolt from the skies!  What had happened to
+change him so completely!
+
+His thought traveled back to the boarding-house.  It was there
+that the thing had begun.  Before that night upon the roof, the
+finger-posts which he had set up with such care and deliberation
+along the road which led towards his coveted goal, had seemed to
+him to point with unfaltering directness towards everything in
+life worthy of consideration.  To-night they were only dreary
+phantasms, marking time across a miserable plain.  Perhaps, after
+all, there had been something in his nature, some rebel thing,
+intolerable yet to be reckoned with, which had been first born of
+that fateful curiosity of his.  It had leapt up so suddenly,
+sprung with such scanty notice into strenuous and insistent life.
+Yet what place had it there?  He must fight against it, root it
+out with both hands.  What was this world of intrigue, this
+criminal, undesirable world, to him?  His common sense forbade
+him altogether to dissociate Elizabeth from her friends, from her
+surroundings.  She was the secret of the pain which was tearing
+at his heartstrings, of all the excitement, the joy, the passion
+which had swept like a full flood across the level way of his
+life, which had set him drifting among the unknown seas.  Yet it
+was Beatrice who had brought this upon him.  If she had never
+left, if he had not tasted the horrors of this new loneliness, he
+might have been able to struggle on.  He missed her, missed her
+diabolically.  The other things, marvelous though they were, had
+been more or less like a mirage.  This world of new emotions had
+spread like a silken mesh over all his thoughts, over all his
+desires.  Beatrice had been a tangible person, restful,
+delightful, a real companion, his one resource against this
+madness.  And now she was gone, and he was powerless to get her
+back.  He turned his head, he looked up the road along which he
+had torn that night with his arms around her.  She owed him her
+life and she had gone!  With all a man's inconsequence, it seemed
+to him as he rose heavily to his feet and started homeward, that
+she had repaid him with a certain amount of ingratitude, that she
+had left him at the one moment in his life when he needed her
+most.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE
+
+
+The next afternoon, at half-past four, Tavernake was having tea
+with Beatrice in the tiny flat which she was sharing with another
+girl, off Kingsway.  She opened the door to him herself, and
+though she chattered ceaselessly, it seemed to him that she was
+by no means at her ease.  She installed him in the only available
+chair, an absurd little wicker thing many sizes too small for
+him, and seated herself upon the hearth-rug a few feet away.
+
+"You have soon managed to find me out, Leonard," she remarked.
+
+"Yes," he answered.  "I had to go to the stage doorkeeper for
+your address."
+
+"He hadn't the slightest right to give it you," she declared.
+
+Tavernake shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I had to have it," he said simply.
+
+"The power of the purse again!" she laughed.  "Now that you are
+here, I don't believe that you are a bit glad to see me.  Are
+you?"
+
+He did not answer for a moment.  He was thinking of that vigil
+upon the Embankment, of the long walk home, of the battle with
+himself, the continual striving to tear from his heart this new
+thing, for which, with a curious and most masculine
+inconsistency, he persisted in holding her responsible.
+
+"You know, Leonard," she continued, getting up abruptly and
+beginning to make the tea, "I believe that you are angry with me.
+If you are, all I can say is that you are a very foolish person.
+I had to come away.  Can't you see that?"
+
+"I cannot," he answered stolidly.
+
+She sighed.
+
+"You are not a reasonable person," she declared.  "I suppose it
+is because you have led such a queer life, and had no womenfolk
+to look after you.  You don't understand.  It was absurd, in a
+way, that I should ever have called myself your sister, that we
+should even have attempted such a ridiculous experiment.  But
+after--after the other night--"
+
+"Can't we forget that?" he interrupted.
+
+She raised her eyes and looked at him.
+
+"Can you?" she asked.
+
+There was a curious, almost a pleading earnestness in her tone.
+Her eyes had something new to say, something which, though it
+failed to stir his blood, made him vaguely uncomfortable.
+Nevertheless, he answered her without hesitation.
+
+"Yes," he replied, "I could forget it.  I will promise to forget
+it."
+
+It was unaccountable, but he almost fancied that he saw this new
+thing pass from her face, leaving her pale and tremulous.  She
+looked away again and busied herself with the tea-caddy, but the
+fingers which held the spoon were shaking a little.
+
+"Oh, I suppose I could forget," she said, "but it would be very
+difficult for either of us to behave as though it had never
+happened.  Besides, it really was an impossible situation, you
+know," she went on, looking down into the tea-caddy.  "It is much
+better for me to be here with Annie.  You can come and see me now
+and then and we can still be very good friends."
+
+Tavernake was annoyed.  He said nothing, and Beatrice, glancing
+up, laughed at his gloomy expression.
+
+"You certainly are," she declared, "the most impossible, the most
+primitive person I ever met.  London isn't Arcadia, you know, and
+you are not my brother.  Besides, you were such an autocrat.  You
+didn't even like my going out to supper with Mr. Grier."
+
+"I hate the fellow!" Tavernake admitted.  "Are you seeing much of
+him?"
+
+"He took us all out to supper last night," she replied.  "I
+thought it was very kind of him to ask me."
+
+"Kind, indeed!  Does he want to marry you?" Tavernake demanded.
+
+She set down the teapot and again she laughed softly.  In her
+plain black gown, very simple, adorned only by the little white
+bow at her neck, quakerlike and spotless, with the added color in
+her cheeks, too, which seemed to have come there during the last
+few moments, she was a very alluring person.
+
+"He can't," she declared.  "He is married already."
+
+Then there came to Tavernake an inspiration, an inspiration so
+wonderful that he gripped the sides of his chair and sat up.
+Here, after all, was the way out for him, the way out from his
+garden of madness, the way to escape from that mysterious,
+paralyzing yoke whose burden was already heavy upon his
+shoulders.  In that swift, vivid moment he saw something of the
+truth.  He saw himself losing all his virility, the tool and
+plaything of this woman who had bewitched him, a poor, fond
+creature living only for the kind words and glances she might
+throw him at her pleasure.  In those few seconds he knew the true
+from the false.  Without hesitation, he gripped with all the
+colossal selfishness of his unthinking sex at the rope which was
+thrown to him.
+
+"Well, then, I do," he said firmly.  "Will you marry me,
+Beatrice?"
+
+She threw her head back and laughed, laughed long and softly, and
+Tavernake, simple and unversed in the ways of women, believed
+that she was indeed amused.
+
+"Neither you nor any one else, dear Leonard!" she exclaimed.
+
+"But I want you to," he persisted.  "I think that you will."
+
+There was coquetry now in the tantalizing look she flashed him.
+
+"Am I, too, then, one of these things to be attained in your
+life?" she asked.  "Dear Leonard, you mustn't say it like that.
+I don't like the look of your jaw.  It frightens me."
+
+"There is nothing to be afraid of in marrying me," he answered.
+"I should make you a very good husband.  Some day you would be
+rich, very rich indeed.  I am quite sure that I shall succeed, if
+not at once, very soon.  There is plenty of money to be made in
+the world if one perseveres."
+
+She had the air of trying to take him seriously.
+
+"You sound quite convincing," she admitted, "but I do wish that
+you would put all these thoughts out of your mind, Leonard.  It
+doesn't sound like you in the least.  Remember what you told me
+that first night; you assured me that women had not the slightest
+part in your life."
+
+"I have changed," he confessed.  "I did not expect anything of
+the sort to happen, but it has.  It would be foolish of me to
+deny it.  I have been all my life learning, Beatrice," he
+continued, with a sudden curious softness in his tone, "and yet,
+somehow or other, it seems to me that I never knew anything at
+all until lately.  There was no one to direct me, no one to show
+me just what is worth while in life.  You have taught me a great
+deal, you have taught me how little I know.  And there are
+things," he went on, solemnly, "of which I am afraid, things
+which I do not begin even to understand.  Can't you see how it is
+with me?  I am really very ignorant.  I want some one who
+understands; I want you, Beatrice, very badly."
+
+She patted the back of his hand caressingly.
+
+"You mustn't talk like that, Leonard," she said.  "I shouldn't
+make you a good wife.  I am not going to marry any one."
+
+"And why?" he asked.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"That is my secret," she told him, looking into the fire.
+
+"You mean to say that, you will never marry?" he persisted.
+
+"Oh, I suppose I shall change, like other women," she answered.
+"Just at present, I feel like that."
+
+"Is it because your sister's marriage--"
+
+She caught hold of both his hands; her eyes were suddenly full of
+terror.
+
+"You mustn't talk about Elizabeth," she begged, "you please
+mustn't talk about her.  Promise that you won't."
+
+"But I came here to talk about her," he replied.
+
+Beatrice, for a moment, said nothing.  Then she threw down his
+hands and laughed once more.  As she flung herself back in her
+place, it seemed to Tavernake that he saw once more the girl who
+had stood upon the roof of the boarding-house.
+
+"You came to talk about Elizabeth!" she exclaimed.  "I forgot.
+Well, go on, what is it?"
+
+"Your sister is in trouble!"
+
+"Are you her confidant?" Beatrice asked.
+
+"I am not exactly that," he admitted, "but she has asked me to
+come and see you."
+
+Beatrice had suddenly grown hard, her lips were set together,
+even her attitude was uncompromising.
+
+"Say exactly what you have to say," she told him.  "I will not
+interrupt."
+
+"It sounds foolish," Tavernake declared, "because I know so
+little, but it seems that your sister is being annoyed by a man
+named Pritchard, an American detective.  She tells me that he
+suspects her of being concerned in some way with the
+disappearance of her husband.  One of his reasons is that you
+left her abruptly and went into hiding, that you will not see or
+speak to her.  She wishes you to be reconciled."
+
+"Is that all?" Beatrice asked.
+
+"It is all," he replied, "so long as you understand its
+significance.  If you go to see your sister, or let her come to
+see you, this man Pritchard will have one of his causes for
+suspicion removed."
+
+"So you came as Elizabeth's ambassador," Beatrice said, half as
+though to herself.  "Well, here is my answer.  I will not go to
+Elizabeth.  If she finds out my whereabouts and comes here, then
+I shall go away again and hide.  I shall never willingly exchange
+another word with her as long as I live."
+
+Tavernake looked at her doubtfully.
+
+"But she is your sister!" he explained.
+
+"She is my sister," Beatrice repeated, "and yet what I have said
+to you I mean."
+
+There was a short silence.  Tavernake felt unaccountably ill at
+ease.  Something had sprung up between them which he did not
+understand.  He was swift to recognize, however, the note of
+absolute finality in her tone.
+
+"I have given my message," he declared.  "I shall tell her what
+you say.  Perhaps I had better go now."
+
+He half rose to his feet.  Suddenly she lost control of herself.
+
+"Leonard, Leonard," she cried, "don't you see that you are being
+very foolish indeed?  You have been good to me.  Let me try and
+repay it a little.  Elizabeth is my sister, but listen!  What I
+say to you now I say in deadly earnest.  Elizabeth has no heart,
+she has no thought for other people, she makes use of them and
+they count for no more to her than the figures that pass through
+one's dreams.  She has some sort of hateful gift," Beatrice
+continued, and her voice shook and her eyes flashed, "some
+hateful gift of attracting people to her and making them do her
+bidding, of spoiling their lives and throwing them away when they
+have ceased to be useful.  Leonard, you must not let her do this
+with you."
+
+He rose to his feet awkwardly.  Very likely it was all true, and
+yet, what difference did it make?
+
+"Thank you," he said.
+
+They stood, for a moment, hand in hand.  Then they heard the
+sound of a key in the lock.
+
+"Here's Annie coming back!" Beatrice exclaimed.
+
+Tavernake was introduced to Miss Annie Legarde, who thought he
+was a very strange person indeed because he did not fit in with
+any of the types of men, young or old, of whom she knew anything.
+And as for Tavernake, he considered that Miss Annie Legarde would
+have looked at least as well in a hat half the size, and much
+better without the powder upon her face.  Her clothes were
+obviously more expensive than Beatrice's, but they were put on
+with less care and taste.
+
+Beatrice came out on to the landing with him.
+
+"So you won't marry me, Beatrice?" he said, as she held out her
+hand.
+
+She looked at him for a moment and then turned away with a faint
+sob, without even a word of farewell.  He watched her disappear
+and heard the door shut.  Slowly he began to descend the stone
+steps.  There was something to him a little fateful about the
+closed door above, the long yet easy descent into the street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE BALCONY AT IMANO'S
+
+
+At six o'clock that evening, Tavernake rang up the Milan Court
+and inquired for Elizabeth.  There was a moment or two's delay
+and then he heard her reply.  Even over the telephone wires, even
+though he stood, cramped and uncomfortable, in that stuffy little
+telephone booth, he felt the quick start of pleasure, the thrill
+of something different in life, which came to him always at the
+sound of her voice, at the slightest suggestion of her presence.
+
+"Well, my friend, what fortune?" she asked him.
+
+"None," he answered.  "I have done my best.  Beatrice will not
+listen to me."
+
+"She will not come and see me?"
+
+"She will not."
+
+Elizabeth was silent for a moment.  When she spoke again, there
+was a change in her tone.
+
+"You have failed, then."
+
+"I did everything that could be done," Tavernake insisted
+eagerly.  "I am quite sure that nothing anybody could say would
+move Beatrice.  She is very decided indeed."
+
+"I have another idea," Elizabeth remarked, after a brief pause.
+"She will not come to me; very well, I must go to her.  You must
+take me there."
+
+"I cannot do that," Tavernake answered.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Beatrice has refused absolutely to permit me to tell you or any
+one else of her whereabouts," he declared.  "Without her
+permission I cannot do it."
+
+"Do you mean that?" she asked.
+
+"Of course," he answered uncomfortably.
+
+There was another silence.  When she spoke again, her voice had
+changed for the second time.  Tavernake felt his heart sink as he
+listened.
+
+"Very well," she said.  "I thought that you were my friend, that
+you wished to help me."
+
+"I do," he replied, "but you would not have me break my word?"
+
+"You are breaking your word with me," she told him.
+
+"It is a different thing," he insisted.
+
+"You will not take me there?" she said once more.
+
+"I cannot," Tavernake answered.
+
+"Very well, good-bye!"
+
+"Don't go," he begged.  "Can't I see you somewhere for a few
+minutes this evening?"
+
+"I am afraid not," Elizabeth replied coolly.
+
+"Are you going out?" he persisted.
+
+"I am going to the Duke of York's Theatre with some friends," she
+answered.  "I am sorry.  You have disappointed me."
+
+She rang off and he turned away from the telephone booth into the
+street.  It seemed to him, as he walked down the crowded
+thoroughfare, that some reflection of his own self-contempt was
+visible in the countenances of the men and women who were
+hurrying past him.  Wherever he looked, he was acutely conscious
+of it.  In his heart he felt the bitter sense of shame of a man
+who wilfully succumbs to weakness.  Yet that night he made his
+efforts.
+
+For four hours he sat in his lonely rooms and worked.  Then the
+unequal struggle was ended.  With a groan he caught up his hat
+and coat and left the house.  Half an hour later, he was among
+the little crowd of loiterers and footmen standing outside the
+doors of the Duke of York's Theatre.
+
+It was still some time before the termination of the performance.
+As the slow minutes dragged by, he grew to hate himself, to hate
+this new thing in his life which had torn down his everyday
+standards, which had carried him off his feet in this strange and
+detestable fashion.  It was a dormant sense, without a doubt,
+which Elizabeth had stirred into life--the sense of sex,
+quiescent in him so long, chiefly through his perfect physical
+sanity; perhaps, too, in some measure, from his half-starved
+imagination.  It was significant, though, that once aroused it
+burned with surprising and unwavering fidelity.  The whole world
+of women now were different creatures to him, but they left him
+as utterly unmoved as in his unawakened days.  It was Elizabeth
+only he wanted, craved for fiercely, with all this late-born
+passion of mingled sentiment and desire.  He felt himself, as he
+hung round there upon the pavement, rubbing shoulders with the
+liveried servants, the loafers, and the passers-by, a thing to be
+despised.  He was like a whipped dog fawning back to his master.
+Yet if only he could persuade her to come with him, if it were
+but for an hour!  If only she would sit opposite him in that
+wonderful little restaurant, where the lights and the music, the
+laughter and the wine, were all outward symbols of this new life
+from before which her fingers seemed to have torn aside the
+curtains!  His heart beat with a fierce impatience.  He watched
+the thin stream of people who left before the play was over,
+suburbanites mostly, in a hurry for their trains.  Very soon the
+whole audience followed, commissionaires were busy with their
+whistles, the servants eagerly looking right and left for their
+masters.  And then Elizabeth!  She came out in the midst of
+half-a-dozen others, brilliant in a wonderful cloak and dress of
+turquoise blue, laughing with her friends, to all appearance the
+gayest of the party.  Tavernake stepped quickly forward, but at
+that moment there was a crush and he could not advance.  She
+passed within a yard of him, escorted by a couple of men, and for
+a moment their eyes met.  She raised her eyebrows, as though in
+surprise, and her recognition was of the slightest.  She passed
+on and entered a waiting motorcar, accompanied by the two men.
+Tavernake stood and looked after it.  She did not even glance
+round.  Except for that little gesture of cold surprise, she had
+ignored him.  Tavernake, scarcely knowing what he did, turned
+slowly towards the Strand.
+
+He was face to face now with a crisis before which he seemed
+powerless.  Men were there in the world to be bullied, cajoled,
+or swept out of the way.  What did one do with a woman who was
+kind one moment and insolent the next, who raised her eyebrows
+and passed on when he wanted her, when he was there longing for
+her?  Those old solid dreams of his--wealth, power, his name on
+great prospectuses, a position in the world--these things now
+appeared like the day fancies of a child.  He had seen his way
+towards them.  Already he had felt his feet upon the rungs of the
+ladder which leads to material success.  This was something
+different, something greater.  Then a sense of despair chilled
+his heart.  He felt how ignorant, how helpless he was.  He had
+not even studied the first text-book of life.  Those very
+qualities which had served him so well before were hopeless here.
+Persistence, Beatrice had told him once, only annoys a woman.
+
+He came to a standstill outside the entrance to the Milan Court,
+and retraced his steps.  The thought of Beatrice had brought
+something soothing with it.  He felt that he must see her, see
+her at once.  He walked back along the Strand and entered the
+restaurant where Beatrice and he had had their memorable supper.
+From the vestibule he could just see Grier's back as he stood
+talking to a waiter by the side of a round table in the middle of
+the room.  Tavernake slowly withdrew and made his way upstairs.
+There were one or two little tables there in the balcony, hidden
+from the lower part of the room.  He seated himself at one,
+handing his coat and hat mechanically to the waiter who came
+hurrying up.
+
+"But, Monsieur," the man explained, with a deprecating gesture,
+"these tables are all taken."
+
+Tavernake, who kept an account book in which he registered even
+his car fares, put five shillings in the man's hand.
+
+"This one I will have," he said, firmly, and sat down.
+
+The man looked at him and turned aside to speak to the head
+waiter.  They conversed together in whispers.  Tavernake took no
+notice.  His jaw was set.  Himself unseen, he was gazing
+steadfastly at that table below.  The head waiter shrugged his
+shoulders and departed; his other clients must be mollified.
+There was a finality which was unanswerable about Tavernake's
+methods.
+
+Tavernake ate and drank what they brought to him, ate and drank
+and suffered.  Everything was as it had been that other night--
+the popping of corks, the soft music, the laughter of women, the
+pleasant, luxurious sense of warmth and gayety pervading the
+whole place.
+
+It was all just the same, but this time he sat outside and looked
+on.  Beatrice was seated next Grier, and on her other side was a
+young man of the type which Tavernake detested, partly because it
+inspired him with a reluctant but insistent sense of inferiority.
+The young man was handsome, tall, and thin.  His evening clothes
+fitted him perfectly, his studs and links were of the latest
+mode, his white tie arranged as though by the fingers of an
+artist.  And yet he was no tailor's model.  A gentleman, beyond a
+doubt, Tavernake decided, watching grudgingly the courteous
+movement of his head, listening sometimes to his well-bred but
+rather languid voice.  Beatrice laughed often into his face.  She
+admired him, of course.  How could she help it!  Grier sat at her
+other side.  He, too, talked to her whenever he had the chance.
+It was a new fever which Tavernake was tasting, a new fever
+burning in his blood.  He was jealous; he hated the whole party
+below.  In imagination he saw Elizabeth with her friends, supping
+most likely in that other, more resplendent restaurant, only a
+few yards away.  He imagined her the centre of every attention.
+Without a doubt, she was looking at her neighbor as she had
+looked at him.  Tavernake bit his lip, frowning.  If he had had
+it in his power, in those black moments, to have thrown a
+thunderbolt from his place, he would have wrecked every table in
+the room, he would have watched with joy the white, startled
+faces of the revelers as they fled away into the night.  It was a
+new torture, indescribable, bitter.  Indeed, this curiosity of
+his, of which he had spoken to Beatrice as they had walked
+together down Oxford Street on that first evening, was being
+satisfied with a vengeance!  He was learning of those other
+things of life.  He had sipped at the sweetness; he was drinking
+the bitters!
+
+An altercation by his side distracted him.  Again there was the
+head waiter and a protesting guest.  Tavernake looked up and
+recognized Professor Franklin.  With his broad-brimmed hat in his
+hand, the professor, in fluent phraseology and a strong American
+accent, was making himself decidedly disagreeable.
+
+"You had better send for your manager right away, young man," he
+declared.  "On Tuesday night he brought me here himself and I
+engaged this table for the week.  No, I tell you I won't have any
+other!  I guess my order was good enough.  You send for Luigi
+right here.  You know who I am?  Professor Franklin's my name,
+from New York, and if I say I mean to have a thing, I expect to
+get it."
+
+For the first time he recognized Tavernake, and paused for a
+moment in his speech.
+
+"Have I got your table, Professor?" Tavernake asked, slowly.
+
+"You have, sir," the professor answered.  "I did not recognize
+you when I came in or I would have addressed you personally.  I
+have particular reasons for occupying a front table here every
+night this week."
+
+The thoughts began to crowd in upon Tavernake's brain.  He
+hesitated.
+
+"Why not sit down with me?" he suggested.
+
+The professor acquiesced without a word.  The head waiter, with a
+sigh of relief, took his hat and overcoat and accepted his order.
+Tavernake leaned across the table.
+
+"Professor," he said, "why do you insist upon sitting up here?"
+
+The professor moved his head slowly downwards.
+
+"My young friend, I speak to you in confidence?"
+
+"In confidence," Tavernake repeated.
+
+"I come here secretly," the professor continued, "because it is
+the only chance I have of seeing a very dear relative of mine.  I
+am obliged to keep away from her just now, but from here I can
+watch, I can see that she is well."
+
+"You mean your daughter Beatrice," Tavernake said, calmly.
+
+The professor trembled all over.
+
+"You know!" he muttered.
+
+"Yes, I know," Tavernake answered.  "I have been able to be of
+some slight assistance to your daughter Beatrice."
+
+The professor grasped his hand.
+
+"Yes, yes," he said, "Elizabeth is very angry with you because
+you will not tell her where to find the little girl.  You are
+right, Mr. Tavernake.  You must never tell her."
+
+"I don't intend it," Tavernake declared.
+
+"Say, this is a great evening for me!" the professor went on,
+eagerly.  "I found out by accident myself.  I was at the bar and
+I saw her come in with a lot of others."
+
+"Why don't you go and speak to her?" Tavernake asked.
+
+The professor shivered.
+
+"There has been a disagreement," he explained.  "Beatrice and
+Elizabeth have quarreled.  Mind you, Beatrice was right."
+
+"Then why don't you go to her instead of staying with Elizabeth?"
+Tavernake demanded, bluntly.
+
+The professor temporarily collapsed.  He drank heavily of the
+whiskey and soda by his side, and answered gloomily.
+
+"My young friend," he said, "Beatrice, when she left us, was
+penniless.  Mind you, Elizabeth is the one with brains.  It is
+Elizabeth who has the money.  She has a strong will, too.  She
+keeps me there whether I will or not, she makes me do many things
+--many things, surely--which I hate.  But Elizabeth has her way.
+If I had gone with Beatrice, if I were to go to her now, I should
+be only a burden upon her."
+
+"You have no money, then?" Tavernake remarked.
+
+The professor shook his head sadly.
+
+"Speculations, my young friend," he replied, "speculations
+undertaken solely with the object of making a fortune for my
+children.  I have had money and lost it."
+
+"Can't you earn any?" Tavernake asked.  "Beatrice doesn't seem
+extravagant."
+
+The professor regarded this outspoken young man with an air of
+hurt dignity.
+
+"If you will forgive me," he said.  "I think that we will choose
+another subject of conversation."
+
+"At any rate," Tavernake declared, "you must be fond of your
+daughter or you would not come here night after night just to
+look at her."
+
+The professor shook out a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed
+his eyes.
+
+"Beatrice was always my favorite," he announced solemnly, "but
+Elizabeth--well, you can't get away from Elizabeth," he added,
+leaning across the table.  "To tell you the truth, Mr. Tavernake,
+Elizabeth terrifies me sometimes, she is so bold.  I am afraid
+where her scheming may land us.  I would be happier with Beatrice
+if only she had the means to satisfy my trifling wants."
+
+He turned to the waiter and ordered a pint of champagne.
+
+"Veuve Clicquot '99," he instructed the man.  "At my age," he
+remarked, with a sigh, "one has to be careful about these little
+matters.  The wrong brand of champagne means a sleepless night."
+
+Tavernake looked at him in a puzzled way.  The professor was a
+riddle to him.  He represented no type which had come within the
+orbit of his experience.  With the arrival of the champagne, the
+professor became almost eloquent.  He leaned forward, gazing
+stealthily down at the round table.
+
+"If I could tell you of that girl's mother, Mr. Tavernake," he
+said, "if I could tell you what her history, our history, has
+been, it would seem to you so strange that you would probably
+regard me as a romancer.  No, we have to carry our secrets with
+us."
+
+"By-the-bye," Tavernake asked, "what are you a professor of?"
+
+"Of the hidden sciences, sir," was the immediate reply.
+"Phrenology was my earliest love.  Since then I have studied in
+the East; I have spent many years in a monastery in China.  I
+have gratified in every way my natural love of the occult.  I
+represent today those people of advanced thought who have
+traveled, even in spirit, for ever such a little distance across
+the line which divides the Seen from the Unseen, the Known from
+the Infinite."
+
+He took a long draught of champagne.  Tavernake gazed at him in
+blank amazement.
+
+"I don't know much about science," he said.  "It is only lately
+that I have begun to realize how ignorant I really am.  Your
+daughter has helped to teach me."
+
+The professor sighed heavily.
+
+"A young woman of attainments, sir," he remarked, "of character,
+too.  Look at the way she carries her head.  That was a trick of
+her mother's."
+
+"Don't you mean to speak to her at all, then?" Tavernake asked.
+
+"I dare not," the professor replied.  "I am naturally of a
+truthful disposition, and if Elizabeth were to ask me if I had
+spoken to her sister, I should give myself away at once.  No, I
+look on and that is all."
+
+Tavernake drummed with his fingers upon the tablecloth.
+Something in the merriment of that little party downstairs had
+filled him with a very bitter feeling.
+
+"You ought to go and claim her, professor," he declared.  "Look
+down at them now.  Is that the best life for a girl?  The men are
+almost strangers to her, and the girls are not fit for her to
+associate with.  She has no friends, no relatives.  Your daughter
+Elizabeth can do without you very well.  She is strong enough to
+take care of herself."
+
+"But my dear sir," the professor objected, "Beatrice could not
+support me."
+
+Tavernake paid his bill without another word.  Downstairs the
+lights had been lowered, the party at the round table were
+already upon their feet.
+
+"Good-night, professor!" he said.  "I am going to see the last of
+Beatrice from the top of the stairs."
+
+The professor followed him--they stood there and watched her
+depart with Annie Legarde.  The two girls got into a taxicab
+together, and Tavernake breathed a sigh of relief, a relief for
+which he was wholly unable to account, when he saw that Grier
+made no effort to follow them.  As soon as the taxi had rolled
+away, they descended and passed into the street.  Then the
+professor suddenly changed his tone.
+
+"Mr. Tavernake," he said, "I know what you are thinking about me:
+I am a weak old man who drinks too much and who wasn't born
+altogether honest.  I can't give up anything.  I'd be happier,
+really happier, on a crust with Beatrice, but I daren't, I simply
+daren't try it.  I prefer the flesh pots with Elizabeth, and you
+despise me for it.  I don't blame you, Mr. Tavernake, but
+listen."
+
+"Well?" Tavernake interjected.
+
+The professor's fingers gripped his arm.
+
+"You've known Beatrice longer--you don't know Elizabeth very
+well, but let me tell you this.  Elizabeth is a very wonderful
+person.  I know something about character, I know something about
+those hidden powers which men and women possess--strange powers
+which no one can understand, powers which drag a man to a woman's
+feet, or which make him shiver when he passes another even in a
+crowd.  You see, these things are a science with me, Mr.
+Tavernake, but I don't pretend to understand everything.  All I
+know is that Elizabeth is one of those people who can just do
+what she likes with men.  I am her father and I am her slave.  I
+tell myself that I would rather be with Beatrice, and I am as
+powerless to go as though I were bound with chains.  You are a
+young ignorant man, Mr. Tavernake, you know nothing of life, and
+I will give you a word of warning.  It is better for you that you
+keep away from over there."
+
+He raised one hand and pointed across the street towards the
+Milan Court; with the other he once more gripped Tavernake's arm.
+
+"Why she should take the trouble even to speak with you for a
+moment, I do not know," the professor continued, "but she does.
+It has pleased her to talk with you--why I can't imagine--only if
+I were you I would get away while there is yet time.  She is my
+daughter but she has no heart, no pity.  I saw her smile at you.
+I am sorry always for the man she smiles upon like that.
+Goodnight, Mr. Tavernake!"
+
+The professor crossed the street.  Tavernake watched him until he
+was out of sight.  Then he felt an arm thrust through his.
+
+"Why, this is what I call luck!" a familiar voice exclaimed.
+"Mr. Tavernake, you're the very man I was looking for!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE
+
+
+Tavernake was not sociably inclined and took no pains to conceal
+the fact.  Mr. Pritchard, however, was not easily to be shaken
+off.
+
+"So you've been palling up to the old man, eh?" he remarked, in
+friendly fashion.
+
+"I came across the professor unexpectedly," Tavernake answered,
+coldly.  "What do you want with me, please?  I am on my way
+home."
+
+Pritchard laughed softly to himself.
+
+"Say, there's something about you Britishers I can't help
+admiring!" he declared.  "You are downright, aren't you?"
+
+"I suppose you think we are too clumsy to be anything else,"
+Tavernake replied.  "This is my 'bus coming.  Good-night!"
+
+Pritchard's hand, however, tightened upon his companion's arm.
+
+"Look here, young man," he said, "don't you be foolish.  I'm a
+valuable acquaintance for you, if you only realized it.  Come
+along across the street with me.  My club is on the Terrace, just
+below.  Stroll along there with me and I'll tell you something
+about the professor, if you like."
+
+"Thank you," Tavernake answered, "I don't think I care about
+hearing gossip.  Besides, I think I know all there is to be known
+about him."
+
+"Did you give Miss Beatrice my message?" Pritchard asked
+suddenly.
+
+"If I did," Tavernake replied, "I have no answer for you."
+
+"Will you tell her this," Pritchard began,--
+
+"No, I will tell her nothing!" Tavernake interrupted.  "You can
+look after your own affairs.  I have no interest in them and I
+don't want to have.  Good-night!"
+
+Pritchard laughed again but he did not relax his grasp upon the
+other's arm.
+
+"Now, Mr. Tavernake," he said, "it won't do for you to quarrel
+with me.  I shouldn't be surprised if you discovered that I am
+one of the most useful acquaintances you ever met in your life.
+You needn't come into the club unless you like, but walk as far
+as there with me.  When we get on to the Terrace, with closed
+houses on one side and a palisade upon the other, I am going to
+say something to you."
+
+"Very well," Tavernake decided, reluctantly.  "I don't know what
+there is you can have to tell me, but I'll come as far as there,
+at any rate."
+
+They crossed the Strand and turned into Adam Street.  As they
+neared the further corner, Pritchard stepped from the pavement
+into the middle of the street, and looked searchingly around.
+
+"Say, you'll excuse my being a little careful," he remarked.
+"This is rather a lonely part for the middle of London, and I
+have been followed for the last two days by people whose company
+I am not over keen about."
+
+"Followed?  What for?" Tavernake demanded.
+
+"Oh, the usual thing!" answered the detective, with a shrug of
+the shoulders.  "That company of crooks I showed you last night
+don't fancy having me around.  They've a good many grudges up
+against Sam Pritchard.  I am not quite so safe over here as I
+should be in New York.  Most of them are off to Paris tomorrow,
+thank Heavens!"
+
+"And you?" Tavernake asked.  "Are you going, too?"
+
+Pritchard shook his head.
+
+"If only those fools would believe it, I'm not over here on their
+business at all.  I came over on a special commission this time,
+as you know.  I have a word of warning for you, Mr. Tavernake.  I
+guess you won't like to hear it, but you've got to."
+
+Tavernake stopped short.
+
+"I don't want your warnings!" he said angrily.  "I don't want you
+interfering in my affairs!"
+
+The detective smiled quietly.  Then a new expression suddenly
+tightened his lips.
+
+"Never mind about that just now!" he exclaimed.  "See here, take
+this police whistle from my left hand, quick, and blow it for all
+that you are worth!"
+
+It was characteristic of Tavernake that he was prepared to obey
+without a second's hesitation.  The opportunity, however, was
+denied him.  The events which followed came and passed like a
+thought.  A blow on his left wrist and the whistle fell into the
+road.  A dark figure had sprung up, apparently from space; a long
+arm was twined around Pritchard's neck, bending him backwards;
+there was a gleam of steel within a few inches of his throat.
+And then Tavernake saw a wonderful thing.  With a turn of his
+wrist, Pritchard suddenly seemed to lift the form of his
+assailant into the air.  Tavernake caught a swift impression of a
+man's white face, the head pointing to the street, the legs
+twitching convulsively.  Head over heels Pritchard seemed to
+throw him, while the knife clattered harmlessly into the roadway.
+The man lay crumpled up and moaning before the door of one of the
+houses.  Pritchard sprang after him.  The door had been
+cautiously opened and the man crawled through; Pritchard
+followed; then the door closed and Tavernake beat upon it in
+vain.
+
+For several seconds--it seemed to Tavernake much longer--he stood
+gazing at the door, breathing heavily, absolutely unable to
+collect his thoughts.  The whole affair had happened with such
+amazing celerity!  He could not bring himself to realize it, to
+believe that it was Pritchard who had been with him only a few
+seconds ago, who in danger of his life had performed that
+marvelous trick of jiu-jutsu, had followed his unknown assailant
+into that dark, mysterious house, from no single window of which
+was a single gleam of light visible.  Tavernake had led an
+uneventful life.  Of the passions which breed murder and the
+desire to kill he knew nothing.  He was dazed with the suddenness
+of it all.  How could such a thing happen in the midst of London,
+in a thoroughfare only momentarily deserted, at the further end
+of which, indeed, were many signs of life!  Then the thought of
+that knife made him shiver--blue glittering steel cutting the air
+like whipcord.  He remembered the look in the assassin's face--
+horrible, an epitome of the passions, which seemed to reveal to
+him in that moment the existence of some other, some unknown
+world, about which he had neither read nor dreamed.
+
+The sound of footsteps came as an immense relief.  A man came
+round the corner, smoking a cigarette and humming softly to
+himself.  The presence of another human being seemed suddenly to
+bring Tavernake's feet back upon the earth.  He moved toward the
+pavement and addressed the newcomer.
+
+"Can you tell me how to get inside that house?" he asked quickly.
+
+The man removed the cigarette from his mouth and stared at his
+questioner.
+
+"I should ring the bell," he replied, "but surely it's
+unoccupied?  What do you want to get in there for?"
+
+"Less than a minute ago," Tavernake told him, "I was walking here
+with a friend.  A man came up behind us and tried deliberately to
+stab him.  He bolted afterwards through that door, my friend
+followed him, the door was closed in my face."
+
+The newcomer was a youngish man, a musician, who had just come
+from a concert and was on his way to the club at the end of the
+street.  Probably, had he been a journalist, his curiosity would
+have been greater than his incredulity.  As it was, however, he
+gazed at Tavernake, for a moment, blankly.
+
+"Look here," he said, "this doesn't sound a very likely story of
+yours, you know."
+
+"I don't care whether it's likely or not," Tavernake answered
+hotly; "it's true!  The knife's somewhere in the road there--it
+fell up against the railings."
+
+They crossed the road together and searched.  There were no signs
+of the weapon.  Tavernake peered over the railings.
+
+"When my friend struck the other man and twisted him over," he
+explained, "the knife seemed to fly up into the air; it might
+even have reached the gardens."
+
+His companion turned slowly away.
+
+"Well, it's no use looking down there for it," he remarked.  "We
+might try the door, if you like."
+
+They leaned their weight against it, hammered at the panels, and
+waited.  The door was fast closed and no reply came.  The
+musician shrugged his shoulders and prepared to depart, after one
+more glance at Tavernake, half suspicious, half questioning.
+
+"If you think it worth while," he said, "you had better fetch the
+police, perhaps.  If you take my advice, though, I think I should
+go home and forget all about it."
+
+He passed on, leaving Tavernake speechless.  The idea that people
+might not believe his story had never seriously occurred to him.
+Yet all of a sudden he began to doubt it himself.  He stepped
+back into the road and looked up at the windows of the house
+-- dark, uncurtained, revealing no sign of life or habitation.
+Had he really taken that walk with Pritchard, stood on this spot
+with him only a minute or two ago?  Then he picked up the police
+whistle and he had no longer any doubts.  The whole scene was
+before him again, more vividly than ever.  Even at this moment,
+Pritchard might be in need of help!
+
+He turned and walked sharply to the corner of the Terrace,
+finding himself almost immediately face to face with a policeman.
+
+"You must come into this house with me at once!" Tavernake
+exclaimed, pointing backwards.  "A friend of mine was attacked
+here just now; a man tried to stab him.  They are both in that
+house.  The man ran away and my friend followed him.  The door is
+closed and no one answers."
+
+The constable looked at Tavernake very much as the musician had
+done.
+
+"Do either of them live there, sir?" he asked.
+
+"How should I know!" Tavernake answered.  "The man sprang upon my
+friend from behind.  He had a knife in his hand--I saw it.  My
+friend threw him over and he escaped into that house.  They are
+both there now.
+
+"Which house is it, sir?" the policeman inquired.
+
+They were standing almost in front of it.  The gate was open and
+Tavernake beat against the panels with the flat of his hand.
+Then, with a cry of triumph, he stooped down and picked something
+up from a crack in the flagged stones.
+
+"The key!" he cried.  "Come on, quick!"
+
+He thrust it into the lock and turned it; the door swung smoothly
+open.  The policeman laid his hand upon Tavernake's shoulder.
+
+"Look here," he said, "let's have that story of yours again, a
+little more clearly.  Who is it that's in this house?"
+
+"Five minutes ago," Tavernake began, speaking rapidly, "I met a
+man in the Strand whom I know slightly--Pritchard, an American
+detective.  He said that he had something to say to me and he
+asked me to walk round with him to a club in this Terrace.  We
+were in the middle of the road there, talking, when a man sprang
+at him; he must have come up behind quite noiselessly.  The man
+had a knife in his hand.  My friend threw him head over heels
+-- it was some trick of jiu-jutsu; I have seen it done at the
+Polytechnic.  He fell in front of this door which must either
+have been ajar or else some one who was waiting must have let him
+in.  He crawled through and my friend followed him.  The door was
+slammed in my face."
+
+"How long ago was this?" the policeman asked.
+
+"Not much more than five minutes," Tavernake answered.
+
+The policeman coughed.
+
+"It's a very queer story, sir."
+
+"It's true!" Tavernake declared, fiercely.  "You and I have got
+to search this house."
+
+The policeman nodded.
+
+"There's no harm in that, sir, anyway."
+
+He flashed his lantern around the hall--unfurnished, with paper
+hanging from the walls.  Then they began to enter the rooms, one
+by one.  Nowhere was there any sign of occupation.  From floor to
+floor they passed, in grim silence.  In the front chamber of the
+attic was a camp bedstead, two or three humble articles of
+furniture, and a small stove.
+
+"Caretaker's kit," the policeman muttered.  "Nothing seems to
+have been used for some time."
+
+They descended the stairs again.
+
+"You say you saw the two men enter this house, sir?" the
+policeman remarked doubtfully.
+
+"I did," Tavernake declared.  "There is no doubt about it."
+
+"The back entrances are all properly locked," the policeman
+pointed out.  "None of the windows by which any one could escape
+have been opened.  We've been into every room.  There's no one in
+the house now, sir, is there?"
+
+"There doesn't seem to be," Tavernake admitted.
+
+The policeman looked him over once more; Tavernake certainly had
+not the appearance of one attempting a hoax.
+
+"I am afraid there is nothing more we can do, sir,"
+
+the man said civilly.  "You had better give me your name and
+address."
+
+"Can't we go over the place once more?" Tavernake suggested.  "I
+tell you I saw them come in."
+
+"I have my beat outside to look after, sir," the constable
+answered.  "If it wasn't that you seem respectable, I should
+begin to think that you wanted me out of the way for a bit.  Name
+and address, please."
+
+Tavernake gave them readily.  They passed out together into the
+street.
+
+"I shall report this matter," the man said, closing his book.
+"Perhaps the sergeant will have the house searched again.  If you
+take my advice, sir," he added, "you'll go home."
+
+"I saw them both pass through that door," Tavernake repeated,
+half to himself, still standing upon the pavement and staring at
+the unlit windows.
+
+The constable made no reply but moved off.  Soon he reached the
+corner of the Terrace and disappeared.  Tavernake slowly crossed
+the road and with his back to the railings looked steadfastly at
+the dark front of gray stone houses.  Big Ben struck one o'clock,
+several people passed backwards and forwards.  Men were coming
+out from the club, and separating for the night; the roar of the
+city was growing fainter.  Yet Tavernake felt indisposed to move.
+The look in that man's drawn white face and black eyes haunted
+him, There was tragedy there, the shadow of terrible things,
+fear, and the murderous desire to kill!  Through that door they
+had passed, the two men, one in flight, the other in pursuit.
+Where were they now?  Perhaps it had been a trap.  Pritchard had
+spoken seriously enough of his enemies.
+
+Then, as he stood there, he saw for the first time a thin line of
+light through the closely-drawn curtains of a room on the ground
+floor of the adjoining house.  Without a moment's hesitation, he
+crossed the road and rang the bell.  The door was opened, after a
+trifling delay, by a man in plain clothes, who might, however,
+have been a servant in mufti.  He looked at Tavernake
+suspiciously.
+
+"I am sorry to have disturbed you," Tavernake explained, "but I
+saw some one go in the house next to you, a little time ago.  Can
+you tell me if you have heard any noises or voices during the
+last half-hour?"
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+"We have heard nothing, sir," he said.
+
+"Who lives here?" Tavernake asked.
+
+"Did you call me up at one o'clock in the morning to ask silly
+questions?" the man replied insolently.  "Every one's in bed here
+and I was just going."
+
+"There's a light in your ground floor room," Tavernake remarked.
+"There's some one talking there now--I can hear voices."
+
+The man closed the door in his face.  For some time Tavernake
+wandered restlessly about, starting at last reluctantly
+homewards.  He had reached the Strand and was crossing Trafalgar
+Square when a sudden thought held him.  He stood still for a
+moment in the middle of the street.  Then he turned abruptly
+round.  In less than five minutes he was once more on the
+Terrace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+TAVERNAKE INTERVENES
+
+
+Tavernake had the feelings of a man suddenly sobered as he turned
+once more into the Adelphi Terrace.  Waiting until no one was in
+sight, he opened the door of the empty house with the Yale key
+which he had kept, and carefully closed it.  He struck a match
+and listened for several minutes intently; not a sound from
+anywhere.  He moved a few yards further to the bottom of the
+stairs, and listened again; still silence.  He turned the handle
+of the ground floor apartment and commenced a fresh search.  Room
+by room he examined by the light of his rapidly dwindling
+matches.  This time he meant to leave behind him no possibility
+of any mistake.  He even measured the depths of the walls for any
+secret hiding place.  From room to room he passed, leisurely,
+always on the alert, always listening.  Once, as he opened a door
+on the third floor there was a soft scurrying as though of a
+skirt across the floor.  He struck a match quickly, to find a
+great rat sitting up and looking at him with black, beady eyes.
+It was the only sign of life he found in the whole building.
+
+When he had finished his search, he came down to the ground floor
+and entered the room corresponding with the one from which he had
+heard voices in the adjoining house.  He crouched here upon the
+dusty boards for some time, listening.  Now and then he fancied
+that he could still hear voices on the other side of the wall,
+but he was never absolutely certain.
+
+At last he rose to stretch himself, and almost as he did so a
+fresh sound from outside attracted his notice.  A motor-car had
+turned into the Terrace.  He walked to the uncurtained window and
+stood there, sure of being himself unseen.  Then his heart gave a
+great leap.  Unemotional though he was, this was a happening
+which might well have excited a more phlegmatic individual.  A
+motor-car which he remembered very well, although it was driven
+now by a man in dark livery, had stopped at the next house.  A
+woman and two men had descended.  Tavernake never glanced at the
+latter; his eyes were fastened upon their companion.  She was
+wrapped in a long cloak, but she lifted her skirts as she crossed
+the pavement, and he saw the flash of her silver buckles.  Her
+carriage, her figure, were unmistakable.  It was Elizabeth who
+was paying this early morning visit next door!  Already the
+little party had disappeared.  They did not even ring the bell.
+The door must have been opened silently at their coming.  The
+motor-car glided off.  Once more the Terrace was deserted.
+
+Tavernake felt sure that he knew now the solution,--there was a
+way from this house into the next one.  He struck another match
+and, standing back a few yards, looked critically at the dividing
+wall.  In ancient days this had evidently been a dwelling-house
+of importance, elaborately decorated, as the fresco work upon the
+ceiling still indicated.  The wall had been divided into three
+panels, with a high wainscoting.  Inch by inch he examined it
+from one end to the other; he started from the back and came
+toward the front.  About three-quarters of the way there, he
+paused.  It was very simple, after all.  The solid wall for a
+couple of feet suddenly ceased, and the design was continued with
+an expanse of stretched canvas, which yielded easily to his
+finger.  He leaned his ear against it; he could hear now
+distinctly the sound of voices--he heard even the woman's
+laughter.  For the height of about four feet the wall had been
+bodily removed.  He made a small hole in the canvas--there was
+still darkness.  He enlarged the hole until he could thrust his
+hand through--there was nothing but canvas the other side.  He
+knew now where he was.  There was only that single thickness of
+canvas between him and the room.  He had but to make the smallest
+hole in it and he would be able to see through.  Even now, with
+the removal of the barrier on his side, the voices were more
+distinct.  A complete section of the wall had evidently been
+taken out and replaced by a detachable framework of wood covered
+with stretched canvas.  He stood back for a moment and felt with
+his finger; he could almost trace the spot where the woodwork
+fitted upon hinges.  Then he went on his hands and knees again,
+and with his penknife in his hand he paused to listen.  He could
+hear the man Crease talking--a slow, nasal drawl.  Then he heard
+Pritchard's voice, followed by what seemed to be a groan.  There
+was a silence, then Elizabeth seemed to ask a question.  He heard
+her low laugh and some note in it sent a shiver through his body.
+Pritchard was speaking fiercely now.  Then, in the middle of his
+sentence, there was silence once more, followed by another groan.
+He could almost feel the people in that room holding their
+breaths.
+
+Tavernake was rapidly forgetting all caution.  The point of his
+knife was through the canvas.  Slowly he worked it round until a
+small piece, the size of a half-crown, was partially cut through.
+With infinite pains he got his head and shoulders into the small
+recess and for the first time looked into the room.  Pritchard
+was sitting almost in the middle of the apartment; his arms
+seemed to be bound to the chair and his legs were tied together.
+A few yards away, Elizabeth, her fur coat laid aside, was
+lounging back in an easy-chair, her dress all glittering with
+sequins, a curious light in her eyes, a cruel smile parting her
+lips.  By her side--sitting, in fact, on the arm of her chair
+--was Crease, his long, worn face paler, even, than usual; his
+lips curled in a smile of cynical amusement.  Major Post was
+there, carefully dressed as though he had been attending some
+social gathering, standing upon the hearth-rug with his
+coat-tails under his arms.  The professor, in whose face seemed
+written the most abject terror, was talking.  Tavernake now could
+hear every word distinctly.
+
+"My dear Elizabeth!  My dear Crease!  You are both too
+precipitate!  I tell you that I protest--I protest most strongly.
+Mr. Pritchard, I am sure, with a little persuasion, will listen
+to reason.  I will not be a party to any such proceeding as--as
+this.  You understand, Crease?  We have gone quite far enough as
+it is.  I will not have it."
+
+Elizabeth laughed softly.
+
+"My dear father," she said, "you will really have to take
+something for your nerves.  Nothing need happen to Mr. Pritchard
+at all unless he asks for it.  He has his chance--.  no one
+should expect more."
+
+"You are right, my dear Elizabeth," declared Crease, speaking
+very slowly and with his usual drawl.  "This question of his
+health for the future--at any rate, for the immediate future--is
+entirely in Pritchard's own hands.  There is no one who has
+received so many warnings as he.  Bramley was cautioned twice;
+Mallison was warned three times and burned to death; Forsith had
+word from us only once, and he was shot in a drunken brawl.  This
+man Pritchard has been warned a dozen times, he has escaped death
+twice.  The time has come to show him that we are in earnest.
+Threats are useless; the time has come for deeds.  I say that if
+Pritchard refuses this trifling request of ours, let us see that
+he leaves this house in such a state that he will not be able to
+do us any harm for some time at least."
+
+"But he will give his word!" the professor cried excitedly.  "I
+am quite sure that if you allow me to talk to him reasonably, he
+will pledge his word to go back to the States and interfere no
+longer with your affairs."
+
+Pritchard turned his head slightly.  He was a little pale, and
+the blood was dropping slowly on to the floor from a wound in his
+temple, but his tone was contemptuous.
+
+"I will give you my word, Professor, and you, Elizabeth Gardner,
+and you, Jim Post, and you, Walter Crease, that crippled, or
+straight, in evil or good health, from the very jaws of death I
+will hang on to life until you have paid your just debts.  You
+understand that, all of you?  I don't know what sort of a show
+this is.  You may be in earnest, or you may be trying a rag.  In
+any case, let me assure you of this.  You won't get me to beg for
+mercy.  If you force me to drink that stuff you are talking
+about, I'll find the antidote, and as sure as there's a prison in
+America, so surely I'll make you suffer for it!  If you take my
+advice," he went on slowly, "and I know what I'm talking about,
+you'll cut these ropes and set open your front door.  You 'll
+live longer, all of you."
+
+"An idiot," Elizabeth remarked pleasantly, "can do but little
+harm in the world.  The word of a person of weak intellect is not
+to be relied upon.  For my part, I am very tired of our friend,
+Mr. Pritchard.  If you others had been disposed to go to much
+greater lengths, if you had said 'Hang him from the ceiling,' I
+should have been well pleased."
+
+Pritchard made a slight movement in his chair--it was certainly
+not a movement of fear.
+
+"Madam," he said, "I admire your candor.  Let me return it.  I
+don't believe there's one of you here has the pluck to attempt to
+do me any serious injury.  If there is, get on with it.  You
+hear, Mr. Walter Crease?  Bring out that bottle of yours."
+
+Crease removed his cigar from his lips and rose slowly to his
+feet.  From his waistcoat pocket he produced a small phial, from
+which he drew the cork.
+
+"Seems to me it's up to us to do the trick," he remarked
+languidly.  "Catch hold of his forehead, Jimmy."
+
+The man known as Major Post threw away his cigarette, and coming
+round behind Pritchard's chair, suddenly bent the man's head
+backward.  Crease advanced, phial in hand.  Then all Hell seemed
+to be let loose in Tavernake.  He stepped back in his place and
+marked the extent of that wooden partition.  Then, setting his
+teeth, he sprang at it, throwing the great weight of his massive
+shoulder against the framework door.  Scratched and bleeding, but
+still upon his feet, he burst into the room, with the noise of
+bricks falling behind,--an apparition so unexpected that the
+little company gathered there seemed turned into some waxwork
+group from the Chamber of Horrors--motionless, without even the
+power of movement.
+
+Tavernake, in those few moments, was like a giant among a company
+of degenerates.  He was strong, his muscles were like whipcord,
+and his condition was perfect.  Walter Crease went over like a
+log before his fist; Major Post felt the revolver at which he had
+snatched struck from his hand, and he himself remembered nothing
+more till he came to his senses some time afterwards.  A slash
+and a cut and Pritchard was free.  The professor stood wringing
+his hands.  Elizabeth had risen to her feet.  She was pale, but
+she was still more nearly composed than any other person in the
+room.  Tavernake and Pritchard were masters of the situation.
+Pritchard leaned toward the mirror and straightened his tie.
+
+"I am afraid," he said looking down at Walter Crease's groaning
+figure, "that our hosts are scarcely in fit condition to take
+leave of us.  Never mind, Mrs. Gardner, we excuse ourselves to
+you.  I cannot pretend to be sorry that my friend's somewhat
+impetuous entrance has disturbed your plans for the evening, but
+I do hope that you will realize now the fatuousness of such
+methods in these days.  Good-night!  It is time we finished our
+stroll together, Tavernake."
+
+They moved towards the door--there was no one to stop them.  Only
+the professor tried to say a few words.
+
+"My dear Mr. Pritchard--my dear Pritchard, if you will allow me
+to call you so," he exclaimed, "let me beg of you, before you
+leave us, not to take this trifling adventure too seriously!  I
+can assure you that it was simply an attempt to coerce you, not
+in the least an affair to be taken seriously!"
+
+Pritchard smiled.
+
+"Professor," he said, "and you, Walter Crease, and you, Jimmy
+Post, if you're able to listen, listen to me.
+
+You have played the part of children to-night.  So surely as men
+and women exist who live as you do, so surely must the law wait
+upon their heels.  You cannot cheat justice.  It is as inexorable
+as Time itself.  When you try these little tricks, you simply
+give another turn to the wheel, add another danger to life.  You
+had better learn to look upon me as necessary, all of you, for I
+am certainly inevitable."
+
+They passed backwards through the door, then they went down the
+silent hall and out into the street.  Even as they did so, the
+clock struck a quarter to two.
+
+"My friend Tavernake," Pritchard declared, lighting a cigarette
+with steady fingers, "you are a man.  Come into the club with me
+while I bathe my forehead.  After all, we'll have that drink
+together before we say goodnight."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+A PLEASANT REUNION
+
+
+Tavernake awoke some hours later with a puzzled sense of having
+lost his own identity, of having taken up another man's life,
+stepped into another man's shoes.  From the day of his first
+arrival in London, a raw country youth, till the night when he
+had spoken to Beatrice on the roof of Blenheim House, nothing
+that could properly be called an adventure had ever happened to
+him.  He had never for a moment felt the want of it; he had not
+even indulged in the reading of books of romance.  The thing
+which had happened last night, as in the cold morning sunlight he
+sat up in his bed, seemed to him a thing grotesque,
+inconceivable.  It was not really possible that those people
+--those well-bred, well-looking people--had seriously
+contemplated an enormity which seemed to belong to the back pages
+of history, or that he, Tavernake, had burst through a wall with
+no weapons in his hand, and had dominated the situation!  He sat
+there steadily thinking.  It was incredible, but it was true!
+There existed still in his mind some faint doubt as to whether
+they would really have proceeded to extremities.  Pritchard
+himself had made light of the whole affair, afterwards had
+treated it, indeed, as a huge practical joke.  Tavernake,
+remembering that little group as he had first seen it, remained
+doubtful.
+
+By degrees, his own personal characteristics began to assert
+themselves.  He began to wonder how his action would affect his
+commercial interests.  He had probably made an enemy of this
+wonderful sister of Beatrice's, the woman who had so completely
+filled his thoughts during the last few days, the woman, too, who
+was to have found the money by means of which he was to set his
+feet upon the first rung of the ladder.  This was a thing, he
+decided, which must be settled at once.  He must see her and know
+exactly what terms they were on, whether or not she meant to be
+off with her bargain.  The thought of action of any sort was
+stimulating.  He rose and dressed, had his breakfast, and set out
+on his pilgrimage.
+
+Soon after eleven o'clock, he presented himself at the Milan
+Court and asked for Mrs. Wenham Gardner.  For several minutes he
+waited about in nervous anticipation, then he was told that she
+was not at home.  More than a little disappointed, he pressed for
+news of her.  The hall porter thought that she had gone down into
+the country, and if so it was doubtful when she would be back.
+Tavernake was now seriously disconcerted.
+
+"I want particularly to wire to her," he insisted.  "Please find
+out from her maid how I shall direct a telegram."
+
+The hall porter, who was a most superior person, regarded him
+blandly.
+
+"We do not give addresses, sir," he explained, "unless at the
+expressed wish of our clients.  If you leave a telegram here, I
+will send it up to Mrs. Gardner's rooms to be forwarded."
+
+Tavernake scribbled one out, begging for news of her return,
+added his address and left the place.  Then he wandered aimlessly
+about the streets.  There seemed something flat about the
+morning, some aftermath of the excitement of the previous night
+was still stirring in his blood.  Nevertheless, he pulled himself
+together with an effort, called for a young surveyor whom he had
+engaged to assist him, and spent the rest of the day out upon the
+hill.  Religiously he kept his thoughts turned upon his work
+until the twilight came.  Then he hurried home to meet the
+disappointment which he had more than half anticipated.  There
+was no telegram for him!  He ate his dinner and sat with folded
+arms, looking out into the street.  Still no telegram!  The
+restlessness came back once more.  Soon after ten o'clock it
+became unbearable.  He found himself longing for company, the
+loneliness of his little room since the departure of Beatrice had
+never seemed so real a thing.  He stood it as long as he could
+and then, catching up his hat and stick, he set his face
+eastwards, walking vigorously, and with frequent glances at the
+clocks he passed.
+
+A few minutes past eleven o'clock, he found himself once more in
+that dark thoroughfare at the back of the theatre.  The lamp over
+the stage-door was flickering in the same uncertain manner, the
+same motor-cars were there, the same crowd of young men, except
+that each night they seemed to grow larger.  This time he had a
+few minutes only to wait.  Beatrice came out among the earliest.
+At the sight of her he was suddenly conscious that he had, after
+all, no excuse for coming, that she would probably cross-examine
+him about Elizabeth, would probably guess the secret of his
+torments.  He shrank back, but he was a moment too late for she
+had seen him.  With a few words of excuse to the others with whom
+she was talking, she picked up her skirts and came swiftly across
+the muddy street.  Tavernake had no time to escape.  He remained
+there until she came, but his cheeks were hot, and he had an
+uncomfortable feeling that his presence, that their meeting like
+this, was an embarrassment to both of them.
+
+"My dear Leonard," she exclaimed, "why do you hide over there?"
+
+"I don't know," he answered simply.
+
+She laughed.
+
+"It looks as though you didn't want to see me," she remarked.
+"If you didn't, why are you here?"
+
+"I suppose I did want to see you," he replied.  "Anyhow, I was
+lonely.  I wanted to talk to some one.  I walked all the way up
+here from Chelsea."
+
+"You have something to tell me?" she suggested.
+
+"There was something," he admitted.  "I thought perhaps you ought
+to know.  I had supper with your father last night.  We talked
+about you."
+
+She started as though he had struck her; her face was suddenly
+pale and anxious.
+
+"Are you serious, Leonard?" she asked.  "My father?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"I am sorry," he said.  "I ought not to have blundered.  it out
+like that.  I forgot that you--you were not seeing anything of
+him."
+
+"How did you meet him?"
+
+"By accident," he answered.  "I was sitting alone up in the
+balcony at Imano's, and he wanted my table because he could see
+you from there, so we shared it, and then we began talking.  I
+knew who he was, of course; I had seen him in your sister's room.
+He told me that he had engaged the table for every night this
+week."
+
+She looked across the road.
+
+"I can't go out with those people now," she declared.  "Wait here
+for me."
+
+She went back to her friends and talked to them for a moment or
+two.  Tavernake could hear Grier's protesting voice and
+Beatrice's light laugh.  Evidently they were trying uselessly to
+persuade her to change her mind.  Soon she came back to him.
+
+"I am sorry," he said reluctantly.  "I am afraid that I have
+spoiled your evening."
+
+"Don't be foolish, please," she replied taking his arm.  "Do you
+believe that my father will be up in the balcony at Imano's
+to-night?"
+
+Tavernake nodded.
+
+"He told me so."
+
+"We will go and sit up there," she decided.  "He knows where I am
+to be found now so it doesn't matter.  I should like to see him."
+
+They walked off together.  Though she was evidently absent and
+distressed, Tavernake felt once more that sense of pleasant
+companionship which her near presence always brought him.
+
+"There is something else I must ask you," she began presently.
+"I want to know if you have seen Pritchard lately."
+
+"I was with him last night," Tavernake answered.
+
+She shivered.
+
+"He was asking questions?"
+
+"Not about you," Tavernake assured her quickly.  "It is your
+sister in whom he is interested."
+
+Beatrice nodded, but she seemed very little relieved.  Tavernake
+could see that the old look of fear was back in her face.
+
+"I am sorry, Beatrice," he said, regretfully.  "I seem just now
+to be always bringing you reminiscences of the people whom it
+terrifies you to hear about."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"It isn't your fault, Leonard," she declared, "only it is rather
+strange that you should be mixed up with them in any way, isn't
+it?  I suppose some day you'll find out everything about me.
+Perhaps you'll be sorry then that you ever even called yourself
+my brother."
+
+"Don't be foolish," he answered, brusquely.
+
+She patted his hand.
+
+"Is the speculation going all right?" she asked.
+
+"I am hoping to get the money together this week," he replied.
+"If I get it, I shall be well off in a year, rich in five years."
+
+"There is just a doubt about your getting it, then?" she
+inquired.
+
+"Just a doubt," he admitted.  "I have a solicitor who is doing
+his best to raise a loan, but I have not heard from him for two
+days.  Then I have also a friend who has promised it to me, a
+friend upon whom I am not quite sure if I can rely."
+
+They turned into the Strand.
+
+"Tell me about my father, Leonard," she begged.
+
+He hesitated; it was hard to know exactly how to speak of the
+professor.
+
+"Perhaps if you have talked with him at all," she went on, "it
+will help you to understand one of the difficulties I had to face
+in life."
+
+"He is, I should imagine, a little weak," Tavernake suggested,
+hesitatingly.
+
+"Very," she answered.  "My mother left him in my charge, but I
+cannot keep him."
+
+"Your sister--" he began.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"My sister has more influence than I.  She makes life easier for
+him."
+
+They reached the restaurant and made their way upstairs.
+Tavernake appropriated the same table and once more the head
+waiter protested.
+
+"If the gentleman comes again to-night," Tavernake said, "you
+will find that he will be only too glad to have supper with us."
+
+Then the professor came.  He made his usual somewhat theatrical
+entrance, carrying his broad-brimmed hat in his hand, brandishing
+his silver-topped cane.  When he saw Tavernake and Beatrice, he
+stopped short.  Then he held out both hands, which Beatrice
+immediately seized.  There were tears in his eyes, tears running
+down his cheeks.  He sat down heavily in the chair which
+Tavernake was holding for him.
+
+"Beatrice," he exclaimed, "why, this is most affecting!  You have
+come here to have supper with your old father.  You trust me,
+then?"
+
+"Absolutely," she replied, still clasping his hands.  "If you
+give me away to Elizabeth, it will be the end.  The next time I
+shall never be found."
+
+"For some days," he assured her, "I have known exactly where you
+were to be found.  I have never spoken of it.  You are safe.  My
+meals up here," he added, with a little sigh, "have been sad
+feasts.  To-night we will be cheerful.  Some quails, I think,
+quails and some Clicquot for you, my dear.  You need it.  Ah,
+this is a happiness indeed!"
+
+"You know Mr. Tavernake, father," she remarked, after he had
+given a somewhat lengthy order to the waiter.
+
+"I met and talked with Mr. Tavernake here the other night," the
+professor admitted, with condescension.
+
+"Mr. Tavernake was very good to me at a time when I needed help,"
+Beatrice told him.
+
+The professor grasped Tavernake's hands.
+
+"You were good to my child," he said, "you were good to me.
+Waiter, three cocktails immediately," he ordered, turning round.
+"I must drink your health, Mr. Tavernake--I must drink your
+health at once."
+
+Tavernake leaned forward towards Beatrice.
+
+"I wonder," he suggested, "whether you would not rather be alone
+with your father."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"You know so much," she replied, "and it really doesn't seem to
+matter.  Tell me, father, how do you spend your time?"
+
+"I must confess, dear," the professor said, "that I have little
+to do.  Your sister Elizabeth is quite generous."
+
+Beatrice sat back in her chair as though she had been struck.
+
+"Father," she exclaimed, "listen!  You are living on that money!
+Doesn't it seem terrible to you?  Oh, how can you do it!"
+
+The professor looked at his daughter with an expression of pained
+surprise.
+
+"My dear," he explained, "your sister Elizabeth has always been
+the moneyed one of the family.  She has brains and I trust her.
+It is not for me to inquire as to the source of the comforts she
+provides for me.  I feel myself entitled to receive them, and so
+I accept."
+
+"But, father," she went on, "can't you see--don't you know that
+it's his money--Wenham's?"
+
+"It is not a matter, this, my child," the professor observed,
+sharply, "which we can discuss before strangers.  Some day we
+will speak of it, you and L"
+
+"Has he--been heard of?" she asked, in a whisper.
+
+The professor frowned.
+
+"A hot-tempered young man, my dear," he declared uneasily, "a hot
+tempered young man, indeed.  Elizabeth gives me to understand
+that it was just an ordinary quarrel and away he went."
+
+Beatrice was white to the lips.
+
+"An ordinary quarrel!" she muttered.
+
+She sat quite still.  Tavernake unconsciously found himself
+watching her.  There were things in her eyes which frightened
+him.  It seemed as though she were looking out of the gay little
+restaurant, with its lights and music and air of comfort, out
+into some distant quarter of the world, some other and very
+different place.  She was living through something which chilled
+her heart, something terrifying.  Tavernake saw those things in
+her face and his eyes spelt them out mercilessly.
+
+"Father," she whispered, leaning towards him, "do you believe
+what you have just been saying to me?"
+
+It was the professor's turn to be disturbed.  He concealed his
+discomfiture, however, with a gesture of annoyance.
+
+"That is scarcely a proper question, Beatrice," he answered
+sharply.  "Ah," he added, with more geniality, "the cocktails!
+My young friend Tavernake, I drink to our better acquaintance!
+You are English, as I can see, a real Britisher.  Some day you
+must come out to our own great country--my daughter, of course,
+has told you that we are Americans.  A great country, sir,--the
+greatest I have ever lived in--room to breathe, room to grow,
+room for a young man like you to plant his ambitions and watch
+them blossom.  To our better acquaintance, Mr. Tavernake, and may
+we meet some day in the United States!"
+
+Tavernake drank the first cocktail in his life and wiped the
+tears from his eyes.  The professor found safety in conversation.
+
+"You know," he went on, "that I am a man of science.  Physiognomy
+delights me.  Men and women as I meet them represent to me
+varying types of humanity, all interesting, all appealing to my
+peculiar love of the science of psychology.  You, my dear Mr.
+Tavernake, if I may venture to be so personal, represent to me,
+as you sit there, the exact prototype of the young working
+Englishman.  You are, I should judge, thorough, dogmatic, narrow,
+persistent, industrious, and bound to be successful according to
+the scope and nature of your ambitions.  In this country you will
+never develop.  In my country, sir, we should make a colossus of
+you.  We should teach you not to be content with small things; we
+should raise your hand which you yourself kept to your side, and
+we should point your finger to the skies.  Waiter," he added,
+turning abruptly round, "if the quails are not yet ready I will
+take another of these excellent cocktails."
+
+Tavernake was embarrassed.  He saw that Beatrice was anxious to
+talk to her father; he saw, also, that her father was determined
+not to talk to her.  With a little sigh, however, she resigned
+herself to the inevitable.
+
+"I have lectured, sir," the professor continued, "in most of the
+cities of the United States, upon the human race.  The tendencies
+of every unit of the human race are my peculiar study.  When I
+speak to you of phrenology, sir, you smile, and you think,
+perhaps, of a man who sits in a back room and takes your shilling
+for feeling the bumps of your head.  I am not of this order of
+scientific men, sir.  I have diplomas from every university worth
+mentioning.  I blend the sciences which treat with the human
+race.  I know something of all of them.  Character reading to me
+is at once a passion and a science.  Leave me alone with a man or
+a woman for five minutes, paint me a map of Life, and I will set
+the signposts along which that person will travel, and I shall
+not miss one."
+
+"You are doing no work over here, father, are you?" Beatrice
+asked.
+
+"None, my dear," he answered, with a faint note of regret in his
+tone.  "Your sister Elizabeth seemed scarcely to desire it.  Her
+movements are very uncertain and she likes to have me constantly
+at hand.  My daughter Elizabeth," he continued, turning to
+Tavernake, "is a very beautiful young woman, left in my charge
+under peculiar circumstances.  I feel it my duty, therefore, to
+be constantly at hand."
+
+Again there was a flash of that strange look in the girl's face.
+She leaned forward, but her father declined to meet her gaze.
+
+"May I ask one or two personal questions?" she faltered.
+"Remember, I have not seen or heard anything from either of you
+for seven months."
+
+"By all means, my dear," the professor declared.  "Your sister, I
+am glad to say, is well.  I myself am as you see me.  We have had
+a pleasant time and we have met some dear old friends from the
+other side.  Our greatest trouble is that you are temporarily
+lost to us."
+
+"Elizabeth doesn't guess--"
+
+"My child," the professor interrupted, "I have been loyal to you.
+If Elizabeth knew that I could tell her at any moment your exact
+whereabouts, I think that she would be more angry with me than
+ever she has been in her life, and, my dear," he added, "you
+know, when Elizabeth is angry, things are apt to be unpleasant.
+But I have been dumb.  I have not spoken, nor shall I.  Yet," the
+professor went on, "you must not think, Beatrice, that because I
+yield to your whim in this matter I recognize any sufficient
+cause why you should voluntarily estrange yourself from those
+whose right and privilege it is to look after you.  You are able,
+I am glad to see, to make your way in the world.  I have attended
+the Atlas Theatre, and I am glad to see that you have lost none
+of your old skill in the song and dance.  You are deservedly
+popular there.  Soon, I have no doubt, you will aspire to more
+important parts.  Still, my dear child," the professor continued,
+disposing of his second cocktail, "I see no reason why your very
+laudable desire to remain independent should be incompatible with
+a life under your sister's roof and my protection.  Mr. Tavernake
+here, with his British instincts, will, I am sure, agree with me
+that it is not well for a young lady--my own daughter, sir, but I
+may say it--of considerable personal attractions, to live alone
+or under the chaperonage merely of these other young ladies of
+the theatre."
+
+"I think,", Tavernake said, "that your daughter must have very
+strong reasons for preferring to live alone."
+
+"Imaginary ones, my dear sir," the professor assured him,--
+"altogether imaginary.  The quails at last!  And the Clicquot!
+Now this is really a delightful little meeting.  I drink to its
+repetition.  This is indeed a treat for me.  Beatrice, my love to
+you!  Mr. Tavernake, my best respects!  The only vintage, sir,"
+he concluded, setting down his empty glass appreciatively.
+
+"To go back to what you were saying just now," Tavernake
+remarked, "I quite agree with you about Beatrice's living alone.
+I am very anxious for her to marry me."
+
+The professor set down his knife and fork.  His appearance was
+one of ponderous theatricality.
+
+"Sir," he declared, "this is indeed a most momentous statement.
+Am I to take it as a serious offer for my daughter's hand?"
+
+Beatrice leaned over and laid her fingers upon his.
+
+"Father," she said, "it doesn't matter please.  I am not willing
+to marry Mr. Tavernake."
+
+The professor looked from one to the other and coughed.
+
+"Are Mr. Tavernake's means," he asked, "of sufficient importance
+to warrant his entering into matrimony?"
+
+"I have no money at all to speak of," Tavernake answered.  "That
+really isn't important.  I shall very soon make all that your
+daughter can spend."
+
+"I agree with my daughter, sir," the professor declared.  "The
+subject might well be left until such time as you have improved
+your position.  We will dismiss it, therefore,--dismiss it at
+once.  We will talk--"
+
+"Father," Beatrice interrupted, "let us talk about yourself.
+Don't you think you would be more contented, happier, if you were
+to try to arrange for a few--a few demonstrations or lectures
+over here, as you at first intended?  I know that you must find
+having nothing to do such a strain upon you," she added.
+
+It was perhaps by accident that her eyes were fixed upon the
+glass which the professor was carrying to his lips.  He set it
+down at once.
+
+"My child," he said, in a low tone, " I understand you."
+
+"No, no," she insisted, "I didn't mean that, but you are always
+better when you are working.  A man like you," she went on, a
+little wistfully, "should not waste his talents."
+
+He sighed.
+
+"You are perhaps right, my child," he admitted.  "I will go and
+see my agents to-morrow.  Up till now," he went on, "I have
+refused all offers.  I have felt that Elizabeth, the care of
+Elizabeth in her peculiar position, demanded my whole attention.
+Perhaps you are right.  Perhaps I have over-estimated the
+necessity of being constantly at her right hand.  She is a very
+clever woman Elizabeth," he concluded, "very clever indeed."
+
+"Where is she now, father?" Beatrice asked.
+
+"She motored into the country early this morning with some
+friends," the professor said.  "They went to a party last night
+with Walter Crease, London correspondent to the New York
+Gazette," he explained, turning a little away from Tavernake.
+"They were all home very late, I understand, and Elizabeth
+complained of a headache this morning.  Personally, I regret to
+say that I was not up when they left."
+
+Beatrice leaned quite close to her father.
+
+"Do you see anything of the man Pritchard?" she inquired.
+
+The professor was suddenly flabby.  He set down his glass,
+spilling half its contents.  He stole a quick glance at
+Tavernake.
+
+"My child," he exclaimed, "you ought to consider my nerves!  You
+know very well that the sudden mention of any one whom I dislike
+so intensely is bad for me.  I am surprised at you, Beatrice.
+You show a culpable lack of consideration for my infirmities."
+
+"I am sorry, father," she whispered, "but is he here?"
+
+"He is," the professor admitted.  "Between ourselves," he added,
+a white, scared look upon his pale face, "he is spoiling my whole
+peace of mind.  My enjoyment of the comforts which Elizabeth is
+able to provide for me is interfered with by that man's constant
+presence.  He seldom speaks, and yet he seems always to be
+watching.  I do not trust him, Beatrice.  I am a judge of men and
+I tell you that I do not trust him."
+
+"I wish that Elizabeth would go away," Beatrice said in a low
+tone.  "Of course, I have no right--to say things.  Nothing
+serious has perhaps ever happened.  And yet--and yet, for her own
+sake, I do not think that she should stay here in London with
+Pritchard close at hand."
+
+The professor raised his glass with shaking fingers.
+
+"Elizabeth knows what is best," he declared, "I am sure that
+Elizabeth knows what is best, but I, too, am beginning to wish
+that she would go away.  Last night we met him at Walter
+Crease's."
+
+Once more he turned a little nervously towards Tavernake, who was
+looking down into the body of the restaurant with immovable face.
+
+"We tried to persuade him then to go away.  He is really in
+rather a dangerous position here.  Jimmy Post has sworn that he
+will not be taken back to New York, and there are one or two
+others--a pretty desperate crew.  We tried last night to reason
+with Pritchard."
+
+"It was no good?" she whispered.
+
+"No good at all," the professor answered, drily.  "Perhaps, if we
+had not been interrupted, we might have convinced him."
+
+"Tell me about it," she begged.
+
+The professor shook his head.  Tavernake still had that air of
+paying no attention whatever to their conversation.
+
+"It is not for you to know about, my dear," he concluded.  "You
+have chosen very wisely to keep out of these matters.  Elizabeth
+has such wonderful courage.  My own nerve, I regret to say, is
+not quite what it was.  Waiter, I will take a liqueur of the old
+brandy in a large glass."
+
+The brandy was brought, but the professor seemed haunted by
+memories and his spirits never wholly returned.  Not until the
+lights were turned down and Tavernake had paid the bill, did he
+partially recover his former manner.
+
+"Dear child," he said, as they stood up together, "I cannot tell
+you what the pleasure has been of this brief reunion."
+
+She rested her fingers upon his shoulders and looked up into his
+face.
+
+"Father," she begged, softly, "come to me.  I can keep you, if
+you don't mind for a short time being poor.  You shall have all
+my salary except just enough for my clothes, and anything will do
+for me to wear.  I will try so hard to make you comfortable."
+
+He looked at her with an air of offended dignity.
+
+"My child," he replied, "you must not talk to me like that.  If I
+did not feel that my duty lay with Elizabeth, I should insist
+upon your coming to me, and under those conditions it would be I
+who should provide, not you.  But for the moment I cannot leave
+your elder sister altogether.  She needs me."
+
+Beatrice turned away a little sadly.  They all three descended
+the stairs.
+
+"I shall leave our young friend, Mr. Tavernake, to escort you to
+your home," the professor announced.  "I myself shall telephone
+to see if Elizabeth has returned.  If she is still away, I shall
+spend an hour or two, I think, with my friends at the Blue Room
+Club.  Beatrice, this has been a joy to me, a joy soon, I hope,
+to be repeated."
+
+He took both her hands.  She smiled at him with an attempt at
+cheerfulness.
+
+"Good-night, father!" she said.
+
+"And to you, sir, also, good-night!" the professor added, taking
+Tavernake's hand and holding it for a minute in his, while he
+looked impressively in his face.  "I will not say too much, but I
+will say this: so much as I have seen of you, I like.
+Good-night!"
+
+He turned and strode away.  Both Beatrice and Tavernake watched
+him until he disappeared.  Then, with a sigh, she picked up her
+skirts with her right hand, and took Tavernake's arm.
+
+"Do you mind walking home?" she asked.  "My head aches."
+
+Tavernake looked for a moment wistfully across the road toward
+the Milan Court.  Beatrice's hand, however, only held his arm the
+tighter.
+
+"I am going to make you come with me every step of the way," she
+declared, "so you can just as well make the best of it.
+Afterwards--"
+
+"What about afterwards?" he interrupted.
+
+"Afterwards," she continued, with decision, "you are to go
+straight home!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+SOME EXCELLENT ADVICE
+
+
+Tavernake, in response to a somewhat urgent message, walked into
+his solicitor's office almost as soon as they opened on the
+following morning.  The junior partner of the firm, who took an
+interest in him, and was anxious, indeed, to invest a small
+amount in the Marston Rise Building Company, received him
+cordially but with some concern.
+
+"Look here, Tavernake," he said, "I thought I'd better write a
+line and ask you to come down.  You haven't forgotten, have you,
+that our option of purchase lasts only three days longer?"
+
+Tavernake nodded.
+
+"Well, what of it?" he asked.
+
+"It's just as well that you should understand the situation," the
+lawyer continued.  "Your old people are hard upon our heels in
+this matter, and there will be no chance of any extension--not
+even for an hour.  Mr. Dowling has already put in an offer a
+thousand pounds better than yours; I heard that incidentally
+yesterday afternoon; so you may be sure that the second your
+option has legally expired, the thing will be off altogether so
+far as you're concerned."
+
+"That's all very well," Tavernake remarked, "but what about the
+plots that already belong to me?"
+
+"They have some sort of scheme for leaving those high and dry,"
+the solicitor explained.  "You see, the drainage and lighting
+will be largely influenced by the purchaser of the whole estate.
+If Dowling gets it, he means to treat your plots so that they
+will become practically valueless.  It's rather a mean sort of
+thing, but then he's a mean little man."
+
+Tavernake nodded.
+
+"Well," he announced, "I was coming to see you, anyhow, this
+morning, to talk to you about the money."
+
+"Your friend isn't backing out?" the lawyer asked, quickly.
+
+"My friend has not said anything about backing out yet,"
+Tavernake replied, "but circumstances have arisen during the last
+few days which have altered my own views as to the expediency of
+business relations with this person.  I haven't any reason to
+suppose that the money won't be forthcoming, but if I could get
+it from any other source, I should prefer it."
+
+The solicitor looked blank.
+
+"Of course," he said, "I'll do what I can, if you like, but I may
+as well tell you at once that I don't think I should have a ghost
+of a chance of raising the whole amount."
+
+"I suppose," Tavernake inquired, thoughtfully, "your firm
+couldn't do anything?"
+
+"We could do something, certainly," the solicitor answered, "on
+account of our own clients.  We might, perhaps, manage up to five
+thousand pounds.  That would still leave us wanting seven,
+however, and I scarcely see where we could get it."
+
+Tavernake was silent for a few moments.
+
+"You haven't quarreled with your friend, have you?" the solicitor
+asked.
+
+"No, there has been no quarrel," Tavernake replied.  "I have
+another reason."
+
+"If I were you, I'd try and forget it," his friend advised.  "To
+tell you the truth, I have been feeling rather anxious about this
+affair.  It's a big thing, you know, and the profit is as sure as
+the dividend on Consols.  I should hate to have that little
+bounder Dowling get in and scoop it up."
+
+"It's a fine investment," admitted Tavernake, "and, as you say,
+there isn't the slightest risk.  That's why I was hoping you
+might have been able to manage it without my calling upon my
+friend."
+
+Mr. Martin shook his head.
+
+"It isn't so easy to convince other people.  All the same, I
+don't want to get left.  If you'll take my advice, you'll go and
+call on your friend at once, and see exactly how matters stand.
+If everything's O.K. and you can induce him to part a few hours
+before it is absolutely necessary, I must confess that it would
+take a load off my mind.  I don't like these affairs that have to
+be concluded at the last possible moment."
+
+"Well," Tavernake agreed, "I must try what I can do, then.  There
+is nothing else fresh, I suppose?"
+
+"Nothing," the solicitor answered.  "Come back, if you can make
+any definite arrangement, or telephone.  The matter is really
+bothering me a little.  I don't want to have the other people
+slip in now." . . .
+
+Tavernake, instead of obeying his first impulse and making his
+way direct to the Milan Court, walked to the flat in Kingsway,
+climbed up the stone steps, and asked for Beatrice.  She met him
+at her own door, fully dressed.
+
+"My dear Leonard!" she exclaimed, in surprise.  "What an early
+caller!"
+
+"I want a few words with you," he said.  "Can you spare me five
+minutes?"
+
+"You must walk with me to the theatre," she replied, "I am just
+off to rehearsal."
+
+They descended the stairs together.
+
+"I have something to tell you," Tavernake began, "something to
+tell you which you won't like to hear."
+
+"Something which I won't like to hear," she repeated, fearfully.
+"Go on, Leonard.  It can't be worse than it sounds."
+
+"I don't know why I've come to tell you," he went on.  "I never
+meant to.  It came into my mind all of a sudden and I felt that I
+must.  It has to do with your sister and the Marston Rise
+affair."
+
+"My sister and the Marston Rise affair!" Beatrice exclaimed,
+incredulously.
+
+Then a sudden light broke in upon her.  She stopped short and
+clutched at his hand.
+
+"You don't mean that it was Elizabeth who was going to find you
+the money?" she cried.
+
+"I do," he answered.  "She offered it of her own accord.  I do
+not know why I talked to her of my own affairs, but she led me on
+to speak of them.  Your sister is a wonderful person," he
+continued, dropping his voice.  "I don't know why, but she made
+me talk as no one else has ever made me talk before.  I simply
+had to tell her things.  Then, when I had finished, she showed me
+her bankbooks and suggested that she should invest some of her
+money in the Rise."
+
+"But do you mean to tell me," Beatrice persisted, "that it is her
+money upon which you are relying for this purchase?"
+
+Tavernake nodded.
+
+"You see," he explained, "Mr. Dowling dropped upon us before I
+was prepared.  As soon as he found out, he went to the owners of
+the estate and made them a bid for it.  The consequence was that
+they shortened my option and gave me very little chance indeed to
+find the money.  When your sister offered it, it certainly seemed
+a wonderful stroke of fortune.  I could give her eight or ten per
+cent, whereas she would only get four anywhere else, and I should
+make a profit for myself of over ten thousand pounds, which I
+cannot do unless I find the money to buy the estate."
+
+"But you mustn't touch that money, you mustn't have anything to
+do with it!" Beatrice exclaimed, walking very fast and looking
+straight ahead.  "You don't understand.  How should you?"
+
+"Do you mean that the money was stolen?" Tavernake asked, after a
+moment's pause.
+
+"No, not stolen," Beatrice replied, "but it comes--oh!  I can't
+tell you, only Elizabeth has no right to it.  My own sister!  It
+is all too awful!"
+
+"Do you think that she has come by this money dishonestly?"
+
+"I am not sure," Beatrice murmured.  "There are worse things,
+more terrible things even than theft."
+
+The practical side of Tavernake's nature was very much to the
+fore that morning.  He began to wonder whether women, after all,
+strange and fascinating creatures though they were, possessed
+judgment which could be relied upon--whether they were not swayed
+too much by sentiment.
+
+"Beatrice," he said, "you must understand this.  I have no time
+to raise the money elsewhere.  If I don't get it from your
+sister, supposing she is still willing to let me have it, my
+chance has gone.  I shall have to take a situation in some one
+else's office as a clerk--probably not so good a place as I held
+at Dowling & Spence's.  On the other hand, the use of that money
+for a very short time would be the start of my career.  All that
+you say is so vague.  Why need I know anything about it?  I met
+your sister in the ordinary way of business and she has made an
+ordinary business proposition to me, one by which she will be,
+incidentally, very greatly benefited.  I never thought of telling
+you this at all, but when the time came I hated to go and draw
+that money from your sister without having said anything to you.
+So I came this morning, but I want you, if you possibly can, to
+look at the matter from my point of view."
+
+She was silent for several moments.  Then she glanced at him
+curiously.
+
+"Why on earth," she asked, "should my sister make this offer to
+you?  She isn't a fool.  She doesn't usually trust strangers."
+
+"She trusted me, apparently," Tavernake answered.
+
+"Can you understand why?" Beatrice demanded.
+
+"I think that I can," he replied.  "If one can rely upon one's
+perception, she is surrounded by people whom she might find
+agreeable companions but whom she is scarcely likely to have much
+confidence in.  Perhaps she realized that I wasn't like them."
+
+"And you want very much to take this money?" she said, half to
+herself.
+
+"I want to very much indeed," Tavernake admitted.  "I was on my
+way to see her this morning and to ask her to let me have it a
+day or two before the time, but I felt, somehow, that there
+seemed to be a certain amount of deceit in going to her and
+taking it without saying a word to you.  I felt that I had to
+come here first.  But Beatrice, don't ask me to give it up.  It
+means such a long time before I can move again.  It's the first
+step that's so difficult, and I must--I must make a start.  It's
+such a chance, this.  I have spent so many hours thinking about
+it.  I have planned and worked and sketched it all out as no one
+else could do.  I must have that money."
+
+They walked on in silence until they reached the stage door.
+Beatrice was thinking of her companion as she had seen him so
+often, poring over his plans, busy with ruler and india-rubber,
+absolutely absorbed in the interest of his task.  She remembered
+the first time he had talked about this scheme of his, how his
+whole face had changed, the almost passionate interest with which
+he had worked the thing out even to its smallest details.  She
+realized how great a part of his life the thing had become, what
+a terrible blow it would be to him to have to abandon it.  She
+turned and faced him.
+
+"Leonard," she said, "perhaps, after all, you are right.  Perhaps
+I give way too much to what, after all, is only a sentimental
+feeling.  I am thankful that you came and told me; I shall always
+be thankful for that.  Take the money, but pay it back as soon as
+you can."
+
+"I shall do that," he answered.  "I shall do that you may rely
+upon it."
+
+She laid her hand upon his arm.
+
+"Leonard," she begged, "I know that Elizabeth is very beautiful
+and very fascinating, and I don't wonder that you like to go and
+see her, but I want to ask you to promise me one thing."
+
+He felt as though he were suddenly turned into stone.  It was not
+possible--it could not be possible that she had guessed his
+secret!
+
+"Well?" he demanded.
+
+"Don't let her introduce you to her friends; don't spend too much
+time there," she continued.  "Elizabeth is my sister and I don't
+--really I don't want to say anything that doesn't sound kind,
+but her friends are not fit people for you to know, and Elizabeth
+--well she hasn't very much heart."
+
+He was silent for several moments.
+
+"How did you know I liked going to see your sister?  " he asked,
+abruptly.
+
+She smiled.
+
+"My dear Leonard," she said, "you are not very clever at hiding
+your feelings.  When you came to see me the other day, do you
+imagine I believed for a single moment that you asked me to marry
+you simply because you cared?  I think, Leonard, that it was
+because you were afraid, you were afraid of something coming into
+your life so big, so terrifying, that you were ready to clutch at
+the easiest chance of safety."
+
+"Beatrice, this is absurd!" he exclaimed.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"No, it isn't that," she declared.  "Do you know, my dear
+Leonard, what there was about you from the very first which
+attracted me?"
+
+"No," he answered.
+
+"It was your honesty," she continued.  "You remember that night
+upon the roof at Blenheim House?  You were going to tell a lie
+for me, and I know how you hated it.  You love the truth, you are
+truthful naturally; I would rely upon you wherever I was.  I know
+that you would keep your word, I know that you would be honest.
+A woman loves to feel that about a man--she loves it--and I don't
+want you to be brought near the people who sneer at honesty and
+all good things.  I don't want you to hear their point of view.
+You may be simple and commonplace in some respects; I want you to
+stay just as you are.  Do you understand?"
+
+"I understand," Tavernake replied gravely.
+
+A call boy shouted her name down the stone passage.  She patted
+him on the shoulder and turned away.
+
+"Run along now and get the money," she said.  "Come and see me
+when it's all over."
+
+Tavernake left her with a long breath of relief and made his way
+towards the Strand.  At the corner of Wellington Street he came
+face to face with Pritchard.  They stopped at once.  There seemed
+to be something embarrassing about this meeting.  lPritchard
+patted him familiarly on the shoulder.
+
+"How goes it, old man?" he asked.
+
+"I am all right," Tavernake answered, somewhat awkwardly.  "How
+are you?"
+
+"I guess I'd be the better for a drink," Pritchard declared.
+"Come along.  Pretty well done up the other night, weren't we?
+We'll step into the American Bar here and try a gin fizz."
+
+They found themselves presently perched upon two high stools in a
+deserted corner of the bar to which Pritchard had led the way.
+Tavernake sipped his drink tentatively.
+
+"I should like," he said, "to ask you a question or two about
+Wednesday night."
+
+Pritchard nodded.
+
+"Go right ahead," he invited.
+
+"You seem to take the whole affair as a sort of joke," Tavernake
+remarked.
+
+"Well, isn't that what it was?" the detective asked, smiling.
+
+Tavernake shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"There didn't seem to me to be much joke about it!" he exclaimed.
+
+Pritchard laughed gayly.
+
+"You are not used to Americans, my young friend," he said.  "Over
+on this side you are all so fearfully literal.  You are not
+seriously supposing that they meant to dose me with that stuff
+the other night, eh?"
+
+"I never thought that there was any doubt about it at all,"
+Tavernake declared deliberately.
+
+Pritchard stroked his moustache meditatively.
+
+"Well," he remarked, "you are certainly green, and yet I don't
+know why you shouldn't be.  Americans are always up to games of
+that sort.  I am not saying that they didn't mean to give me a
+scare, if they could, or that they wouldn't have been glad to get
+a few words of information out of me, or a paper or two that I
+keep pretty safely locked up.  It would have been a better joke
+on me then.  But as for the rest, as for really trying to make me
+take that stuff, of course, that was all bunkum."
+
+Tavernake sat quite still in his chair for several minutes.
+
+"Will you take another gin fizz, Mr. Pritchard?" he asked.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+Tavernake gave the order.  He sat on his stool whistling softly
+to himself.
+
+"Then I suppose," he said at last, "I must have looked a pretty
+sort of an ass coming through the wall like a madman."
+
+Pritchard shook his head.
+
+"You looked just about what you were," he answered, "a d----d
+good sort.  I'm not playing up to you that it was all pretense.
+You can never trust that gang.  The blackguard outside was in
+earnest, anyway.  After all, you know, they wouldn't miss me if I
+were to drop quietly out.  There 's no one else they 're quite so
+much afraid of.  There 's no one else knows quite as much about
+them."
+
+"Well, we'll let it go at that," Tavernake declared.  "You know
+so much of all these people, though, that I rather wish you 'd
+tell me something I want very much to know."
+
+"It's by telling nothing," the detective replied quickly, "that I
+know as much as I do.  Just one cocktail, eh?"
+
+Tavernake shook his head.
+
+"I drank my first cocktail last night," he remarked.  "I had
+supper with the professor and his daughter."
+
+"Not Elizabeth?" Pritchard asked swiftly.
+
+Tavernake shook his head.
+
+"With Miss Beatrice," he answered.
+
+Pritchard set down his glass.
+
+"Say, Tavernake," he inquired, "you are friendly with that young
+lady, Miss Beatrice, aren't you?"
+
+"I certainly am," Tavernake answered.  "I have a very great
+regard for her."
+
+"Then I can tell you how to do her a good turn," Pritchard
+continued, earnestly.  "Keep her away from that old blackguard.
+Keep her away from all the gang.  Believe me, she is looking for
+trouble by even speaking to them."
+
+"But the man's her father," Tavernake objected, "and he seems
+fond of her."
+
+"Don't you believe it," Pritchard went on.  "He's fond of nothing
+and nobody but himself and easy living.  He's soft, mind you,
+he's got plenty of sentiment, he 'll squeeze a tear out of his
+eye, and all that sort of thing, but he'd sell his soul, or his
+daughter's soul, for a little extra comfort.  Now Elizabeth
+doesn't know exactly where her sister is, and she daren't seem
+anxious, or go around making inquiries.  Beatrice has her chance
+to keep away, and I can tell you it will be a thundering sight
+better for her if she does."
+
+"Well, I don't understand it at all," Tavernake declared.  "I
+hate mysteries."
+
+Pritchard set down his empty glass.
+
+"Look here," he remarked, "this affair is too serious, after all,
+for us to talk round like a couple of gossips.  I have given you
+your warning, and if you're wise you 'll remember it."
+
+"Tell me this one thing," Tavernake persisted.  "Tell me what is
+the cause of the quarrel between the two?  Can't something be
+done to bring them together again?"
+
+Pritchard shook his head.
+
+"Nothing," he answered.  "As things are at present, they are
+better apart.  Coming my way?"
+
+Tavernake followed him out of the place.  Pritchard took his arm
+as he turned down toward the Strand.
+
+"My young friend," he said, "here is a word of advice for you.
+The Scriptures say that you cannot serve God and mammon.
+Paraphrase that to the present situation and remember that you
+cannot serve Elizabeth and Beatrice."
+
+"What then?" Tavernake demanded.
+
+The detective waited until he had lit the long black cigar
+between his teeth.
+
+"I guess you'd better confine your attentions to Beatrice," he
+concluded."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+DINNER WITH ELIZABETH
+
+
+The rest of that day was for Tavernake a period of feverish
+anxieties.  He received two telegrams from Mr. Martin, his
+solicitor, and he himself was more uneasy than he cared to admit.
+At three o'clock in the afternoon, at eight in the evening, and
+again at eleven o'clock at night, he presented himself at the
+Milan Court, always with the same inquiry.  On the last occasion,
+the hall porter had cheering news for him.
+
+"Mrs. Wenham Gardner returned from the country an hour ago, sir,"
+he announced.  "I can send your name up now, if you wish to see
+her."
+
+Tavernake was conscious of a sense of immense relief.  Of course,
+he had known that she had not really gone away for good, but all
+the same her absence, especially after the event of the night
+before last, was a little disquieting.
+
+"My name is Tavernake," he said.  "I do not wish to intrude at
+such an hour, but if she could see me for a moment, I should be
+glad."
+
+He sat down and waited patiently.  Soon a message came that Mr.
+Tavernake was to go up.  He ascended in the lift and knocked at
+the door of her suite.  Her maid opened it grudgingly.  She
+scarcely took the pains to conceal her disapproval of this young
+man--so ordinary, so gauche.  Why Madame should waste her time
+upon such a one, she could not imagine!
+
+"Mrs. Gardner will see you directly," she told him.  "Madame is
+dressing now to go out for supper.  She will be able to spare you
+only a few seconds."
+
+Tavernake remained alone in the luxurious little sitting-room for
+nearly ten minutes.  Then the door of the inner room was opened
+and Elizabeth appeared.  Tavernake, rising slowly to his feet,
+looked at her for a moment in reluctant but wondering admiration.
+She was wearing an ivory satin gown, without trimming or lace of
+any sort, a gown the fit of which seemed to him almost a miracle.
+Her only jewelry was a long rope of pearls and a small tiara.
+Tavernake had never been brought into close contact with any one
+quite like this.
+
+She was putting on her gloves as she entered and she gave him her
+left hand.
+
+"What an extraordinary person you are, Mr. Tavernake!" she
+exclaimed.  "You really do seem to turn up at the most
+astonishing times."
+
+"I am very sorry to have intruded upon you to-night," he said.
+"As regards the last occasion, however, upon which I made an
+unexpected appearance, I make no apologies whatever," he added
+coolly.
+
+She laughed softly.  She was looking full into his eyes and yet
+he could not tell whether she was angry with him or only amused.
+
+"You were by way of being a little melodramatic, were you not?"
+she remarked.  "Still, you were very much in earnest, and one
+forgives a great deal to any one who is really in earnest.  What
+do you want with me now?  I am just going downstairs to supper."
+
+"It is a matter of business," Tavernake replied.  "I have a
+friend who is a partner with me in the Marston Rise building
+speculation, and he is worried because there is some one else in
+the field wanting to buy the property, and the day after
+to-morrow is our last chance of paying over the money."
+
+She looked at him as though puzzled.
+
+"What money?"
+
+"The money which you agreed to lend me, or rather to invest in
+our building company," he reminded her.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Of course!  Why, I had forgotten all about it for the moment.
+You are going to give me ten per cent interest or something
+splendid, aren't you?  Well, what about it?  You don't want to
+take it away with you now, I suppose?"
+
+"No," he answered, "it isn't that.  To be honest with you, I came
+to make sure that you hadn't changed your mind."
+
+"And why should I change my mind?"
+
+"You might be angry with me," he said, "for interfering in your
+concerns the night before last."
+
+"Perhaps I am," she remarked, indifferently.
+
+"Do you wish to withdraw from your promise?" he asked.
+
+"I really haven't thought much about it," she replied,
+carelessly.  "By-the-bye, have you seen Beatrice lately?"
+
+"We agreed, I think," he reminded her, "that we would not talk
+about your sister."
+
+She looked at him over her shoulder.
+
+"I do not remember that I agreed to anything of the sort," she
+declared.  "I think it was you who laid down the law about that.
+As a matter of fact, I think that your silence about her is very
+unkind.  I suppose you have seen her?"
+
+"Yes, I have seen her," Tavernake admitted.
+
+"She continues to be tragic," Elizabeth asked, "whenever my name
+is mentioned?"
+
+"I should not call it tragic," Tavernake answered, reluctantly.
+"One gathers, however, that something transpired between you
+before she left, of a serious nature."
+
+She looked at him earnestly.
+
+"Really," she said, "you are a strange, stolid young man.  I
+wonder," she went on, smiling into his face, "are you in love
+with my sister?"
+
+Tavernake made no immediate response, only something flashed for
+a moment in his eyes which puzzled her.
+
+"Why do you look at me like that?" she demanded.  "You are not
+angry with me for asking?"
+
+"No, I am not angry," he replied.  "It isn't that.  But you must
+know--you must see!"
+
+Then she indeed did see that he was laboring under a very great
+emotion.  She leaned towards him, laughing softly.
+
+"Now you are really becoming interesting," she murmured.  "Tell
+me--tell me all about it."
+
+"I don't know what love is!" Tavernake declared fiercely.  "I
+don't know what it means to be in love!"
+
+Again she laughed in his face.
+
+"Are you so sure?" she whispered.
+
+She saw the veins stand out upon his temples, watched the passion
+which kept him at first tongue-tied.
+
+"Sure!" he muttered.  "Who can be sure when you look like that!"
+
+He held out his arms.  With a swift little backward movement she
+flitted away and leaned against the table.
+
+"What a brother-in-law you would make!" she laughed.  "So steady,
+so respectable, alas!  so serious!  Dear Mr. Tavernake, I wish
+you joy.  As a matter of fact, you and Beatrice are very well
+suited for one another."
+
+The telephone bell rang.  She moved over and held the receiver to
+her ear.  Her face changed.  After the first few words to which
+she listened, it grew dark with anger.
+
+"You mean to say that Professor Franklin has not been in since
+lunch-time?" she exclaimed.  "I left word particularly that I
+should require him to-night.  Is Major Post there, then?  No?
+Mr. Crease--no?  Nor Mr. Faulkes?  Not one of them!  Very well,
+ring me up directly the professor comes in, or any of them."
+
+She replaced the receiver with a gesture of annoyance.  Tavernake
+was astonished at the alteration in her expression.  The smile
+had gone, and with its passing away lines had come under her eyes
+and about her mouth.  Without a word to him she strode away into
+her bedroom.  Tavernake was just wondering whether he should
+retire, when she came back.
+
+"Listen, Mr. Tavernake," she said, "how far away are your rooms?"
+
+"Down at Chelsea," he answered, "about two miles and a half."
+
+"Take a taxi and drive there," she commanded, "or stop.  You will
+find my car outside.  I will telephone down to say that you are
+to use it.  Change into your evening clothes and come back for
+me.  I want you to take me out to supper."
+
+He looked at her in amazement.  She stamped her foot.
+
+"Don't stand there hesitating!" she ordered.  "Do as I say!  You
+don't expect I am going to help you to buy your wretched property
+if you refuse me the simplest of favors?  Hurry, I say!  Hurry!"
+
+"I am really very sorry," Tavernake interposed, "but I do not
+possess a dress suit.  I would go, with pleasure, but I haven't
+got such a thing."
+
+She looked at him for a moment incredulously.  Then she broke
+into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.  She sat down upon the
+edge of a couch and wiped the tears from her eyes.
+
+"Oh, you strange, you wonderful person!" she exclaimed.  "You
+want to buy an estate and you want to borrow twelve thousand
+pounds, and you know where Beatrice is and you won't tell me, and
+you are fully convinced, because you burst into a house through
+the wall, that you saved poor Pritchard from being poisoned, and
+you don't possess a dress suit!  Never mind, as it happens it
+doesn't matter about the dress suit.  You shall take me out as
+you are."
+
+Tavernake felt in his pockets and remembered that he had only
+thirty shillings with him.
+
+"Here, carry my purse," she said carelessly.  "We are going
+downstairs to the smaller restaurant.  I have been traveling
+since six o'clock, and I am starving."
+
+"But how about my clothes?" Tavernake objected.  "Will they be
+all right?"
+
+"It doesn't matter where we are going," she answered.  "You look
+very well as you are.  Come and let me put your tie straight."
+
+She came close to him and her fingers played for a moment with
+his tie.  She was very near to him and she laughed deliberately
+into his face.  Tavernake held himself quite stiff and felt
+foolish.  He also felt absurdly happy.
+
+"There," she remarked, when she had arranged it to her
+satisfaction, "you look all right now.  I wonder," she added,
+half to herself, "what you do look like.  Something Colonial and
+forceful, I think.  Never mind, help me on with my cloak and come
+along.  You are a most respectable-looking escort, and a very
+useful one."
+
+
+Although Tavernake was nominally the host, it was Elizabeth who
+selected the table and ordered the supper.  There were very few
+other guests in the room, the majority being down in the larger
+restaurant, but among these few Tavernake noticed two of the
+girls from the chorus at the Atlas.  Elizabeth had chosen a table
+from which she had a view of the door, and she took the seat
+facing it.  From the first Tavernake felt certain that she was
+watching for some one.
+
+"Talk to me now, please, about this speculation," she insisted.
+"I should like to know all about it, and whether you are sure
+that I shall get ten per cent for my money."
+
+Tavernake was in no way reluctant.  It was a safe topic for
+conversation, and one concerning which he had plenty to say.  But
+after a time she stopped him.
+
+"Well," she said, "I have discovered at any rate one subject on
+which you can be fluent.  Now I have had enough of building
+properties, please, and house building.  I should like to hear a
+little about Beatrice."
+
+Tavernake was dumb.
+
+"I do not wish to talk about Beatrice," he declared, "until I
+understand the cause of this estrangement between you."
+
+Her eyes flashed angrily and her laugh sounded forced.
+
+"Not even talk of her!  My dear friend," she protested, "you
+scarcely repay the confidence I am placing in you!"
+
+"You mean the money?"
+
+"Precisely," she continued.  "I trust you, why I do not know--I
+suppose because I am something of a physiognomist--with twelve
+thousand pounds of my hard-earned savings.  You refuse to trust
+me with even a few simple particulars about the life of my own
+sister.  Come, I don't think that things are quite as they should
+be between us."
+
+"Do you know where I first met your sister?" Tavernake asked.
+
+She shook her head pettishly.
+
+"How should I?  You told me nothing."
+
+"She was staying in a boarding-house where I lived," Tavernake
+went on.  "I think I told you that but nothing else.  It was a
+cheap boarding-house but she had not enough money to pay for her
+meals.  She was tired of life.  She was in a desperate state
+altogether."
+
+"Are you trying to tell me, or rather trying not to tell me, that
+Beatrice was mad enough to think of committing suicide?"
+Elizabeth inquired.
+
+"She was in the frame of mind when such a step was possible," he
+answered, gravely.  "You remember that night when I first saw you
+in the chemist's shop across the street?  She had been very ill
+that evening, very ill indeed.  You could see for yourself the
+effect meeting you had upon her."
+
+Elizabeth nodded, and crumbled a little piece of roll between her
+fingers.  Then she leaned over the table towards Tavernake.
+
+"She seemed terrified, didn't she?  She hurried you away--she
+seemed afraid."
+
+"It was very noticeable," he admitted.  "She was terrified.  She
+dragged me out of the place.  A few minutes later she fainted in
+the cab."
+
+Elizabeth smiled.
+
+"Beatrice was always over-sensitive," she remarked.  "Any sudden
+shock unnerved her altogether.  Are you terrified of me, too, Mr.
+Tavernake?"
+
+"I don't know," he answered, frankly.  "Sometimes I think that I
+am."
+
+She laughed softly.
+
+"Why?" she whispered.
+
+He looked into her eyes and he felt abject.  How was it possible
+to sit within a few feet of her and remain sane!
+
+"You are so wonderful," he said, in a low tone, "so different
+from any one else in the world!"
+
+"You are glad that you met me, then--that you are here?" she
+asked.
+
+He raised his eyes once more.
+
+"I don't know," he answered simply.  "If I really believed--if
+you were always kind like this--but, you see, you make two men of
+me.  When I am with you I am a fool, your fool, to do as you will
+with.  When I am away, some glimmerings of common sense come
+back, and I know."
+
+"You know what?" she murmured.
+
+"That you are not honest," he added.
+
+"Mr. Tavernake!" she exclaimed, lifting her head a little.
+
+"Oh, I don t mean dishonest in the ordinary way!" he protested,
+eagerly.  "What I mean is that you look things which you don't
+feel, that you are willing for any one who can't help admiring
+you very much to believe for a moment that you, too, feel more
+kindly than you really do.  This is so clumsy," he broke off,
+despairingly, "but you understand what I mean!"
+
+"You have an adorable way of making yourself understood," she
+laughed.  "Come, do let us talk sense for a minute or two.  You
+say that when you are with me you are my slave.  Then why is it
+that you do not bring Beatrice here when I beg you to?"
+
+"I am your slave," he answered, "in everything that has to do
+with myself and my own actions.  In that other matter it is for
+your sister to decide."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Well," she said, "I suppose I shall be able to endure life
+without her.  At any rate, we will talk of something else.  Tell
+me, are you not curious to know why I insisted upon bringing you
+here?"
+
+"Yes," he admitted, "I am."
+
+"Spoken with your usual candor, my dear Briton!" she exclaimed.
+"Well, I will gratify your curiosity.  This, as you see, is not a
+popular supping place.  A few people come in--mostly those who
+for some reason or other don't feel smart enough for the big
+restaurants.  The people from the theatres come in here who have
+not time to change their clothes.  As you perceive; the place has
+a distinctly Bohemian flavor."
+
+Tavernake looked around.
+
+"They seem to come in all sorts of clothes," he remarked.  "I am
+glad."
+
+"There is a man now in London," Elizabeth continued, "whom I am
+just as anxious to see as I am to find my sister.  I believe that
+this is the most likely place to find him.  That is why I have
+come.  My father was to have been here to take me, but as you
+heard he has gone out somewhere and not returned.  None of my
+other friends were available.  You happened to come in just in
+time."
+
+"And this man whom you want to see," Tavernake asked, "is he
+here?"
+
+"Not yet," she answered.
+
+There were, indeed, only a few scattered groups in the place, and
+most of these were obviously theatrical.  But even at that moment
+a man came in alone through the circular doors, and stood just
+inside, looking around him.  He was a man of medium height, thin,
+and of undistinguished appearance.  His hair was light-colored
+and plastered a little in front over his forehead.  His face was
+thin and he walked with a slight stoop.  Something about his
+clothes and his manner of wearing them stamped him as an
+American.  Tavernake glanced at his companion, wondering whether
+this, perhaps, might not be the person for whom she was watching.
+His first glance was careless enough, then he felt his heart
+thump against his ribs.  A tragedy had come into the room!  The
+woman at his side sat as though turned to stone.  There was a
+look in her face as of one who sees Death.  The small patch of
+rouge, invisible before, was now a staring daub of color in an
+oasis of ashen white.  Her eyes were as hard as stones; her lips
+were twitching as though, indeed, she had been stricken with some
+disease.  No longer was he sitting with this most beautiful lady
+at whose coming all heads were turned in admiration.  It was as
+though an image of Death sat there, a frozen presentment of
+horror itself!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+ON AN ERRAND OF CHIVALRY
+
+
+The seconds passed; the woman beside him showed no sign of life.
+Tavernake felt a fear run cold in his blood, such as in all his
+days he had never known.  This, indeed, was something belonging
+to a world of which he knew nothing.  What was it?  Illness?
+Pain?  Surprise?  There was only his instinct to tell him.  It
+was terror, the terror of one who looks beyond the grave.
+
+"Mrs. Gardner!" he exclaimed.  "Elizabeth!"
+
+The sound of his voice seemed to break the spell.  A half-choked
+sob came through her teeth; the struggle for composure commenced.
+
+"I am ill," she murmured.  "Give me my glass.  Give it to me."
+
+Her fingers were feeling for it but it seemed as though she dared
+not move her head.  He filled it with wine and placed the stem in
+her hand.  Even then she spilled some of it upon the tablecloth.
+As she raised it to her lips, the man who stood still upon the
+threshold of the restaurant looked into her face.  Slowly, as
+though his quest were over, he came down the room.
+
+"Go away," she said to Tavernake.  "Go away, please.  He is
+coming to speak to me.  I want to be alone with him."
+
+Strangely enough, at that moment Tavernake saw nothing out of the
+common in her request.  He rose at once, without any formal
+leave-taking, and made his way toward the other end of the caf‚.
+As he turned the corner towards the smoking-room, he glanced once
+behind.  The man had approached quite close to Elizabeth; he was
+standing before her table, they seemed to be exchanging
+greetings.
+
+Tavernake went on into the smoking-room and threw himself into an
+easy-chair.  He had been there perhaps for ten minutes when
+Pritchard entered.  Certainly it was a night of surprises!  Even
+Pritchard, cool, deliberate, slow in his movements and speech,
+seemed temporarily flurried.  He came into the room walking
+quickly.  As the door swung back, he turned round as though to
+assure himself that he was not being followed.  He did not at
+first see Tavernake.  He sat on the arm of an easy-chair, his
+hands in his pockets, his eternal cigar in the corner of his
+mouth, his eyes fixed upon the doors through which he had issued.
+Without a doubt, something had disturbed him.  He had the look of
+a man who had received a blow, a surprise of some sort over which
+he was still ruminating.  Then he glanced around the room and saw
+Tavernake.
+
+"Hullo, young man!" he exclaimed.  "So this is the way you follow
+my advice!"
+
+"I never promised to follow it," Tavernake reminded him.
+
+Pritchard wheeled an easy-chair across the room and called to the
+waiter.
+
+"Come," he said, "you shall stand me a drink.  Two whiskies and
+sodas, Tim.  And now, Mr. Leonard Tavernake, you are going to
+answer me a question."
+
+"Am I?" Tavernake muttered.
+
+"You came down in the lift with Mrs. Wenham Gardner half an hour
+ago, you went into the restaurant and ordered supper.  She is
+there still and you are here.  Have you quarreled?"
+
+"No, we did not quarrel," Tavernake answered.  "She explained
+that she was supping in the caf‚ only for the sake of meeting one
+man.  She wanted an escort.  I filled that post until the man
+came."
+
+"He is there now?" Pritchard asked.
+
+"He is there now," Tavernake assented.
+
+Pritchard withdrew the cigar from his mouth and watched it for a
+moment.
+
+"Say, Tavernake," he went on, "is that man who is now having
+supper with Mrs. Wenham Gardner the man whom she expected?"
+
+"I imagine so," Tavernake replied.
+
+"Didn't she seem in any way scared or disturbed when he first
+turned up?"
+
+"She looked as I have seen no one else on earth look before,"
+Tavernake admitted.  "She seemed simply terrified to death.  I do
+not know why--she didn't explain--but that is how she looked."
+
+"Yet she sent you away!"
+
+"She sent me away.  She didn't care what became of me.  She was
+watching the door all the time before he came.  Who is he,
+Pritchard?"
+
+"That sounds a simple question," Pritchard answered gravely, "but
+it means a good deal.  There's mischief afoot to-night,
+Tavernake."
+
+"You seem to thrive on it," Tavernake retorted, drily.  "Any more
+bunkum?"
+
+Pritchard smiled.
+
+"Come," he said," you're a sensible chap.  Take these things for
+what they're worth.  Believe me when I tell you now that there is
+a great deal more in the coming of this man than Mrs. Wenham
+Gardner ever bargained for."
+
+"I wish you'd tell me who he is," Tavernake begged.  "All this
+mystery about Beatrice and her sister, and that lazy old hulk of
+a father, is most irritating."
+
+Pritchard nodded sympathetically.
+
+"You'll have to put up with it a little longer, I'm afraid, my
+young friend," he declared.  "You've done me a good turn; I'll do
+you one.  I'll give you some good advice.  Keep out of this place
+so long as the old man and his daughter are hanging out here.
+The girl 's clever--oh, she's as clever as they make them--but
+she's gone wrong from the start.  They ain't your sort,
+Tavernake.  You don't fit in anywhere.  Take my advice and hook
+it altogether."
+
+Tavernake shook his head.
+
+"I can't do that just now," he said.  "Good-night!  I'm off for
+the present, at any rate."
+
+Pritchard, too, rose to his feet.  He passed his arm through
+Tavernake's.
+
+"Young man," he remarked, "there are not many in this country
+whom I can trust.  You're one of them.  There's a sort of
+solidity about you that I rather admire.  You are not likely to
+break out and do silly things.  Do you care for adventures?"
+
+"I detest them," Tavernake answered, "especially the sort I
+tumbled into the other night."
+
+Pritchard laughed softly.  They had left the room now and were
+walking along the open space at the end of the restaurant,
+leading to the main exit.
+
+"That's the difference between us," he declared thoughtfully.
+"Now adventures to me are the salt of my life.  I hang about here
+and watch these few respectable-looking men and women, and there
+doesn't seem to be much in it to an outsider, but, gee whiz!
+there's sometimes things underneath which you fellows don't
+tumble to.  A man asks another in there to have a drink.  They
+make a cheerful appointment to meet for lunch, to motor to
+Brighton.  It all sounds so harmless, and yet there are the seeds
+of a conspiracy already sown.  They hate me here, but they know
+very well that wherever they went I should be around.  I suppose
+some day they'll get rid of me."
+
+"More bunkum!" Tavernake muttered.
+
+They stood in front of the door and passed through into the
+courtyard.  On their right, the interior of the smaller
+restaurant was shielded from view by a lattice-work, covered with
+flowers and shrubs.  Pritchard came to a standstill at a certain
+point, and stooping down looked through.  He remained there
+without moving for what seemed to Tavernake an extraordinarily
+long time.  When he stood up again, there was a distinct change
+in his face.  He was looking more serious than Tavernake had ever
+seen him.  But for the improbability of the thing, Tavernake
+would have thought that he had turned pale.
+
+"My young friend," he said, "you've got to see me through this.
+You 've a sort of fancy for Mrs. Wenham Gardner, I know.
+To-night you shall be on her side."
+
+"I don't want any more mysteries," Tavernake protested.  "I'd
+rather go home."
+
+"It can't be done," Pritchard declared, taking his arm once more.
+"You've got to see me through this.  Come up to my rooms for a
+minute."
+
+They entered the Court and ascended to the eighth floor.
+Pritchard turned on the lights in his room, a plainly furnished
+and somewhat bare apartment.  From a cupboard he took out a pair
+of rubber-soled shoes and threw them to Tavernake.
+
+"Put those on," he directed.
+
+"What are we going to do?" Tavernake asked.
+
+"You are going to help me," Pritchard answered.  "Take my word
+for it, Tavernake, it's all right.  I could tackle the job alone,
+but I'd rather not.  Now drink this whiskey and soda and light a
+cigarette.  I shall be ready in five minutes."
+
+"But where are we going?" Tavernake demanded.
+
+"You are going," Pritchard replied, "on an errand of chivalry.
+You are going to become once more a rescuer of woman in distress.
+You are going to save the life of your beautiful friend
+Elizabeth."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CLOSE TO TRAGEDY
+
+
+The actual words of greeting which passed between Elizabeth and
+the man whose advent had caused her so much emotion were
+unimpressive.  The newcomer, with the tips of his fingers resting
+upon the tablecloth, leaned slightly towards her.  At close
+quarters, he was even more unattractive than when Tavernake had
+first seen him.  He was faultily shaped; there was something a
+little decadent about his deep-set eyes and receding forehead.
+Neither was his expression prepossessing.  He looked at her as a
+man looks upon the thing he hates.
+
+"So, Elizabeth," he said, "this pleasure has come at last!"
+
+"I heard that you were back in England," she replied.  "Pray sit
+down."
+
+Even then her eyes never left his.  All the time they seemed to
+be fiercely questioning, seeking for something in his features
+which eluded them.  It was terrible to see the change which the
+last few minutes had wrought in her.  Her smooth, girlish face
+had lost its comeliness.  Her eyes, always a little narrow,
+seemed to have receded.  It was such a change, this, as comes to
+a brave man who, in the prime of life, feels fear for the first
+time.
+
+"I am glad to find you at supper," he declared, taking up the
+menu.  "I am hungry.  You can bring me some grilled cutlets at
+once," he added to the waiter who stood by his side, "and some
+brandy.  Nothing else."
+
+The waiter bowed and hurried off.  The woman played with her fan
+but her fingers were shaking.
+
+"I fear," he remarked, "that my coming is rather a shock to you.
+I am sorry to see you looking so distressed."
+
+"It is not that," she answered with some show of courage.  "You
+know me too well to believe me capable of seeking a meeting which
+I feared.  It is the strange thing which has happened to you
+during these last few months--this last year.  Do you know--has
+any one told you--that you seem to have become even more like
+--the image of--"
+
+He nodded understandingly.
+
+"Of poor Wenham!  Many people have told me that.  Of course, you
+know that we were always appallingly alike, and they always said
+that we should become more so in middle-age.  After all, there is
+only a year between us.  We might have been twins."
+
+"It is the most terrible thing in likenesses I have ever seen,"
+the woman continued slowly.  "When you entered the room a few
+seconds ago, it seemed to me that a miracle had happened.  It
+seemed to me that the dead had come to life."
+
+"It must have been a shock," the man murmured, with his eyes upon
+the tablecloth.
+
+"It was," she agreed, hoarsely.  "Can't you see it in my face?  I
+do not always look like a woman of forty.  Can't you see the gray
+shadows that are there?  You see, I admit it frankly.  I was
+terrified--I am terrified!"
+
+"And why?" he asked.
+
+"Why?" she repeated, looking at him wonderingly.  "Doesn't it
+seem to you a terrible thing to think of the dead coming back to
+life?"
+
+He tapped lightly upon the tablecloth for a minute with the
+fingers of one hand.  Then he looked at her again.
+
+"It depends," he said, "upon the manner of their death."
+
+An executioner of the Middle Ages could not have played with his
+victim more skillfully.  The woman was shivering now, preserving
+some outward appearance of calm only by the most fierce and
+unnatural effort.
+
+"What do you mean by that, Jerry?" she asked.  "I was not even
+with--Wenham, when he was lost.  You know all about it, I
+suppose,--how it happened?"
+
+The man nodded thoughtfully.
+
+"I have heard many stories," he admitted.  "Before we leave the
+subject for ever, I should like to hear it from you, from your
+own lips."
+
+There was a bottle of champagne upon the table, ordered at the
+commencement of the meal.  She touched her glass; the waiter
+filled it.  She raised it to her lips and set it down empty.  Her
+fingers were clutching the tablecloth.
+
+"You ask me a hard thing, Jerry," she said.  "It is not easy to
+talk of anything so painful.  From the moment we left New York,
+Wenham was strange.  He drank a good deal upon the steamer.  He
+used to talk sometimes in the most wild way.  We came to London.
+He had an attack of delirium tremens.  I nursed him through it
+and took him into the country, down into Cornwall.  We took a
+small cottage on the outskirts of a fishing village--St.
+Catherine's, the place was called.  There we lived quietly for a
+time.  Sometimes he was better, sometimes worse.  The doctor in
+the village was very kind and came often to see him.  He brought
+a friend from the neighboring town and they agreed that with
+complete rest Wenham would soon be better.  All the time my life
+was a miserable one.  He was not fit to be alone and yet he was a
+terrible companion.  I did my best.  I was with him half of every
+day, sometimes longer.  I was with him till my own health began
+to suffer.  At last I could stand the solitude no longer.  I sent
+for my father.  He came and lived with us."
+
+"The professor," her listener murmured.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"It was a little better then for me," she went on, "except that
+poor Wenham seemed to take such a dislike to my father.  However,
+he hated every one in turn, even the doctors, who always did
+their best for him.  One day, I admit, I lost my temper.  We
+quarreled; I could not help it--life was becoming insupportable.
+He rushed out of the house--it was about three o'clock in the
+afternoon.  I have never seen him since."
+
+The man was looking at her, looking at her closely although he
+was blinking all the time.
+
+"What do you think became of him?" he asked.  "What do people
+think?  "
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"The only thing he cared to do was swim," she said.  "His clothes
+and hat were found down in the little cove near where we had a
+tent."
+
+"You think, then, that he was drowned?" the man asked.
+
+She nodded.  Speech seemed to be becoming too painful.
+
+"Drowning," her companion continued, helping himself to brandy,
+"is not a pleasant death.  Once I was nearly drowned myself.  One
+struggles for a short time and one thinks--yes, one thinks!" he
+added.
+
+He raised his glass to his lips and set it down.
+
+"It is an easy death, though," he went on, "quite an easy death.
+By the way, were those clothes that were found of poor Wenham's
+identified as the clothes he wore when he left the house?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"One could not say for certain," she answered.  "I never noticed
+how he was dressed.  He wore nearly always the same sort of
+things, but he had an endless variety."
+
+"And this was seven months ago -seven months."
+
+She assented.
+
+"Poor Wenham," he murmured.  "I suppose he is dead.  What are you
+going to do, Elizabeth?"
+
+"I do not know," she replied.  "Soon I must go to the lawyers and
+ask for advice.  I have very little more money left.  I have
+written several times to New York to you, to his friends, but I
+have had no answer.  After all, Jerry, I am his wife.  No one
+liked my marrying him, but I am his wife.  I have a right to a
+share of his property if he is dead.  If he has deserted me,
+surely I shall be allowed something.  I do not even know how rich
+he was."
+
+The man at her side smiled.
+
+"Much better off than I ever was," he declared.  "But,
+Elizabeth!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"There were rumors that, before you left New York, Wenham
+converted very large sums of money into letters of credit and
+bonds, very large sums indeed."  She shook her head.  "He had a
+letter of credit for about a thousand pounds, I think," she said.
+"There is very little left of the money he had with him."
+
+"And you find living here expensive, I dare say?"
+
+"Very expensive indeed," she agreed, with a sigh.  "I have been
+looking forward to seeing you, Jerry.  I thought, perhaps, for
+the sake of old times you might advise me."
+
+"Of old times," he repeated to himself softly.  "Elizabeth, do
+you think of them sometimes?"
+
+She was becoming more herself.  This was a game she was used to
+playing.  Of old times, indeed!  It seemed only yesterday that
+these two brothers, who had the reputation in those days of being
+the richest young men in New York, were both at her feet.  So
+far, she had scarcely been fortunate.  There was still a chance,
+however.  She looked up.  It seemed to her that he was losing his
+composure.  Yes, there was something of the old gleam in his
+eyes!  Once he had been madly enough in love with her.  It ought
+not to be impossible!
+
+"Jerry," she said, "I have told you these things.  It has been so
+very, very painful for me.  Won't you try now and be kind?
+Remember that I am all alone and it is all very difficult for me.
+I have been looking forward to your coming.  I have thought so
+often of those times we spent together in New York.  Won't you be
+my friend again?  Won't you help me through these dark days?"
+
+Her hand touched his.  For a moment he snatched his away as
+though stung.  Then he caught her fingers in his and held them as
+though in a vice.  She smiled, the smile of conscious power.  The
+flush of beauty was streaming once more into her face.  Poor
+fellow, he was still in love, then!  The fingers which had closed
+upon hers were burning.  What a pity that he was not a little
+more presentable!
+
+"Yes," he muttered, "we must be friends, Elizabeth.  Wenham had
+all the luck at first.  Perhaps it's going to be my turn now,
+eh?"
+
+He bent towards her.  She laughed into his face for a moment and
+then was once more suddenly colorless, the smile frozen upon her
+lips.  She began to shiver.
+
+"What is it?" he asked.  "What is it, Elizabeth?"
+
+"Nothing," she faltered, "only I wish--I do wish that you were
+not so much like Wenham.  Sometimes a trick of your voice, the
+way you hold your head--it terrifies me!"
+
+He laughed oddly.
+
+"You must get used to that, Elizabeth," he declared.  "I can't
+help being like him, you know.  We were great friends always
+until you came.  I wonder why you preferred Wenham."
+
+"Don't ask me--please don't ask me that," she begged.  "Really, I
+think he happened to be there just at the moment I felt like
+making a clean sweep of everything, of leaving New York and every
+one and starting life again, and I thought Wenham meant it.  I
+thought I should be able to keep him from drinking and to help
+him start a new life altogether over here or on the Continent."
+
+"Poor little woman," he said, "you have been disappointed, I am
+afraid."
+
+She sighed.
+
+"I am only human, you know," she went on.  "Every one told me
+that Wenham was a millionaire, too.  See how much I have
+benefited by it.  I am almost penniless, I do not know whether he
+is dead or alive, I do not know what to do to get some money.
+Was Wenham very rich, Jerry?"
+
+The man laughed.
+
+"Oh, he was very rich indeed!" he assured her.  "It is terrible
+that you should be left like this.  We will talk about it
+together presently, you and I.  In the meantime, you must let me
+be your banker."
+
+"Dear Jerry," she whispered, "you were always generous."
+
+"You have not spoken of the little prude--dear Miss Beatrice," he
+reminded her suddenly.
+
+Elizabeth sighed.
+
+"Beatrice was a great trial from the first," she declared.  "You
+know how she disliked you both--she was scarcely even civil to
+Wenham, and she would never have come to Europe with us if father
+hadn't insisted upon it.  We took her down to Cornwall with us
+and there she became absolutely insupportable.  She was always
+interfering between Wenham and me and imagining the most absurd
+things.  One day she left us without a word of warning.  I have
+never seen her since."
+
+The man stared gloomily into his plate.
+
+"She was a queer little thing," he muttered.  "She was good, and
+she seemed to like being good."
+
+Elizabeth laughed, not quite pleasantly.
+
+"You speak as though the rest of us," she remarked, "were
+qualified to take orders in wickedness."
+
+He helped himself to more brandy.
+
+"Think back," he said.  "Think of those days in New York, the
+life we led, the wild things we did week after week, month after
+month, the same eternal round of turning night into day, of
+struggling everywhere to find new pleasures, pulling vice to
+pieces like children trying to find the inside of their
+playthings."
+
+"I don't like your mood in the least," she interrupted.
+
+He drummed for a moment upon the tablecloth with his fingers.
+
+"We were talking of Beatrice.  You don't even know where she is
+now, then?"
+
+"I have no idea," Elizabeth declared.
+
+"She was with you for long in Cornwall?" he asked.
+
+Elizabeth toyed with her wineglass for a minute.
+
+"She was there about a month," she admitted.
+
+"And she didn't approve of the way you and Wenham behaved?" he
+demanded.
+
+"Apparently not.  She left us, anyway.  She didn't understand
+Wenham in the least.  I shouldn't be surprised," Elizabeth went
+on, "to hear that she was a hospital nurse, or learning typing,
+or a clerk in an office.  She was a young woman of gloomy ideas,
+although she was my sister."
+
+He came a little closer towards her.
+
+"Elizabeth," he said, "we will not talk any more about Beatrice.
+We will not talk any more about anything except our two selves."
+
+"Are you really glad to see me again, Jerry?" she asked softly.
+
+"You must know it, dear," he whispered.  "You must know that I
+loved you always, that I adored you.  Oh, you knew it!  Don't
+tell me you didn't.  You knew it, Elizabeth!"
+
+She looked down at the tablecloth.
+
+"Yes, I knew it," she admitted, softly.
+
+"Can't you guess what it is to me to see you again like this?" he
+continued.
+
+She sighed.
+
+"It is something for me, too, to feel that I have a friend close
+at hand."
+
+"Come," he said, "they are turning out the lights here.  You want
+to know about Wenham's property.  Let me come upstairs with you
+for a little time and I will tell you as much as I can from
+memory."
+
+He paid the bill, helped her on with her cloak.  His fingers
+seemed like burning spots upon her flesh.  They went up in the
+lift.  In the corridors he drew her to him and she began to
+tremble.
+
+"What is there strange about you, Jerry?" she faltered, looking
+into his face.  "You terrify me!"
+
+"You are glad to see me?  Say you are glad to see me?"
+
+"Yes, I am glad," she whispered.
+
+Outside the door of her rooms, she hesitated.
+
+"Perhaps," she suggested, faintly,--"wouldn't it be better if you
+came to-morrow morning?"
+
+Once more his fingers touched her and again that extraordinary
+sense of fear seemed to turn her blood cold.
+
+"No," he replied, "I have been put off long enough!  You must let
+me in, you must talk with me for half an hour.  I will go then, I
+promise.  Half an hour!  Elizabeth, haven't I waited an eternity
+for it?"
+
+He took the keys from her fingers and opened the door, closing it
+again behind them.  She led the way into the sitting-room.  The
+whole place was in darkness but she turned on the electric light.
+The cloak slipped from her shoulders.  He took her hands and
+looked at her.
+
+"Jerry," she whispered, "you mustn't look at me like that.  You
+terrify me!  Let me go!"
+
+She wrenched herself free with an effort.  She stepped back to
+the corner of the room, as far as she could get from him.  Her
+heart was beating fiercely.  Somehow or other, neither of these
+two young men, over whose lives she had certainly brought to bear
+a very wonderful influence, had ever before stirred her pulses
+like this.  What was it, she wondered?  What was the meaning of
+it?  Why didn't he speak?  He did nothing but look, and there
+were unutterable things in his eyes.  Was he angry with her
+because she had married Wenham, or was he blaming her because
+Wenham had gone?  There was passion in his face, but such
+passion!  Desire, perhaps, but what else?  She caught up a
+telegram which lay upon her writing desk, and tore it open.  It
+was an escape for a moment.  She read the words, stared, and read
+them aloud incredulously.  It was from her father.
+
+"Jerry Gardner sailed for New York to-day."
+
+She looked up at the man, and as she looked her face grew gray
+and the thin sheet went quivering from her lifeless fingers to
+the floor.  Then he began to laugh, and she knew.
+
+"Wenham!" she shrieked.  "Wenham!"
+
+There was murder in his face, murder almost in his laugh.
+
+"Your loving husband!" he answered.
+
+She sprang for the door but even as she moved she heard the click
+of the bolt shot back.  He touched the electric switch and the
+room was suddenly in darkness.  She heard him coming towards her,
+she felt his hot breath upon her cheek.
+
+"My loving wife!" he whispered.  "At last!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MADMAN TALKS
+
+
+Tavernake turned on the light.  Pritchard, with a quick leap
+forward, seized Wenham around the waist and dragged him away.
+Elizabeth had fainted; she lay upon the floor, her face the color
+of marble.
+
+"Get some water and throw over her," Pritchard ordered.
+
+Tavernake obeyed.  He threw open the window and let in a current
+of air.  In a moment or two the woman stirred and raised her
+head.
+
+"Look after her for a minute," Pritchard said.  "I Il lock this
+fierce little person up in the bathroom."
+
+Pritchard carried his prisoner out.  Tavernake leaned over the
+woman who was slowly coming back to consciousness.
+
+"Tell me about it," she asked, hoarsely.  "Where is he?"
+
+"Locked up in the bathroom," Tavernake answered.  "Pritchard is
+taking care of him.  He won't be able to get out."
+
+"You know who it was?" she faltered.
+
+"I do not," Tavernake replied.  "It isn't my business.  I'm only
+here because Pritchard begged me to come.  He thought he might
+want help."
+
+She held his fingers tightly.
+
+"Where were you?" she asked.
+
+"In the bathroom when you arrived.  Then he bolted the door
+behind and we had to come round through your bedroom."
+
+"How did Pritchard find out?"
+
+"I know nothing about it," Tavernake replied.  "I only know that
+he peered through the latticework and saw you sitting there at
+supper."
+
+She smiled weakly.
+
+"It must have been rather a shock to him," she said.  "He has
+been convinced for the last six months that I murdered Wenham, or
+got rid of him by some means or other.  Help me up."
+
+She staggered to her feet.  Tavernake assisted her to an easy
+chair.  Then Pritchard came in.
+
+"He is quite safe," he announced, "sitting on the edge of the
+bath playing with a doll."
+
+She shivered.
+
+"What is he doing with it?" she asked.
+
+"Showing me exactly, with a shawl pin, where he meant to have
+stabbed you," Pritchard answered, drily.  "Now, my dear lady," he
+continued, "it seems to me that I have done you one injustice, at
+any rate.  I certainly thought you'd helped to relieve the world
+of that young person.  Where did he come from?  Perhaps you can
+tell me that."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"I suppose I may as well," she said.  "Listen, you have seen what
+he was like to-night, but you don't know what it was to live with
+him.  It was Hell!"--she sobbed--"absolute Hell!  He drank, he
+took drugs, it was all his servant could do to force him even to
+make his toilet.  It was impossible.  It was crushing the life
+out of me."
+
+"Go on," Pritchard directed.
+
+"There isn't much more to tell," she continued.  "I found an old
+farmhouse--the loneliest spot in Cornwall.  We moved there and I
+left him--with Mathers.  I promised Mathers that he should have
+twenty pounds a week for every week he kept his master away from
+me.  He has kept him away for seven months."
+
+"What about that story of yours--about his having gone in
+swimming?" Pritchard asked.
+
+"I wanted people to believe that he was dead," she declared
+defiantly.  "I was afraid that if you or his relations found him,
+I should have to live with him or give up the money."
+
+Pritchard nodded.
+
+"And to-night you thought--"
+
+"I thought he was his brother Jerry," she went on.  "The likeness
+was always amazing, you know that.  I was told that Jerry was in
+town.  I felt nervous, somehow, and wired to Mathers.  I had his
+reply only last night.  He wired that Wenham was quite safe and
+contented, not even restless."
+
+"That telegram was sent by Wenham himself," Pritchard remarked.
+"I think you had better hear what he has to say."
+
+She shrank back.
+
+"No.  I couldn't bear the sight of him again!"
+
+"I think you had better," Pritchard insisted.  "I can assure you
+that he is quite harmless.  I will guarantee that."
+
+He left the room.  Soon he returned, his arm locked in the arm of
+Wenham Gardner.  The latter had the look of a spoilt child who is
+in disgrace.  He sat sullenly upon a chair and glared at every
+one.  Then he produced a small crumpled doll, with a thread of
+black cotton around its neck, and began swinging it in front of
+him, laughing at Elizabeth all the time.
+
+"Tell us," Pritchard asked, "what has become of Mathers?"
+
+He stopped swinging the doll, shivered for a moment, and then
+laughed.
+
+"I don't mind," he declared.  "I guess I don't mind telling.  You
+see, whatever I was when I did it, I am mad now--quite mad.  My
+friend Pritchard here says I am mad.  I must have been mad or I
+shouldn't have tried to hurt that dear beautiful lady over
+there."
+
+He leered at Elizabeth, who shrank back.
+
+"She ran away from me some time ago," he went on, "sick to death
+of me she was.  She thought she'd got all my money.  She hadn't.
+There's plenty more, plenty more.  She ran away and left me with
+Mathers.  She was paying him so much a week to keep me quiet, not
+to let me go anywhere where I should talk, to keep me away from
+her so that she could live up here and see all her friends and
+spend my money.  And at first I didn't mind, and then I did mind,
+and I got angry with Mathers, and Mathers wouldn't let me come
+away, and three nights ago I killed Mathers."
+
+There was a little thrill of horror.  He looked from one to the
+other.  By degrees their fear seemed to become communicated to
+him.
+
+"What do you mean by looking like that, all of you?" he
+exclaimed.  "What does it matter?  He was only my man-servant.  I
+am Wenham Gardner, millionaire.  No one will put me in prison for
+that.  Besides, he shouldn't have tried to keep me away from my
+wife.  Anyway, it don't matter.  I am quite mad.  Mad people can
+do what they like.  They have to stop in an asylum for six
+months, and then they're quite cured and they start again.  I
+don't mind being mad for six months.  Elizabeth," he whined,
+"come and be mad, too.  You haven't been kind to me.  There's
+plenty more money--plenty more.  Come back for a little time and
+I'll show you."
+
+"How did you kill Mathers?" Pritchard asked.
+
+"I stabbed him when he was stooping down," Wenham Gardner
+explained.  "You see, when I left college my father thought it
+would be good for me to do something.  I dare say it would have
+been but I didn't want to.  I studied surgery for six months.
+The only thing I remember was just where to kill a man behind the
+left shoulder.  I remembered that.  Mathers was a fat man, and he
+stooped so that his coat almost burst.  I just leaned over,
+picked out the exact spot, and he crumpled all up.  I expect," he
+went on, "you'll find him there still.  No one comes near the
+place for days and days.  Mathers used to leave me locked up and
+do all the shopping himself.  I expect he's lying there now.
+Some one ought to go and see."
+
+Elizabeth was sobbing quietly to herself.  Tavernake felt the
+perspiration break out upon his forehead.  There was something
+appalling in the way this young man talked.
+
+"I don't understand why you all look so serious," he continued.
+"No one is going to hurt me for this.  I am quite mad now.  You
+see, I am playing with this doll.  Sane men don't play with
+dolls.  I hope they'll try me in New York, though.  I am
+well-known in New York.  I know all the lawyers and the jurymen.
+Oh, they're up to all sorts of tricks in New York!  Say, you
+don't suppose they'll try me over here?" he broke off suddenly,
+turning to Pritchard.  "I shouldn't feel so much at home here."
+
+"Take him away," Eizabeth begged.  "Take him away."  Pritchard
+nodded.
+
+"I thought you'd better hear," he said.  "I am going to take him
+away now.  I shall send a telegram to the police-station at St.
+Catherine's.  They had better go up and see what's happened."
+
+Pritchard took his captive once more by the arm.  The young man
+struggled violently.
+
+"I don't like you, Pritchard," he shrieked.  "I don't want to go
+with you.  I want to stay with Elizabeth.  I am not really afraid
+of her.  She'd like to kill me, I know, but she's too clever
+--oh, she's too clever!  I'd like to stay with her."
+
+Pritchard led him away.
+
+"We'll see about it later on," he said.  "You'd better come with
+me just now."
+
+The door closed behind them.  Tavernake staggered up.
+
+"I must go," he declared.  "I must go, too."
+
+Elizabeth was sobbing quietly to herself.  She seemed scarcely to
+hear him.  On the threshold Tavernake turned back.
+
+"That money," he asked, "the money you were going to lend me--was
+that his?"
+
+She looked up and nodded.  Tavernake went slowly out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+A CRISIS
+
+
+Pritchard was the first visitor who had ever found his way into
+Tavernake's lodgings.  It was barely eight o'clock on the same
+morning.  Tavernake, hollow-eyed and bewildered, sat up upon the
+sofa and gazed across the room.
+
+"Pritchard!" he exclaimed.  "Why, what do you want?"
+
+Pritchard laid his hat and gloves upon the table.  Already his
+first swift glance had taken in the details of the little
+apartment.  The overcoat and hat which Tavernake had worn the
+night before lay by his side.  The table was still arranged for
+some meal of the previous day.  Apart from these things, a single
+glance assured him that Tavernake had not been to bed.
+
+Pritchard drew up an easy-chair and seated himself deliberately.
+
+"My young friend," he announced, "I have come to the conclusion
+that you need some more advice."
+
+Tavernake rose to his feet.  His own reflection in the
+looking-glass startled him.  His hair was crumpled, his tie
+undone, the marks of his night of agony were all too apparent.
+He felt himself at a disadvantage.
+
+"How did you find me out?" he asked.  "I never gave you my
+address."
+
+Pritchard smiled.
+
+"Even in this country, with a little help," he said, "those
+things are easy enough.  I made up my mind that this morning
+would be to some extent a crisis with you.  You know, Tavernake,
+I am not a man who says much, but you are the right sort.  You've
+been in with me twice when I should have missed you if you hadn't
+been there."
+
+Tavernake seemed to have lost the power of speech.  He had
+relapsed again into his place upon the sofa.  He simply waited.
+
+"How in the name of mischief," Pritchard continued, impressively,
+"you came to be mixed up in the lives of this amiable trio, I
+cannot imagine!  I am not saying a word against Miss Beatrice,
+mind.  All that surprises me is that you and she should ever have
+come together, or, having come together, that you should ever
+have exchanged a word.  You see, I am here to speak plain truths.
+You are, I take it, a good sample of the hard, stubborn,
+middle-class Briton.  These three people of whom I have spoken,
+belong--Miss Beatrice, perhaps, by force of circumstances--but
+still they do belong to the land of Bohemia.  However, when one
+has got over the surprise of finding you on intimate terms with
+Miss Beatrice, there comes a more amazing thing.  You, with hard
+common sense written everywhere in your face, have been prepared
+at any moment, for all I know are prepared now, to make an utter
+and complete idiot of yourself over Elizabeth Gardner."
+
+Still Tavernake did not speak.  Pritchard looked at him
+curiously.
+
+"Say," he went on, "I have come here to do you a service, if I
+can.  So far as I know at present, this very wonderful young lady
+has kept on the right side of the law.  But see here, Tavernake,
+she's been on the wrong side of everything that's decent and
+straight all her days.  She married that poor creature for his
+money, and set herself deliberately to drive him off his head.
+Last night's tragedy was her doing, not his, though he, poor
+devil, will have to end his days in an asylum, and the lady will
+have his money to make herself more beautiful than ever with.
+Now I am going to let you behind the scenes, my young friend."
+
+Then Tavernake rose to his feet.  In the shabby little room he
+seemed to have grown suddenly taller.  He struck the crazy table
+with his clenched fist so that the crockery upon it rattled.
+Pritchard was used to seeing men--strong men, too--moved by
+various passions, but in Tavernake's face he seemed to see new
+things.
+
+"Pritchard," Tavernake exclaimed, "I don't want to hear another
+word!"
+
+Pritchard smiled.
+
+"Look here," he said, "what I am going to tell you is the truth.
+What I am going to tell you I'd as soon say in the presence of
+the lady as here."
+
+Tavernake took a step forward and Pritchard suddenly realized the
+man who had thrown himself through that little opening in the
+wall, one against three, without a thought of danger.
+
+"If you say a single word more against her," Tavernake shouted
+hoarsely, "I shall throw you out of the room!"
+
+Pritchard stared at him.  There was something amazing about this
+young man's attitude, something which he could not wholly grasp.
+He could see, too, that Tavernake's words were so few simply
+because he was trembling under the influence of an immense
+passion.
+
+"If you won't listen," Pritchard declared, slowly, "I can't talk.
+Still, you've got common sense, I take it.  You've the ordinary
+powers of judging between right and wrong, and knowing when a man
+or a woman's honest.  I want to save you--"
+
+"Silence!" Tavernake exclaimed.  "Look here, Pritchard," he went
+on, breathing a little more naturally now, "you came here meaning
+to do the right thing--I know that.  You're all right, only you
+don't understand.  You don't understand the sort of person I am.
+I am twenty-four years old, I have worked for my own living up
+here in London since I was twelve.  I was a man, so far as work
+and independence went, at fifteen.  Since then I have had my
+shoulder to the wheel; I have lived on nothing; I have made a
+little money where it didn't seem possible.  I have worried my
+way into posts which it seemed that no one could think of giving
+me, but all the time I have lived in a little corner of the world
+--like that."
+
+His finger suddenly described a circle in the air.
+
+"You don't understand--you can't," he went on, "but there it is.
+I never spoke to a woman until I spoke to Beatrice.  Chance made
+me her friend.  I began to understand the outside of some of
+those things which I had never even dreamed of before.  She set
+me right in many ways.  I began to read, think, absorb little
+bits of the real world.  It was all wonderful.  Then Elizabeth
+came.  I met her, too, by accident--she came to my office for a
+house--Elizabeth!"
+
+Pritchard found something almost pathetic in the sudden dropping
+of Tavernake's voice, the softening of his face.
+
+"I don't know how to talk about these things," Tavernake said,
+simply.  "There's a literature that's reached from before the
+Bible to now, full of nothing else.  It's all as old as the
+hills.  I suppose I am about the only sane man in this city who
+knew nothing of it; but I did know nothing of it, and she was the
+first woman.  Now you understand.  I can't hear a word against
+her--I won't!  She may be what you say.  If so, she's got to tell
+me so herself!"
+
+"You mean that you are going to believe any story she likes to
+put up?"
+
+"I mean that I am going to her," Tavernake answered, "and I have
+no idea in the world what will happen--whether I shall believe
+her or not.  I can see what you think of me," he went on,
+becoming a little more himself as the stress of unaccustomed
+speech passed him by.  "I will tell you something that will show
+you that I realize a good deal.  I know the difference between
+Beatrice and Elizabeth.  Less than a week ago, I asked Beatrice
+to marry me.  It was the only way I could think of, the only way
+I could kill the fever."
+
+"And Beatrice?" Pritchard asked, curiously.
+
+"She wouldn't," Tavernake replied.  "After all, why should she?
+I have my way to make yet.  I can't expect others to believe in
+me as I believe in myself.  She was kind but she wouldn't."
+
+Pritchard lit a cigar.
+
+"Look here, Tavernake," he said, "you are a young man, you've got
+your life before you and life's a biggish thing.  Empty out those
+romantic thoughts of yours, roll up your shirt sleeves and get at
+it.  You are not one of these weaklings that need a woman's
+whispers in their ears to spur them on.  You can work without
+that.  It's only a chapter in your life--the passing of these
+three people.  A few months ago, you knew nothing of them.  Let
+them go.  Get back to where you were."
+
+Then Tavernake for the first time laughed--a laugh that sounded
+even natural.
+
+"Have you ever found a man who could do that?" he asked.  "The
+candle gives a good light sometimes, but you'll never think it
+the finest illumination in the world when you've seen the sun.
+Never mind me, Pritchard.  I'm going to do my best still, but
+there's one thing that nothing will alter.  I am going to make
+that woman tell me her story, I am going to listen to the way she
+tells it to me.  You think that where women are concerned I am a
+fool.  I am, but there is one great boon which has been
+vouchsafed to fools--they can tell the true from the false.  Some
+sort of instinct, I suppose.  Elizabeth shall tell me her story
+and I shall know, when she tells it, whether she is what you say
+or what she has seemed to me."
+
+Pritchard held out his hand.
+
+"You're a queer sort, Tavernake," he declared.  "You take life
+plaguy seriously.  I only hope you 'll get all out of it you
+expect to.  So long!"
+
+Tavernake opened the window after his visitor had gone, and
+leaned out for some few minutes, letting the fresh air into the
+close, stifling room.  Then he went upstairs, bathed and changed
+his clothes, made some pretense at breakfast, went through his
+letters with methodical exactness.  At eleven o'clock he set out
+upon his pilgrimage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+TAVERNAKE CHOOSES
+
+
+Tavernake was kept waiting in the hall of the Milan Court for at
+least half an hour before Elizabeth was prepared to see him.  He
+wandered aimlessly about watching the people come and go, looking
+out into the flower-hung courtyard, curiously unconscious of
+himself and of his errand, unable to concentrate his thoughts for
+a moment, yet filled all the time with the dull and uneasy
+sensation of one who moves in a dream.  Every now and then he
+heard scraps of conversation from the servants and passers-by,
+referring to the last night's incident.  He picked up a paper but
+threw it down after only a casual glance at the paragraph.  He
+saw enough to convince him that for the present, at any rate,
+Elizabeth seemed assured of a certain amount of sympathy.  The
+career of poor Wenham Gardner was set down in black and white,
+with little extenuation, little mercy.  His misdeeds in Paris,
+his career in New York, spoke for themselves.  He was quoted as a
+type, a decadent of the most debauched instincts, to whom crime
+was a relaxation and vice a habit.  Tavernake would read no more.
+He might have been all these things, and yet she had become his
+wife!
+
+At last came the message for which he was waiting.  As usual, her
+maid met him at the door of her suite and ushered him in.
+Elizabeth was dressed for the part very simply, with a suggestion
+even of mourning in her gray gown.  She welcomed him with a
+pathetic smile.
+
+"Once more, my dear friend," she said, "I have to thank you."
+
+Her fingers closed upon his and she smiled into his face.
+Tavernake found himself curiously unresponsive.  It was the same
+smile, and he knew very well that he himself had not changed, yet
+it seemed as though life itself were in a state of suspense for
+him.
+
+"You, too, are looking grave this morning, my friend," she
+continued.  "Oh, how horrible it has all been!  Within the last
+two hours I have had at least five reporters, a gentleman from
+Scotland Yard, another from the American Ambassador to see me.
+It is too terrible, of course," she went on.  "Wenham's people
+are doing all they can to make it worse.  They want to know why
+we were not together, why he was living in the country and I in
+town.  They are trying to show that he was under restraint there,
+as if such a thing were possible!  Mathers was his own servant--
+poor Mathers!
+
+She sighed and wiped her eyes.  Still Tavernake said nothing.
+She looked at him, a little surprised.
+
+"You are not very sympathetic," she observed.  "Please come and
+sit down by my side and I will show you something."
+
+He moved towards her but he did not sit down.  She stretched out
+her hand and picked something up from the table, holding it
+towards him.  Tavernake took it mechanically and held it in his
+fingers.  It was a cheque for twelve thousand pounds.
+
+"You see," she said, "I have not forgotten.  This is the day,
+isn't it?  If you like, you can stay and have lunch with me up
+here and we will drink to the success of our speculation."
+
+Tavernake held the cheque in his fingers; he made no motion to
+put it in his pocket.  She looked at him with a puzzled frown
+upon her face.
+
+"Do talk or say something, please!" she exclaimed.  "You look at
+me like some grim figure.  Say something.  Sit down and be
+natural."
+
+"May I ask you some questions?"
+
+"Of course you may," she replied.  "You may do anything sooner
+than stand there looking so grim and unbending.  What is it you
+want to know?"
+
+"Did you understand that Wenham Gardner was this sort of man when
+you married him?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders slightly.
+
+"I suppose I did," she admitted.
+
+"You married him, then, only because he was rich?"
+
+She smiled.
+
+"What else do women marry for, my dear moralist?" she demanded.
+"It isn't my fault if it doesn't sound pretty.  One must have
+money!"
+
+Tavernake inclined his head gravely; he made no sign of dissent.
+
+"You two came over to England," he went on, "with Beatrice and
+your father.  Beatrice left you because she disapproved of
+certain things."
+
+Elizabeth nodded.
+
+"You may as well know the truth," she said.  "Beatrice has the
+most absurd ideas.  After a week with Wenham, I knew that he was
+not a person with whom any woman could possibly live.  His valet
+was really only his keeper; he was subject to such mad fits that
+he needed some one always with him.  I was obliged to leave him
+in Cornwall.  I can't tell you everything, but it was absolutely
+impossible for me to go on living with him."
+
+"Beatrice," Tavernake remarked, "thought otherwise."
+
+Elizabeth looked at him quickly from below her eyelids.  It was
+hard, however, to gather anything from his face.
+
+"Beatrice thought otherwise," Elizabeth admitted.  "She thought
+that I ought to nurse him, put up with him, give up all my
+friends, and try and keep him alive.  Why, it would have been
+absolute martyrdom, misery for me," she declared.  "How could I
+be expected to do such a thing?"
+
+Tavernake nodded gravely.
+
+"And the money?" he asked.
+
+"Well, perhaps there I was a trifle calculating," she confessed.
+"But you," she added, nodding at the cheque in his hand,
+"shouldn't grumble at that.  I knew when we were married that I
+should have trouble.  His people hated me, and I knew that in the
+event of anything happening like this thing which has happened,
+they would try to get as little as possible allowed me.  So
+before we left New York, I got Wenham to turn as much as ever he
+could into cash.  That we brought away with us."
+
+"And who took care of it?"
+
+Elizabeth smiled.
+
+"I did," she answered, "naturally."
+
+"Tell me about last night," Tavernake said.  "I suppose I am
+stupid but I don't quite understand."
+
+"How should you?" she answered.  "Listen, then.  Wenham, I
+suppose got tired of being shut up with Mathers, although I am
+sure I don't see what else was possible.  So he waited for his
+opportunity, and when the man wasn't looking--well, you know what
+happened," she added, with a shiver.  "He got up to London
+somehow and made his way to Dover Street."
+
+"Why Dover Street?"
+
+"I suppose you know," Elizabeth explained, "that Wenham has a
+brother--Jerry--who is exactly like him.  These two had rooms in
+Dover Street always, where they kept some English clothes and a
+servant.  Jerry Gardner was over in London.  I knew that, and was
+expecting to see him every day.  Wenham found his way to the
+rooms, dressed himself in his brother's clothes, even wore his
+ring and some of his jewelry, which he knew I should recognize,
+and came here.  I believed--yes, I believed all the time," she
+went on, her voice trembling, "that it was Jerry who was sitting
+with me.  Once or twice I had a sort of terrible shiver.  Then I
+remembered how much they were alike and it seemed to me
+ridiculous to be afraid.  It was not till we got upstairs, till
+the door was closed behind me, that he turned round and I knew!"
+
+Her head fell suddenly into her hands.  It was almost the first
+sign of emotion.  Tavernake analyzed it mercilessly.  He knew
+very well that it was fear, the coward's fear of that terrible
+moment.
+
+"And now?"
+
+"Now," she went on, more cheerfully, "no one will venture to deny
+that Wenham is mad.  He will be placed under restraint, of
+course, and the courts will make me an allowance.  One thing is
+absolutely certain, and that is that he will not live a year."
+
+Tavernake half closed his eyes.  Was there no sign of his
+suffering, no warning note of the things which were passing out
+of his life!  The woman who smiled upon him seemed to see
+nothing.  The twitching of his fingers, the slight quivering of
+his face, she thought was because of his fear for her.
+
+"And now," she declared, in a suddenly altered tone, "this is all
+over and done with.  Now you know everything.  There are no more
+mysteries," she added, smiling at him delightfully.  "It is all
+very terrible, of course, but I feel as though a great weight had
+passed away.  You and I are going to be friends, are we not?"
+
+She rose slowly to her feet and came towards him.  His eyes
+watched her slow, graceful movements as though fascinated.  He
+remembered on that first visit of his how wonderful he had
+thought her walk.  She was still smiling up at him; her fingers
+fell upon his shoulders.
+
+"You are such a strange person," she murmured.  "You aren't a
+little bit like any of the men I've ever known, any of the men I
+have ever cared to have as friends.  There is something about you
+altogether different.  I suppose that is why I rather like you.
+Are you glad?"
+
+For a single wild moment Tavernake hesitated.  She was so close
+to him that her hair touched his forehead, the breath from her
+upturned lips fell upon his cheeks.  Her blue eyes were half
+pleading, half inviting.
+
+"You are going to be my very dear friend, are you not--Leonard?"
+she whispered.  "I do feel that I need some one strong like you
+to help me through these days."
+
+Tavernake suddenly seized the hands that were upon his shoulders,
+and forced them back.  She felt herself gripped as though by a
+vice, and a sudden terror seized her.  He lifted her up and she
+caught a glimpse of his wild, set face.  Then the breath came
+through his teeth.  He shook all over but the fit had passed.  He
+simply thrust her away from him.
+
+"No," he said, "we cannot be friends!  You are a woman without a
+heart, you are a murderess!"
+
+He tore her cheque calmly in pieces and flung them scornfully
+away.  She stood looking at him, breathing quickly, white to the
+lips though the murder had gone from his eyes.
+
+"Beatrice warned me," he went on; "Pritchard warned me.  Some
+things I saw for myself, but I suppose I was mad.  Now I know!"
+
+He turned away.  Her eyes followed him wonderingly.
+
+"Leonard," she cried out, "you are not going like this?  You
+don't mean it!"
+
+Ever afterwards his restraint amazed him.  He did not reply.  He
+closed both doors firmly behind him and walked to the lift.  She
+came even to the outside door and called down the corridor.
+
+"Leonard, come back for one moment!"
+
+He turned his head and looked at her, looked at her from the
+corner of the corridor, steadfastly and without speech.  Her
+fingers dropped from the handle of the door.  She went back into
+her room with shaking knees, and began to cry softly.  Afterwards
+she wondered at herself.  It was the first time she had cried for
+many years.
+
+
+Tavernake walked to the city and in less than half an hour's time
+found himself in Mr. Martin's office.  The lawyer welcomed him
+warmly.
+
+"I'm jolly glad to see you, Tavernake," he declared.  "I hope
+you've got the money.  Sit down."
+
+Tavernake did not sit down; he had forgotten, indeed, to take of
+his hat.
+
+"Martin," he said, "I am sorry for you.  I have been fooled and
+you have to pay as well as I have.  I can't take up the option on
+the property.  I haven't a penny toward it except my own money,
+and you know how much that is.  You can sell my plots, if you
+like, and call the money your costs.  I've finished."
+
+The lawyer looked at him with wide-open mouth.
+
+"What on earth are you talking about, Tavernake?" he exclaimed.
+"Are you drunk, by any chance?"
+
+"No, I am quite sober," Tavernake answered.  "I have made one or
+two bad mistakes, that's all.  You have a power of attorney for
+me.  You can do what you like with my land, make any terms you
+please.  Good-day!"
+
+"But, Tavernake, look here!" the lawyer protested, springing to
+his feet.  "I say, Tavernake!" he called out.
+
+But Tavernake heard nothing, or, if he heard, he took no notice.
+He walked out into the street and was lost among the hurrying
+throngs upon the pavements.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK TWO
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+NEW HORIZONS
+
+
+Towards the sky-line, across the level country, stumbling and
+crawling over the deep-hewn dikes, wading sometimes through the
+mud-oozing swamp, Tavernake, who had left the small railway
+terminus on foot, made his way that night steadily seawards, as
+one pursued by some relentless and indefatigable enemy.  Twilight
+had fallen like a mantle around him, fallen over that great flat
+region of fens and pastureland and bog.  Little patches of mist,
+harbingers of the coming obscurity, were being drawn now into the
+gradual darkness.  Lights twinkled out from the far-scattered
+homesteads.  Here and there a dog barked, some lonely bird
+seeking shelter called to its mate, but of human beings there
+seemed to be no one in sight save the solitary traveler.
+
+Tavernake was in grievous straits.  His clothes were caked with
+mud, his hair tossed with the wind, his cheeks pale, his eyes set
+with the despair of that fierce upheaval through which he had
+passed.  For many hours the torture which had driven him back
+towards his birthplace had triumphed over his physical
+exhaustion.  Now came the time, however, when the latter asserted
+itself.  With a half-stifled moan he collapsed.  Sheer fatigue
+induced a brief but merciful spell of uneasy slumber.  He lay
+upon his back near one of the broader dikes, his arms
+outstretched, his unseeing eyes turned toward the sky.  The
+darkness deepened and passed away again before the light of the
+moon.  When at last he sat up, it was a new world upon which he
+looked, a strange land, moonlit in places, yet full of shadowy
+somberness.  He gazed wonderingly around--for the moment he had
+forgotten.  Then memory came, and with memory once more the stab
+at his heart.  He rose to his feet and went resolutely on his
+way.
+
+Almost until the dawn he walked, keeping as near as he could to
+that long monotonous line of telegraph posts, yet avoiding the
+road as much as possible.  With the rising of the sun, he crept
+into a wayside hovel and lay there hidden for hours.  Hunger and
+thirst seemed like things which had passed him by.  It was sleep
+only which he craved, sleep and forgetfulness.
+
+Dusk was falling again before he found himself upon his feet,
+starting out once more upon this strangely thought-of pilgrimage.
+This time he kept to the road, plodding along with tired,
+dejected footsteps, which had in them still something of that
+restless haste which drove him ceaselessly onward as though he
+were indeed possessed of some unquiet spirit.  He was recovering
+now, however, a little of his natural common sense.  He
+remembered that he must have food and drink, and he sought them
+from the wayside public-house like an ordinary traveler,
+conquering without any apparent effort that first invincible
+repugnance of his toward the face of any human being.  Then on
+again across this strange land of windmills and spreading plains,
+until the darkness forced him to take shelter once more.  That
+night he slept like a child.  With the morning, the fever had
+passed from his blood.  A great wind blew in his face even as he
+opened his eyes, touched to wakefulness by the morning sun, a
+wind that came booming over the level places, salt with the touch
+of the ocean and fragrant with the perfume of many marsh plants.
+He was coming toward the sea now, and within a very short
+distance from where he had spent the night, he found a broad,
+shining river stealing into the land.  With eager fingers he
+stripped himself and plunged in, diving again and again below the
+surface, swimming with long, lazy strokes backwards and forwards.
+Afterwards he lay down in the warm, dry grass, dressed himself
+slowly, and went on his way.  The wind, which had increased now
+since the early morning, came thundering across the level land,
+bending the tops of the few scattered trees, sending the sails of
+the windmills spinning, bringing on its bosom now stronger than
+ever the flavor of the sea itself, salt and stimulating.
+Tavernake told himself that this was a new world into which he
+was coming.  He would pass into its embrace and life would become
+a new thing.
+
+Towards evening with many a thrill of reminiscence, he descended
+a steep hill and walked into a queer time-forgotten village,
+whose scattered red-tiled cottages were built around an arm of
+the sea.  Boldly enough now he entered the one inn which flaunted
+its sign upon the cobbled street, and, taking a seat in the
+stone-floored kitchen, ate and drank and bespoke a bed.  Later
+on, he strolled down to the quay and made friends with the few
+fishermen who were loitering there.  They answered his questions
+readily, although he found it hard at first to pick up again the
+dialect of which he himself had once made use.  The little place
+was scarcely changed.  All progress, indeed, seemed to have
+passed it by.  There were a handful of fishermen, a boat-builder
+and a fish-curer in the village.  There was no other industry
+save a couple of small farmhouses on the outskirts of the place,
+no railway within twelve miles.  Tourists came seldom,
+excursionists never.  In the half contented, half animal-like
+expression which seemed common to all the inhabitants, Tavernake
+read easily enough the history of their uneventful days.  It was
+such a shelter as this, indeed, for which he had been searching.
+
+On the second night after his arrival, he walked with the
+boatbuilder upon the wooden quay.  The boatbuilder's name was
+Nicholls, and he was a man of some means, deacon of the chapel,
+with a fair connection as a jobbing carpenter, and possessor of
+the only horse and cart in the place.
+
+"Nicholls," Tavernake said, "you don't remember me, do you?"
+
+The boat-builder shook his head slowly and ponderously.
+
+"There was Richard Tavernake who farmed the low fields," he
+remarked, reminiscently.  "Maybe you're a son of his.  Now I come
+to think of it, he had a boy apprenticed to the carpentering."
+
+"I was the boy," Tavernake answered.  "I soon had enough of it
+and went to London."
+
+"You'm grown out of all knowledge," Nicholls declared, "but I
+mind you now.  So you've been in London all these years?"
+
+"I've been in London," Tavernake admitted, "and I think, of the
+two, that Sprey-by-the-Sea is the better place."
+
+"Sprey is well enough," the boat-builder confessed, "well enough
+for a man who isn't set on change."
+
+"Change," Tavernake asserted, grimly, "is an overrated joy.  I
+have had too much of it in my life.  I think that I should like
+to stay here for some time."
+
+The boat-builder was surprised, but he was a man of heavy and
+deliberate turn of mind and he did not commit himself to speech.
+Tavernake continued.
+
+"I used to know something of carpentering in my younger days," he
+said, "and I don't think that I have forgotten it all.  I wonder
+if I could find anything to do down here?"
+
+Matthew Nicholls stroked his beard thoughtfully.
+
+"The folk round about are not over partial to strangers," he
+observed, "and you'm been away so long I reckon there's not many
+as'd recollect you.  And as for carpentering jobs, there's Tom
+Lake over at Lesser Blakeney and his brother down at Brancaster,
+besides me on the spot, as you might say.  It's a poor sort of
+opening there'd be, if you ask my opinion, especially for one
+like yourself, as 'as got education."
+
+"I should be satisfied with very little," Tavernake persisted.
+"I want to work with my hands.  I should like to forget for a
+time that I have had any education at all."
+
+"That do seem mightily queer to me," Nicholls remarked,
+thoughtfully.
+
+Tavernake smiled.
+
+"Come," he said, "it isn't altogether unnatural.  I want to make
+something with my hands.  I think that I could build boats.  Why
+do you not take me into your yard?  I could do no harm and I
+should not want much pay."
+
+Matthew Nicholls stroked his beard once more and this time he
+counted fifty, as was his custom when confronted with a difficult
+matter.  He had no need to do anything of the sort, for nothing
+in the world would have induced him to make up his mind on the
+spot as to so weighty a proposal.
+
+"It's not likely that you're serious," he objected.  "You are a
+young man and strong-limbed, I should imagine, but you've
+education--one can tell it by the way you pronounce your words.
+It's but a poor living, after all, to be made here."
+
+"I like the place," Tavernake declared doggedly.  "I am a man of
+small needs.  I want to work all through the day, work till I am
+tired enough to sleep at night, work till my bones ache and my
+arms are sore.  I suppose you could give me enough to live on in
+a humble way?"
+
+"Take a bite of supper with me," Nicholls answered.  "In these
+serious affairs, my daughter has always her say.  We will put the
+matter before her and see what she thinks of it."
+
+They lingered about the quay until the light from Wells
+Lighthouse flashed across the sea, and until in the distance they
+could hear the moaning of the incoming tide as it rippled over
+the bar and began to fill the tidal way which stretched to the
+wooden pier itself.  Then the two men made their way along the
+village street, through a field, and into the little yard over
+which stood the sign of "Matthew Nicholls, Boat-Builder."  At one
+corner of the yard was the cottage in which he lived.
+
+"You'll come right in, Mr. Tavernake," he said, the instincts of
+hospitality stirring within him as soon as they had passed
+through the gate.  "We will talk of this matter together, you and
+me and the daughter."
+
+Tavernake seemed, on his introduction to the household, like a
+man unused to feminine society.  Perhaps he did not expect to
+find such a type of her sex as Ruth Nicholls in such a remote
+neighborhood.  She was thin, and her cheeks were paler than those
+of any of the other young women whom he had seen about the
+village.  Her eyes, too, were darker, and her speech different.
+There was nothing about her which reminded him in the least of
+the child with whom he had played.  Tavernake watched her
+intently.  Presently the idea came to him that she, too, was
+seeking shelter.
+
+Supper was a simple meal, but it was well and deftly served.  The
+girl had the gift of moving noiselessly.  She was quick without
+giving the impression of haste.  To their guest she was
+courteous, but her recollection of him appeared to be slight, and
+his coming but a matter of slight interest.  After she had
+cleared the cloth, however, and produced a jar of tobacco, her
+father bade her sit down with them.
+
+"Mr. Tavernake," he began, ponderously, "is thinking some of
+settling down in these parts, Ruth."
+
+She inclined her head gravely.
+
+"It appears," her father continued, "that he is sick and tired of
+the city and of head-work.  He is wishful to come into the yard
+with me, if so be that we could find enough work for two."
+
+The girl looked at their visitor, and for the first time there
+was a measure of curiosity in her earnest gaze.  Tavernake was,
+in his way, good enough to look upon.  He was well-built, his
+shoulders and physique all spoke of strength.  His features were
+firmly cut, although his general expression was gloomy.  But for
+a certain moroseness, an uncouthness which he seemed to
+cultivate, he might even have been deemed good-looking.
+
+"Mr. Tavernake would make a great mistake," she said,
+hesitatingly.  "It is not well for those who have brains to work
+with their hands.  It is not a place for those to live who have
+been out in the world.  At most seasons of the year it is but a
+wilderness.  Sometimes there is little enough to do, even for
+father."
+
+"I am not ambitious for over-much work or for over-much money,
+Miss Nicholls," Tavernake replied.  "I will be frank with you
+both.  Things out in the world there went ill with me; it was not
+my fault, but they went ill with me.  What ambitions I had are
+finished--for the present, at any rate.  I want to rest, I want
+to work with my hands, to grow my muscles again, to feel my
+strength, to believe that there is something effective in the
+world I can do.  I have had a shock, a disappointment,--call it
+what you like."
+
+The old man Nicholls nodded deliberately.
+
+"Well," he pronounced, "it's a big change to make.  I never
+thought of help in the yard before.  When there's been more than
+I could do, I've just let it go.  Come for a week on trial,
+Leonard Tavernake.  If we are of any use to one another, we shall
+soon know of it."
+
+The girl, who had been looking out into the night, came back.
+
+"You are making a mistake, Mr. Tavernake," she said.  "You are
+too young and strong to have finished your battle."
+
+He looked at her steadily and sighed.  It was only too obvious
+that hers had been fought and lost.
+
+"Perhaps," he replied softly, "you are right.  Perhaps it is only
+the rest I want.  We shall see."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE SIMPLE LIFE
+
+
+So Tavernake became a boat-builder.  Summer passed into winter
+and this hamlet by the sea seemed, indeed, as though it might
+have been one of the forgotten spots upon the earth.  Save for
+that handful of cottages, the two farmhouses a few hundred yards
+inland, and the deserted Hall half-hidden in its grove of pine
+trees, there was no dwelling-place nor any sign of human
+habitation for many miles.  For eight hours a day Tavernake
+worked, mostly out of doors, in the little yard which hung over
+the beach.  Sometimes he rested from his labors and looked
+seaward, looked around him as though rejoicing in that unbroken
+solitude, the emptiness of the gray ocean, the loneliness of the
+land behind.  What things there were which lay back in the cells
+of his memory, no person there knew, for he spoke of his past to
+no one, not even to Ruth.  He was a good workman, and he lived
+the simple life of those others without complaint or weariness.
+There was nothing in his manner to denote that he had been used
+to anything else.  The village had accepted him without question.
+It was only Ruth who still, gravely but kindly enough,
+disapproved of his presence.
+
+One day she came and sat with him as he smoked his after-dinner
+pipe, leaning against an overturned boat, with his eyes fixed
+upon that line of gray breakers.
+
+"You spend a good deal of your time thinking, Mr. Tavernake," she
+remarked quietly.
+
+"Too much," he admitted at once, "too much, Miss Nicholls.  I
+should be better employed planing down that mast there."
+
+"You know that I did not mean that," she said, reprovingly, "only
+sometimes you make me--shall I confess it?--almost angry with
+you."
+
+He took his pipe from his mouth and knocked out the ashes.  As
+they fell on the ground so he looked at them.
+
+"All thought is wasted time," he declared, grimly, "all thought
+of the past.  The past is like those ashes; it is dead and
+finished."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Not always," she replied.  "Sometimes the past comes to life
+again.  Sometimes the bravest of us quit the fight too soon."
+
+He looked at her questioningly, almost fiercely.  Her words,
+however, seemed spoken without intent.
+
+"So far as mine is concerned," he pronounced, "it is finished.
+There is a memorial stone laid upon it, and no resurrection is
+possible."
+
+"You cannot tell," she answered.  "No one can tell."
+
+He turned back to his work almost rudely, but she stayed by his
+side.
+
+"Once," she remarked, reflectively, "I, too, went a little way
+into the world.  I was a school-teacher at Norwich.  I was very
+fond of some one there; we were engaged.  Then my mother died and
+I had to come back to look after father."
+
+He nodded.
+
+"Well"
+
+"We are a long way from Norwich," she continued, quietly.  "Soon
+after I left, the man whom I was fond of grew lonely.  He found
+some one else."
+
+"You have forgotten him?" Tavernake asked, quickly.
+
+"I shall never forget him," she replied.  "That part of life is
+finished, but if ever my father can spare me, I shall go back to
+my work again.  Sometimes those work the best and accomplish the
+most who carry the scars of a great wound."
+
+She turned away to the house, and after that it seemed to him
+that she avoided him for a time.  At any rate, she made no
+further attempt to win his confidence.  Propinquity, however, was
+too much for both of them.  He was a lodger under her father's
+roof.  It was scarcely possible for them to keep apart.
+Saturdays and Sundays they walked sometimes for miles across the
+frost-bound marshes, in the quickening atmosphere of the
+darkening afternoons, when the red sun sank early behind the
+hills, and the twilight grew shorter every day.  They watched the
+sea-birds together and saw the wild duck come down to the pools;
+felt the glow of exercise burn their cheeks; felt, too, that
+common and nameless exultation engendered by their loneliness in
+the solitude of these beautiful empty places.  In the evenings
+they often read together, for Nicholls, although no drinker,
+never missed his hour or so at the village inn.  Tavernake, in
+time, began to find a sort of comfort in her calm, sexless
+companionship.  He knew very well that he was to her as she was
+to him, something human, something that filled an empty place,
+yet something without direct personality.  Little by little he
+felt the bitterness in his heart grow less.  Then a late spring
+--late, at any rate, in this quaint corner of the world--stole
+like some wonderful enchantment across the face of the moors and
+the marshes.  Yellow gorse starred with golden clumps the brown
+hillside; wild lavender gleamed in patches across the
+silver-streaked marshes; the dead hedges came blossoming into
+life.  Crocuses, long lines of yellow and purple crocuses, broke
+from waxy buds into starlike blossoms along the front of Matthew
+Nicholls's garden.  And with the coming o spring, Tavernake found
+himself suddenly able to thin of the past.  It was a new phase of
+life.  He could sit down and think of those things that had
+happened to him, without fearing to be wrecked by the storm.
+Often he sat out looking seaward, thinking of the days when he
+had first met Beatrice, of those early days of pleasant
+companionship, of the marvelous avidity with which he had learned
+from her.  Only when Elizabeth's face stole into the foreground
+did he spring from his place and turn back to his work.
+
+One day Tavernake sat poring over the weekly local paper, reading
+it more out of curiosity than from any real interest.  Suddenly a
+familiar name caught his eye.  His heart seemed to stop beating
+for a moment, and th page swam before his eyes.  Quickly he
+recovered hill self and read:
+
+      THE QUEEN'S HALL, UNTHANK ROAD,
+                  NORWICH
+
+                TWICE DAILY.
+             PROFESSOR FRANKLIN
+          assisted by his daughter,
+           MISS BEATRICE FRANKLIN,
+     will give his REFINED and MARVELOUS
+     ENTERTAINMENT, comprising HYPNOTISM, feats
+     Of SECOND SIGHT never before attempted on
+     any stage, THOUGHT-READING, and a BRIEF
+     LECTURE upon the connection between ANCIENT
+     SUPERSTITIONS and the EXTRAORDINARY
+     DEVELOPMENTS OF THE NEW SCIENCE.
+
+     PROFESSOR FRANKLIN Can be CONSULTED PRIVATELY,
+     by letter or by appointment.  Address for this
+     week--The Golden Cow, Bell's Lane, Norwich.
+
+Twice Tavernake read the announcement.  Then he went out and
+found Ruth.
+
+"Ruth," he told her, "there is something calling me back, perhaps
+for good."
+
+For the first time she gave him her hand.
+
+"Now you are talking like a man once more," she declared.  "Go
+and seek it.  Comeback and say good-bye to us, if you will, but
+throw your tools into the sea."
+
+Tavernake laughed and looked across at his workshop.
+
+"I don't believe," he said, "that you've any confidence in my
+boat."
+
+"I'm not sure that I would sail with you," she answered, "even if
+you ever finished it.  A laborer's work for a laborer's hand.
+You must go back to the other things."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+OLD FRIENDS MEET
+
+
+The professor set down his tumbler upon the zinc-rimmed counter.
+He was very little changed except that he had grown a shade
+stouter, and there was perhaps more color in his cheeks.  He
+carried himself, too, like a man who believes in himself.  In the
+small public-house he was, without doubt, an impressive figure.
+
+"My friends," he remarked, "our host's whiskey is good.  At the
+same time, I must not forget--"
+
+"You'll have one with me, Professor," a youth at his elbow
+interrupted.  "Two special whiskies, miss, if you please."
+
+The professor shrugged his shoulders--it was a gesture which he
+wished every one to understand.  He was suffering now the penalty
+for a popularity which would not be denied!
+
+"You are very kind, sir," he said, "very kind, indeed.  As I was
+about to say, I must not forget that in less than half an hour I
+am due upon the stage.  It does not do to disappoint one's
+audience, sir.  It is a poor place, this music-hall, but it is
+full, they tell me packed from floor to ceiling.  At eight-thirty
+I must show myself."
+
+"A marvelous turn, too, Professor," declared one of the young men
+by whom he was surrounded.
+
+"I thank you, sir," the professor replied, turning towards the
+speaker, glass in hand.  "There have been others who have paid me
+a similar compliment; others, I may say, not unconnected with the
+aristocracy of your country--not unconnected either, I might
+add," he went on, "with the very highest in the land, those who
+from their exalted position have never failed to shower favors
+upon the more fortunate sons of our profession.  The science of
+which I am to some extent the pioneer--not a drop more, my young
+friend.  Say, I'm in dead earnest this time!  No more, indeed."
+
+The young man in knickerbockers who had just come in banged the
+head of his cane upon the counter.
+
+"You'll never refuse me, Professor," he asserted, confidently.
+"I'm an old supporter, I am.  I've seen you in Blackburn and
+Manchester, and twice here.  Just as wonderful as ever!  And that
+young lady of yours, Professor, begging your pardon if she is
+your daughter, as no doubt she is, why, she's a nut and no
+mistake."
+
+The professor sighed.  He was in his element but he was getting
+uneasy at the flight of time.
+
+"My young friend," he said, "your face is not familiar to me but
+I cannot refuse your kindly offer.  It must be the last, however,
+absolutely the last."
+
+Then Tavernake, directed here from the music-hall, pushed open
+the swing door and entered.  The professor set down his glass
+untasted.  Tavernake came slowly across the room.
+
+"You haven't forgotten me, then, Professor?" he remarked, holding
+out his hand.
+
+The professor welcomed him a little limply; something of the
+bombast had gone out of his manner.  Tavernake's arrival had
+reminded him of things which he had only too easily forgotten.
+
+"This is very surprising," he faltered, "very surprising indeed.
+Do you live in these parts?"
+
+"Not far away," Tavernake answered.  "I saw your announcement in
+the papers."
+
+The professor nodded.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I am on the war-path again.  I tried resting but
+I got fat and lazy, and the people wouldn't have it, sir," he
+continued, recovering very quickly something of his former
+manner.  "The number of offers I got through my agents by every
+post was simply astounding--astounding!"
+
+"I am looking forward to seeing your performance this evening,"
+Tavernake said politely.  "In the meantime--"
+
+"I know what you are thinking of," the professor interrupted.
+"Well, well, give me your arm and we will walk down to the hall
+together.  My friends," the professor added, turning round, "I
+wish you all a good-night!"
+
+Then the door was pushed half-way open and Tavernake's heart gave
+a jump.  It was Beatrice who stood there, very pale, very tired,
+and much thinner even than the Beatrice of the boardinghouse, but
+still Beatrice.
+
+"Father," she exclaimed, "do you know that it is nearly--"
+
+Then she saw Tavernake and said no more.  She seemed to sway a
+little, and Tavernake, taking a quick step forward, grasped her
+by the hands.
+
+"Dear sister," he cried, "you have been ill!"
+
+She was herself again almost in a moment.
+
+"Ill?  Never in my life," she replied.  "Only I have been
+hurrying--we are late already for the performance--and seeing you
+there, well, it was quite a shock, you know.  Walk down with us
+and tell me all about it.
+
+Tell us what you are doing here--or rather, don't talk for a
+moment!  It is all so amazing."
+
+They turned down the narrow cobbled street, the professor walking
+in the middle of the roadway, swinging his cane, a very imposing
+and wonderful figure, with the tails of his frock-coat streaming
+in the wind, his long hair only half-hidden by his hat.  He
+hummed a tune to himself and affected not to take any notice of
+the other two.  Then Tavernake suddenly realized that he had done
+a cowardly action in leaving her without a word.
+
+"There is so much to ask," she began at last, "but you have come
+back."
+
+She looked at his workman's clothes.
+
+"What have you been doing?" she asked, sharply.
+
+"Working," Tavernake answered, "good work, too.  I am the better
+for it.  Don't mind my clothes, Beatrice.  I have been mad for a
+time, but after all it has been a healthy madness."
+
+"It was a strange thing that you did," she said,--"you
+disappeared."
+
+He nodded.
+
+"Some day," he told her, "I may, perhaps, be able to make you
+understand.  Just now I don't think that I could."
+
+"It was Elizabeth?" she whispered, softly.
+
+"It was Elizabeth," he admitted.
+
+They said no more then till they reached the hall.  She stopped
+at the door and put out her hand timidly.
+
+"I shall see you afterwards?" she ventured.
+
+"Do you mind my coming to the performance?" he asked.
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"A few moments ago," she remarked, smiling, "I was dreading your
+coming.  Now I think that you had better.  It will be all over at
+ten o'clock, and I shall look for you outside.  You are living in
+Norwich?"
+
+"I shall be here for to-night, at any rate," he answered.
+
+"Very well, then," she said, "afterwards we will have a talk."
+
+Tavernake passed through the scattered knot of loiterers at the
+door and bought a seat for himself in the little music-hall,
+which, notwithstanding the professor's boast, was none too well
+filled.  It was a place of the old-fashioned sort, with small
+tables in the front, and waiters hurrying about serving drinks.
+The people were of the lowest order, and the atmosphere of the
+room was thick with tobacco smoke.  A young woman in a flaxen wig
+and boy's clothes was singing a popular ditty, marching up and
+down the stage, and interspersing the words o f her song with
+grimaces and appropriate action.  Tavernake sat down with a
+barely-smothered groan.  He was beginning to realize the tragedy
+upon which he had stumbled.  A comic singer followed, who in a
+dress suit several sizes too large for him gave an imitation of a
+popular Irish comedian.  Then the curtain went up and the
+professor was seen, standing in front of the curtain and bowing
+solemnly to a somewhat unresponsive audience.  A minute later
+Beatrice came quietly in and sat by his side.  There was nothing
+new about the show.  Tavernake had seen the same thing before,
+with the exception that the professor was perhaps a little behind
+the majority of his fellow-craftsmen.  The performance was
+finished in dead silence, and after it was over, Beatrice came to
+the front and sang.  She was a very unusual figure in such a
+place, in a plain black evening gown, with black gloves and no
+jewelry, but they encored her heartily, and she sang a song from
+the musical comedy in which Tavernake had first seen her.  A
+sudden wave of reminiscence stirred within him.  His thoughts
+seemed to go back to the night when he had waited for her outside
+the theatre and they had had supper at Imano's, to the day when
+he had left the boarding-house and entered upon his new life.  It
+was more like a dream than ever now.
+
+He rose and quitted the place immediately she had finished,
+waiting in the street until she appeared.  She came out in a few
+minutes.
+
+"Father is going to a supper," she announced, "at the inn where
+he has a room for receiving people.  Will you come home with me
+for an hour?  Then we can go round and fetch him."
+
+"I should like to," Tavernake answered.
+
+Her lodgings were only a few steps away--a strange little house
+in a narrow street.  She opened the front door and ushered him
+in.
+
+"You understand, of course," she said, smiling, "that we have
+abandoned the haunts of luxury altogether."
+
+He looked around at the tiny room with its struggling fire and
+horsehair sofa, linoleum for carpet, oleographs for pictures, and
+he shivered, not for his own sake but for hers.  On the sideboard
+were some bread and cheese and a bottle of ginger beer.
+
+"Please imagine," she begged, taking the pins from her hat, "that
+you are in those dear comfortable rooms of ours down at Chelsea.
+Draw that easy-chair up to what there is of the fire, and listen.
+You smoke still?"
+
+"I have taken to a pipe," he admitted.
+
+"Then light it and listen," she went on, smoothing her hair for a
+minute in front of the looking-glass.  "You want to know about
+Elizabeth, of course."
+
+"Yes," he said, "I want to know."
+
+"Elizabeth, on the whole," Beatrice continued, "got out of all
+her troubles very well.  Her husband's people were wild with her,
+but Elizabeth was very clever.  They were never able to prove
+that she had exercised more than proper control over poor Wenham.
+He died two months after they took him to the asylum.  They
+offered Elizabeth a lump sum to waive all claims to his estate,
+and she accepted it.  I think that she is now somewhere on the
+Continent."
+
+"And you?" he asked.  "Why did you leave the theatre?"
+
+"It was a matter of looking after my father," she explained.
+"You see, while he was there with Elizabeth he had too much money
+and nothing to do.  The consequence was that he was always
+--well, I suppose I had better say it--drinking too much, and he
+was losing all his desire for work.  I made him promise that if I
+could get some engagements he would come away with me, so I went
+to an agent and we have been touring like this for quite a long
+time."
+
+"But what a life for you!" Tavernake exclaimed.  "Couldn't you
+have stayed on at the theatre and found him something in London?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"In London," she said, "he would never have got out of his old
+habits.  And then," she went on, hesitatingly, "you understand
+that the public want something else besides the hypnotism--"
+
+Tavernake interrupted her ruthlessly.
+
+"Of course I understand," he declared, "I was there to-night.  I
+understood at once why you were not very anxious for me to go.
+The people cared nothing at all about your father's performance.
+They simply waited for you.  You would get the same money if you
+went round without him."
+
+She nodded, a trifle shamefacedly.
+
+"I am so afraid some one will tell him," she confessed.  "They
+nearly always ask me to leave out his part of the performance.
+They have even offered me more money if I would come alone.  But
+you see how it is.  He believes in himself, he thinks he is very
+clever and he believes that the public like his show.  It is the
+only thing which helps him to keep a little self-respect.  He
+thinks that my singing is almost unnecessary."
+
+Tavernake looked into that faint glimmer of miserable fire.  He
+was conscious of a curious feeling in his throat.  How little he
+knew of life!  The pathos of what she had told him, the thought
+of her bravely traveling the country and singing at third-rate
+music-halls, never taking any credit to herself, simply that her
+father might still believe himself a man of talent, appealed to
+him irresistibly.  He suddenly held out his hand.
+
+"Poor little Beatrice!" he exclaimed.  "Dear little sister!"
+
+The hand he gripped was cold, she avoided his eyes.
+
+"You--you mustn't," she murmured.  "Please don't!"
+
+He held out his other hand and half rose, but her lips suddenly
+ceased to quiver and she waved him back.
+
+"No, Leonard," she begged, "please don't do or say anything
+foolish.  Since we do meet again, though, like this, I am going
+to ask you one question.  What made you come to me and ask me to
+marry you that day?"
+
+He looked away; something in her eyes accused him.
+
+"Beatrice," he confessed, "I was a thick-headed ignorant fool,
+without understanding.  I came to you for safety.  I was afraid
+of Elizabeth, I was afraid of what I felt for her.  I wanted to
+escape from it."
+
+She smiled piteously.
+
+"It wasn't a very brave thing to do, was it?" she faltered.
+
+"It was mean," he admitted.  "It was worse than that.  But,
+Beatrice," he went on, "I was missing you horribly.  You did
+leave a big empty place when you went away.  I am not going to
+excuse myself about Elizabeth.  I lived through a time of the
+strangest, most marvelous emotions one could dream of.  Then the
+thing came to an end and I felt as though the bottom had gone out
+of life.  I suppose--I loved her," he continued hesitatingly.  "I
+don't know.  I only know that she filled every thought of my
+brain, that she lived in every beat of my heart, that I would
+have gone down into Hell to help her.  And then I understood.
+That morning she told me something of the truth about herself,
+not meaning to--unconsciously - justifying herself all the time,
+not realizing that every word she said was damnable.  And then
+there didn't seem to be anything else left, and I had only one
+desire.  I turned my back upon everything and I went back to the
+place where I was born, a little fishing village.  For the last
+thirty miles I walked.  I shall never forget it.  When I got
+there, what I wanted was work, work with my hands.  I wanted to
+build something, to create anything that I could labor upon.  I
+became a boat builder--I have been a boatbuilder ever since."
+
+"And now?" she asked.
+
+"Beatrice!"
+
+She turned and faced him.  She looked into his eyes very
+searchingly, very wistfully.
+
+"Beatrice," he said, "I ask you once more, only differently.
+Will you marry me now?  I'll find some work, I'll make enough
+money for us.  Do you remember," he went on, "how I used to talk,
+how I used to feel that I had only to put forth my strength and I
+could win anything?  I'll feel like that again, Beatrice, if
+you'll come to me."
+
+She shook her head slowly.  She looked away from him with a sigh.
+She had the air of one who has sought for something which she has
+failed to find.
+
+"You mustn't think of that again, Leonard," she told him.  "It
+would be quite impossible.  This is the only way I can save my
+father.  We have a tour that will take us the best part of
+another year."
+
+"But you are sacrificing yourself!" he declared.  "I will keep
+your father."
+
+"It isn't that only," she replied.  "For one thing, I couldn't
+let you; and for another, it isn't only the money, it's the work.
+As long as he's made to think that the public expect him every
+night, he keeps off drinking too much.  There is nothing else in
+the whole world which would keep him steady.  Don't look as
+though you didn't understand, Leonard.  He is my father, you
+know, and there isn't anything more terrible than to see any one
+who has a claim on us give way to anything like that.  You mayn't
+quite approve, but please believe that I am doing what I feel to
+be right."
+
+The little fire had gone out.  Beatrice glanced at the clock and
+put on her jacket again.
+
+"I am sorry, Leonard," she said, "but I think I must go and fetch
+father now.  You can walk with me there, if you will.  It has
+been very good to see you again.  For the rest I don't know what
+to say to you.  Do you think that it is quite what you were meant
+for--to build boats?"
+
+"I don't seem to have any other ambition," he answered, wearily.
+"When I read in the paper this morning that you and your father
+were here, things seemed suddenly different.  I came at once.  I
+didn't know what I wanted until I saw you, but I know now, and it
+isn't any good."
+
+"No good at all," she declared cheerfully.  "It won't be very
+long, Leonard, before something else comes along to stir you.  I
+don't think you were meant to build boats all your life."
+
+He rose and took up his hat.  She was waiting for him at the
+door.  Again they passed down the narrow street.
+
+"Tell, me, Beatrice," he begged, "is it because you don't like me
+well enough that you won't listen to what I ask?"
+
+For a moment she half closed her eyes as though in pain.  Then
+she laughed, not perhaps very naturally.  They were standing now
+by the door of the public house.
+
+"Leonard," she said, "you are very young in years but you are a
+baby in experience.  Mind, there are other reasons why I could
+not--would not dream of marrying you, other reasons which are
+absolutely sufficient, but--do you know that you have asked me
+twice and you have never once said that you cared, that you have
+never once looked as though you cared?  No, don't, please," she
+interrupted, "don't explain anything.  You see, a woman always
+knows--too well, sometimes."
+
+She nodded, and passed in through the swinging-doors.  Standing
+out there in the narrow, crooked street, Tavernake heard the
+clapping and applause which greeted her entrance, he heard her
+father's voice.  Some one struck a note at the piano--she was
+going to sing.  Very slowly he turned away and walked down the
+cobbled hill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+PRITCHARD'S GOOD NEWS
+
+
+Late in the afternoon of the following day, Ruth came home from
+the village and found Tavernake hard at work on his boat.  She
+put down her basket and stopped by his side.
+
+"So you are back again," she remarked.
+
+"Yes, I am back again."
+
+"And nothing has happened?"
+
+"Nothing has happened," he assented, wearily.  "Nothing ever will
+happen now."
+
+She smiled.
+
+"You mean that you will stay here and build boats all your life?"
+
+"That is what I mean to do," he announced.
+
+She laid her hand upon his shoulder.
+
+"Don't believe it, Leonard," she said.  "There is other work for
+you in the world somewhere, just as there is for me."
+
+He shook his head and she picked up her basket again, smiling.
+
+"Your time will come as it comes to the rest of us," she
+declared, cheerfully.  "You won't want to sit here and bury your
+talents in the sands all your days.  Have you heard what is going
+to happen to me?"
+
+"No!  Something good, I hope."
+
+"My father's favorite niece is coming to live with us--there are
+seven of them altogether, and farming doesn't pay like it used
+to, so Margaret is coming here.  Father says that if she is as
+handy as she used to be I may go back to the schools almost at
+once."
+
+Tavernake was silent for a moment.  Then he got up and threw down
+his tools.
+
+"Great Heavens!" he exclaimed.  "If I am not becoming the most
+selfish brute that ever breathed!  Do you know, the first thought
+I had was that I should miss you?  You are right, young woman, I
+must get out of this."
+
+She disappeared into the house, smiling, and Tavernake called out
+to Nicholls, who was sitting on the wall.
+
+"Mr. Nicholls," he asked, "how much notice do you want?"
+
+Matthew Nicholls removed his pipe from his mouth.
+
+"Why, I don't know that I'm particular," he replied, "being as
+you want to go.  Between you and me, I'm gettin' fat and lazy
+since you came.  There ain't enough work for two, and that's all
+there is to it, and being as you're young and active, why, I've
+left it to you, and look at my arms."
+
+He held them up.
+
+"Used to be all muscle, now they're nothin' but bloomin' pap.
+And no' but two glasses of beer a day extra have I drunk, just to
+pass the time.  You can stay if you will, young man, but you can
+go out fishin' and leave me the work, and I'll pay you just the
+same, for I'm not saying that I don't like your company.  Or you
+can go when you please, and that's the end of it."
+
+Matthew Nicholls spat upon the stones and replaced his pipe in
+his mouth.  Tavernake came in and sat down by his side.
+
+"Look here," he said, "I believe you are right.  I'll stay
+another week but I'll take things easy.  You get on with the boat
+now.  I'll sit here and have a smoke."
+
+Nicholls grunted but obeyed, and for the next few days Tavernake
+loafed.  On his return one afternoon from a long walk, he saw a
+familiar figure sitting upon the sea wall in front of the
+workshop, a familiar figure but a strange one in these parts.  It
+was Mr. Pritchard, in an American felt hat, and smoking a very
+black cigar.  He leaned over and nodded to Tavernake, who was
+staring at him aghast.
+
+"Hallo, old man!" he called out.  "Run you to earth, you see!"
+
+"Yes, I see!" Tavernake exclaimed.
+
+"Come right along up here and let's talk," Pritchard continued.
+
+Tavernake obeyed.  Pritchard looked him over approvingly.
+Tavernake was roughly dressed in those days, but as a man he had
+certainly developed.
+
+"Say, you're looking fine," his visitor remarked.  "What wouldn't
+I give for that color and those shoulders!"
+
+"It is a healthy life," Tavernake admitted.  "Do you mean that
+you've come down here to see me?"
+
+"That's so," Pritchard announced; "down here to see you, and for
+no other reason.  Not but that the scenery isn't all it should
+be, and that sort of thing," he went on, "but I am not putting up
+any bluff about it.  It's you I am here to talk to.  Are you
+ready?  Shall I go straight ahead?"
+
+"If you please," Tavernake said, slowly filling his pipe.
+
+"You dropped out of things pretty sudden," Pritchard continued.
+"It didn't take me much guessing to reckon up why.  Between you
+and me, you are not the first man who's been up against it on
+account of that young woman.  Don't stop me," he begged.  "I know
+how you've been feeling.  It was a right good idea of yours to
+come here.  Others before you have tried the shady side of New
+York and Paris, and it's the wrong treatment.  It's Hell, that's
+what it is, for them.  Now that young woman--we got to speak of
+her--is about the most beautiful and the most fascinating of her
+sex--I'll grant that to start with--but she isn't worth the life
+of a snail, much less the life of a strong man."
+
+"You are, quite right," Tavernake confessed, shortly.  "I know I
+was a fool--a fool!  If I could think of any adjective that would
+meet the case, I'd use it, but there it is.  I chucked things and
+I came here.  You haven't come down to tell me your opinion of
+me, I suppose?"
+
+"Not by any manner of means," Pritchard admitted.  "I came down
+first to tell you that you were a fool, if it was necessary.
+Since you know it, it isn't.  We'll pass on to the next stage,
+and that is, what are you going to do about it?"
+
+"It is in my mind at the present moment," Tavernake announced,
+"to leave here.  The only trouble is, I am not very keen about
+London."
+
+Pritchard nodded thoughtfully.
+
+"That's all right," he agreed.  "London's no place for a man,
+anyway.  You don't want to learn the usual tricks of
+money-making.  Money that's made in the cities is mostly made
+with stained fingers.  I have a different sort of proposal to
+make."
+
+"Go ahead," Tavernake said.  "What is it?"
+
+"A new country," Pritchard declared, altering the angle of his
+cigar, "a virgin land, mountains and valleys, great rivers to be
+crossed, all sorts of cold and heat to be borne with, a land rich
+with minerals--some say gold, but never mind that.  There is oil
+in parts, there's tin, there's coal, and there's thousands and
+thousands of miles of forest.  You're a surveyor?"
+
+"Passed all my exams," Tavernake agreed tersely.
+
+"You are the man for out yonder," Pritchard insisted.  "I've two
+years' vacation--dead sick of this city life I am--and I am going
+to put you on the track of it.  You don't know much about
+prospecting yet, I reckon?"
+
+"Nothing at all!"
+
+"You soon shall," Pritchard went on.  "We'll start from Winnipeg.
+A few horses, some guides, and a couple of tents.  We'll spend
+twenty weeks, my friend, without seeing a town.  What do you
+think of that?"
+
+"Gorgeous!" Tavernake muttered.
+
+"Twenty weeks we'll strike westward.  I know the way to set about
+the whole job.  I know one or two of the capitalists, too, and if
+we don't map out some of the grandest estates in British
+Columbia, why, my name ain't Pritchard."
+
+"But I haven't a penny in the world," Tavernake objected.
+
+"That's where you're lying," Pritchard remarked, pulling a
+newspaper from his pocket.  "See the advertisement for yourself:
+'Leonard Tavernake, something to his advantage.'  Well, down I
+went to those lawyers--your old lawyer it was--Martin.  I told
+him I was on your track, and he said--'For Heaven's sake, send
+the fellow along!'  Say, Tavernake, he made me laugh the way he
+described your bursting in upon him and telling him to take your
+land for his costs, and walking out of the room like something
+almighty.  Why, he worked that thing so that they had to buy your
+land, and they took him into partnership.  He's made a pot of
+money, and needs no costs from you, and there's the money for
+your land and what he had of yours besides, waiting for you."
+
+Tavernake smoked stolidly at his pipe.  His eyes were out
+seaward, but his heart was beating to a new and splendid music.
+To start life again, a man's life, out in the solitudes, out in
+the great open spaces!  It was gorgeous, this!  He turned round
+and grasped Pritchard by the shoulder.
+
+"I say," he exclaimed, "why are you doing all this for me,
+Pritchard?"
+
+Pritchard laughed.
+
+"You did me a good turn," he said, "and you're a man.  You've the
+pluck--that's what I like.  You knew nothing, you were as green
+and ignorant as a young man from behind the counter of a country
+shop, but, my God! you'd got the right stuff, and I meant getting
+even with you if I could.  You'll leave here with me to-morrow,
+and in three weeks we sail."
+
+Ruth came smiling out from the house.
+
+"Won't you bring your friend in to supper, Mr. Tavernake?" she
+begged.  "It's good news, I hope?" she added, lowering her voice
+a little.
+
+"It's the best," Tavernake declared, "the best!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+BEATRICE REFUSES
+
+
+A week later Tavernake was in London.  A visit to his friend Mr.
+Martin had easily proved the truth of Pritchard's words, and he
+found himself in possession of a sum of money at least twice as
+great as he had anticipated.  He stayed at a cheap hotel in the
+Strand and made purchases under Pritchard's supervision.  For the
+first few days he was too busy for reflection.  Then Pritchard
+let him alone while he ran over to Paris, and Tavernake suddenly
+realized that he was in the city to which he had thought never to
+return.  He passed the back of the theatre where he had waited
+for Beatrice, he looked up at the entrance of the Milan Court; he
+lunched alone, and with a curious mixture of feelings, at the
+little restaurant where he had supped with Beatrice.  It was
+over, that part of his life, over and finished.  Yet, with his
+natural truthfulness, he never attempted to disguise from himself
+the pain at his heart.  Three times in one day he found himself,
+under some pretext or another, in Imano's Restaurant.  Once, in
+the middle of the street, he burst into a fit of laughter.  It
+was while Pritchard was in London, and he asked him a question.
+
+"Pritchard," he remarked, "you area man of experience.  Did any
+one ever care for two women at the same time?"
+
+Pritchard removed his cigar from his teeth and stared at his
+companion.
+
+"Why, my young friend," he replied, "I've found no trouble myself
+in being fond of a dozen."
+
+Tavernake smiled and said no more.  Pritchard was one of the good
+fellows of the world, but there were things which were hidden
+from him.  Yet Tavernake, who had fallen into a habit, during his
+solitude, of analyzing his sensations, was puzzled by this one
+circumstance, that when he thought of Elizabeth, though his heart
+never failed to beat more quickly, the sense of shame generally
+stole over him; and when he thought of Beatrice, a curious
+loneliness, a loneliness that brought with it a pain, seemed
+suddenly to make the hours drag and his pleasures flavorless.
+For two days he was puzzled.  Then his habit of taking long walks
+helped him toward a solution.  In a small outlying music-hall in
+the east-end of London, he saw the same announcement that he had
+noticed in the Norfolk newspaper,--"Professor Franklin" in large
+type, and "Miss Beatrice Franklin" in small.
+
+That night he attended the music-hall.  The scene was practically
+a repetition of the one in Norwich, only with additions.  The
+professor's bombastic performance met with scarcely any applause.
+Its termination was, indeed, interrupted by catcalls and whistles
+from the gallery.  Beatrice's songs, on the other hand, were
+applauded more vociferously than ever.  She had hard work to
+avoid a third encore.
+
+At the end of the performance, Tavernake made his way to the
+stage-door and waited.  The neighborhood was an unsavory one, and
+the building itself seemed crowded in among a row of shops of the
+worst order, fish stalls, and a glaring gin palace.  Long before
+Beatrice came out, Tavernake could hear the professor's voice
+down the covered passage, the professor's voice apparently raised
+in anger.
+
+"Undutiful behavior, that's what I call it--undutiful!"
+
+They emerged into the street, the professor very much the same as
+usual; Beatrice paler, with a pathetic droop about her mouth.
+Tavernake came eagerly forward.
+
+"Beatrice!" he cried, holding out his hand.
+
+The professor drew back.  Beatrice stood still,--for a moment it
+seemed as though she were about to faint.  Tavernake grasped her
+hands.
+
+"I am so sorry!" he exclaimed, clumsily.  "I ought not to have
+come up like that."
+
+She smiled a little wan smile.
+
+"I am quite all right," she replied, "only the heat inside was
+rather trying, and even out here the atmosphere isn't too good,
+is it?  How did you find us out?"
+
+"By chance again," Tavernake answered.  "I have news.  May I walk
+with you a few steps?"
+
+She glanced timidly toward her father.  The professor was holding
+aloof in dignified silence.
+
+"Perhaps," Tavernake said quickly, "you would take supper with
+me?  I am going abroad, and I should like to say good-bye
+properly.  A bottle of champagne and some supper.  What do you
+say, Professor?"
+
+The professor suffered his features to relax.
+
+"A very admirable idea," he declared.  "Where shall we go?"
+
+"Is it too late to get to Imano's?" Tavernake suggested.
+
+The professor hesitated.
+
+"A taxicab," he remarked, "would do it, if--"
+
+He paused, and Tavernake smiled.
+
+"A taxicab it shall be," he decided.  "I am in funds just for the
+moment.  Come along, both of you, and I'll tell you all about
+it."
+
+He made her take his arm, although her fingers did no more than
+touch his coat sleeve.
+
+"Pritchard came and dug me out," he continued.  "I am going
+abroad with him.  It's sort of prospecting in some new country at
+the back of British Columbia.  We see what we can find and then
+go to a financier's and start companies, mining companies and oil
+fields--anything.  I am off in a week."
+
+Beatrice half closed her eyes.  They had hailed a passing cab and
+she sank back among the cushions with a sigh of relief.
+
+"Dear Leonard," she murmured, "I am so glad, so very happy for
+your sake.  This is the sort of thing which I hoped would
+happen."
+
+"And now tell me about yourselves," he went on.
+
+There was a sudden silence.  Tavernake was conscious that
+Beatrice's clothes were distinctly shabbier, that the professor's
+hat was shiny.  The professor cleared his throat.
+
+"I do not wish," he said, "to intrude our private matters upon
+one who, although I will not call him a stranger, is assuredly
+not one of our old friends.  At the same time, I admit that a
+little trouble has arisen between Beatrice and myself, and we
+were discussing it at the moment you arrived.  I shall appeal to
+you now.  As an unprejudiced member of the audience to-night, Mr.
+Tavernake, you will give me your honest opinion?"
+
+"Certainly," Tavernake promised, with a sinking premonition of
+what was to come.
+
+"What I complain of," the professor began, speaking with
+elaborate and impressive slowness, "is that my performance is
+hurried over and that too long a time is taken up by Beatrice's
+songs.  The management remark upon the applause which her efforts
+occasionally ensure, but, as I would point out to you, sir," he
+continued, "a performance such as mine makes too deep an
+impression for the audience to show their appreciation of it by
+such vulgar methods as hand-clapping and whistling.  You follow
+me, I trust, Mr. Tavernake?"
+
+Why, yes, of course," Tavernake admitted.
+
+"I take a sincere and earnest interest in my work," the professor
+declared, "and I feel that when it has to be scamped that my
+daughter may sing a music-hall ditty, the result is, to say the
+least of it, undignified.  For some reason or other, I have been
+unable to induce the management to see entirely with me, but my
+point is that Beatrice should sing one song only, and that the
+additional ten minutes should be occupied by me in either a
+further exposition of my extraordinary powers as a hypnotist, or
+in a little address to the audience upon the hidden sciences.
+Now I appeal to you, Mr. Tavernake, as a young man of common
+sense.  What is your opinion?"
+
+Tavernake, much too honest to be capable in a general way of
+duplicity, was on the point of giving it, but he caught
+Beatrice's imploring gaze.  Her lips were moving.  He hesitated.
+
+"Of course," he began, slowly, "you have to try and put yourself
+into the position of the major part of the audience, who are
+exceedingly uneducated people.  It is very hard to give an
+opinion, Professor.  I must say that your entertainment this
+evening was listened to with rapt interest."
+
+The professor turned solemnly towards his daughter.
+
+"You hear that, Beatrice?" he said severely.  "You hear what Mr.
+Tavernake says?  'With rapt interest!'"
+
+"At the same time," Tavernake went on, "without a doubt Miss
+Beatrice's songs were also extremely popular.  It is rather a
+pity that the management could not give you a little more time."
+
+"Failing that, sir," the professor declared, "my point is, as I
+explained before, that Beatrice should give up one of her songs.
+What you have said this evening more than ever confirms me in my
+view."
+
+Beatrice smiled thankfully at Tavernake.
+
+"Well," she suggested, "at any rate we will leave it for the
+present.  Sometimes I think, though, father, that you frighten
+them with some of your work, and you must remember that they come
+to be amused."
+
+"That," the professor admitted, "is the most sensible remark you
+have made, Beatrice.  There is indeed something terrifying in
+some of my manifestations, terrifying even to myself, who
+understand so thoroughly my subject.  However, as you say, we
+will dismiss the matter for the present.  The thought of this
+supper party is a pleasant one.  Do you remember, Mr. Tavernake,
+the night when you and I met in the balcony at Imano's?"
+
+"Perfectly well," Tavernake answered.
+
+"Now I shall test your memory," the professor continued, with a
+knowing smile.  "Can you remember, sir, the brand of champagne
+which I was then drinking, and which I declared, if you
+recollect, was the one which best agreed with me, the one brand
+worth drinking?"
+
+"I am afraid I don't remember that," Tavernake confessed.
+"Restaurant life is a thing I know so little of, and I have only
+drunk champagne once or twice in my life."
+
+"Dear, dear me!" the professor exclaimed.  "You do astonish me,
+sir.  Well, that brand was Veuve Clicquot, and you may take my
+word for it, Mr. Tavernake, and you may find this knowledge
+useful to you when you have made a fortune in America and have
+become a man of pleasure; there is no wine equal to it.  Veuve
+Clicquot, sir, if possible of the year 1899, though the year 1900
+is quite drinkable."
+
+"Veuve Clicquot," Tavernake repeated.  "I'll remember it for this
+evening."
+
+The professor beamed.
+
+"My dear," he said to Beatrice, "Mr. Tavernake will think that I
+had a purpose in testing his memory."
+
+Beatrice smiled.
+
+"And hadn't you, father?" she asked.
+
+They all laughed together.
+
+"Well, it is pleasant," the professor admitted, "to have one's
+weaknesses ministered to, especially when one is getting on in
+life," he added, with a ponderous sigh.  "Never mind, we will
+think only of pleasant subjects this evening.  It will be quite
+interesting, Mr. Tavernake, to hear you order the supper."
+
+"I sha'n't attempt it," Tavernake answered.  "I shall pass it on
+to you."
+
+"This reminds me," the professor declared, "of the old days.  I
+feel sure that this is going to be a thoroughly enjoyable
+evening.  We shall think of it often, Mr. Tavernake, when you lie
+sleeping under the stars.  Why, what a wonderful thing these
+taxicabs are!  You see, we have arrived."
+
+They secured a small table in a corner at Imano's, and Tavernake
+found himself curiously moved as he watched Beatrice take off her
+worn and much mended gloves and look around uneasily at the other
+guests.  Her clothes were indeed shabby, and there were hollows
+now in her cheeks.
+
+Again he felt that pain, a pain for which he could not account.
+Suddenly America seemed so far away, the loneliness of the great
+continent became an actual and appreciable thing.  The professor
+was very much occupied ordering the supper.  Tavernake leaned
+across the table.
+
+"Do you remember our first supper here, Beatrice?" he asked.
+
+She nodded, with an attempt at brightness which was a little
+pitiful.
+
+"Yes," she replied, "I remember it quite well.  And now, please,
+Leonard, don't talk to me again until I have had a glass of wine.
+I am tired and worn out, that is all."
+
+Even Tavernake knew that she was struggling against the tears
+which already dimmed her eyes.  He filled her glass himself.  The
+professor set his own down empty with the satisfied smile of a
+connoisseur.
+
+"I think," he said, "that you will agree with me about this
+vintage.  Beatrice, this is what will bring color into your
+cheeks.  My little girl," he continued, turning to Tavernake,
+"will soon need a holiday.  I am hoping presently to be able to
+arrange a short tour by myself, and if so, I shall send her to
+the seaside.  Now I want you particularly to try the fish salad
+--the second dish there.  Beatrice, let me help you."
+
+Presently the orchestra began to play.  The warmth of the room,
+the wine and the food--Tavernake had a horrible idea once that
+she had eaten nothing that day--brought back some of the color to
+Beatrice's cheeks and a little of the light to her eyes.  She
+began to talk something in the old fashion.  She avoided,
+however, any mention of that other supper they had had together.
+As time went on, the professor, who had drunk the best part of
+two bottles of wine and was talking now to a friend, became
+almost negligible.  Tavernake leaned across the table.
+
+"Beatrice," he whispered, "you are not looking well.  I am afraid
+that life is getting harder with you."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I am doing what I must," she answered.  "Please don't sympathize
+with me.  I am hysterical, I think, tonight.  It will pass off."
+
+"But, Beatrice," he ventured, timidly, "could one do nothing for
+you?  I don't like these performances, and between you and me, we
+know they won't stand your father's show much longer.  It will
+certainly come to an end soon.  Why don't you try and get back
+your place at the theatre?  You could still earn enough to keep
+him."
+
+"Already I have tried," she replied, sorrowfully.  "My place is
+filled up.  You see," she added, with a forced laugh, "I have
+lost some of my looks, Leonard.  I am thinner, too.  Of course, I
+shall be all right presently, but it's rather against me at these
+west-end places."
+
+Again he felt that pain at his heart.  He was sure now that he
+was beginning to understand!
+
+"Beatrice," he whispered, "give it up--marry me I will take care
+of him."
+
+The flush of color faded from her cheeks.  She shivered a little
+and looked at him piteously.
+
+"Leonard," she pleaded, "you mustn't.  I really am not very
+strong just now.  We have finished with all that--it distresses
+me."
+
+"But I mean it," he begged.  "Somehow, I have felt all sorts of
+things since we came in here.  I think of that night, and I
+believe--I do believe that what came to me before was madness.
+It was not the same."
+
+She was trembling now.
+
+"Leonard," she implored, "if you care for me at all, be quiet.
+Father will turn round directly and I can't bear it.  I shall be
+your very faithful friend; I shall think of you through the long
+days before we meet again, but don't--don't spoil this last
+evening."
+
+The professor turned round, his face mottled, his eyes moist, a
+great good-humor apparent in his tone.
+
+"Well, I must say," he declared, "that this has been a most
+delightful evening.  I feel immensely better, and you, too, I
+hope, Beatrice?"
+
+She nodded, smiling.
+
+"I trust that when Mr. Tavernake returns," the professor
+continued, "he will give us the opportunity of entertaining him
+in much the same manner.  It will give me very much pleasure,
+also Beatrice.  And if, sir," he proceeded, "during your stay in
+New York you will mention my name at the Goat's Club, or the
+Mosquito Club, you will, I think, find yourself received with a
+hospitality which will surprise you."
+
+Tavernake thanked him and paid the bill.  They walked slowly down
+the room, and Tavernake was curiously reluctant to release the
+little hand which clasped his.
+
+"I have kept this to the last," Beatrice said, in a low tone.
+"Elizabeth is in London."
+
+He was curiously unmoved.
+
+"Yes?" he murmured.
+
+"I should like you--I think it would be well for you to go and
+see her," she went on.  "You know, Leonard, you were such a
+strange person in those days.  You may imagine things.  You may
+not realize where you are.  I think that you ought to go and see
+her now, now that you have lived through some suffering, now that
+you understand things better.  Will you?"
+
+"Yes, I will go," Tavernake promised.
+
+Beatrice glanced round towards where her father was standing.
+
+"I don't want him to know," she whispered.  "I don't want either
+him or myself to be tempted to take any of her money.  She is
+living at Claridge's Hotel.  Go there and see her before you
+leave for your new life."
+
+He stood at the door and watched them go down the Strand, the
+professor, flamboyant, walking erect with flying coat-tails, and
+his big cigar held firmly between his teeth; Beatrice, a wan
+figure in her black clothes, clinging to his arm.  Tavernake
+watched them until they disappeared, conscious of a curious
+excitement, a strange pain, a sense of revelation.  When at last
+they were out of sight and he turned back for his coat and hat,
+his feet were suddenly leaden.  The band was playing the last
+selection--it was the air which Beatrice had sung only that night
+at the east-end music-hall.  With a sudden overpowering impulse
+he turned and strode down the Strand in the direction where they
+had vanished.  It was too late.  There was no sign of them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+UNDERSTANDING COMES TOO LATE
+
+
+Tavernake's first impression of Elizabeth was that he had never,
+even in his wildest thoughts, done her justice.  He had never
+imagined her so wonderfully, so alluringly beautiful.  She had
+received him, after a very long delay, in her sitting-room at
+Claridge's Hotel--a large apartment furnished more like a
+drawing-room.  She was standing, when he entered, almost in the
+center of the room, dressed in a long lace cloak and a hat with a
+drooping black feather.  She looked at him, as the door opened,
+as though for a moment half puzzled.  Then she laughed softly and
+held out her hands.
+
+"Why, of course I remember you!" she exclaimed.  "And to think
+that when I had your card I couldn't imagine where I had heard
+the name before!  You are my dear estate agent's clerk, who
+wouldn't take my money, and who was so wretchedly rude to me
+twelve months ago."
+
+Tavernake was quite cool.  He found himself wondering whether
+this was a pose, or whether she had indeed forgotten.  He decided
+that it was a pose.
+
+"I was also," he reminded her, "one night in your rooms at the
+Milan Court when your husband--"
+
+She stopped him with an imperative gesture.
+
+"Spare me, please," she begged.  "Those were such terrible days
+--so dull, too!  I remember that you were quite one of the
+brightest spots.  You were absolutely different from every one I
+had ever met before, and you interested me immensely."
+
+She looked at him and slowly shook her head.
+
+"You look very nice," she said.  "Your clothes fit you and you
+are most becomingly tanned, but you don't look half so awkward
+and so adorable."
+
+"I am sorry," he replied, shortly.
+
+"And you came to see me!" she went on.  "That was really nice of
+you.  You were quite fond of me, once, you know.  Tell me, has it
+lasted?"
+
+"That is exactly what I came to find out," he answered
+deliberately.  "So far, I am inclined to think that it has not
+lasted."
+
+She made a little wry face and drew his arm through hers.
+
+"Come and sit down and tell me why," she insisted.  "Be honest,
+now.  Is it because you think I am looking older?"
+
+"I have thought of you for many hours a day for months,"
+Tavernake said, slowly, "and I never imagined you so beautiful as
+you seem now."
+
+She clapped her hands.
+
+"And yon mean it, too!" she exclaimed.  "There is just the same
+delightfully convincing note in your tone.  I am sure that you
+mean it.  Please go on adoring me, Mr. Tavernake.  I have no one
+who interests me at all just now.  There is an Italian Count who
+wants to marry me, but he is terribly poor; and a young
+Australian, who follows me everywhere, but I am not sure about
+him.  There is an English boy, too, who is going to commit
+suicide if I don't say 'yes' to him this week.  On the whole, I
+think I am rather sorry that people know I am a widow.  Tell me,
+Mr. Tavernake, are you going to adore me, too?"
+
+"I don't think so," Tavernake answered.  "I rather believe that I
+am cured."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders and laughed musically.
+
+"But you say that you still think I am beautiful," she went on,
+"and I am sure my clothes are perfect--they came straight from
+Paris.  I hope you appreciate this lace," she added, drawing it
+through her fingers.  "My figure is just as good, too, isn't it?"
+
+She stood up and turned slowly round.  Then she sat down
+suddenly, taking his hand in hers.
+
+"Please don't say that you think I have grown less attractive,"
+she begged.
+
+"As regards your personal attractions," Tavernake replied, "I
+imagine that they are at least as great as ever.  If you want the
+truth, I think that the reason I do not adore you any longer is
+because I saw your sister last night."
+
+"Saw Beatrice!" she exclaimed.  "Where?"
+
+"She was singing at a miserable east-end music-hall so that her
+father might find some sort of employment," Tavernake said.  "The
+people only forbore to hiss her father's turn for her sake.  She
+goes about the country with him.  Heaven knows what they earn,
+but it must be little enough!  Beatrice is shabby and thin and
+pale.  She is devoting the best years of her life to what she
+imagines to be her duty."
+
+"And how does this affect me?" Elizabeth asked, coldly.
+
+"Only in this way," Tavernake answered.  "You asked me how it was
+that I could find you as beautiful as ever and adore you no
+longer.  The reason is because I know you to be wretchedly
+selfish.  I believed in you before.  Everything that you did
+seemed right.  That was because I was a fool, because you had
+filled my brain with impossible fancies, because I saw you and
+everything that you did through a distorted mirror."
+
+"Have you come here to be rude?" she asked him.
+
+"Not in the least," he replied.  "I came here to see whether I
+was cured."
+
+She began to laugh, very softly at first, but soon she threw
+herself back among the cushions and laid her hand caressingly
+upon his shoulder.
+
+"Oh, you are just the same!" she cried.  "Just the same dear,
+truthful bundle of honesty and awkwardness and ignorance.  So you
+are going to be victim of Beatrice's bow and spear, after all."
+
+"I have asked your sister to marry me," Tavernake admitted.  "She
+will not."
+
+"She was very wise," Elizabeth declared, wiping the tears from
+her eyes.  "As an experience you are delightful.  As a husband
+you would be terribly impossible.  Are you going to stay and take
+me out to dinner this evening?  I'm sure you have a dress suit
+now."
+
+Tavernake shook his head.
+
+"I am sorry," he said.  "I have already an engagement."
+
+She looked at him curiously.  Was it really true that he had
+become indifferent?  She was not used to men who escaped.
+
+"Tell me," she asked, abruptly, "why did you come?  I don't
+understand.  You are here, and you pass your time being rude to
+me.  I ask you to take me to dinner and you refuse.  Do you know
+that scarcely a man in London would not have jumped at such a
+chance?"
+
+"Very likely," Tavernake answered.  "I have no experience in such
+matters.  I only know that I am going to do something else."
+
+"Something you want to do very much?" she whispered.
+
+"I am going down to a little music-hall in Whitechapel,"
+Tavernake said, "and I am going to meet your sister and I am
+going to put her in a cab and take her to have some supper, and I
+am going to worry her until she promises to be my wife."
+
+"You are certainly a devoted admirer of the family," she laughed.
+"Perhaps you were in love with her all the time."
+
+"Perhaps I was," he admitted.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I don't believe it," she said.  "I think you were quite fond of
+me once.  You have such absurdly old-fashioned ideas or I think
+that you would be fond of me now."
+
+Tavernake rose to his feet.
+
+"I am going," he declared.  "This will be good-bye.  To-morrow I
+am going to British Columbia."
+
+The laughter faded for a moment from her face.  She was suddenly
+serious.
+
+"Don't go," she begged.  "Listen.  I know I am not good like
+Beatrice, but I do like you--I always did.  I suppose it is that
+wonderful truthfulness of yours.  You are a different type from
+the men one meets.  I am rather a reckless person.  It is such a
+comfort sometimes to meet any one like you.  You seem such an
+anchorage.  Stay and talk to me for a little time.  Take me out
+to-night.  You asked me to go with you once, you know, and I
+would not.  To-night it is I who ask you."
+
+He shook his head slowly.
+
+"This is good-bye!" he said, firmly.  "I suppose, after all, you
+were not unkind to me in those days, but you taught me a very
+bitter lesson.  I came to you to-day in fear and trembling.  I
+was afraid, perhaps, that the worst was not over, that there was
+more yet to come.  Now I know that I am free."
+
+She stamped her foot.
+
+"You shall not go away like that," she declared.
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Do you think I do not understand?" he continued.  "It is only
+because I am able to go, because the touch of your fingers, that
+look in your eyes, do not drive me half mad now, that you want me
+to stay.  You would like to try your powers once more.  I think
+not.  I am satisfied that I am cured indeed, but perhaps it is
+safer to risk nothing."
+
+She pointed to the door.
+
+"Very well, then," she ordered, "you can go."
+
+He bowed, and already his fingers were on the handle.  Suddenly
+she called to him.
+
+"Leonard!  Leonard!"
+
+He turned round.  She was coming towards him with her arms
+outstretched, her eyes were full of tears, there were sobs in her
+voice.
+
+"I am so lonely," she begged.  "I have thought of you so much.
+Don't go away unkindly.  Stay with me for this evening, at any
+rate.  You can see Beatrice at any time.  It is I who need you
+most now."
+
+He looked around at the splendid apartment; he looked at the
+woman whose fingers, glittering with jewels, rested upon his
+shoulders.  Then he thought of Beatrice in her shabby black gown
+and wan little face, and very gently he removed her hands.
+
+"No," he said, "I do not think that you need me any more than I
+need you.  This is a caprice of yours.  You know it and I know
+it.  Is it worth while to play with one another?"
+
+Her hands fell to her sides.  She turned half away but she said
+nothing.  Tavernake, with a sudden impulse which had in it
+nothing of passion--very little, indeed, of affection--lifted her
+fingers to his lips and passed out of the room.  He descended the
+stairs, filled with a wonderful sense of elation, a buoyancy of
+spirit which he could not understand.  As he walked blithely to
+his hotel, however, he began to realize how much he had dreaded
+this interview.  He was a free man, after all.  The spell was
+broken.  He could think of her now as she deserved to be thought
+of, as a consummate woman of the world, selfish, heartless,
+conscienceless.  He was well out of her toils.  It was nothing to
+him if even he had known that at that moment she was lying upon
+the sofa to which she had staggered as he left the room, weeping
+bitterly.
+
+For over an hour Tavernake endured the smells and the bad
+atmosphere of that miserable little music-hall, watching eagerly
+each time the numbers were changed.  Then at last, towards the
+end of the program, the manager appeared in front.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," he announced, "I regret very much to
+inform you that owing to the indisposition of the young lady,
+Miss Beatrice Franklin and her father are unable to appear
+to-night.  I have pleasure in announcing an extra turn, namely
+the Sisters De Vere in their wonderful burlesque act."
+
+There was a murmur of disapprobation mingled with some cheering.
+Tavernake left his place and walked around to the back of the
+hall.  Presently the manager came out to him.
+
+"I am sorry to trouble you, sir," Tavernake said,"but I heard
+your announcement just now from the front.  Can you give me the
+address of Professor Franklin?  I am a friend, and I should like
+to go and see them."
+
+The manager pointed to the stage-doorkeeper.
+
+"This man will give it you," he announced, shortly.  "It's quite
+close.  I shall look in myself after the show to know how the
+young lady is."
+
+Tavernake procured the address and set out in the taxicab which
+he had kept waiting.  The driver listened to the direction
+doubtfully.
+
+"It's a poor sort of neighborhood, sir," he remarked.
+
+"We've got to go there," Tavernake told him.
+
+They reached it in a few minutes, a miserable street indeed.
+Tavernake knocked at the door of the house to which he was
+directed, with sinking heart.  A man, collarless and half
+dressed, in carpet slippers, opened the door after a few moments'
+waiting.
+
+"Well, what is it?" he asked, gruffly.
+
+"Is Professor Franklin here?" Tavernake inquired.
+
+The man seemed as though he were about to slam the door, but
+thought better of it.
+
+"If you're a friend of the professor's, as he calls himself," he
+said, "and you've any money to shell out, why, you're welcome,
+but if you're only asking out of curiosity, let me tell you that
+he used to lodge here but he's gone, and if I'd had my way he'd
+have gone a week ago, him and his daughter, too."
+
+"I don't understand," Tavernake protested.  "I thought the young
+lady was ill."
+
+"She may be ill or she may not," the man replied, sulkily.  "All
+I know is that they couldn't pay their rent, couldn't pay their
+food bill, couldn't pay for the drinks the old man was always
+sending out for.  So tonight I spoke up and they've gone."
+
+"At least you know where to!" Tavernake exclaimed.
+
+"I ain't no sort of an idea," the man declared.  "Take my word
+for it straight, guvnor, I know no more about where they went to
+than the man in the moon, except that I'm well shut of them, and
+there's a matter of eighteen and sixpence, if you care to pay
+it."
+
+"I'll give you a sovereign," Tavernake promised, "if you will
+tell me where they are now."
+
+"What's the good of making silly conditions like that!" the man
+grumbled.  "If I knew where they were, I'd earn the quid soon
+enough, but I don't, and that's the long and the short of it!
+And if you ain't going to pay the eighteen and six, well, I've
+answered all the questions I feel inclined to."
+
+"I'll make it two pounds," Tavernake promised.  "I'm going to
+sail for America to-morrow morning early, and I must see them
+first."
+
+The man leaned forward.
+
+"Look here," he said, "if I knew where they was, a quid would be
+quite good enough for me, but I don't, and that's straight.  If
+you want to look for them, I should try one of the doss houses.
+As likely there as anywhere."
+
+He slammed the door and Tavernake turned away.  A sudden despair
+had seized him.  He looked up and down the street, he looked away
+beyond and thought of the miles and miles of streets, the myriads
+of chimneys, the huge branches of the great city stretching far
+and wide.  At eight o'clock the next morning, he must leave for
+Southampton.  Was it too late, after all, that he had discovered
+the truth?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+IN A VIRGIN COUNTRY
+
+
+One night Tavernake began to laugh.  He had grown a long brown
+beard and the hair was over his ears.  He was wearing a gray
+flannel shirt, a handkerchief tied around his neck, and a pair of
+worn riding breeches held up by a belt.  He had kicked his boots
+off at the end of a long day, and was lying in the moonlight
+before a fire of pine logs, whose smoke went straight to the
+star-hung sky.  No word had been spoken for the last hour.
+Tavernake's fit of mirth came with as little apparent reason as
+the puffs of wind which every now and then stole down from the
+mountain side and made faint music in the virgin forests.
+
+Pritchard turned over on his side and looked at him.  Cigars had
+for many weeks been an unknown thing, and he was smoking a
+corn-cob pipe full of coarse tobacco.
+
+"Stumbled across a joke anywhere?" he asked.
+
+"I'm afraid no one but myself would see the humor of it,"
+Tavernake answered.  "I was thinking of those days in London; I
+was thinking of Beatrice's horror when she discovered that I was
+wearing ready-made clothes, and the amazement of Elizabeth when
+she found that I hadn't a dress suit.  It's odd how cramped life
+gets back there."
+
+Pritchard nodded, pressing the tobacco down into the bowl of his
+pipe with his forefinger.
+
+"You're right, Tavernake," he agreed.  "One loses one's sense of
+proportion.  Men in the cities are all alike.  They go about in
+disguise."
+
+"I should like," Tavernake said, inconsequently, "to have Mr.
+Dowling out here."
+
+"Amusing fellow?" Pritchard inquired.
+
+Tavernake shook his head, smiling.
+
+"Not in the least," he answered, "only he was a very small man.
+Out here it is difficult to keep small.  Don't you feel it,
+Pritchard?  These mountains make our hills at home seem like
+dust-heaps.  The skies seem loftier.  Look down into that valley.
+It's gigantic, immense."
+
+Pritchard yawned.
+
+"There's a little place in the Bowery," he began,--
+
+"Oh, I don't want to know any more about New York," Tavernake
+interrupted.  "Lean back and close your eyes, smell the cinnamon
+trees, listen to that night bird calling every now and then
+across the ravine.  There's blackness, if you like; there's
+depth.  It's like a cloak of velvet to look into.  But you can't
+see the bottom--no, not in the daytime.  Listen!"
+
+Pritchard sat up.  For a few moments neither spoke.  A dozen
+yards or so off, a scattered group--the rest of the party--were
+playing cards around a fire.  The green wood crackled, an
+occasional murmur of voices, a laugh or an exclamation, came to
+their ears, but for the rest, an immense, a wonderful silence, a
+silence which seemed to spread far away over that weird, half-
+invisible world!  Tavernake listened reverently.
+
+"Isn't it marvelous!" he exclaimed.  "We haven't seen a human
+being except our own party, for three days.
+
+There probably isn't one within hearing of us now.  Very likely
+no living person has ever set foot in this precise spot."
+
+"Oh, it's big," Pritchard admitted, "it's big and it's restful,
+but it isn't satisfying.  It does for you for a time because you
+started life wrong and you needed a reaction.  But for me--ah,
+well!" he added, "I hear the call right across these thousands of
+miles of forests and valley and swamp.  I hear the electric cars
+and the clash of the overhead railway, I see the flaring lights
+of Broadway and I hear the babel of tongues.  I am going back to
+it, Tavernake.  There's plenty to go on with.  We've done more
+than carry out our program."
+
+"Back to New York!" Tavernake muttered, disconsolately.
+
+"So you're not ready yet?" Pritchard demanded.
+
+"Heavens, no!" Tavernake answered.  "Who would be?  What is there
+in New York to make up for this?"
+
+Pritchard was silent for a moment.
+
+"Well," he said, "one of us must be getting back near
+civilization.  The syndicate will be expecting to hear from us.
+Besides, we've reports enough already.  It's time something was
+decided about that oil country.  We've done some grand work
+there, Tavernake."
+
+Tavernake nodded.  He was lying on his side and his eyes were
+fixed wistfully southward, over the glimmering moonlit valley,
+over the great wilderness of virgin pine woods which hung from
+the mountains on the other side, away through the cleft in the
+hills to the plains beyond, chaotic, a world unseen.
+
+"If you like to go on for a bit," Pritchard suggested, slowly,
+"there's no reason why you shouldn't take McCleod and Richardson
+with you, and Pete and half the horses, and strike for the tin
+country on the other side of the Yolite Hills.  So long as we are
+here, it's quite worth it, if you can stick it out."
+
+Tavernake drew a long breath.
+
+"I'd like to go," he admitted, simply.  "I know McCleod is keen
+about prospecting further south.  You see, most of our finds so
+far have been among the oil fields."
+
+"Settled," Pritchard declared.  "To-morrow, then, we part.  I'm
+for the valley, and I reckon I'll strike the railway to Chicago
+in a week.  Gee whiz!  New York will seem good!"
+
+"You think that the syndicate will be satisfied with what we have
+done so far?" Tavernake asked.
+
+His companion smiled.
+
+"If they aren't, they'll be fools.  I reckon there's enough oil
+fields here for seven companies.  There'll be a bit for us, too,
+Tavernake, I guess.  Don't you want to come back to New York and
+spend it?"
+
+Tavernake laughed once more, but this time his laugh was not
+wholly natural.
+
+"Spend it!" he repeated.  "What is there to spend it on?
+Uncomfortable clothes, false plays, drinks that are bad for you,
+food that's half poisoned, atmosphere that stifles.  My God,
+Pritchard, is there anything in the world like this!  Stretch out
+your arms, man.  Lie on your back, look up at the stars, let that
+wind blow over your face.  Listen."
+
+They listened, and again they heard nothing, yet again there
+seemed to be that peculiar quality about the silence which spoke
+of the vastness of space.
+
+Pritchard rose to his feet.
+
+"New York and the fleshpots for me," he declared.  "Keep in
+touch, and good luck old man!"
+
+Next day at dawn they parted, and Tavernake, with his three
+companions, set his face towards an almost undiscovered tract of
+land.  Their progress was slow, for they were all the time in a
+country rich with possibilities.  For weeks they climbed, climbed
+till they reached the snows and the wind stung their faces and
+they shivered in their rugs at night.  They came to a land of
+sparser vegetation, of fewer and wilder animals, where they heard
+the baying of wolves at night, and saw the eyes of strange
+animals glisten through the thicket as the flames of their
+evening fire shot up toward the sky.  Then the long descent
+began, the long descent to the great plain.  Now their faces were
+bronzed with a sun ever hotter, ever more powerful.  No longer
+the snow flakes beat their cheeks.  They came slowly down into a
+land which seemed to Tavernake like the biblical land of Canaan.
+Three times in ten days they had to halt and make a camp, while
+Tavernake prepared a geographical survey of likely-looking land.
+
+McCleod came up to Tavernake one day with a dull-looking lump in
+his hand, glistening in places.
+
+"Copper," he announced, shortly.  "It's what I've been looking
+for all the time.  No end to it.  There's something bigger than
+oil here."
+
+They spent a month in the locality, and every day McCleod became
+more enthusiastic.  After that it was hard work to keep him from
+heading homeward at once.
+
+"I tell you, sir," he explained to Tavernake, "there's millions
+there, millions between those four stakes of yours.  What's the
+good of more prospecting?  There's enough there in a square acre
+to pay the expenses of our expedition a thousand times over.
+Let's get back and make reports.  We can strike the railway in
+ten days from here--perhaps sooner."
+
+"You go," Tavernake said.  "Leave me Pete and two of the horses."
+
+The man stared at him in surprise.
+
+"What's the good of going on alone?" he asked.  "You're not a
+mining expert or an oil man.  You can't go prospecting by
+yourself."
+
+"I can't help it," Tavernake answered.  "It's something in my
+blood, I suppose.  I am going on.  Think!  You'll strike that
+railway and in a month you will be back in New York.  Don't you
+imagine, when you're there, when you hear the clatter and turmoil
+of it, when you see the pale crowds chivvying one another about
+to pick the dollars from each other's pockets,--don't you believe
+you'll long for these solitudes, the big empty places, great
+possibilities, the silence?  Think of it, man.  What is there
+beyond those mountains, I wonder?"
+
+McCleod sighed.
+
+"You're right," he said.  "One may never get so far out again.
+Our fortunes will keep, I suppose, and anyhow we ought to strike
+a telegraph station in about a fortnight.  We'll go right ahead,
+then."
+
+In ten days they dropped ten thousand feet.  They came to a land
+where their throats were always dry, where the trees and shrubs
+seemed like property affairs from a theatre, where they plunged
+their heads into every pool that came to wash their noses and
+mouths from the red dust that seemed to choke them up.  They
+found tin and oil and more copper.  Then, by slow stages, they
+passed on to a land of great grassy plains, of blue grass, miles
+and miles of it, and suddenly one day they came to the telegraph
+posts, rough pine trees unstripped of their bark, with a few
+sagging wires.  Tavernake looked at them as Robinson Crusoe might
+have looked at Man Friday's footsteps.  It was the first sign of
+human life which they had seen for months.
+
+"It's a real world we are in, after all!" he sighed.  "Somehow or
+other, I thought--I thought we'd escaped."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+BACK TO CIVILIZATION
+
+
+Pritchard, trim and neat, a New Yorker from the careful
+arrangement of his tie to the tips of his patent boots, gazed
+with something like amazement at the man whom he had come to meet
+at the Grand Central Station.  Tavernake looked, indeed, like
+some splendid bushman whose life has been spent in the kingdom of
+the winds and the sun and the rain.  He was inches broader round
+the chest, and carried himself with a new freedom.  His face was
+bronzed right down to the neck.  His beard was fullgrown, his
+clothes travel-stained and worn.  He seemed like a breath of real
+life in the great New York depot, surrounded by streams of
+black-coated, pale-cheeked men.
+
+Pritchard laughed softly as he passed his arm through his
+friend's.
+
+"Come, my Briton," he said, "my primitive man, I have rooms for
+you in a hotel close here.  A bath and a mint julep, then I'll
+take you to a tailor's.  What about the big country?  It's better
+than your salt marshes, eh?  Better than your little fishing
+village?  Better than building boats?"
+
+"You know it," Tavernake answered.  "I feel as though I'd been
+drawing in life for month after month.  Have I got to wear boots
+like yours--patent?"
+
+"Got to be done," Pritchard declared.
+
+"And the hat--oh, my Heavens!" Tavernake groaned.  "I'll never
+become civilized again."
+
+"We'll see," Pritchard laughed.  "Say, Tavernake, it was a great
+trip of ours.  Everything's turning out marvelously.  The oil and
+the copper are big, man--big, I tell you.  I reckon your five
+thousand dollars will be well on the way to half a million.  I'm
+pretty near there myself."
+
+It was not until later on, when he was alone, that Tavernake
+realized with how little interest he listened to his companion's
+talk of their success.  It was so short a time ago since the
+building up of a fortune had been the one aim upon which every
+nerve of his body was centered.  Curiously enough, now he seemed
+to take it as a matter of course.
+
+"On second thoughts, I'll send a tailor round to the hotel,"
+Pritchard declared.  "I've rooms myself next yours.  We can go
+out and buy boots and the other things afterwards."
+
+By nightfall, Tavernake's wardrobe was complete.  Even Pritchard
+regarded him with a certain surprise.  He seemed, somehow, to
+have gained a new dignity.
+
+"Say, but you look great!" he exclaimed.  "They won't believe it
+at the meeting to-morrow that you are the man who crossed the
+Yolite Mountains and swam the Peraneek River.  That's a wonderful
+country you were in, Tavernake, after you left the tracks."
+
+They were in Broadway, with the roar of the city in their ears,
+and Tavernake, lifting his face starwards, suddenly seemed to
+feel the silence once more, the perfume of the pine woods, the
+scent of nature herself, freed through all these generations of
+any presence of man.
+
+"I'll never keep away from it," he said, softly.  "I'll have to
+go back."
+
+Pritchard smiled.
+
+"When your report's in shape and the dollars are being scooped
+in, they'll send you back fast enough--that is, if you still want
+to go," he remarked.  "I tell you, Leonard Tavernake, our city
+men here are out for the dollars.  Over on your side, a man makes
+a million or so and he's had enough.  One fortune here only seems
+to whet the appetite of a New Yorker.  By the way," he added,
+after a moment's hesitation, "does it interest you to know that
+an old friend of yours is in New York?"
+
+Tavernake's head went round swiftly.
+
+"Who is it?" he asked.
+
+"Mrs. Wenham Gardner."
+
+Tavernake set his teeth.
+
+"No," he said, slowly, "I don't know that that interests me."
+
+"Glad of it," Pritchard went on.  "I can tell you I don't think
+things have been going extra well with the lady.  She's spent
+most of what she got from the Gardner family, and she doesn't
+seem to have had the best of luck with it, either.  I came across
+her by accident.  She is staying at a flashy hotel, but it's in
+the wrong quarter--second-rate--quite second-rate."
+
+"I wonder whether we shall see anything of her," Tavernake
+remarked.
+
+"Do you want to?" Pritchard asked.  "She'll probably be at
+Martin's for lunch, at the Plaza for tea, and Rector's for
+supper.  She's not exactly the lady to remain hidden, you know."
+
+"We'll avoid those places, then, if you are taking me around,"
+Tavernake said.
+
+"You're cured, are you?" Pritchard inquired.
+
+"Yes, I am cured," Tavernake answered, "cured of that and a great
+many other things, thanks to you.  You found me the right tonic."
+
+"Tonic," Pritchard repeated, meditatively.  "That reminds me.
+This way for the best cocktail in New York." . . .
+
+The night was not to pass, however, without its own especial
+thrill for Tavernake.  The two men dined together at Delmonico's
+and went afterwards to a roof garden, a new form of entertainment
+for Tavernake, and one which interested him vastly.  They secured
+one of the outside tables near the parapets, and below them New
+York stretched, a flaming phantasmagoria of lights and crude
+buildings.  Down the broad avenues with their towering blocks,
+their street cars striking fire all the time like toys below, the
+people streamed like insects away to the Hudson, where the great
+ferry boats, ablaze with lights, went screaming across the dark
+waters.  Tavernake leaned over and forgot.  There was so much
+that was amazing in this marvelous city for a man who had only
+just begun to find himself.
+
+The orchestra, stationed within a few yards of him, commenced to
+play a popular waltz, and Pritchard to talk.  Tavernake turned
+his fascinated eyes from the prospect below.
+
+"My young friend," Pritchard said, "you are up against it
+to-night.  Take a drink of your wine and then brace yourself."
+
+Tavernake did as he was told.
+
+"What is this danger?" he asked.  "What's wrong, anyway?"
+
+Pritchard had no need to answer.  As Tavernake set his glass
+down, his eyes fell upon the little party who had just taken the
+table almost next to theirs.  There were Walter Crease, Major
+Post, two men whom he had never seen before in his life--heavy of
+cheek, both, dull-eyed, but dressed with a rigid observance of
+the fashion of the city, in short dinner coats and black ties.
+And between them was Elizabeth.  Tavernake gripped the sides of
+his chair and looked.  Yes, she had altered.  Her eyebrows were a
+trifle made up, there was a tinge in her hair which he did not
+recognize, a touch of color in her cheeks which he doubted.  Yet
+her figure and her wonderful presence remained, that art of
+wearing her clothes as no other woman could.  She was easily the
+most noticeable-looking of her sex among all the people there.
+Tavernake heard the sound of her voice and once more the thrill
+came and passed.  She was the same Elizabeth.  Thank God, he
+thought, that he was not the same Tavernake!
+
+"Do you wish to go?" Pritchard asked.
+
+Tavernake shook his head.
+
+"Not I!" he answered.  "This place is far too fascinating.  Can't
+we have some more wine?  This is my treat.  And, Pritchard, why
+do you look at me like that?  You are not supposing for a moment
+that I am capable of making an ass of myself again?"
+
+Pritchard smiled in a relieved fashion.
+
+"My young friend," he said, "I have lived in the world so long
+and seen so many strange things, especially between men and
+women, that I am never surprised at anything.  I thought you'd
+shed your follies as your grip upon life had tightened, but one
+is never sure."
+
+Tavernake sighed.
+
+"Oh, I have shed the worst of my follies!" he answered.  "I only
+wish--"
+
+He never finished his sentence.  Elizabeth had suddenly seen him.
+For a moment she leaned forward as though to assure herself that
+she was not mistaken.  Then she half sprang to her feet and sat
+down again.  Her lips were parted--she was once more
+bewilderingly beautiful.
+
+"Mr. Tavernake," she cried, "come and speak to me at once."
+
+Tavernake rose without hesitation, and walked firmly across the
+few yards which separated them.  She held out both her hands.
+
+"This is wonderful!" she exclaimed.  "You in New York!  And I
+have wondered so often what became of you."
+
+Tavernake smiled.
+
+"It is my first night here," he said.  "For two years I have been
+prospecting in the far west."
+
+"Then I saw your name in the papers," she declared.  "It was for
+the Manhattan Syndicate, wasn't it?"
+
+Tavernake nodded, and one of the men of the party leaned forward
+with interest.
+
+"You're going to make millions and millions," she assured him.
+"You always knew you would, didn't you?"
+
+"I am afraid that I was almost too confident," he answered.  "But
+certainly we have been quite fortunate."
+
+One of Elizabeth's companions intervened--he was the one who had
+pricked up his ears at the mention of the Manhattan Syndicate.
+
+"Say, Elizabeth," he remarked, "I'd like to meet your friend."
+
+Elizabeth, with a frown, performed the introduction.
+
+"Mr. Anthony Cruxhall - Mr. Tavernake!"
+
+Mr. Cruxhall held out a fat white hand, on the little finger of
+which glittered a big diamond ring.
+
+"Say, are you the Mr. Tavernake that was surveyor to the
+prospecting party sent out by the Manhattan Syndicate?" he
+inquired.
+
+"I was," Tavernake admitted, briefly.  "I still am, I hope."
+
+"Then you're just the man I was hoping to meet," Mr. Cruxhall
+declared.  "Won't you sit down with us right here?  I'd like to
+talk some about that trip.  I'm interested in the Syndicate."
+
+Tavernake shook his head.
+
+"I've had enough of work for a time," he said.  "Besides, I
+couldn't talk about it till after my report to the meeting
+to-morrow."
+
+"Just a few words," Mr. Cruxhall persisted.  "We'll have a bottle
+of champagne, eh?"
+
+"You will excuse me, I am sure," Tavernake replied, "when I tell
+you that it would not be correct on my part to discuss my trip
+until after I have handed in my report to the company.  I am very
+glad to have seen you again, Mrs. Gardner."
+
+"But you are not going!" she exclaimed, in dismay.
+
+"I have left Mr. Pritchard alone," Tavernake answered.
+
+Elizabeth smiled, and waved her hand to the solitary figure.
+
+"Our friend Mr. Pritchard again," she remarked.  "Well, it is
+really a curious meeting, isn't it?  I wonder,"--she lifted her
+head to his and her eyes called him closer to hers--"have you
+forgotten everything?"
+
+He pointed over the roofs of the houses.  His back was to the
+river and he pointed westward.
+
+"I have been in a country where one forgets," he answered.  "I
+think that I have thrown the knapsack of my follies away.  I
+think that it is buried.  There are some things which I do not
+forget, but they are scarcely to be spoken of."
+
+"You are a strange young man," she said.  "Was I wrong, or were
+you not once in love with me?"
+
+"I was terribly in love with you," Tavernake confessed.
+
+"Yet you tore up my cheque and flung yourself away when you found
+out that my standard of morals was not quite what you had
+expected," she murmured.  "Haven't you got over that quixoticism
+a little, Leonard?"
+
+He drew a deep sigh.
+
+"I am thankful to say," he declared, earnestly, "that I have not
+got over it, that, if anything, my prejudices are stronger than
+ever."
+
+She sat for a moment quite still, and her face had become hard
+and expressionless.  She was looking past him, past the line of
+lights, out into the blue darkness.
+
+"Somehow," she said, softly, "I always prayed that you might
+remember.  You were the one true thing I had ever met, you were
+in earnest.  It is past, then?"
+
+"It is past," Tavernake answered, bravely.
+
+The music of a Hungarian waltz came floating down to them.  She
+half closed her eyes.  Her head moved slowly with the melody.
+Tavernake looked away.
+
+"Will you come and see me just once?" she asked, suddenly.  "I am
+staying at the Delvedere, in Forty-Second Street."
+
+"Thank you very much," Tavernake replied.  "I do not know how
+long I shall be in New York.  If I am here for a few days, I
+shall take my chance at finding you at home."
+
+He bowed, and returned to Pritchard, who welcomed him with a
+quiet smile.
+
+"You're wise, Tavernake," he said, softly.  "I could hear no
+words, but I know that you have been wise.  Between you and me,"
+he added, in a lower tone, "she is going downhill.  She is in
+with the wrong lot here.  She can't seem to keep away from them.
+They are on the very fringe of Bohemia, a great deal nearer the
+arm of the law than makes for respectable society.  The man to
+whom I saw you introduced is a millionaire one day and a thief
+the next.  They're none of them any good.  Did you notice, too,
+that she is wearing sham jewelry?  That always looks bad."
+
+"No, I didn't notice," Tavernake answered.
+
+He was silent for a moment.  Then he leaned a little forward.
+
+"I wonder," he asked, "do you know anything about her sister?"
+
+Pritchard finished his wine and knocked the ash from his cigar.
+
+"Not much," he replied.  "I believe she had a very hard time.
+She took on the father, you know, the old professor, and did her
+best to keep him straight.  He died about a year ago and Miss
+Beatrice tried to get back into the theatre, but she'd missed her
+chance.  Theatrical business has been shocking in London.  I
+heard she'd come out here.  Wherever she is, she keeps right away
+from that sort of set," he wound up, moving his head towards
+Elizabeth's friends.
+
+"I wonder if she is in New York," Tavernake said, with a strange
+thrill at his heart.
+
+Pritchard made no reply.  His eyes were fixed upon the little
+group at the next table.  Elizabeth was leaning back in her
+chair.  She seemed to have abandoned the conversation.  Her eyes
+were always seeking Tavernake's.  Pritchard rose to his feet
+abruptly.
+
+"It's time we were in bed," he declared.  "Remember the meeting
+to-morrow."
+
+Tavernake rose to his feet.  As they passed the next table,
+Elizabeth leaned over to him.  Her eyes pleaded with his almost
+passionately.
+
+"Dear Leonard," she whispered, "you must--you must come and see
+me.  I shall stay in between four and six every evening this
+week.  The Delvedere, remember."
+
+"Thank you very much," Tavernake answered.  "I shall not forget."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+FOR ALWAYS
+
+
+Once again it seemed to Beatrice that history was repeating
+itself.  The dingy, oblong dining-room, with its mosquito
+netting, stained tablecloth, and hard cane chairs, expanded until
+she fancied herself in the drawing-room of Blenheim House.
+Between the landladies there was little enough to choose.  Mrs.
+Raithby Lawrence, notwithstanding her caustic tongue and
+suspicious nature, had at least made some pretense at gentility.
+The woman who faced her now--hard-featured, with narrow,
+suspicious eyes and a mass of florid hair--was unmistakably and
+brutally vulgar.
+
+"What's the good of your keeping on saying you hope to get an
+engagement next week?" she demanded, with a sneer.  "Who's likely
+to engage you?  Why, you've lost your color and your looks and
+your weight since you came to stay here.  They don't want such as
+you in the chorus.  And for the rest, you're too high and mighty,
+that's my opinion of you.  Take what you can get, and how you can
+get it, and be thankful,--that's my motto.  Day after day you
+tramp about the streets with your head in the air, and won't take
+this and won't take that, and meanwhile my bill gets bigger and
+bigger.  Now where have you been to this morning, I should like
+to know?"
+
+Beatrice, who was faint and tired, shaking in every limb, tried
+to pass out of the room, but her questioner barred the way.
+
+"I have been up town," she answered, nervously.
+
+"Hear of anything?"
+
+Beatrice shook her head.
+
+"Not yet.  Please let me go upstairs and lie down.  I am tired
+and I need to rest."
+
+"And I need my money," Mrs. Selina P. Watkins declared, without
+quitting her position, "and it's no good your going up to your
+room because the door's locked."
+
+"What do you mean?" Beatrice faltered.
+
+"I mean that I've done with you," the lodging-house keeper
+announced.  "Your room's locked up and the key's in my pocket,
+and the sooner you get out of this, the better I shall be
+pleased."
+
+"But my box--my clothes," Beatrice cried.
+
+"I'll keep 'em a week for you," the woman answered.  "Bring me
+the money by then and you shall have them.  If I don't hear
+anything of you, they'll go to the auction mart."
+
+Something of her old spirit fired the girl for a moment.  She was
+angry, and she forgot that her knees were trembling with fatigue,
+that she was weak and aching with hunger.
+
+"How dare you talk like that!" she exclaimed.  "You shall have
+your money shortly, but I must have my clothes.  I cannot go
+anywhere without them."
+
+The woman laughed harshly.
+
+"Look here, my young lady," she said, "you'll see your box again
+when I see the color of your money, and not before.  And now out
+you go, please,--out you go!  If you're going to make any
+trouble, Solly will have to show you the way down the steps."
+
+The woman had opened the door, and a colored servant, half
+dressed, with a broom in her hand, came slouching down the
+passage.  Beatrice turned and fled out of the greasy, noisome
+atmosphere, down the wooden, uneven steps, out into the ugly
+street.  She turned toward the nearest elevated as though by
+instinct, but when she came to the bottom of the stairs she
+stopped short with a little groan.  She knew very well that she
+had not a nickel to pay the fare.  Her pockets were empty.  All
+day she had eaten nothing, and her last coin had gone for the car
+which had brought her back from Broadway.  And here she was on
+the other side of New York, in the region of low-class lodging
+houses, with the Bowery between her and Broadway.  She had
+neither the strength nor the courage to walk.  With a
+half-stifled sob she took off her one remaining ornament, a cheap
+enameled brooch, and entered a pawnbroker's shop close to where
+she had been standing.
+
+"Will you give me something on this, please?" she asked,
+desperately.
+
+A man who seemed to be sorting a pile of ready-made coats, paused
+in his task for a moment, took the ornament into his hand, and
+threw it contemptuously upon the counter.
+
+"Not worth anything," he answered.
+
+"But it must be worth something," Beatrice protested.  "I only
+want a very little."
+
+Something in her voice compelled the man's attention.  He looked
+at her white face.
+
+"What's the trouble?" he inquired.
+
+"I must get up to Fifth Avenue somehow," she declared.  "I can't
+walk and I haven't a nickel."
+
+He pushed the brooch back to her and threw a dime upon the
+counter.
+
+"Well," he said, "you don't look fit to walk, and that's a fact,
+but the brooch isn't worth entering up.  There's a dime for you.
+Now git, please, I'm busy."
+
+Beatrice clutched the coin and, almost forgetting to thank him,
+found her way up the iron stairs on to the platform of the
+elevated.  Soon she was seated in the train, rattling and shaking
+on its way through the slums into the heart of the wonderful
+city.  There was only one thing left for her to try, a thing
+which she had had in her mind for days.  Yet she found herself,
+even now she was committed to it, thinking of what lay before her
+with something like black horror.  It was her last resource,
+indeed.  Strong though she was, she knew by many small signs that
+her strength was almost at an end.  The days and weeks of
+"disappointments, the long fruitless trudges from office to
+office, the heart-sickness of constant refusals, poor food, the
+long fasts, had all told their tale.  She was attractive enough
+still.  Her pallor seemed to have given her a wonderful delicacy.
+The curve of her lips and the soft light in her gray eyes, were
+still as potent as ever.  When she thought, though, what a poor
+asset her appearance had been, the color flamed in her cheeks.
+
+In Broadway she made her way to a very magnificent block of
+buildings, and passing inside took the lift to the seventh floor.
+Here she got out and knocked timidly at a glass-paneled door, on
+which was inscribed the name of Mr. Anthony Cruxhall.  A very
+superior young man bade her enter and inquired her business.
+
+"I wish to see Mr. Cruxhall for a moment, privately," she said.
+"I shall not detain him for more than a minute.  My name is
+Franklin--Miss Beatrice Franklin."
+
+The young man's lips seemed about to shape themselves into a
+whistle, but something in the girl's face made him change his
+mind.
+
+"I guess the boss is in," he admitted.  "He's just got back from
+a big meeting, but I am not sure about his seeing any one to-day.
+However, I'll tell him that you're here."
+
+He disappeared into an inner room.  Presently he came out again
+and held the door open.
+
+"Will you walk right in, Miss Franklin?" he invited.
+
+Beatrice went in bravely enough, but her knees began to tremble
+when she found herself in the presence of the man she had come to
+visit.  Mr. Anthony Cruxhall was not a pleasant-looking person.
+His cheeks were fat and puffy, he wore a diamond ring upon the
+finger of his toowhite hand, and a diamond pin in his somewhat
+flashily arranged necktie.  He was smoking a black cigar, which
+he omitted to remove from between his teeth as he welcomed his
+visitor.
+
+"So you've come to see me at last, little Miss Beatrice!" he
+said, with a particularly unpleasant smile.  "Come and sit down
+here by the side of me.  That's right, eh?  Now what can I do for
+you?"
+
+Beatrice was trembling all over.  The man's eyes were hateful,
+his smile was hideous.
+
+"I have not a cent in the world, Mr. Cruxhall," she faltered, "I
+cannot get an engagement, I have been turned out of my rooms, and
+I am hungry.  My father always told me that you would be a friend
+if at any time it happened that I needed help.  I am very sorry
+to have to come and beg, yet that is what I am doing.  Will you
+lend or give me ten or twenty dollars, so that I can go on for a
+little longer?  Or will you help me to get a place among some of
+your theatrical people?  "
+
+Mr. Cruxhall puffed steadily at his cigar for a moment, and
+leaning back in his chair thrust his hand into his trousers'
+pocket.
+
+"So bad as that, is it?" he remarked.  "So bad as that, eh?"
+
+"It is very bad indeed," she answered, looking at him quietly,
+"or you know that I should not have come to you."
+
+Mr. Cruxhall smiled.
+
+"I remember the last time we talked together," he said, "we
+didn't get on very well.  Too high and mighty in those days,
+weren't you, Miss Beatrice?  Wouldn't have anything to say to a
+bad lot like Anthony Cruxhall.  You're having to come to it, eh?"
+
+She began to tremble again, but she held herself in.
+
+"I must live," she murmured.  "Give me a little money and let me
+go away."
+
+He laughed.
+
+"Oh, I'll do better than that for you," he answered, thrusting
+his hand into his waistcoat pocket and drawing out a pile of
+dollar bills.  "Let's look at you.  Gee whiz!  Yes, you're
+shabby, aren't you?  Take this," he went on, slamming some notes
+down before her.  "Go and get yourself a new frock and a hat fit
+to wear, and meet me at the Madison Square roof garden at eight
+o'clock.  We'll have some dinner and I guess we can fix matters
+up."
+
+Then he smiled at her again, and Beatrice, whose hand was already
+upon the bills, suddenly felt her knees shake.  A great black
+horror was upon her.  She turned and fled out of the room, past
+the astonished clerk, into the lift, and was downstairs on the
+main floor before she remembered where she was, what she had
+done.  The clerk, after gazing at her retreating form, hurried
+into the inner office.
+
+"Young woman hasn't bolted with anything, eh?" he asked.
+
+Mr. Cruxhall smiled wickedly.
+
+"Why, no," he replied, "I guess she'll come back!"
+
+Tavernake left the meeting on that same afternoon with his future
+practically assured for life.  He had been appointed surveyor to
+the company at a salary of ten thousand dollars a year, and the
+mine in which his savings were invested was likely to return him
+his small capital a hundredfold.  Very kind things had been said
+of him and to him.
+
+Pritchard and he had left the place together.  When they had
+reached the street, they paused for a moment.
+
+"I am going to make a call near here," Pritchard said.  "Don't
+forget that we are dining together, unless you find something
+better to do, and in the meantime"--he took a card from his
+pocket and handed it to Tavernake--"I don't know whether I am a
+fool or not to give you this," he added.  "However, there it is.
+Do as you choose about it."
+
+He walked away a little abruptly.  Tavernake glanced at the
+address upon the card: 1134, East Third Street.  For a moment he
+was puzzled.  Then the light broke in upon him suddenly.  His
+heart gave a leap.  He turned back into the place to ask for some
+directions and once more stopped short.  Down the stone corridor,
+like one who flies from some hideous fate, came a slim black
+figure, with white face and set, horrified stare.  Tavernake held
+out his hands and she came to him with a great wondering sob.
+
+"Leonard!" she cried.  "Leonard!"
+
+"There's no doubt about me," he answered, quickly.  "Am I such a
+very terrifying object?"
+
+She stood quite still and struggled hard.  By and by the
+giddiness passed.
+
+"Leonard," she murmured, "I am ill."
+
+Then she began to smile.
+
+"It is too absurd," she faltered, "but you've got to do it all
+over again."'
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked.
+
+"Get me something to eat at once," she begged.  "I am starving.
+Somewhere where it's cool.  Leonard, how wonderful!  I never even
+knew that you were in New York."
+
+He called a carriage and took her off to a roof garden.  There,
+as it was early, they got a seat near the parapet.  Tavernake
+talked clumsily about himself most of the time.  There was a lump
+in his throat.  He felt all the while that tragedy was very near.
+By degrees, though, as she ate and drank, the color came back to
+her cheeks, the fear of a breakdown seemed to pass away.  She
+became even cheerful.
+
+"We are really the most amazing people, Leonard," she declared.
+"You stumbled into my life once before when I was on the point of
+being turned out of my rooms.  You've come into it again and you
+find me once more homeless.  Don't spend too much money upon our
+dinner, for I warn you that I am going to borrow from you."
+
+He laughed.
+
+"That's good news," he remarked, "but I'm not sure that I'm going
+to lend anything."
+
+He leaned across the table.  Their dinner had taken long in
+preparing and the dusk was falling now.  Over them were the
+stars, the band was playing soft music, the hubbub of the streets
+lay far below.  Almost they were in a little world by themselves.
+
+"Dear Beatrice," he said, "three times I asked you to marry me
+and you would not, and I asked you because I was a selfish brute,
+and because I knew that it was good for me and that it would save
+me from things of which I was afraid.  And now I am asking you
+the same thing again, but I have a bigger reason, Beatrice.  I
+have been alone most of the last two years, I have lived the sort
+of life which brings a man face to face with the truth, helps him
+to know himself and others, and I have found out something."
+
+"Yes?" she faltered.  "Tell me, Leonard."
+
+"I found out that it was you I cared for always," he continued,
+"and that is why I am asking you to marry me now, Beatrice, only
+this time I ask you because I love you, and because no one else
+in the world could ever take your place or be anything at all to
+me."
+
+"Leonard!" she murmured.
+
+"You are not sorry that I have said this?" he begged.
+
+She opened her eyes again.
+
+"I always prayed that I might hear you say it," she answered,
+"but it seems--oh, it seems so one-sided!  Here am I starving and
+penniless, and you--you, I suppose, are well on the way towards
+the success you worshiped."
+
+"I am well on the way," he said, earnestly, "towards something
+greater, Beatrice.  I am well on the way towards understanding
+what success really is, what things count and what don't.  I have
+even found out," he whispered, "the thing which counts for more
+than anything else in the world, and now that I have found it
+out, I shall never let it go again."
+
+He pressed her hand and she looked across the table at him with
+swimming eyes.  The waiter, who had been approaching, turned
+discreetly away.  The band started to play a fresh tune.  From
+down in the streets came the clanging of the cars.  A curious,
+cosmopolitan murmur of sounds, but between those two there was
+the wonderful silence.
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE TEMPTING OF TAVERNAKE ***
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