An Amiable Charlatan Part 2

I resumed my seat at the table. I was feeling a little dazed. Opposite, talking to two ladies, was the smooth-faced _maitre d'hotel_ into whose keeping I felt sure that packet had gone. Seated by my side was the gentleman who had a.s.sured me with the utmost self-possession that he was an adventurer. And standing in the doorway, looking at us, was the girl who for the last few weeks had monopolized all my thoughts; who had played havoc to such a complete extent with the principles of my life that, for her sake, I was at that moment perfectly willing to range myself even among the outcasts of the world.

CHAPTER II--THE COUP IN THE GAMBLING DEN

On seeing us the girl advanced into the room. I called Mr. Parker's attention to her and he rose at once to his feet. It was a cold evening in April and she was wearing a long coat trimmed with some dark-colored fur, and a hat also trimmed with fur, but with something blue in it. She was rather tall; she had ma.s.ses of dark brown hair, a suspicion of a fringe, and deep blue eyes. She came toward us very deliberately, with the same grace of movement I had watched and admired night after night. She gave me a glance of the slightest possible curiosity as she approached. Then her father introduced us.

"This is Mr. Paul Walmsley, my dear," he said--"my daughter. Have you dined, Eve?"

She shook hands with me and smiled very charmingly.

"Hours ago," she replied. "I didn't mean to come out this evening, but I was so bored that I thought I would try and find you."

She accepted the chair I was holding and unb.u.t.toned her cloak.

"You will have some coffee?" I begged.

"Why, that would be delightful," she agreed. "I am so glad to find you with my father, Mr. Walmsley," she continued. "I know he hates dining alone; but this evening I had an appointment with a dressmaker quite late --and I didn't feel a bit like dinner anyhow."

"You come here often, don't you?" I ventured.

"Very often indeed," she replied. "You see it is not in the least entertaining where we are staying and the cooking is abominable. Then father adores restaurants. Do tell me what you have been talking about-- you two men--all the evening?"

"The truth!" Mr. Parker remarked, lighting another cigar. "My daughter knows that I speak nothing else. It is a weakness of mine. Mr. Walmsley and I were exchanging notes as to our relative professions. I told him frankly that I was an adventurer and you an adventuress. I think by now he is beginning to believe it."

She laughed very softly--almost under her breath; yet I fancied there was a note of mockery in her mirth.

"Confess that you were very much shocked, Mr. Walmsley!" she said.

"Not in the least," I a.s.sured her.

She raised her eyebrows ever so slightly.

"Confess, then," she went on, "confess, Mr. Walmsley, that in all your well-ordered life you have never heard such an admission made by two apparently respectable people before."

"How do you know," I asked, "that my life has been well-ordered?"

"Look at yourself in the gla.s.s," she begged.

Scarcely knowing what I did, I turned round in my seat and obeyed her.

There is, perhaps, a certain preciseness about my appearance as well as my attire. I am tall enough--well over six feet--but my complexion still retains traces of my years in Africa and of my fondness for outdoor sports. My hair is straight and I have never grown beard or mustache. I felt, somehow, that I represented the things which in an Englishman are a little derided by young ladies on the other side of the water.

"I can't help my appearance," I said, a little crossly. "I can a.s.sure you that I am not a prig."

"Our young friend," Mr. Parker intervened, "has certainly earned his immunity from any such t.i.tle. To tell you the truth, Eve, he has already been my accomplice this evening in a certain little matter. But for his help, who knows that I might not have found myself up against it? Between us we have even had a little fun out of Cullen."

Her expression changed. She seemed, for some reason, none too well pleased.

"What have you been doing?" she asked me.

"I, personally, have been doing very little indeed," I told her. "Your father entered the restaurant in a hurry about an hour ago and found it convenient to seat himself at my table and help himself to my dinner. He intrusted me, also, with a packet, which I subsequently returned to him."

"It is now," Mr. Parker declared, replying to his daughter's anxious glance, "in perfectly safe hands."

She sighed and shook her head at him.

"Daddy," she murmured plaintively, "why will you run such risks? Even Mr.

Cullen isn't an absolute idiot, you know, and there might have been some one else watching."

Mr. Parker nodded.

"You are quite right, my dear," he admitted. "To tell you the truth, Cullen was really a little smarter than usual this evening. However, there's always the luck, you know--our luck! If Mr. Walmsley had turned out a different sort of man--but, then, I knew he wouldn't."

She turned her head and looked at me. She had a trick of contracting the corners of her eyes just a little, which was absolutely bewitching.

"Will you tell me why you helped my father in this way, Mr. Walmsley?"

I returned her regard steadfastly.

"It never occurred to me," I said, "to do anything else--after I had recognized him."

She smiled a little. My speech was obviously sincere. I think from that moment she began to realize why I had occupied the little table, opposite to the one where she so often sat, with such unfailing regularity.

"What about a music hall?" Mr. Parker suggested. "I hear there's a good show on right across the street here. Have you any engagement for this evening, Mr. Walmsley?"

"None at all," I hastened to a.s.sure him.

We left the place together a few minutes later and found a vacant box at the Tivoli. Arrived there, however, Mr. Parker soon became restless. He kept on seeing friends in the auditorium. We watched him, with his hat a little on the back of his head, going about shaking hands in various directions.

"How long have you been in England?" I asked my companion.

"Barely two months," she replied. "Do look at father! Wherever he goes it's the same. The one recreation of his life is making friends. The people he is speaking to to-night he has probably come across in a railroad train or an American bar. He makes lifelong friendships every time he drinks a c.o.c.ktail, and he never forgets a face."

"Isn't that a little trying for you?" I asked.

She laughed outright.

"If you could only see some of the people he brings up and introduces to me!"

We talked for some time upon quite ordinary subjects. As the time pa.s.sed on, however, and her father did not return, it seemed to me she became more silent. She told me very little about herself and the few personal things she said were always restrained. I was beginning to feel almost discouraged; she sat so long with a slight frown upon her forehead and her head turned away from me.

"Miss Parker," I ventured at last, "something seems to have displeased you."

"It has," she admitted.

"Will you please tell me what it is?" I asked humbly. "If I have said or done anything clumsy give me a chance, at any rate, to let you see how sorry I am."

She turned and faced me then.