In Friendship's Guise Part 3

Germain--and emigrated to London. His great sorrow was only an unpleasant memory to him now. He had friends in England, but no relations there or anywhere, so far as he knew. His father, an artist of unappreciated talent, had died twenty years before. It was after his death that Jack's mother had come into some property from a distant relative.

Taking his middle name of Vernon, Jack settled in Fitzroy Square. A couple of hundred pounds const.i.tuted his worldly wealth. His ambition was to be a great painter, but he had other tastes as well, and his talent lay in more than one channel. Within a year, by dint of hard work, he obtained more than a foothold. He had sold a couple of pictures to dealers; his black-and-white drawings were in demand with a couple of good magazines, and a clever poster, bearing his name, and advertising a popular whisky was displayed all over London. Then, picking up a French paper in the Monico one morning, he experienced a shock. The body of a woman had been found in the Seine and taken to the Morgue, where several persons unhesitatingly identified her as Diane Merode, the one-time fascinating dancer of the Folies Bergere.

Jack turned pale, and crushed the paper in his hand. Evening found him wandering on the heights of Hampstead, but the next morning he was at his easel. He was a free man now in every sense, and the world looked brighter to him. He worked as hard as ever, and with increasing success, but he spent most of his evenings with his comrades of the brush, with whom he was immensely popular. He was indifferent to women, however, and they did not enter into his life.

But a few months before the opening of this story Jack had taken his new studio at Ravenscourt Park, in the west of London. It was a big place, with a splendid north light, and with an admirable train service to all parts of town; in that respect he was better off than artists living in Hampstead or St. John's Wood. He had a couple of small furnished rooms at one end of the studio, in one of which he slept. He usually dined in town, Paris fashion, but his breakfast and lunch were served by his French servant, Alphonse, an admirable fellow, who had lodgings close by the studio; he could turn his hand to anything, and was devoted to his master.

Jack had achieved success, and he deserved it. His name was well known, and better things were predicted of him. The leading magazines displayed his black-and-white drawings monthly, and publishers begged him to ill.u.s.trate books. He was making a large income, and saving the half of it. Nor did he lose sight of his loftier goal. His picture of last year had been accepted by the Academy, hung well, and sold, and he had just been notified that he was in again this spring. Fortune smiled on him, and the folly of his youth was a fading memory that could never cloud or dim his future.

It was two days after the adventure on the river, late in the afternoon.

Jack was reading over the ma.n.u.script of a book, and penciling possible points for ill.u.s.tration, when Alphonse handed him a letter. It was directed in a feminine hand, but a man had clearly penned the inclosure.

The writer signed himself Stephen Foster, and in a few brief sentences, coldly and curtly expressed, he thanked Mr. Vernon for the great and timely service he had rendered his daughter. That was all. There was no invitation to the house at Strand-on-the-Green--no hope or desire for a personal acquaintance.

Jack resented the bald, stereotyped communication. He felt piqued--slightly hurt. He had been trying to forget the girl, but now, thinking of her as something out of his reach, he wanted to see her again.

"A conceited, crusty old chap--this Stephen Foster," he said to himself.

"No doubt he is a money-grubber in the city, and regards artists with contempt. If I had a daughter like that, and a man saved her life, I should be properly grateful. Poor girl, she can't lead a very happy life."

He lighted a pipe, read a little further, and then tossed the sheaf of ma.n.u.script aside. He rose and put on a hat and a black coat--he wore evening dress as little as possible.

"Will you dine in town to-night, sir?" asked Alphonse, who was cleaning a stack of brushes.

"Yes, oh, yes," Jack answered. "You can go when you have finished."

Whatever may have been his intention when he left the studio, Jack did not cross the park toward the District Railway station. He walked slowly to the high-road, and then westward with brisker step. He struck down through Gunnersbury, by way of Sutton Court, and came out at the river close to the lower end of Strand-on-the-Green.

A girl was sitting on a bench near the sh.o.r.e, pensively watching the sun drooping over the misty ramparts of Kew Bridge; she held a closed book in one hand, and by her side lay a sketching-block and a box of colors.

She heard the young artist's footsteps, and glanced up. A lovely blush suffused her countenance, and for an instant she was speechless. Then, with less confusion, with the candor of an innocent and unconventional nature, she said:

"I am so glad to see you, Mr. Vernon."

"That is kind of you," Jack replied, with a smile.

"Yes, I wanted to thank you--"

"Your father has written to me."

"But that is different. I wanted to thank you for myself."

"I wish I were deserving of such grat.i.tude," said Jack, thinking that the girl looked far more charming than when he had first seen her.

"Ah, don't say that. You know that you saved my life. I am a good swimmer, but that morning my clothes seemed to drag me down."

"I am glad that I happened to be near at the time," Jack replied, as he seated himself without invitation on the bench. "But it is not a pleasant topic--let us not talk about it."

"I shall never forget it," the girl answered softly. She was silent for a moment, and then added gravely: "It is so strange to know you. I admire artists so much, and I saw your picture in last year's Academy.

How surprised I was when I read your card!"

"You paint, yourself, Miss Foster?"

"No, I only try to. I wish I could."

She reluctantly yielded her block of Whatman's paper to Jack, and in the portfolio attached to it he found several sketches that showed real promise. He frankly said as much, to his companion's delight, and then the conversation turned on the quaintness of Strand-on-the-Green, and the constant and varied beauty of the river at this point--a subject that was full of genuine interest to both. When the sun pa.s.sed below the bridge the girl suddenly rose and gathered her things.

"I must go," she said. "My father is coming home early to-day. Good-by, Mr. Vernon."

"Not really good-by. I hope?"

An expression of sorrow and pain, almost pitiful, clouded her lovely face. Jack understood the meaning of it, and hated Stephen Foster in his heart.

"I shall see you here sometimes?" he added.

"Perhaps."

"Then you do not forbid me to come again?"

"How can I do that? This river walk is quite free, Mr. Vernon. Oh, please don't think me ungrateful, but--but--"

She turned her head quickly away, and did not finish the sentence. She called a word of farewell over her shoulder, and Jack moodily watched her slim and graceful figure vanish between the great elm trees that guard the lower entrance to Strand-on-the-Green.

"John Vernon, you are a fool," he said to himself. "The best thing for you is to pack up your traps and be off to-morrow morning for a couple of months' sketching in Devonshire. You've been bitten once--look out!"

He took a shilling from his pocket, and muttered, as he flipped it in the air: "Tail, Richmond--head, town."

The coin fell tail upward, and Jack went off to dine at the Roebuck on the hill, beloved of artists, where he met some boon companions and argued about Whistler until a late hour.

CHAPTER IV.

NUMBER 320 WARDOUR STREET.

The rear-guard of London's great army of clerks had already vanished in the city, and the hour was drawing near to eleven, when Victor Nevill shook off his la.s.situde sufficiently to get out of bed. A cold tub freshened him, and as he dressed with scrupulous care, choosing his clothes from a well-filled wardrobe, he occasionally walked to the window of his sitting-room and looked down on the narrow but lively thoroughfare of Jermyn street. It was a fine morning, with the scent of spring in the air, and the many colors of the rumbling 'busses glistened like fresh paint in the sunlight.

His toilet completed, Victor Nevill pressed an electric bell, in answer to which there presently appeared, from some mysterious source downstairs, a boy in b.u.t.tons carrying a tray on which reposed a small pot of coffee, one of cream, a pat of b.u.t.ter, and a couple of crisp rolls. Nevill ate his breakfast with the mechanical air of one who is doing a tiresome but necessary thing, meanwhile consulting a tiny memorandum-book, and counting over a handful of loose gold and silver.

Then he put on his hat and gloves, looked at the fit of his gray frock-coat in the gla.s.s, and went into the street. At Piccadilly Circus he bought a _boutonniere_, and as he was feeling slightly rocky after a late night at card-playing, he dropped into the St. James. He emerged shortly, fortified by a brandy-and-soda, and sauntered westward along the Piccadilly pavement.

A typical young-man-about-town, an indolent pleasure-lover, always dressed to perfection and flush with money--such was Victor Nevill in the opinion of the world. For aught men knew to the contrary, he thrived like the proverbial lily of the field, without the need of toiling or spinning. He lived in expensive rooms, dined at the best restaurants, and belonged to a couple of good clubs. To his friends this was no matter of surprise or conjecture. They were aware that he was well-connected, and that years before he had come into a fortune; they naturally supposed that enough of it remained to yield him a comfortable income, in spite of the follies and extravagances that rumor attributed to him in the past, while he was abroad.

But Nevill himself, and one other individual, knew better. The bulk of his fortune exhausted by reckless living on the Continent, he had returned to London with a thousand pounds in cash, and a secured annuity of two hundred pounds, which he was too prudent to try to negotiate. The thousand pounds did not last long, but by the time they were spent he had drifted into degraded and evil ways. None had ever dared to whisper--none had ever suspected--that Victor Nevill was a rook for money-lenders and a dangerous friend for young men. He knew what a perilous game he was playing, but he studied every move and guarded shrewdly against discovery. There were many reasons, and one in particular, for keeping his reputation clean and untarnished. It was a matter of the utmost satisfaction to him that his uncle, Sir Lucius Chesney, of Priory Court in Suss.e.x, cared but little for London, and seldom came up to town. For Sir Lucius was childless, elderly, and possessed of fifteen thousand pounds a year.

Victor Nevill's progress along Piccadilly was frequently interrupted by friends, fashionably dressed young men like himself, whose invitations to come and have a drink he declined on the plea of an engagement. Just beyond Devonshire House he was accosted eagerly by a fresh-faced, blond-haired boy--he was no more than twenty-two--who was coming from the opposite direction.

"Hullo, Bertie," Nevill said carelessly, as he shook hands. "I was on my way to the club."