The Devil's Paw Part 16

"I may enter Parliament."

"Yes, to preserve your rights," she retorted.

"I am afraid," he sighed, "that you haven't a very high opinion of me."

"It is within your power to make me look upon you as the bravest, the kindest, the most fa.r.s.eeing of men," she declared.

He shook his head.

"I decline to think that you would think any the better of me for committing a dishonourable action for your sake."

"Try me," she begged, her hand resting once more upon his. "If you want my kind feelings, my everlasting grat.i.tude, they are yours. Give me that packet."

"That is impossible," he declared uncompromisingly. "If you wish to alter my att.i.tude with regard to it, you must tell me exactly from whom it comes, what it contains, and to whom it goes."

"You ask more than is possible.. You make me almost sorry--"

"Sorry for what?"

"Sorry that I saved your life," she said boldly. "Why should I not be?

There are many who will suffer, many who will lose their lives because of your obstinacy."

"If you believe that, confide in me."

She shook her head sadly.

"If only you were different!"

"I am a human being," he protested. "I have sympathies and heart. I would give my life willingly to save any carnage."

"I could never make you understand," she murmured hopelessly. "I shall not try. I dare not risk failure. Is this room hot, or is it my fancy?

Could we have a window open?"

"By all means."

He crossed the room and lifted the blind from before one of the high windows which opened seawards. In the panel of the wall, between the window to which he addressed himself and the next one, was a tall, gilt mirror, relic of the days, some hundreds of years ago, when the apartment had been used as a drawing-room. Julian, by the merest accident, for the pleasure of a stolen glance at Catherine, happened to look in it as he leaned over towards the window fastening. For a single moment he stood rigid. Catherine had risen to her feet and, without the slightest evidence of any fatigue, was leaning, tense and alert, over the tray on which his untouched whisky and soda was placed. Her hand was outstretched. He saw a little stream of white powder fall into the tumbler. An intense and sickening feeling of disappointment almost brought a groan to his lips. He conquered himself with an effort, however, opened the window a few inches, and returned to his place.

Catherine was lying back, her eyes half-closed, her arms hanging listlessly on either side of her chair.

"Is that better?" he enquired.

"Very much," she a.s.sured him. "Still, I think that if you do not mind, I will go to bed. I am troubled with a very rare attack of nerves. Drink your whisky and soda, and then will you take me into the drawing-room?"

He played with his tumbler thoughtfully. His first impulse was to drop it. Intervention, however, was at hand. The door opened, and the Princess entered with Lord Shervinton.

"At last!" the former exclaimed. "I have been looking for you everywhere, child. I am sure that you are quite tired out, and I insist upon your going to bed."

"Finish your whisky and soda," Catherine begged Julian, "and I will lean on your arm as far as the staircase."

Fate stretched out her right hand to help him. The Princess took possession of her niece.

"I shall look after you myself," she insisted. "Mr. Orden is wanted to play billiards. Lord Shervinton is anxious for a game."

"I shall be delighted," Julian answered promptly.

He moved to the door and held it open. Catherine gave him her fingers and a little half-doubtful smile.

"If only you were not so cruelly obstinate!" she sighed.

He found no words with which to answer her. The shock of his discovery was still upon him.

"You'll give me thirty in a hundred, Julian," Lord Shervinton called out cheerfully. "And shut that door as soon as you can, there's a good fellow. There's a most confounded draught."

CHAPTER IX

It was at some nameless hour in the early morning when Julian's vigil came to an end, when the handle of his door was slowly turned, and the door itself pushed open and closed again. Julian, lying stretched upon his bed, only half prepared for the night, with a dressing gown wrapped around him, continued to breathe heavily, his eyes half-closed, listening intently to the fluttering of light garments, the soft, almost noiseless footfall of light feet. He heard her shake out his dinner coat, try the pockets, heard the stealthy opening and closing of the drawers in his wardrobe. Presently the footsteps drew near to his bed.

For a moment he was obliged to set his teeth. A little waft of peculiar, una.n.a.lysable perfume, half-fascinating, half-repellent, came to him with a sense of disturbing familiarity. She paused by his bedside. He felt her hand steal under the pillow, which his head scarcely touched; search the pockets of his dressing gown, search even the bed. He listened to her soft breathing. The consciousness of her close and intimate presence affected him in an inexplicable manner. Presently, to his intense relief, she glided away from his immediate neighbourhood, and the moment for which he had waited came. He heard her retreating footsteps pa.s.s through the communicating door into his little sitting room, where he had purposely left a light burning. He slipped softly from the bed and followed her. She was bending over an open desk as he crossed the threshold. He closed the door and stood with his back to it.

"Much warmer," he said, "only, you see, it isn't there."

She started violently at the sound of his voice, but she did not immediately turn around. When she did so, her demeanour was almost a shock to him. There was no sign of nervousness or apology in her manner.

Her eyes flashed at him angrily. She wore a loose red wrap trimmed with white fur, a dishabille unusually and provokingly attractive.

"So you were shamming sleep!" she exclaimed indignantly.

"Entirely," he admitted.

Neither spoke for a moment. Her eyes fell upon a tumbler of whisky and soda, which stood on a round table drawn up by the side of his easy-chair.

"I have not come to bed thirsty," he a.s.sured her. "I had another one downstairs--to which I helped myself. This one I brought up to try if I could remember sufficient of my chemistry to determine its contents. I have been able to decide, to my great relief, that your intention was probably to content yourself with plunging me into only temporary slumber."

"I wanted you out of the way whilst I searched your rooms," she told him coolly. "If you were not such an obstinate, pig-headed, unkind, prejudiced person, it would not have been necessary."

"Dear me!" he murmured. "Am I all that? Won't you sit down?"

For a moment she looked as though she were about to strike him with the electric torch which she was carrying. With a great effort of self-control, however, she changed her mind and threw herself into his easy-chair with a little gesture of recklessness. Julian seated himself opposite to her. Although she kept her face as far as possible averted, he realised more than ever in those few moments that she was really an extraordinarily beautiful person. Her very att.i.tude was full of an angry grace. The quivering of her lips was the only sign of weakness. Her eyes were filled with cold resentment.

"Well," she said, "I am your prisoner. I listen."

"You are after that packet, I suppose?"

"What sagacity!" she scoffed. "I trusted you with it, and you behaved like a brute. You kept it. It has nothing to do with you. You have no right to it."

"Let us understand one another, once and for all," he suggested. "I will not even discuss the question of rightful or wrongful possession. I have the packet, and I am going to keep it. You cannot cajole it put of me, you cannot steal it from me. To-morrow I shall take it to London and deliver it to my friend at the Foreign Office. Nothing could induce me to change my mind."

She seemed suddenly to be caught up in the vortex of a new emotion. All the bitterness pa.s.sed from her expression. She fell on her knees by his side, sought his hands, and lifted her face, full of pa.s.sionate entreaty, to his. Her eyes were dimmed with tears, her voice piteous.

"Do not be so cruel, so hard," she begged. "I swear before Heaven that there is no treason in those papers, that they are the one necessary link in a great, humanitarian scheme. Be generous, Mr. Orden. Julian!