The Golden Web Part 34

"Young lady," he said sternly, "are you mad?"

"If I am, it is your fault," she answered.

"Nonsense!" he declared. "You see that policeman there? He is watching us now. Let go the revolver and be off. I don't want to give you into custody--my life is worth something for others as well as myself--and I shall certainly do it unless you obey me."

She gave a little sob, and her fingers relaxed their hold upon the revolver, which Deane transferred into his own pocket. She glided away into the crowd. Deane stepped into his brougham, giving the man the address of the hotel where Winifred Rowan was staying. He leaned back in the seat, looking at the little weapon in his hands. Somehow, the fact of his escape, instead of bringing any exultation with it, seemed to depress him strangely. Deane had never called himself or believed himself to be a religious man, yet there was certainly one principle which had always been part of his creed,--to live and let live. He was not a greedy capitalist. He could look upon money without any desire to absorb it. Yet lately he seemed to have been forced into tortuous paths.

From the moment when he had attempted to make use of Rowan as a tool, everything had gone against him. Rowan himself lay dead in that windy churchyard, and the words which had been spoken over Rowan's grave were still fresh in his memory. He had lost Lady Olive, of whom, in a way, he had been fond. And at her own bidding he was engaged to this strange, impenetrable girl, a situation which he could not wholly realize, and yet which he felt to be surrounded with danger and humiliation. Then there was this other,--Ruby Sinclair,--who had come to London expecting to find a fortune, and had found nothing but her uncle's dead body. She, too, looked upon him as a hungry schemer, the indirect cause of her uncle's death, a robber, if not a murderer! He looked at the little revolver, opened it carelessly, and laughed as he stared into the empty breech. It was unloaded, a brand-new toy which had never been discharged. He threw it into the opposite seat with a little gesture of contempt. All its tragedy seemed to have pa.s.sed away. She had bought it to frighten him with. There had, after all, been no serious purpose in her mind. She too, perhaps, had hoped to play the part of extortioner.

What was his offence, he asked himself, as his brougham glided along the Embankment. Simply this: there had been a claim presented for his mine, which was, without doubt, a fraud, which few people would ever have believed in, and which, in a court of law, would have stood but little chance of success. What a fool he had been not to defy Sinclair, to go to his directors and tell them the truth, to resist stoutly any claim the man might bring! Since his first compromise with Rowan, everything had gone wrong. It was unworthy for a man in his position to have allowed Rowan even to play the amba.s.sador, apart from anything else. He saw very clearly in those few minutes where the mistake of his life had been. What he could not see was whither he was tending.

Winifred was waiting for him in the hall of the small hotel in Dover Street. For three days, at her own request, he had not seen her.

Nothing, however, had prepared him for the transformation which he now saw. She was faultlessly dressed in a gown of the latest design, and a picture hat which even he recognized as being something quite apart from the usual efforts of even the Bond Street shopkeepers. In every detail she seemed to express the wholly self-satisfied, half-insolent perfection of the woman who knows that she may and does command the best of everything. And with this change in her dress seemed to have come a similar change in her deportment. Her aloofness was still evident enough, but she carried herself with confidence, and with a sort of languid, graceful ease.

"You are nearly ten minutes late," she said quietly. "Where are you taking me to lunch?"

"Wherever you like," he answered. "What about Prince's?"

She took a gold purse and a tiny black spaniel from the neatly dressed maid who stood by her side, and lifting her skirts in her other hand, pa.s.sed through the door which he was holding open. The lace of her petticoat, the slenderness of her arched instep, the delicate narrowness of her patent shoes, were revelations to him. He gave an order to his chauffeur, and sat down by her side.

"You appear," he said, "to possess a gift for a.s.similation!"

"My s.e.x is like that," she said. "I have had a good many years to wait, to store up knowledge in. Besides," she continued, a little mockingly, "you yourself are supposed to be something exceptional in the way of grooming, aren't you? There is no need for other people to find our engagement surprising."

Looking at her critically, "I think," he said, "that there is no fear of that."

"You flatter me," she murmured.

"Not at all," he answered. "People might wonder, perhaps, how it is possible to fall in love with anyone whose expression so much resembles that of those statues in there," pointing to a gallery which they were pa.s.sing. "You have no other fault. There is none, at least, to be found in your appearance. You certainly do look, however, a little inclined to be faultily faultless."

She laughed,--a laugh, however, which brought no color into her cheeks or light into her eyes. "I am a statue," she said, "into which life has not yet been breathed. You see you have been a little remiss up till now. You have never attempted to make love to me!"

"Do you mean to say--" he asked, leaning towards her,--

She gently pushed back his hand, saying: "Please don't be ridiculous. Of course, you must know that overtures of that sort, under the circ.u.mstances, are impossible."

"For always?" he asked.

"Certainly!"

"Perhaps you will draw up a little code of conditions," he remarked. "I feel a little in the dark sometimes as to what is expected of me."

"You will easily pick it up as we go along," she replied. "Is this Prince's? I wonder if I shall succeed in behaving as though I had lunched here every day of my life!"

CHAPTER XIV

AN AFTERNOON'S SHOPPING

Deane found a singular interest, an interest which amounted almost to fascination, in watching the demeanor and general deportment of his companion. Her adaptability was little short of marvellous. She smiled at the right moment at the obsequious _maitre d'hotel_, and exhibited just the proper amount of interest in the luncheon which Deane ordered.

The restaurant was somewhat crowded, but there was no one who attracted more notice than Deane and the girl who sat opposite him,--slim, and elegantly dressed,--looking around her with a certain partly veiled interest, which was all the time in piquant contrast to the languor of her eyes and manner. She was by no means a silent companion, although her conversation consisted for the most part of questions. She had an unerring gift for discovering the most noteworthy of the little crowd by whom they were surrounded, and she was continually asking questions about them, with a persistence which clearly indicated an interest scarcely suggested by her general deportment.

"I wonder," Deane said, toward the end of their meal, "whether social preeminence is amongst your carefully veiled ambitions."

"I am not at all sure," she answered. "Of course, one develops according to circ.u.mstances. In the office of Messrs. Rubicon & Moore I naturally cared nothing for the world which I could only read about in the columns of _Modern Society_. As one comes into touch with things, one appreciates. It is always interesting to know people."

"I am afraid," Deane said, with covert satire, "that my friends are scarcely what you would call fashionable."

"Your friends?" she remarked, looking up at him. "But that doesn't matter, does it? I shall make my own friends later on."

Deane looked across the table. She was patting the head of her little spaniel, and watching, with a self-possession which amounted almost to insolence, the exodus of a party from the neighboring table.

"Young lady," he said, "what sort of a life did you lead before you went to Messrs. Rubicon & Moore's? I always understood that your people were very poor, and only respectably connected."

"You understood the truth," she answered, with composure.

"Will you tell me, then," he asked, "how you learned to wear your clothes?--how you picked up all the little tricks of social life?"

The very faintest of smiles parted her lips, a smile that wrinkled at the corners of her eyes, and suddenly altered her appearance so that Deane was forced to recognize the charm which even to himself he had denied.

"My dear Mr. Deane," she said, "it is the natural heritage of a woman to a.s.similate quickly, especially," she added, after a moment's pause, "amongst surroundings for which she has had a great desire. Many a time when I was typing price-lists in that wretched little office, in a black alpaca gown, with my hat hanging up opposite me,--a black straw with faded flowers, which had cost me three or four shillings, with darned stockings and patched boots,--many a time I have left off typing for a few minutes, and thought and wondered what this must be like. I suppose I have what you would call a natural apt.i.tude for it. It is because I have thought of it, pondered over it, desired it."

Deane looked at her wonderingly. "Well," he said, "let me congratulate you. You play the game to perfection. If I were in a position to make terms--"

"You are not," she interrupted shortly. "Please to pay the bill. I am going to take you shopping."

They left the brougham at the corner of Bond Street. Winifred had signified her desire to walk for a little time. Deane found himself becoming thoroughly interested--not, as he told himself, in his companion herself, but in his study of her. The women they pa.s.sed she subjected, nearly every one of them, to a close and comprehensive scrutiny. At the men she scarcely glanced. She found, perhaps, her greatest interest in the shop windows. She led him across the road to the establishment of a great jeweller.

"You have not given me an engagement ring," she said, a little abruptly.

"We will go in and choose one."

He followed her obediently into the shop, and stood by her side while she described minutely the sort of ring she required. Her manner inspired instant respect. She knew exactly what she wanted, and what she wanted was the rarest and most beautiful stones, set in the newest fashion. She showed very little enthusiasm--hesitated, even--over the ring which was produced at last, after a little hesitation, and shown almost with reverence. It had been made for a queen, but something had gone wrong--a matter of politics--and they had not dared to part with it. Even Deane stared when the man at his elbow whispered the price, but Winifred never moved a muscle.

"I think it will do," she said, turning to him. "It is very nearly what I wanted. And I want a few pins--emeralds and diamonds I prefer."

The shopman was already producing a tray from the window. She spoke of pearls, and examined those that were shown her with the air of a connoisseur.

"I shall want a rope of pearls very soon," she told the man, "but not just yet. Perhaps you will let Mr. Deane know when you have enough of the ones the color and size I like."

"It will give us very great pleasure, madam, to collect them," the man said, bowing.

Deane produced his cheque-book--fortunately, he was well known--and wrote a cheque for over two thousand pounds in exchange for the receipt which the man handed to him. Winifred calmly withdrew her glove and slipped on the ring. The other things she asked them to send. When she left the shop, it seemed to Deane that there was a little more color in her cheeks and a deeper light in her eyes.

"Jewelry interests you?" he remarked, as they stood for a moment on the pavement.

"Yes!" she answered. "Of course it does. Everything of this sort interests me. Haven't I longed all my days to feel the touch of pearls upon my bare neck, to have something like this upon my finger that I could look at and worship, not only for itself but for the things it represents? Come and buy me some flowers. My sitting-room is a wilderness. Afterwards, I am going into the milliner's beyond."