The Missioner Part 31

"I have no relatives," he answered. "I was born in Australia. I am an orphan, twenty-eight years old, and feel forty-eight, no profession, no settled purpose in life. I am j.a.phet in search of a career."

She glanced at his shabby clothes. He had been to a mission-house in the East End.

"You are poor?" she asked softly.

"I have enough, more than enough," he answered, "to live on."

Her eyes lingered upon his clothes, but he offered no explanation.

Enough to live on, she reflected, might mean anything!

"You say that you have no profession," she remarked. "I suppose you would call it a vocation. But why did you want to come and preach to my villagers at Thorpe? Why didn't you go into the Church if you cared for that sort of thing?"

"There was a certain amount of dogma in the way," he answered. "I should make but a poor Churchman. They would probably call me a free-thinker.

Besides, I wanted my independence."

She nodded.

"I am beginning to understand a little better," she said. "Now you must tell me this. Why did you entertain the idea of mission work in a place like Thorpe, when the whole of that awful East End was there waiting for you?"

"All the world of reformers," he answered, "rushes to the East End. We fancied there was as important work to be done in less obvious places."

"And you started your work," she asked, "directly you left college?"

"Before, I think," he answered. "You see, I wasn't alone. There were several of us who felt the same way--Holderness, for instance, the man who came to your house with me the other night. He works altogether upon the political side. He's a Socialist--of a sort. Two of the others went into the Church, one became a medical missionary. I joined in with a few who thought that we might do more effective work without tying ourselves down to anything, or subscribing to any religious denomination."

She looked at him curiously. He was tall, broad-shouldered and muscular.

He wore even his shabby clothes with an air of distinction.

"I suppose," she said calmly, "that I must belong to a very different world. But what I cannot understand is why you should choose a career which you intend to pursue apparently for the benefit of other people.

All the young men whom I have known who have taken life seriously enough to embrace a career at all, have at least studied their individual tastes."

"Well," he answered, smiling, "it isn't that I fancy myself any better than my fellows. I was at Magdalen, you know, under Heysey. I think that it was his influence which shaped our ideas."

"Yes! I have heard of him," she said thoughtfully. "He was a good man.

At least every one says so. I'm afraid I don't know much about good men myself. Most of those whom I have met have been the other sort."

The faint bitterness of her tone troubled him. There was deliberation, too, in her words. Instinctively he knew that this was no idle speech.

"You have asked me," he reminded her, "a good many questions. I wonder if I might be permitted to ask you one?"

"Why not? I can reserve the privilege of not answering it," she remarked.

"People call you a fortunate woman," he said. "You are very rich, you have a splendid home, the choice of your own friends, a certain reputation--forgive me if I quote from a society paper--as a brilliant and popular woman of the world. Yours is rather a unique position, isn't it? I wonder," he added, "whether you are satisfied with what you get out of life!"

"I get all that there is to be got," she answered, a slight hardness creeping into her tone. "It mayn't be much, but it amuses me--sometimes."

He shook his head.

"There is more to be got out of life," he said, "than a little amus.e.m.e.nt."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"How about yourself? You haven't exactly the appearance of a perfectly contented being."

"I'm hideously dissatisfied," he admitted promptly. "Something seems to have gone wrong with me--I seem to have become a looker-on at life. I want to take a hand, and I can't. There doesn't seem to be any place for me. Of course, it's only a phase," he continued. "I shall settle down into something presently. But it's rather beastly while it lasts."

She looked at him, her eyes soft with laughter. Somehow his confession seemed to have delighted her.

"I'm glad you are human enough to have phases," she declared. "I was beginning to be afraid that you might turn out to be just an ordinary superior person. Perhaps you are also human enough to drink tea and eat m.u.f.fins. Try, won't you?"

They were in front of her door, which flew immediately open. She either took his consent for granted, or chose not to risk his refusal, for she went on ahead, and his faint protests were unheard. His hat and stick pa.s.sed into the care of an elderly person in plain black clothes; with scarcely an effort at resistance, he found himself following her down the hall. She stopped before a small wrought-iron gate, which a footman at once threw open.

"It makes one feel as though one were in a hotel, doesn't it?" she remarked, "but I hate stairs. Besides, I am going to take you a long, long way up.... I am not at home this afternoon, Groves."

"Very good, madam," the man answered.

They stepped out into a smaller hall. A dark-featured young woman came hurrying forward to meet them.

"I shall not need you, Annette," Wilhelmina said. "Go down and see that they send up tea for two, and telephone to Lady Margaret--say I'm sorry that I cannot call for her this afternoon."

"Parfaitement, madame," the girl murmured, and hurried away. Wilhelmina opened the door of a sitting-room--the most wonderful apartment Macheson had ever seen. A sudden nervousness seized him. He felt his knees shaking, his heart began to thump, his brain to swim. All at once he realized where he was! It was not the lady of Thorpe, this! It was the woman who had come to him with the storm, the woman who had set burning the flame which had driven him into a new world. He looked around half wildly! He felt suddenly like a trapped animal. It was no place for him, this bower of roses and cushions, and all the voluptuous appurtenances of a chamber subtly and irresistibly feminine! He was bereft of words, awkward, embarra.s.sed. He longed pa.s.sionately to escape.

Wilhelmina closed the door and raised her veil. She laid her two hands upon his shoulders, and looked up at him with a faint but very tender smile. Her forehead was slightly wrinkled, her fingers seemed to cling to him, so that her very touch was like a caress! His heart began to beat madly. The perfume of her clothes, her hair, the violets at her bosom, were like a new and delicious form of intoxication. The touch of her fingers became more insistent. She was drawing his face down to hers.

"I wonder," she murmured, "whether you remember!"

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

RATHER A GHASTLY PART

Mademoiselle Rosine raised her gla.s.s. Her big black eyes flashed unutterable things across the pink roses.

"I think," she said, "that we drink the good health of our host, Meester Macheson, Meester Victor, is it not?"

"Bravo!" declared a pallid-looking youth, her neighbour at the round supper table. "By Jove, if we were at the _Cote d'Or_ instead of the _Warwick_, we'd give him musical honours."

"I drink," Macheson declared, "to all of us who know how to live! Jules, another magnum, and look sharp."

"Certainly, sir," the man answered.

There flashed a quick look of intelligence between the waiter and a maitre d'hotel who was lingering near. The latter hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. It was a noisy party and none too reputable, but a magnum of champagne was an order. They were likely to make more noise still if they didn't get it. So the wine was brought, and more toasts were drunk. Mademoiselle Rosine's eyes flashed softer things than ever across the table, but she had the disadvantage of distance.

Ella Merriam, the latest American importation, held the place of honour next Macheson, and she was now endeavouring to possess herself of his hand under the table.