The Moving Finger Part 20

"Life is short," he said, "and the task is great."

"Too great for cowards," she answered. "Yet look at me. Do I despair?

I am seventy-one years old. I have no fear of death. I have learnt enough at least to help me into the grave. That will do, Bertrand. Go on with your breakfast, and burn that letter."

He tore it in half, and went to the sideboard to help himself from one of the dishes. When he returned, Madame was drumming thoughtfully upon the tablecloth with her long fingers.

"Bertrand," she said.

He looked toward her curiously. There was a new note, a new expression in the way she had p.r.o.nounced his name.

"The girl, the little fair fool of a girl with money--Lois Champneyes you called her--where is she?"

"She is in London," he answered.

"With the Rochesters?"

"Yes!"

Rachael frowned.

"You find it difficult to see her, then?" she remarked, thoughtfully.

"I can see her whenever I choose to," he answered.

"You must marry her," Rachael said. "The girl will serve your purpose as well as another. She is rich, and she is a fool."

"She is not of age," Saton said drily, "and Mr. Rochester is her guardian."

"She will be of age very soon," Rachael answered, "and the money is sure."

"Do we need it?" he asked, a little impatiently. "We are making now far more than we can spend."

"We need money all the time," she answered. "At present, things prosper. Yet a change might come--a change in the laws, a campaign in the press--anything. Even the truth might leak out."

Saton rose from his place, and going once more to the sideboard, took up and lit a long Russian cigarette. He returned with the box, and laid it before Rachael.

"If the truth should leak out," he said, "that would be the end of us in this country. We have had one escape. I do not mean to find myself in the prisoner's dock a second time."

"There is no fear of that," she answered. "The whole business is so arranged that neither you nor I would be connected with it. Besides, we have rearranged things. We are within the pale of the law now. To return to what I was saying about this girl."

"There is no hurry," he said. "Marriage does not interest me."

"Marriage for its own sake, perhaps, no," she answered, "and yet money you must have. No man has ever succeeded in any great work without it.

If a pauper proclaims a theory, he is laughed to scorn. He is called a charlatan and an impostor. If a rich man speaks of the same thing, his words are listened to as one who stirs the world. There is a change in you, Bertrand," she continued. "You have avoided this girl lately. You have avoided, even, your work. What is it?"

"Who knows?" he answered, lightly. "The weather, perhaps--the moon--one's humor. I will walk this morning in Kensington Gardens.

Perhaps I shall see Lois."

He left the house half-an-hour later, after dictating some letters to a newly installed secretary. He accepted a carefully brushed hat from a well-trained and perfectly respectful servant, who placed also in his hands his stick and gloves. He descended a few immaculate steps and turned westward, frowning thoughtfully. The matter with him! He knew well enough. He had taken his fate into his hands, played his cards boldly enough, but Fate was beginning to get her own back.

He turned not toward Kensington Gardens, but towards Cadogan Street.

He rang the bell at one of the most pretentious houses, and asked for Lady Marrabel. The butler was doubtful whether she would be inclined to receive anyone at that hour. He was shown into a morning-room and kept waiting for some time. Then she came in, serene as usual, with a faint note of inquiry in her upraised eyebrows and the tone of her voice as she welcomed him.

"I must apologize," he began, a little nervously. "I have no right to come at such an hour. I heard this morning that Max Naudheim will be in London before the end of the week, and I wondered whether you would care to meet him."

"Of course I should," she answered, "only I hope that he is more comprehensible than his book."

"I have never met him myself," Saton answered, "but I know that he has a letter to me. He will come to my house, I believe, and if he follows out his usual custom, he will scarcely leave it while he stays in England. I shall ask a few people to talk one night. I cannot attempt anything conventional. It does not seem to me to be an occasion for anything of the sort. If you will come, I will let you know the night and the time."

She hesitated for a moment.

"And if you should come," he continued, "even though it be the evening, please wear an old dress and hat. Naudheim himself seldom appears in a collar. Any social gathering of any sort is loathsome to him. He will talk only amongst those whom he believes are his friends."

"I will come, of course," Pauline answered. "It is good of you to think of me."

"He may speak to you," Saton continued. "He takes curious fancies sometimes to address a perfect stranger, and talk to them intimately.

Remember that though he lives in Switzerland, and has a German name, he is really an Englishman. Nothing annoys him more than to be spoken to in any other language."

"I will remember," Pauline said.

There was a moment's silence. Saton felt that he was expected to go.

Yet there was something in her manner which he could not altogether understand, some nervousness, which seemed absolutely foreign to her usual demeanour. He took up his hat reluctantly.

"You are busy to-day?" he asked.

"I am always busy," she answered. "Perhaps it is because I am so lazy.

I never do anything, so there is always so much to do."

He made the plunge, speaking without any of his usual confidence--hurriedly, almost indistinctly.

"Won't you come and have some luncheon with me at the Berkeley, or anywhere you please? I feel like talking to-day. I feel that I am a little nearer the first law. I want to speak of it to someone."

She hesitated, and he saw her fingers twitch.

"Thank you," she said, "I am afraid I can't. If you like, you can come and have luncheon here. I have one or two people coming in."

"Thank you," he said. "I shall be glad to come. About half-past one, I suppose?"

"From that to two," she answered. "My friends drop in at any time."

He pa.s.sed out into the street, not altogether satisfied with his visit, and yet not dissatisfied. He had an instinctive feeling that in some degree her demeanour towards him was changed. What it meant he could not wholly tell. She no longer met his eyes with that look of careless, slightly contemptuous interest. Yet when he tried to find encouragement from the fact, he felt that he lacked all his usual confidence. He realized with a little impulse of annoyance that in the presence of this woman, whom he was more anxious to impress than anyone else in the world, he was subject to sudden lapses of self-confidence, to a certain self-depreciation, which irritated him.

Was it, he wondered, because he was always fancying that she looked at him out of Rochester's eyes?

A cab drove past him, and stopped before the house which he had just left. He looked behind, with a sudden feeling of almost pa.s.sionate jealousy. It was Rochester, who had driven by him unseen, and who was now mounting the steps to her house.

CHAPTER XV