The Moving Finger Part 44

"I must do without him," Saton answered.

Pauline looked at him critically, dispa.s.sionately.

"I do not believe that you can do without him," she said. "You are losing your hold upon your work. I have noticed it for weeks. Don't you think that you are frittering away a great deal of your time and thoughts? Don't you think that the very small things of life, things that are not worth counting, have absorbed a good deal of your attention lately?"

He was annoyed, and yet flattered that she should speak to him so intimately.

"It may be so," he admitted. "And yet, do you know why I have chosen to mix a little more with my fellows?"

"No!" she answered. "I do not know why."

"It is because I must," he said, lowering his tone. "It is because I must see something of you."

The lace of her parasol drooped a little. Her face was hidden now, and her voice seemed to come from a long way off.

"That is very foolish," she said. "In the first place, if my opinion of you is worth anything, I tell you frankly that I would rather see you with ink-stained fingers and worn clothes, climbing your way up toward the truth, working and thinking in an atmosphere which was not befouled with all the small and petty things of life. It seems to me that since it amused you to play the young man of fashion, you have lost your touch--some portion of it, at any rate--upon the greater things."

Saton was very angry now. He was only indifferently successful in his attempt to conceal the fact.

"You, too," he muttered. "Well, we shall see. Naudheim has brains, and he has worked for many years. He had worked, indeed, for many years when the glimmerings of this thing first came to me. He could help me if he would, but if he will not, I can do it alone."

"I wonder."

"You do not believe in me," he declared.

"No," she answered, "I do not believe in you--not altogether!"

Rochester and his wife drove down the Park. Saton followed her eyes, noticing her slight start, and gazed after them with brooding face.

"Rochester is becoming quite a devoted husband," he remarked, with a sneer.

"Quite," she answered. "They spend most of their time together now."

"And Lady Mary, I understand," he went on, "has reformed. Yesterday she was opening the new wing of a hospital, and the day before she was speaking at a Girls' Friendly Society meeting. It's an odd little place, the world, or rather this one particular corner of it."

She rose, with a little shrug of the shoulders, and held out her hand.

"I must go," she said. "I am lunching early."

"May I walk a little way with you?" he begged.

She hesitated. After all, perhaps, it was a phase of sn.o.bbery to dislike being seen with him--something of that same feeling which she had never failed to remark in him.

"If you please," she answered. "I am going to take a taximeter at the Park gates."

"I will walk with you as far as there," he said.

He tried to talk to her on ordinary topics, but he felt at once a disadvantage. He knew so little of the people, the little round of life in which she lived. Before they reached the gates they had relapsed into silence.

"It is foolish of me," he said, as he called a taximeter, "to come here simply in the hope of seeing you, to beg for a few words, and to go away more miserable than ever."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"It is certainly very foolish," she admitted.

"I don't see why," he protested, "you should disapprove of me so utterly."

"I do not disapprove," she told him. "I have not the right. I have not the desire to have the right. Only, since you will have me tell you, I am interested in your work. I like to talk about it, to hear you talk when you are enthusiastic. It does not amuse me to see you come down to the level of these others, who while their morning away doing nothing. You are not at home amongst them. You have no place there.

When you come to me as a young man in Society, you bore me."

She stepped into the taximeter and drove away, with a farewell nod, abrupt although not altogether unkindly. Yet as she looked behind, a few seconds later, her face was very much softer--her eyes were almost regretful.

"It may hurt him," she said to herself, "but it is very good that he should hear the truth."

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

A WOMAN'S TONGUE

The man was harmless enough, to all appearance--something less than middle-aged, pale, and with stubbly brown moustache. He was dressed in blue serge clothes, and a bowler hat a little ancient at the brim.

Neither his appearance nor his manner was remarkable for any particular intelligence. Yet the girl who looked him over was at once suspicious.

"What can I do for you?" she asked a little curtly.

He pointed to the crystal upon the table, and held out his hand.

"I want my fortune told," he said.

Violet shook her head.

"I do not attempt to read fortunes," she said, "and I do not, in any case, see gentlemen here at all. I do not understand how the boy could have shown you up."

"It wasn't the boy's fault," the visitor answered. "I was very keen on coming, and I gave him the slip. Do make an exception for once, won't you?" he went on. "I know my hand is very easy to read. I had it read once, and nearly everything came true."

Again she shook her head.

"I cannot do anything for you, sir," she said.

The man protested.

"But you call yourself a professional palmist," he said, "and you add crystal gazing to your announcement. I have seen it being carried along on Regent Street."

"It is quite true," Violet said, "that I sometimes try to amuse ladies, but I make no serious attempt to tell fortunes. And as I said before, I do not even receive gentlemen here at all. I am sorry that you have had your visit for nothing."

He rose to his feet with a shrug of the shoulders. There was nothing to be done but to accept defeat. And then, at the moment of defeat, something happened which more than reconciled him to his wasted visit.

The door was opened abruptly, and Saton entered.