The Paliser case Part 33

Jones, vacating the table, advanced to greet her. Perched on his shoulder, was a cat that peered at her. It had long hair, the colour of smoke; a bushy tail; the eyes of an angel and a ferocious moustache.

Although Ca.s.sy had other matters in hand, she exclaimed at it. "What a duck!"

Jones, who saw, and at once, that she had not come to ask the time of day, exclaimed also: "Yes, but ducky is as ducky does. That cat talks in her sleep."

But now Lennox, advancing too, had taken her hand.

Withdrawing it, she put the bundle on the table, on which were papers, and, noticeably, a dagger, brilliant, wicked, thin as a shadow. On the blade was a promise--Penetrabo.

She looked up. Jones and the cat had gone. She looked at Lennox. "I don't know where to begin."

Lennox could not tell her. On learning that she wanted to see him, he had supposed it was about her father and he had said as much to Jones.

But in greeting her, the novelist knew from her vibrations that whatever her object might be, at least it was not ordinary. Then, taking the cat, he had gone.

Now, though, Ca.s.sy was at it. "The day you loaned me a hundred, you remember? As I went out I had the money in my hand. In the hall was Miss Austen. You had just shown me her picture. I recognised her at once.

With her was a woman, thin-faced, thin-lipped, thin-minded. She saw me, saw the money, gave me a look. I did not forget it. But it is only to-day that I learned what it meant. It meant that I am no better than I ought to be--or you either."

Lennox had one hand on the table. He raised the other. "Who told you this?"

"Paliser. He said it was the reason your engagement was broken."

In the palm of the upraised hand, the fingers moved forward and back, regularly, methodically, mechanically. Lennox was unaware of it. He was unaware of anything except the monstrous perversity of the tale.

"I came directly from him to your rooms. Your man said you were going away. Thank goodness, I am not too late."

Ca.s.sy had seated herself, but now, reaching for the bundle, she stood up. Across the street, in the house opposite, a boy was lowering a shade. It seemed to Ca.s.sy that she had raised one. But there are explanations that explain nothing. To Lennox there was a shade suspended before Margaret, who had judged him unheard. It obscured her. He could not see her at all.

Over the way, the boy lowered a second shade and Ca.s.sy, as though prompted by it, raised another. "Paliser said you admitted it."

From the obscurity Lennox turned, but it was still about him. "Admitted what?"

Ca.s.sy reddened. "What I told you."

With the movement of the head that a bull has when he is going for you, Lennox bent his own. The movement, which was involuntary, was momentary.

The shade had lifted. He saw Margaret, but behind her he saw others holding her back, telling her he was not fit to be spoken to. He was going for them. Meanwhile he had forgotten Ca.s.sy. He looked up, saw her, remembered the part attributed to her in the story and struck the table.

"It is d.a.m.nable that such a thing should be said of you."

"Oh," Ca.s.sy put in. "It was not at all on my account that I told you.

I----" She stopped short. The promised horsewhipping occurred to her.

Lennox took up the knife, gave it a turn, shoved it away. It was very much as though he had twisted it in somebody's gizzards. The idea had come to him that Paliser had concocted the admission. But, as he was unable to conceive what his object could be, he dismissed it. None the less, for what the man had said, he deserved to be booted down the club steps.

Ca.s.sy had stopped short. The story behind the story did not concern Lennox, yet as he might wonder how Paliser had ventured with her on such a subject, she began at it again.

"We were married recently, or anyway I thought so. To-day I discovered that the ceremony was bogus. Then I told him a thing or two and he told me that."

Lennox stared. Angry already, angry ever since the rupture, angry with that intensity of anger which only those who love--or who think they do--and who are thwarted in it ever know, and all the angrier because he had no one and could have no one to vent it on, until he got to the front and got at the Huns, at that last fillip from Ca.s.sy he saw some one on whom he could vent it, and yet to whom none the less he felt strangely grateful. For, whatever Paliser had done or omitted, at any rate, he had completely clarified the situation.

"I must run," said Ca.s.sy. "But you can tell Miss Austen, can't you?"

Lennox, controlling himself, motioned. "Would you mind repeating this to Jones?"

Ca.s.sy's eyebrows arched themselves. "It was hard enough to tell you.

Were it not for your engagement, I wouldn't have said anything. When dreadful things happen to a girl, people always think that she must be dreadful herself. Isn't that nice of them? I----"

"See here," Lennox interrupted, "you can't leave it like this. Something has got to be done. I can give Paliser a hiding and I will. But that isn't enough. I don't know whether a criminal action will lie, but I do know that you can get damages and heavy ones."

Ca.s.sy's lovely eyes searched the room. "Who was that speaking? It wasn't you, was it?"

Lennox, recognising the rebuke, acknowledged it. "Forgive me. I forgot whom I was addressing. Jones will be less stupid. Let us have him in."

But when Jones, immediately requisitioned, appeared, Ca.s.sy again putting down her bundle, protested. "Mr. Lennox regards me as an Ariadne and expects me to act like a young lady in a department-store. Either role is too up-stage."

Jones, taken with her mobile mouth, her lovely eyes, the oval of her handsome face, said lightly: "It seems to me that you might a.s.sume any part."

Lennox struck out. "Paliser hocuspocused her with a fake marriage.

He----"

"Oh," Ca.s.sy gently put in, "I have no one to blame but myself. I ought to have known better."

Jones nodded. "Probably you did know. The misadventure is rare of which we are not warned in advance. We cannot see the future but the future sees us. It sends us messages which we call premonitions."

Instantly Ca.s.sy was back in the Tamburini's room, where she had seen both beauty and horror. She had not reached the latter yet and the sudden vision Lennox dissipated.

"Stuff and nonsense! Haven't you anything else to say?"

Amiably Jones turned to him. "I can say that no one is wise on an empty stomach." He turned to Ca.s.sy. "The Splendor is not far. Will you dine with us, Mrs. Paliser?"

Violently Lennox repeated it; "Mrs. Paliser! Miss Cara is no more Mrs.

Paliser than you are."

"To err is highly literary," Jones with great meekness replied. "I hear that it is even human."

Ca.s.sy reached again for the bundle. "It is only natural. If I had been told in advance, I could not have believed it. I could not have believed that mock marriages occur anywhere except in cheap fiction. But we live and unlearn. Now I must run."

Lennox took her hand. "I owe you a debt. Count on me."

He spoke gravely and the gravity of it, the force that he exhaled, comforted Ca.s.sy's bruised little heart and the comfort, the first that she had had, made her lip twitch. None of that, though! Reacting she rallied and smiled.

"Good-bye--and good luck!"

Jones saw her to the door, followed her out, followed her down to the street, where for a moment he detained her.

"Just a word, if you don't mind. You have been abominably treated and you seek no revenge. That is very fine. You have been abominably treated and you bear no malice. That is superior. You have been abominably treated and you accept it with a smile. That is alchemy. It is only a n.o.ble nature that can extract the beautiful from the base. Where do you live?"

At the change of key Ca.s.sy laughed but she told him. "Good-bye," she added. "My love to your cat."

She pa.s.sed on into the sunset. The bundle seemed heavy now, but her heart was lighter. She had got it off, Lennox knew, presently a young woman would be informed and though she could not be expected to dance at the wedding, yet, after all----