The Philanderers Part 29

'Yes.' He remained by the door with his hand on the k.n.o.b.

'And you guessed who wrote it?'

'I have been told.' He answered her coldly and quietly.

'I know what you think,' she replied. 'But it's not true. I never told him the story. He knew it long ago--before you went back to Matanga--before I married him.' Her voice took a pleading tone. 'You will believe that, won't you?'

'It never occurred to me that you had told him. I know, in fact, who did.

But even if you had--well, you had the right to tell him.' Clarice gave a stamp of impatience. 'He is your husband.'

'My husband!' she interrupted, and she tore the newspaper across and dropped it on to the floor. 'My husband! Ah, I wouldn't have believed that even he could have done a thing so mean. And, to add to the meanness of it, he went away yesterday, for a week. I know why, now; he dared not face me.' Then of a sudden her voice softened. 'But it's my fault too, in a way,' she went on. 'He knew the story a long time ago, and never used it. I don't suppose he would have used it now, if I hadn't--since your election--let him see--' She broke off the sentence, and took a step nearer to Drake. 'Stephen, I meant to let him see.'

Drake drew himself up against the door. It would be no longer of any service to her, he thought, if he left England and returned to Matanga.

Something more trenchant was needed.

He reflected again that he filled no place which another could not fill, and the reflection took a wider meaning than it had done before. 'Yes,'

he said; 'it's very awkward that it should all come out just now.'

Clarice stared at him in perplexity. 'Awkward that it should all come out,' she repeated vaguely; and then, with an accent of relief, 'You mean that it will injure the Company?'

'Not so much that. The Company can run without me--quite well now--I am certain of it.' He spoke as though he was endeavouring to a.s.sure himself of what he said.

'But it won't hurt you, really,' she exclaimed. 'You can disprove the charges, and of course you must, I know you hesitate--for my sake--to bring an action and expose the writer. But you must, and I don't think,'

she lowered her eyes to the ground, 'you would hurt me by doing that.'

For a moment she was silent. Drake made no answer, and she raised her eyes again to his face. 'You can disprove it--oh, of course,' she said, with a little anxious laugh.

'That depends,' he answered slowly, 'upon how much the _Meteor_ knows.'

Clarice drew back and caught at the table to steady herself. Once or twice she pressed her hand across her forehead. 'Oh, don't stand like that,' she burst out, 'as if it was all true.'

'But they can't prove it's true,' exclaimed Drake, with a trace of cunning in his voice. 'No; they can't prove it's true.'

'But is it?' Clarice stood in front of him, her hands clenched. Drake dropped his eyes from her face, raised them again, and again lowered them. 'Is it?' she repeated, and her voice rose to the tone of a demand.

'Yes,' and he answered her in a whisper.

Clarice recoiled from him with a cry of disgust. She noticed that he drew a long breath--of relief, it seemed--like the criminal when his crime is at last brought home to him. 'Then all that story,' she began, 'you told me at Beaufort Gardens about--about Boruwimi was just meant to deceive me. You talked about duty! Duty compelled you! You would have hanged Gorley just the same had you known that he had been engaged to me.' She began to laugh hysterically. 'It was all duty,--duty from beginning to end, and I believed you. Heaven help me, I came to honour you for it. And in reality it was a lie!' She lashed the words at him, but he stood patiently, and made no rejoinder. 'I always wondered why you told me the story,' she continued. 'You felt that I had a right to know, I remember.

And you felt bound to tell me. It's clear enough now why you felt bound.

You had found out, I suppose, that my husband knew--' She stopped suddenly, as though some new thought had flashed into her mind. 'And I came here to give up everything--just for your sake. Oh, suppose that I hadn't found you out!'

She stooped and picked up from the floor the torn pages of the _Meteor_.

She folded them carefully and then moved towards the door. Drake opened it and stood aside.

Clarice went out, called a hansom and drove home. When she arrived there she ordered tea to be brought to the drawing-room and sat down and again read the article in the _Meteor_. When the tea was brought, she ordered it to be taken into Sidney's study. She walked restlessly about that room, as though she was trying to habituate herself to it. A green shade lay upon the writing-table, which her husband was accustomed to wear over his eyes. She took it up, looked at it for a little, and then threw it down again with an air of weariness and distaste. A few minutes later Percy Conway called and was admitted.

CHAPTER XVII

Fielding opened his newspaper the next morning with unusual eagerness, and, turning to the Parliamentary reports, glanced down column after column in search of Drake's speech. The absence of it threw him into some consternation. He tossed the newspaper on to the breakfast-table and rose from his seat. As he moved, however, he caught sight of Drake's name at the beginning of a leader, and he read the leader through. It dealt with the accusation of the _Meteor_, and expressed considerable surprise that Drake had not seized the opportunity of denying it in the House of Commons. It was mentioned that Drake had not been seen there at any time during the course of the evening.

Fielding jumped to the conclusion that he had met with an accident, and set out for his chambers on the instant. He found Drake quietly eating his breakfast. Only half the table, however, was laid for the meal; the other half was littered with papers and correspondence, while a pile of stamped letters stood on one corner. 'I was expecting you,' said Drake quietly.

'Why, what on earth has happened?' asked Fielding. 'Why didn't you speak last night?'

'I thought it would be the wisest plan to leave the matter alone.'

'But you can't,' exclaimed Fielding. 'Read this!' and he handed to him the newspaper. 'You can't leave it alone.'

'I can, and shall,' replied Drake, and he returned to his breakfast.

'But, my dear fellow, you can't understand what that means! Read the leader, then.' Drake glanced quickly down it. 'Now, do you understand? It means utter ruin, utter disgrace, unless you answer this charge, and answer it at once. You will have created a false enough impression already.' Drake, however, made no response beyond a shrug of his shoulders. 'But, good Lord, man,' continued Fielding, 'your name's at stake. You can't sit quiet as if this was an irresponsible piece of paragraph-writing. You would have to resign your seat in Parliament, your connection with the Matanga Company--everything. You couldn't possibly live in England.'

'Do you think I haven't counted up precisely what inaction is going to cost me?' interrupted Drake. 'Look here!' and he took a couple of letters from the pile and handed them to Fielding. One was addressed to the whip of his party, and the other to the directors of the Matanga Concessions.

'And I leave Charing Cross at ten o'clock this morning.'

Fielding looked at his watch; it was half-past nine. 'Then you mean to run away?' he gasped. 'But, in Heaven's name, why?'

'For an obvious reason. Yesterday I believed that I could meet the charge. But something has happened since then, and I know now that I can't.'

Fielding started back. 'Do you mean to tell me, as man to man, that the accusation's true.'

'As man to man,' repeated Drake steadily, 'I tell you that it is true.'

Fielding stared at him for a minute. Then he said, 'Drake, you're a d.a.m.ned liar.'

'We haven't much time,' said Drake, 'and I would like to say something to you about the future of the Matanga settlement. You will take my place, I suppose. You can, and ought to'; and he entered at once into details on administration.

The advice, however, was lost upon Fielding. Once he interrupted Drake.

'How many white men were with you on the Boruwimi expedition?' he asked.

'Four,' answered Drake, and he gave the names. 'They are dead, though.

Two died of fever on the way back; one was killed in a subsequent expedition, and the fourth was drowned about eighteen months ago off Walfisch Bay.' A noise of portmanteaux being dragged along the pa.s.sage penetrated through the closed door. Drake looked at his watch, and started to his feet. 'I must be off,' he said; 'I am late as it is. You might do something for me, and that is to post these letters.'

'But, man, you are not really going?'

Drake for answer put on his hat and took up his stick. 'Good-bye,' he said.

'But, look here! Do you ask me to believe that you would have been giving me all this advice, if you had really done what that infernal paper makes you out to have done?'

'I'll give you a final piece of advice too. Give up philandering and get married!'

With that he opened the door and went out, and a few seconds later Fielding heard the sound of his cab-wheels rattle on the pavement.

Drake, on reaching Charing Cross, found that he had more time to spare than he had reckoned. He was walking slowly along the train in search of an empty compartment when, from a window a few paces ahead of him, a face flashed out, and as suddenly withdrew. The face was Conway's, and Drake felt that the sudden withdrawal meant a distinct desire to avoid recognition. He set the desire down to the unrepulsed attack of the _Meteor_, and since he had no inclination to force his company upon Conway, he turned on his heel and moved towards the other end of the train. He was just opposite the archway of the booking-office when a woman, heavily veiled and of a slight figure, came out of it. At the sight of Drake she came to a dead stop, and so attracted his attention.

Then she quickly turned her back to him, walked to the bookstall, and slipped round the side of it into the waiting-room. Drake wheeled about again. Conway's head was stretched out of the window; and he was gazing towards the bookstall.