The Second Latchkey Part 10

Afterward there came a time when Annesley called back those words and wondered if they had held a deeper meaning than she guessed. But, having uttered them, he seemed to put the thought out of his mind, and turn to the next.

"About the Savoy," he went on. "I want to take you there, because I know a woman staying in the hotel--a woman old enough to be your mother--who'll look after you, to please me, till we're married.

Afterward you'll be nice to her, and that will be doing her a good turn, because she's apt to be lonesome in London. She's the widow of a Spanish Count, and has lived in the Argentine, but I met her in New York. She knows all about me--or enough--and if she'd been in the restaurant at dinner this evening she could have done for me what you did. I had reason to think she would be there when I bolted in to get out of a fix. But she was missing. Are you sorry?"

"If she'd been there, you would have gone to her table and sat down, and we--should never have met!" Annesley thought aloud. "How strange! Just that _little_ thing--your friend being out to dinner--and our whole lives are to be changed. Oh, _you_ must be sorry?"

"I tell you, meeting you and winning you in this way is worth the best ten years of my life. But you haven't answered my question."

"I'll answer it now!" cried the girl. "Meeting you is worth _all_ the years of my life! I'm not much of a princess, but you _are_ St. George."

"St. George!" he echoed, a ring of bitterness under his laugh. "That's the first time I've been called a saint, and I'm afraid it will be the last. I can't live up to that, but--if I can give you a happy life, and a few of the beautiful things you deserve, why, it's _something_!

Besides, I'm going to worship my princess. I'd give anything to show you how I--but no. I was good before, when I was tempted to kiss you. You're at my mercy now, in a way, all the more because I'm taking you from your old existence to one you don't know.

"I sha'n't ask to kiss you--except maybe your little hand if you don't mind--until the moment you're my wife. Meantime, I'll try to grow a bit more like what your lover ought to be; and later I shall kiss you enough to make up for lost time."

If, five hours ago, any one had told Annesley Grayle that she would wish to have a strange man take her in his arms and kiss her she would have felt insulted. Yet so it was. She was sorry that he was so scrupulous.

She longed to have him hold her against his heart.

The thought thrilled her like an electric shock a thousand times more powerful than the tingling which had flashed up her arm at the first touch of his hand, though even that had seemed terrifying then. But she sat still in her corner of the taxi, and gave him no answer, lest she should betray herself.

Her silence, after the warmth of his words, seemed cold. Perhaps he felt it so, for he went on after an instant's pause, as if he had waited for something in vain, and his tone was changed. Annesley thought it, by contrast, almost businesslike.

"You mustn't be afraid," he said, "that I mean to stay at the Savoy myself. Even if I'd been stopping there, I should move if I were going to put you in the hotel. But I have my own lair in London. I've been over here a number of times. Indeed, I'm partly English, born in Canada, though I've spent most of my life in the United States. n.o.body at the Savoy but the Countess de Santiago knows who I am, and she'll understand that it may be convenient for me to change my name. Nelson Smith is a respectable one, and she'll respect it!

"Now, my plan is to ask for her (she'll be in by this time), have a few words of explanation on the quiet, not to embarra.s.s you; and the Countess will do the rest. She'll engage a room for you next to her own suite, or as near as possible; then you'll be provided with a chaperon."

"I'm not anxious about myself, but about you," Annesley said. "You haven't told me yet what happened after you went upstairs at Mrs.

Ellsworth's, and how you knew those men were gone. I suppose you did know? Or--did you chance it?"

"I was as sure as I needed to be," Nelson Smith answered. "A moment after I switched on the electricity in the room up there I heard a taxi drive away. I turned off the light so I could look out. By flattening my nose against the gla.s.s I could see that the place where those chaps had waited was empty; but in case the taxi was only turning, and meant to pa.s.s the house again, I lit the room once more, for realism.

"That's what kept me rather long--that, and waiting for the dragon to go.

Otherwise I should have been down before Ruthven Smith trapped me.

"For a second it looked as if the game of life was up. And then I found out how much you meant to me. It was _you_ I thought of. It seemed beastly hard luck to leave you fast in that old woman's clutches!"

Annesley put out her hand with a warm impulse. He took it, raising it to his lips, and both were startled when the taxi stopped. They had arrived at the Savoy: and though Annesley seemed to have lived through a lifetime of emotion, just one hour and thirty minutes had pa.s.sed since she and her companion drove away from these bright revolving doors.

The foyer was as brilliant and crowded as when they left at half-past ten. People were parting after supper; or they were lingering in the restaurant beyond. n.o.body paid the slightest attention to the newcomers, and Annesley settled down un.o.btrusively in a corner, while her companion went to scribble a line to the Countess de Santiago.

When he had finished, and sent up the letter, he did not return, and again the girl had a few moments of suspense, thinking of the danger which might not, after all, be over. Just as she had begun to be anxious, however, she saw him coming with a wonderful woman.

Annesley could have laughed, remembering how he had said the Countess would "mother" her. Any one less motherly than this Juno-like beauty in flame-coloured chiffon over gold tissue it would be hard to imagine.

The Spanish South American Countess was of a camelia paleness, and had almond-shaped dark eyes with brooding lashes under slender brows that met. In contrast, her hair was of a flame colour vivid as her draperies, and her lips were red.

At first glance Annesley thought that the dazzling creature could not be more than thirty; but when the vision had come near enough to offer her hand, without waiting for an introduction, a hardness about the handsome face, a few lines about the eyes and mouth, and a fullness of the chin showed that she was older--forty, perhaps.

Still, Annesley hoped that her lover had not asked the lady to "mother"

his fiancee. She had not the air of one who would be complimented by such a request.

As Annesley put her hand into that of the Countess, she noticed that this hand was as wonderful as the rest of the woman's personality. It was very long, very narrow, with curiously supple-looking fingers exquisitely manicured and wearing many rings. Even the thumb was abnormally long, which fact prevented the hand from being as beautiful as it was, somehow, unforgettable.

"This is a pleasure and a surprise," began the Countess, smiling, her eyes appearing to take in the full-length portrait of Annesley Grayle with their wide, unmoving gaze. When she smiled she was still extremely handsome, but not so perfect as with lips closed, for her white teeth were too short, somewhat irregular, and set too wide apart. She spoke English perfectly, with a slight foreign accent and a roll of the letter "r."

"My friend--Nelson Smith" (she turned, laughing, to him), "has told me ex-_citing_ news. We have known each other a long time. I think this is the best thing that can happen. And you will be a lucky girl. He, too, will be lucky. I see that!" with another smile.

Annesley was disappointed because the beautiful woman's voice was not sweet.

"Now you must engage her room," Nelson Smith said, abruptly. "It's late.

You can make friends afterward."

"Very well," the Countess agreed. "And you--will you come to the desk?

Yet, no--it is better not. Miss Grayle and I will go together--two women alone and independent. Lucky it's not the season, or we might find nothing free at short notice. But Don--I mean Nelson--always did have luck. I hope he always will!"

She flashed him a meaning look, though what the meaning was Annesley could not guess. She knew only that she did not like the Countess as she had wished to like her lover's friend. There was something secret in the dark eyes, something repellent about the long, slender thumb with its glittering nail.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BLUE DIAMOND RING

Annesley had not expected to sleep. There were a million things to think of, and it was one o'clock before she was ready to slip into bed in the green-and-white room with its bathroom annex. But the crowding experiences of five hours had exhausted the girl. Sleep fell upon her as her head nestled into a downy pillow, and she lay motionless as a marble figure on a tomb until a sound of knocking forced itself into her dreams.

She waked with a start. The curtains were drawn across the window, but she could see that it was daylight. A streak of sunshine thrust a golden wedge between the draperies, and seemed a good omen: for the sun had hidden from London through many wintry weeks.

The knocking was real, not part of a dream. It was at her door, and jumping out of bed she could hardly believe a clock on the mantelpiece which said half-past ten.

"Who is it?" she asked, timidly, fearing that the Countess de Santiago's voice might answer; but a man replied: "A note from a gentleman downstairs, please, and he's waiting an answer."

Annesley opened the door a crack, and took in a letter. The new master of her destiny had written:

Hurrah, my darling, our affairs march! I have been arranging about the licence, _et cetera_, and I believe that you and I can join forces for the rest of our lives to-morrow--blessed day!

How soon can you come down and talk over plans? I've a hundred to propose. Will you breakfast with me, or have you finished?

Yours since last night, till eternal night,

N. S.

The girl scribbled an answer, confessing that she had overslept, but promising to be down in half an hour for breakfast. She did not stop to think of anything but the need for a quick reply; yet when the note was sent, and she was "doing" her hair after a splash in the porcelain bath (what luxury for the girl who had been practically a servant!), she re-read her love-letter, spread on the dressing-table.

She liked her lover's handwriting. It seemed to express character--just such character as she imagined her knight's to be. There were dash and determination, and an originality which would never let itself be bound by convention.

Perhaps if she had been critical--if the handwriting had been that of a stranger--she might have thought it too bold. Long ago, when she was a very young girl, she had superficially studied the "science" of chirography from articles in a magazine, and had fancied herself a judge.