The Wicked Marquis Part 16

CHAPTER XII

The d.u.c.h.ess waved her sugar tongs imperiously, and David, who had hesitated upon the threshold of her drawing-room, made his way towards her. There were a dozen people sitting around, drinking tea and chatting in little groups.

"Now don't look sulky, please," she begged, as she gave him her left hand. "This is not a tea party, and it is quite true that I did ask you to come and have a chat with me alone, but I couldn't keep these people away. They'll all go directly, and if they don't I shall turn them out. Let.i.tia has promised me to take care of you and to see that no one bites. Let.i.tia, here is the shy man," she added.

"There!"--thrusting a cup of tea into his hand. "Take that, help yourself to a m.u.f.fin and go and hide behind the piano."

Let.i.tia rose from her place by the side of an extremely loquacious politician, to whose animated conversation she had paid no attention since David's entrance.

"You hear my aunt's orders?" she said, nodding. "Don't try to shake hands, with that collection of things to carry. I am to pilot you into a corner and keep you quite safe until she is ready to take possession of you herself."

David looked longingly at some French windows which led out on to a wide stone terrace.

"Why not outside?" he suggested. "It's really quite warm to-day."

"Why not, indeed?" she a.s.sented. "Come along."

They pa.s.sed out together, found two comfortable wicker chairs and a small table, on which, with a sigh of relief, David deposited his burden. Below them was a stretch of the Park, from which they themselves were screened by a row of tall trees.

"Don't sit down," she begged him. "Get me another of those small m.u.f.fins first, and a cup of tea. If any one suggests coming out here, bolt the windows after you."

David executed his task as speedily as possible. Let.i.tia watched him a little curiously as he returned.

"You aren't really a bit shy, you know," she told him. "I watched you through the window there. How clever you were not to see that tiresome Mrs. Raymond!"

"Why should I see her?" he asked. "She is a perfect stranger to me.

She came up to me at a party, the other night, and asked me, as a great favour, to dine at her house and to tell her how to invest some money so that she could double it."

"I know," Let.i.tia a.s.sented, with her mouth full of m.u.f.fin. "She does that to all the financiers and expects them to give her tips just because she has dark eyes and asks them to a tte--tte dinner. I expect we are all as bad, though," she went on rather gloomily, "even if we are not quite so blatant. What on earth have you been doing to father? He swaggers about as though he were already a millionaire."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I expect we are all as bad, though," she went on rather gloomily, "even if we are not quite so blatant."]

David smiled a little sadly as he looked out across the tree tops.

"Your father has rather a sanguine temperament," he said.

"Well, don't encourage him to speculate, please," Let.i.tia begged. "We couldn't afford to lose a single penny. As it is," she went on, "we are only able to come to Mandeleys because you've taken that ramshackle old barn close by and paid twice as much as it's worth. About the shooting, too! I almost laughed aloud when you mentioned it! Do you know, Mr. Thain, that we haven't reared a pheasant for years, and that we don't even feed the wild ones?"

"What about the partridges, though," he reminded her, "and the hares?

I talked to a farmer when I was down there the other day, and he complained bitterly that there was only one vermin-killer on the whole estate and that the place was swarming with rabbits. I rather enjoy rabbit shooting."

"Oh, well, so long as you understand," Let.i.tia replied, with a little shrug of the shoulders, "take the shoot, for goodness' sake, and pay dad as much as he chooses to ask for it. I've always noticed," she went on reflectively, "one extraordinary thing about people who haven't the faintest idea of business. They are always much cleverer than a real business man in asking ever so much more than a thing is worth. A person with a sense of proportion, you see, couldn't do it."

"One would imagine," he complained, "that you were trying to keep me away from Mandeleys."

"Don't, please, imagine such a thing," she begged earnestly. "If there is anything I hate, it's London--or rather hate the way we have to live here. You are entirely our salvation. If you desert us now, I shall be the most miserable person alive. Only, you see, I know what father is, and what you do you must do with your eyes open."

He was silent for a moment. The echo of her words lingered in his ears. He moved a little uneasily in his place, more uneasily still when he found that she was watching him intently.

"You are really a very mysterious person, Mr. Thain," she declared, with a note of curiosity in her tone. "I hear that you decline to be interviewed, and you won't even tell the newspapers whether this is your first visit to England or not."

"I don't see what business it is of the newspapers," he rejoined. "I am not a person of any possible interest to any one. I have done nothing except make a great deal of money. That, too, was purely a matter of good fortune and a little foresight. In America," he went on, "one expects to meet with that personal curiosity. Over here, I must say that it surprises me."

"I suppose you are right," she admitted, "but, you see, under the present conditions of living, the possession of money does give such enormous power to any one. Then you must remember that our press has become Americanised lately. However, I am not a journalist, so will you answer me one question?"

"Certainly," he replied.

"Have you ever been in England before?"

"Once."

"Long ago?"

"A great many years ago."

"I don't really know why I am curious," she went on thoughtfully, "but there was a time, when I saw you first--doesn't this sound hackneyed, but it's quite true--when I fancied that I'd seen you before. It worried me for days. Even now it sometimes perplexes me."

He hated the lie which had risen so readily to his lips and choked it back.

"A dear lady, a friend of the d.u.c.h.ess, made the same remark to me when we were introduced," he said. "She excused herself gracefully by saying that people were so much alike, nowadays."

"I don't think that you are particularly like other people," she observed, studying him. "Would you like to hear what Ada Honeywell thinks about you?"

"So long as it leaves me still able to hold up my head," he murmured.

"Mrs. Honeywell struck me as being rather severe in her strictures."

"It was only of your appearance she was speaking," Let.i.tia continued.

"She said that she could see three things in your face--a Franciscan monk, a head _matre d'htel_ at the most select of French restaurants, and the modern decadent criminal, as opposed to the Charles Peace type."

"I am much obliged, I'm sure," he remarked, leaning back and laughing for once quite naturally. "My type of criminal, I presume, is one who brings art to his aid in working out his nefarious schemes."

"Precisely," she murmured. "Like Wainwright, the poisoner, or the Borgias. But at any rate we agreed upon something. There is purpose in your face."

"You speak as though that were unusual! I suppose we all have a set course in life."

She nodded.

"And a good deal depends upon the goal, doesn't it?"

There was a brief--to David, an enigmatic pause. Let.i.tia's questions had puzzled him. She might almost have suspected his ident.i.ty. They both listened idly for a few moments to the music of a violin, which some one was playing in the drawing-room.

"You've asked me a great many questions," he said abruptly. "What about you? What is your goal?"

"My dear Mr. Thain," she replied, "how can you ask! I am an impecunious young woman of luxurious tastes. It is my purpose to entrap somebody with a comfortable income into marrying me. I have been at it for several seasons," she went on a little dolefully, "but so far Charles Grantham is my only certainty, and he wobbles sometimes--especially when he sees anything of Sylvia Laycey."

"Sylvia Laycey," he repeated. "Is she the daughter of the present tenant of Broomleys?"