December Love Part 115

"You've got his address."

The words seemed a statement as he said them.

"Yes," she said.

"Will you kindly write it down for me?"

"Yes."

She got up, still wrapped up in shame, and went to the writing-table.

She took up a pen to write Arabian's address. But she could not remember the number of the flat. Her memory refused to give it to her.

"I can't remember the number," she said, standing by the writing-table.

"If you can give me the address of the flats I can easily find out the number."

"It is Rose Tree Gardens"--she began writing it down--"Rose Tree Gardens, Chelsea. It is close to the river."

She came away from the writing-table, and gave him the paper with the address on it.

"Thank you!"

He took the paper, folded it up, drew out a leather case from an inner pocket of his braided black jacket, and consigned the paper to it. Miss Van Tuyn sat down again.

"I understand you met this man at the studio of Mr. Garstin, the painter?" said Sir Seymour.

"Yes. But he wasn't a friend of Mr. Garstin's. Mr. Garstin saw him at the Cafe Royal and wished to paint him, so he asked him to come to the studio."

"And he has painted a portrait of him?"

"Yes."

"Is it a good one?"

"Yes, wonderful!" she said, with a shudder.

"I mean really is it a good likeness?"

"Oh! Yes, it is very like in a way, horribly like."

"In a way?"

"I mean that it gives the worst side. But it is like."

"I suppose the portrait is still in Mr. Garstin's studio?"

"I suppose it is. I haven't seen Mr. Garstin for two or three days. But I suppose it's there."

"Please give me Mr. Garstin's address--the studio address," said Sir Seymour.

"Yes."

She got up again and went to the writing-table. There seemed to her to be something deadly in this interview. She could not feel humanity in it. Sir Seymour was terribly impersonal. There was something almost machine like about him. She did not know him well, but how different he had been to her in Berkeley Square! There he had been a charming old courtier. He had shown a sort of gallant admiration of her. He had beamed kindly upon her youth and her daring. Now he showed nothing.

But--Adela had told him!

She wrote down d.i.c.k Garstin's address in Glebe Place, and was about to come away from the writing-table when Sir Seymour said:

"Could you also kindly give me your card with a line of introduction to Mr. Garstin? I don't know him."

"Oh, I will of course!"

She found one of her cards and hesitated.

"What shall I put?" she asked.

"You might put 'To introduce,' and then my name."

"Yes."

She wrote the words on the card.

"Perhaps it might be as well to add '_Please see him_,' and underline it. I understand Mr. Garstin is a brusque sort of fellow."

"Yes, he is."

She added the words he had suggested.

"It's very--it's more than kind of you to take all this trouble," she said, again coming to him. "I am ashamed."

She gave him the card. She could not look into his face.

"I am ashamed," she repeated, in a low voice.

"Well now," he said, "try to get the matter off your mind. Don't give way to useless fears. Most of us fear far more than there is any occasion for."

He stood up.

"Yes?"

"If you wish for me, call me up. I am at St. James's Palace. But I don't suppose you will have need of me. By the way, there's one thing more I perhaps ought to ask you. Forgive me! Has there ever been anything in the nature of a threat from this fellow?"

"Oh, no!" she said. "No, no, no!"

She was swallowing sobs that suddenly began rising in her throat, sobs of utter shame and of stricken vanity.

"It's all too horrible!" she thought.