December Love Part 122

"Pardon!" said Arabian sharply. "What do you mean?"

He was up. But Sir Seymour sat still.

"Mr. Garstin uncovered your secret," he said. "A man such as you are naturally objects to that."

"What have you come here for?" said Arabian.

"You asked me to come."

"What did you go to d.i.c.k Garstin for?"

"That is my business."

Sir Seymour got up slowly, very deliberately even, from his chair.

"My secret, you say. What do you know about me?"

In the voice there was intense suspicion.

"We needn't discuss that. I am not going to discuss it."

"What did you go to d.i.c.k Garstin for?"

"I went to ask him if he would allow me to bring two or three people to his studio to look at his portrait of you."

"My portrait! What is my portrait to you? Why should you bring people?"

But Sir Seymour did not answer the question. Instead he put one hand on the mantelpiece, leaned slightly towards Arabian, and said:

"You wanted my verdict on the rights of the case between you and Mr.

Garstin. That isn't my affair. You must fight it out between you. But I should seriously advise you not to take too long over the quarrel. You said just now that the English climate was awful. Get out of it as soon as you can."

"Get out of it! What is it to you whether I stay or go?"

"I'm afraid if you delay here much longer you may be sorry for it."

"Who are you?" said Arabian fiercely.

"I'm a friend of Miss Van Tuyn."

"What has that to do with me? Why do you try to interfere with me?"

"Miss Van Tuyn--I saw her this morning--wishes me to see to it that you leave her alone, get out of her life."

"Are you her father, a relation?"

"No."

"Then what have you to do with it? You--you impertinent old man!"

Sir Seymour's brick-red, weather-beaten face took on a darker, almost a purplish, hue, and the hand that had been holding the mantelpiece tightened into a fist.

"You will leave this young lady alone," he said sternly. "Do you hear?

You will leave her alone. She knows what you are."

Arabian had pushed out his full under-lip and was staring now intently at Sir Seymour. His gaze was intense, and yet there was a cloudy look in his eyes. The effect of what he had drunk was certainly increasing upon him in the heat of the rather small room.

"When I came into the studio," he said after a moment's silence, "I remembered your face, and, 'Why is he here?' That was my thought. Why is he there? Where did I see you?"

"That doesn't matter. You will give up your acquaintance with Miss Van Tuyn. You will get out of London. And then no measures will be taken against you."

"Where was it?" persisted Arabian. "Do you remember me?"

"Yes," said Sir Seymour.

He debated within himself for an instant, and then took a decision.

"I saw you at the Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly ten years or more ago."

"At the Ritz!"

"I was lunching with a friend. I was lunching with Lady Sellingworth."

"Ah!" exclaimed Arabian. "That was it! I remember. So--_she_ sent--I see! I see!"

He half shut his eyes and a vein in his forehead swelled, giving to his brow a look of violence.

"She has--She has--"

He shut his mouth with a snap of the teeth. Sir Seymour was aware of a struggle taking place in him. Something, urged on by drink, was fighting hard with his natural caution. But the caution, long trained, no doubt, and kept in almost perpetual use, was fighting hard too.

"No one sent me," said Sir Seymour with contempt. "But that's no matter.

You understand now that you are to leave this young lady alone. Her acquaintance with you has ceased. It won't be renewed. If you call on her you will be sent off. If you write to her your letters will be burnt without being read. If you try to persecute her in any way means will be found to protect her and to punish you. I shall see to that."

Arabian's mouth was still tightly shut and he was standing quite still and seemed to be thinking, or trying to think, deeply. For his eyes now had a curiously inward look. If Sir Seymour had expected a burst of rage as the sequel to his very plain speaking he was deceived. Apparently this man was serenely beyond that society in which a human being can be insulted and resent it. Or else had he been thinking with such intensity that he had not even heard what had just been said to him? For a moment Sir Seymour was inclined to believe so. And he was about to reiterate what he had said, to force it on Arabian's attention, when the latter stopped him.

"Yes--yes!" he said. "I hear! Do not!"

He seemed to be turning something over in his mind with complete self-possession under the eyes of the man who had just scornfully attacked him. At last he said:

"I fear I was rude just now. You startled me. I said it was impertinence. But I see, I understand now. The women--they are clever.

And when age comes--ah, we have no longer much defence against them."

And he smiled.

"What d'you mean?" said Sir Seymour, longing to knock the fellow down, and feeling an almost insuperable difficulty in retaining his self-control.

"This I mean! You say you come to me sent by Miss Van Tuyn. But I say--no! You come to me sent by Lady Sellingworth."