December Love Part 3

"I suppose she would."

"The heart of the mystery lies in her not wis.h.i.+ng to try to get the jewels back. That, to me, is inexplicable. Because we women love jewels.

And no woman carries about jewels worth fifty thousand pounds without caring very much for them."

"Just what I have thought," said Craven.

After a short silence he added:

"Could Lady Sellingworth possibly have known who had stolen the jewels, do you think?"

"What! And refrained from denouncing the thief!"

"She might have had a reason."

Miss Van Tuyn's keen though still girlish eyes looked sharply into Craven's for an instant.

"I believe you men, you modern men are very apt to think terrible things about women," she said.

Craven warmly defended himself against this abrupt accusation.

"Well, but what did you mean?" persisted Miss Van Tuyn. "Now, go against your s.e.x and be truthful for once to a woman."

"I really don't know exactly what I meant," said Craven. "But I suppose it's possible to conceive of circ.u.mstances in which a woman might know the ident.i.ty of a thief and yet not wish to prosecute."

"Very well. I'll let you alone," she rejoined. "But this mystery makes Lady Sellingworth more fascinating to me than ever. I'm not particularly curious about other people. I'm too busy about myself for that. But I would give a great deal to know a little more of her truth. Do you remember her remark when I said 'I wish I had known you then'?"

"Yes. She said, 'You would not have known _me_ then.'"

"There have been two Adela Sellingworths. And I only know one. I do want to know the other. But I am almost sure I never shall. And yet she's fond of me. I know that. She likes my being devoted to her. I feel she's a book of wisdom, and I have only read a few pages."

She walked on quickly with her light, athletic step. Just as they were pa.s.sing Hyde Park Corner she said:

"I think I shall go to one of the 'old guard.'"

"Why?" asked Craven.

"You ask questions to which you know the answers," she retorted.

And then they talked of other things.

When they reached the hotel and Craven was about to say good-bye, Miss Van Tuyn said to him:

"Are you coming to see me one day?"

Her expression suggested that she was asking a question to which she knew the answer, in this following the example just given to her by Craven.

"I want to," he said.

"Then do give me your card."

He gave it to her.

"We both want to know her secret," she said, as she put it into her card-case. "Our curiosity about that dear, delightful woman is a link between us."

Craven looked into her animated eyes, which were strongly searching him for admiration. He took her hand and held it for a moment.

"I don't think I want to know Lady Sellingworth's secret if she doesn't wish me to know it," he said.

"Now--is that true?"

"Yes," he said, with a genuine earnestness which seemed to amuse her.

"Really, really it is true."

She sent him a slightly mocking glance.

"Well, I am less delicate. I want to know it, whether she wishes me to or not. And yet I am more devoted to her than you are. I have known her for quite a long time."

"One can learn devotion very quickly," he said, pressing her hand before he let it go.

"In an afternoon?"

"Yes, in an afternoon."

"Happy Lady Sellingworth!" she said.

Then she turned to go into the hotel. Just before she pa.s.sed through the swing door she looked round at Craven. The movement of her young head was delicious.

"After all, in spite of the charm that won't die," he thought, "there's nothing like youth for calling you."

He thought Lady Sellingworth really more charming than Miss Van Tuyn, but he knew that the feeling of her hand in his would not have thrilled something in him, a very intimate part of himself, as he had just been thrilled.

He felt almost angry with himself as he walked away, and he muttered under his breath:

"d.a.m.n the animal in me!"

CHAPTER IV

Not many days later Craven received a note from Miss Van Tuyn asking him to come to see her at a certain hour on a certain day. He went and found her alone in a private sitting-room overlooking the Park. For the first time he saw her without a hat. With her beautiful corn-coloured hair uncovered she looked, he thought, more lovely than when he had seen her at Lady Sellingworth's. She noted that thought at once, caught it on the wing through his mind, as it were, and caged it comfortably in hers.

"I have seen the 'old guard,'" she said, after she had let him hold and press her hand for two or three seconds.

"What, the whole regiment?" said Craven.

She sat down on a sofa by a basket of roses. He sat down near her.

"No; only two or three of the leaders."