A Duel Part 21

Mr. Talfourd twiddled the bunch of La France roses between his fingers with a smile which was scarcely one of satisfaction.

They were very fine roses--in just that stage of bursting bud in which the La France is seen at its best. In London La France roses cost money, even when they are poor examples of their kind; those were good enough for exhibition. There were a great many of them, and they were tied about with a beautiful green ribbon, in charming contrast with the blooms. They had probably cost some one at least half a sovereign. They were for him; they had cost him nothing; yet they did not seem to afford him pleasure.

The fact was he was puzzled. He did not quite know what to make of the situation; what he did understand he did not like.

"This gets beyond a jest," he told himself. "Because I happened to mention, accidentally, that La France roses were my favourite flowers, I didn't expect to find a bouquet of them on my table every morning awaiting my arrival. Either it means something or it doesn't; either way I don't like it. I'm getting three hundred pounds a year in cash for doing I don't quite know what, and apparently half as much again in flowers. It won't do--it will not do." He gave the unoffending roses an impatient twirl.

"The point of the joke is that when I said La France roses were my favourite flowers I was speaking a little beside the mark. I don't know that I have a favourite flower. They're Meg's--I was thinking of her at the time, as I generally am. I don't want Mrs. Lamb to think that she is giving me flowers, when she is really giving them to Meg, to whom I invariably pa.s.s them on. I don't know that she would really relish the notion of my giving her flowers to some one else. Confound her impudence!"

He threw the roses from him on to the table with a show of roughness which they, at any rate, had done nothing to deserve.

As if conscious that his temper was being vented in the wrong quarter, picking them up again he regarded them with looks of whimsical self-reproach.

While he was still eyeing them the door was opened, and a masculine voice inquired from without--

"May I come in?"

Without waiting for a reply the inquirer entered. It was Mr.

Gregory Lamb. A much more resplendent Gregory Lamb than the one whose acquaintance we have previously made. The Gregory Lamb we met in the wood was purely an affair of make-believe--not of very plausible make-believe. His attire then looked as if it wished you to think it had cost a great deal of money--but the trained eye knew better. There could be no doubt that everything about this Gregory Lamb was the most expensive of its kind--only the trained eye knew really how expensive. The impression he conveyed was that he had got as much on him in the way of money as he conveniently could--probably that impression was not far wrong. Yet the result was scarcely satisfactory. Especially was this shown to be the case when he brought himself into comparison with the man who was already in the room.

Both were young; both bore themselves well; both were good-looking; yet there could not be a moment's doubt as to which was the pleasanter to look upon. It was not only that one was obviously a gentleman, and the other just as obviously was not; nor was it that one looked a clever, an intellectual, man, and the other emphatically did not; still less was it an affair of costume, since Gregory Lamb was overdressed and Harry Talfourd's attire was simply plain and neat. It was something subtler than any of these things which made the one attractive and the other the reverse. Gregory Lamb had never made a friend worth having in all his life--and never would; Talfourd made friends wherever he went. He could not himself have said why; it was certainly not because he tried.

To begin with, Mr. Lamb's manner was unfortunate. His intention was to be on terms of hail-fellow-well-met with every one; to be no respecter of persons; to be "my dear chap" with Tom, d.i.c.k and Harry. As a matter of fact, there was an air of patronage about everything he said and did which was perhaps the more insufferable because unconscious. He came into the room with what he meant to be an air of jaunty geniality.

"All alone? I thought you would be. It's not your time for receiving visitors, is it? Just come; I heard you knock; must have time to breathe before you let them in--eh? Those are fine roses."

"They are not bad ones."

"Bad ones!--I should think they weren't. They oughtn't to be; I happen to know what my wife paid for them." He laughed, as if he sneered. "Sends you them every morning, doesn't she? Standing order, I hear. Talfourd, you're in luck."

Mr. Talfourd's manner was as cold as the other's was warm.

"Mrs. Lamb is very kind--kinder than I deserve."

"Perhaps she knows what you deserve better than you do--trust her, she's no simpleton. When she takes a fancy she has her reasons. I say, old man, I want you to do me a favour."

"I shall be happy to do you a service if I can."

"There's no doubt about the can--not the least in the world--you'll find that it's as easy as winking. I want you to get my wife to let me go for a little run to Monte Carlo."

"I beg your pardon?--I don't understand."

"It's this way. I'll be frank with you, Talfourd. I look upon you as a friend, my boy. I can't go without cash; I'm stony-broke; my wife holds the money-bags. You tell her--you know how!"--Mr. Lamb winked--"that you think the run would do me good, and tell her to give me a thousand to do it with, and--I'll do as much for you one day, upon my soul I will."

Mr. Talfourd stared at the speaker in undisguised amazement.

"You credit me with powers of persuasion which are altogether beyond any I possess."

"Oh no, I don't"--Mr. Lamb laughed again--"I know better than that! You tell her what I've asked you to tell her, and I bet you anything I cross by to-night's boat, with notes for a thousand in my pocket. She'd send me to the North Pole at a hint from you."

There was scarcely such a friendly expression on Mr. Talfourd's face as on the other's.

"Are you not forgetting that Mrs. Lamb is my employer? that I am merely her servant since I receive her wages?"

"Her servant?"--the laugh again--"I hope she doesn't overwork you. Come, Talfourd, be the good sort you are, help a lame dog over a stile. I'm spoiling for a flutter, and I'm dead sure that the only chance I have of getting it is by means of a helping word from you."

"You must excuse me, Mr. Lamb. I am engaged to do clerical work for Mrs. Lamb. I should not presume to speak to her on the subject you have mentioned."

"Presume?--what ho! Now Talfourd, you're no kid any more than I am. You know as well as I do that you can twist my wife round your finger. All I want you to do is to give her a twist for my particular benefit."

"I can give you no answer but the one I have already given."

"Oh yes, you can--and you will. I'll look in for it to-morrow morning--by that time you'll have thought it over. You're not so crusty as you make yourself out to be. That'll be four-and-twenty hours clean thrown away; and when you're spoiling for a burst like I am, that's a deuce of time. But I shall have every confidence in your kind offices when you've had a chance to see just what I'm driving at."

When Mr. Lamb had retired Mr. Talfourd seemed unhappy.

"Every time that man talks to me I want to kick him. I wonder if he affects other people in the same way--the unmentionable animal! If, as the husband of his wife, he thinks himself ent.i.tled to talk to me like that, it's time for me to think things over. I must know where I am moving. Three hundred pounds are three hundred pounds--I know that as well as any one--but they may be earned too dearly. It is one thing to be Mrs. Lamb's secretary, quite another to be----" He did not finish the sentence even mentally. Sitting down to the table he drew towards him the little heap of correspondence which was supposed to justify his secretarial existence. There were about a dozen envelopes, mostly containing circulars of different kinds. "I believe that the letters are examined, and any of the slightest importance retained, before they are sent to me. The idea of my receiving three hundred pounds a year for opening circulars is too thin."

While he sat with both elbows on the table, staring ruefully in front of him, the door opened again, and Mrs. Lamb came in.

"At work? I hope I'm not disturbing you."

She had changed more than her husband, whether for the better or for the worse was not easy to determine. So far as appearance went she had become a much better imitation of a lady. Society, or what with her pa.s.sed as society, had smoothed away some of the angles. She had the air of a woman who had to do with many persons of different sorts, and had learned to adapt herself to them all. One felt that she was probably a popular character on the stage on which she had chosen to perform--successful, at least within certain limits. One did not wonder that it was so, if only because, in her own way, she was good to look at.

That way, however, did not happen to be Mr. Talfourd's--which was unfortunate. Indeed, she inspired him with a curious feeling. He was afraid of her. It seemed absurd, but he was. For one thing, he realised that she was not only a clever, an unusually clever woman, but that her cleverness lay in a direction in which he was incompetent, and would perhaps prefer to be. Again, he felt that she read him like an open book, knew him to his finger-tips, while she was beyond his comprehension--where, again, he would possibly prefer her to remain. He had an uncomfortable suspicion that she saw in him something which was not savoury; that her keenest glances were continually directed on his weakest points; that it would please her to find him an undesirable creature. He had no overt cause to suppose this was so. So far she had been to him nothing but a friend--a friend in need. But on such a point even the vaguest shadow of a doubt was disquieting.

He rose as she came in.

"It is not possible for you to disturb me--I wish it were."

"You wish it were? Why?"

"Because in that case I should be really doing some genuine work--which I never am. My post is too much of a sinecure; my conscience will not allow me to remain your secretary much longer if there continues to be nothing to do."

"You want something to do? You shall have it--very soon--at least, I think so. I have been reading your play."

"My play?"

He had noticed that she was carrying in her hand what looked like some typewritten MSS., in brown-paper covers. Now, with a start, he recognised them as his own.

"'The Gordian Knot.' Mr. Winton gave it me to read."

"Winton! What right----"

He was about to ask what right Winton had to do anything of the kind, but perceiving that that would scarcely be a civil inquiry, he stopped, not, however, before she understood what had been on the tip of his tongue.

"Mr. Winton had every right to give it me to read, as, I think, you will yourself admit when I explain. I have, of course, known for a long time that Mr. Winton would like to commence management on his own account. The other afternoon he told me that he had a play which he would produce at once if he could only find some one who would furnish at any rate part of the necessary capital. I asked by whom it was. He said, 'It's by a man named Talfourd--Harry Talfourd'. You may easily believe that that did arouse my interest." She said this in a tone which seemed to make him go all over pins and needles; it was almost as if she had caressed him. "I mentioned to Mr. Winton that, given certain conditions, it was possible that I might be tempted to enter into such a speculation. He offered to send me the MS. It reached me yesterday. I read it last night and again this morning--not once, but three or four times. Mr. Talfourd, it's first-rate."

"It's very good of you to say so."