The Judgment House Part 10

"To-morrow morning."

She smiled radiantly. She saw that he was angry with himself for his cowardice just now, and she tried to restore him. "Please, will you telephone me when you arrive at your castle? I should like the experience of telephoning by private wire to Wales."

He brightened. "Certainly, if you really wish it. I shall arrive at ten to-morrow night, and I'll telephone you at eleven."

"Splendid--splendid! I'll be alone in my room then. I've got a telephone instrument there, and so we could say good-night."

"So we can say good-night," he repeated in a low voice, and he held out his hand in good-bye. When he had gone, with a new, great hope in his heart, she sat down and tremblingly re-opened the note she had received a moment before.

"I am going abroad" it read--"to Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and St.

Petersburg. I think I've got my chance at last. I want to see you before I go--this evening, Jasmine. May I?"

It was signed "Ian."

"Fate is stronger than we are," she murmured; "and Fate is not kind to you, Ian," she added, wearily, a wan look coming into her face.

"Mio destino," she said at last--"mio destino!" But who was her destiny--which of the two who loved her?

BOOK II

CHAPTER VII

THREE YEARS LATER

"Extra speshul--extra speshul--all about Kruger an' his guns!"

The shrill, acrid cry rang down St. James's Street, and a newsboy with a bunch of pink papers under his arm shot hither and thither on the pavement, offering his sensational wares to all he met.

"Extra speshul--extra speshul--all about the war wot's comin'--all about Kruger's guns!"

From an open window on the second floor of a building in the street a man's head was thrust out, listening.

"The war wot's comin'!" he repeated, with a bitter sort of smile. "And all about Kruger's guns. So it is coming, is it, Johnny Bull; and you do know all about his guns, do you? If it is, and you do know, then a shattering big thing is coming, and you know quite a lot, Johnny Bull."

He hummed to himself an impromptu refrain to an impromptu tune:

"Then you know quite a lot, Johnny Bull, Johnny Bull, Then you know quite a lot, Johnny Bull!"

Stepping out of the French window upon a balcony now, he looked down the street. The newsboy was almost below. He whistled, and the lad looked up. In response to a beckoning finger the gutter-snipe took the doorway and the staircase at a bound. Like all his kind, he was a good judge of character, and one glance had a.s.sured him that he was speeding upon a visit of profit. Half a postman's knock--a sharp, insistent stroke--and he entered, his thin weasel-like face thrust forward, his eyes glittering. The fire in such eyes is always cold, for hunger is poor fuel to the native flame of life.

"Extra speshul, m'lord--all about Kruger's guns."

He held out the paper to the figure that darkened the window, and he p.r.o.nounced the g in Kruger soft, as in Scrooge.

The hand that took the paper deftly slipped a s.h.i.+lling into the cold, skinny palm. At its first touch the face of the paper-vender fell, for it was the same size as a halfpenny; but even before the swift fingers had had a chance to feel the coin, or the glance went down, the face regained its confidence, for the eyes looking at him were generous. He had looked at so many faces in his brief day that he was an expert observer.

"Thank y' kindly," he said; then, as the fingers made a.s.surance of the fortune which had come to him, "Ow, thank ye werry much, y'r gryce," he added.

Something alert and determined in the face of the boy struck the giver of the coin as he opened the paper to glance at its contents, and he paused to scan him more closely. He saw the hunger in the lad's eyes as they swept over the breakfast-table, still heavy with uneaten breakfast--bacon, nearly the whole of an omelette, and rolls, toast, marmalade and honey.

"Wait a second," he said, as the boy turned toward the door.

"Yes, y'r gryce."

"Had your breakfast?"

"I has me brekfist w'en I sells me pypers." The lad hugged the remaining papers closer under his arms, and kept his face turned resolutely away from the inviting table. His host correctly interpreted the action.

"Poor little devil--grit, pure grit!" he said under his breath. "How many papers have you got left?" he asked.

The lad counted like lightning. "Ten," he answered. "I'll soon get 'em off now. Luck's wiv me dis mornin'." The ghost of a smile lighted his face.

"I'll take them all," the other said, handing over a second s.h.i.+lling.

The lad fumbled for change and the fumbling was due to honest agitation. He was not used to this kind of treatment.

"No, that's all right," the other interposed.

"But they're only a h'ypenny," urged the lad, for his natural cupidity had given way to a certain fine faculty not too common in any grade of human society.

"Well, I'm buying them at a penny this morning. I've got some friends who'll be glad to give a penny to know all about Kruger's guns." He too softened the g in Kruger in consideration of his visitor's idiosyncrasies.

"You won't be mykin' anythink on them, y'r gryce," said the lad with a humour which opened the doors of Ian Stafford's heart wide; for to him heaven itself would be insupportable if it had no humorists.

"I'll get at them in other ways," Stafford rejoined. "I'll get my profit, never fear. Now what about breakfast? You've sold all your papers, you know."

"I'm fair ready for it, y'r gryce," was the reply, and now the lad's glance went eagerly towards the door, for the tension of labour was relaxed, and hunger was sc.r.a.ping hard at his vitals.

"Well, sit down--this breakfast isn't cold yet.... But, no, you'd better have a wash-up first, if you can wait," Stafford added, and rang a bell.

"Wot, 'ere--brekfist wiv y'r gryce 'ere?"

"Well, I've had mine"--Stafford made a slight grimace--"and there's plenty left for you, if you don't mind eating after me."

"I dusted me clothes dis mornin'," said the boy, with an attempt to justify his decision to eat this n.o.ble breakfast. "An' I washed me 'ends--but pypers is muck," he added.

A moment later he was in the fingers of Gleg the valet in the bath-room, and Stafford set to work to make the breakfast piping hot again. It was an easy task, as heaters were inseparable from his bachelor meals, and, though this was only the second breakfast he had eaten since his return to England after three years' absence, everything was in order.

For Gleg was still more the child of habit--and decorous habit--than himself. It was not the first time that Gleg had had to deal with his master's philanthropic activities. Much as he disapproved of them, he could discriminate; and there was that about the newsboy which somehow disarmed him. He went so far as to heap the plate of the lad, and would have poured the coffee too, but that his master took the pot from his hand and with a nod and a smile dismissed him; and his master's smile was worth a good deal to Gleg. It was an exacting if well-paid service, for Ian Stafford was the most particular man in Europe, and he had grown excessively so during the past three years, which, as Gleg observed, had brought great, if quiet, changes in him. He had grown more studious, more watchful, more exclusive in his daily life, and ladies of all kinds he had banished from direct personal share in his life. There were no more little tea-parties and dejeuners chez lui, duly chaperoned by some gracious cousin or aunt--for there was no emba.s.sy in Europe where he had not relatives.

"'Ipped--a bit 'ipped. 'E 'as found 'em out, the 'uzzies," Gleg had observed; for he had decided that the general cause of the change in his master was Woman, though he did not know the particular woman who had 'ipped him.