The Avenger Part 25

"Why should she?" the lady answered. "Don't you see that she very likely has what all you gentlemen seem to be so anxious about--his income?"

"By Jove!" Wrayson exclaimed softly. "Of course, if there was anything mysterious about the source of it, all the more reason for her to keep dark."

"Well, that's what I've had in my mind," she declared, summoning the waiter. "I'll take another liqueur, if you don't mind."

Wrayson nodded. His thoughts were travelling fast.

"Did you tell Mr. Bentham this?" he asked.

"Not I," she answered. "The old fool got about as much out of me as he deserved--and that's nothing."

"I'm sure I'm very much obliged," Wrayson answered, drawing out his pocketbook. "I wonder if I might be allowed--?"

He glanced at her inquiringly. She nodded. "I'm not proud," she declared.

"As an amateur detective," Wrayson remarked to himself, as he strolled homewards, "I am beginning rather to fancy myself. And yet--"

His thoughts had stolen away. He forgot Morris Barnes and the sordid mystery of which he was the centre. He remembered only the compelling cause which was driving him towards the solution of it. The night was warm, and he walked slowly, his hands behind him, and ever before his eyes the shadowy image of the girl who had brought so many strange sensations into his somewhat uneventful life. Would he ever see her, he wondered, without the light of trouble in her eyes, with colour in her cheeks, and joy in her tone? He thought of her violet-rimmed eyes, her hesitating manner, her air always as of one who walked hand in hand with fear. She was not meant for these things! Her lips and eyes were made for laughter; she was, after all, only a girl. If he could but lift the cloud! And then he looked upwards and saw her--leaning from the little iron balcony, and looking out into the cool night.

He half stopped. She did not move. It was too dark to see her features, but as he looked upwards a strange idea came to him. Was it a gesture or some unspoken summons which travelled down to him through the semi-darkness? He only knew, as he turned and entered the flat, that a new chapter of his life was opening itself out before him.

CHAPTER XIX

DESPERATE WOOING

Wrayson felt, from the moment he crossed the threshold of the room, that he had entered an atmosphere charged with elusive emotion. He was not sure of himself or of her as she turned slowly to greet him. Only he was at once conscious that something of that change in her which he had prophetically imagined was already s.h.i.+ning out of her eyes. She was at once more natural and further removed from him.

"I am glad," she said simply. "I wanted to say good-bye to you."

He was stunned for a moment. He had not imagined this.

She nodded.

"Good-bye!" he repeated. "You are going away?"

"To-morrow. Oh! I am glad. You don't know how glad I am."

She swept past him and sank into an easy-chair. She wore a black velveteen evening dress, cut rather high, without ornament or relief of any sort, and her neck gleamed like polished ivory from which creeps always a subtle shade of pink. Her hair was parted in the middle and brushed back in little waves, her eyes were full of fire, and her face was no longer pa.s.sive. Beautiful she had seemed to him before, but beautiful with a sort of impersonal perfection. She was beautiful now in her own right, the beauty of a woman whom nature has claimed for her own, who acknowledges her heritage. The fear-frozen subjectivity in which he had yet found enough to fascinate him had pa.s.sed away. He felt that she was a stranger.

"Always," she murmured, "I shall think of London as the city of dreadful memories. I should like to be going to set my face eastwards or westwards until I was so far away that even memory had perished. But that is just where the bonds tell, isn't it?"

"There are many who can make the bonds elastic," he answered. "It is only a question of going far enough."

"Alas!" she answered, "a few hundred miles are all that are granted to me. And London is like a terrible octopus. Its arms stretch over the sea."

"A few hundred miles," he repeated, with obvious relief. "Northward or southward, or eastward or westward?"

"Southward," she answered. "The other side of the Channel. That, at least, is something. I always like to feel that there is sea between me and a place which I--loathe!"

"Is London so hateful to you, then?" he asked.

"Perhaps I should not have said that," she answered. "Say a place of which I am afraid!"

He looked across at her. He, too, in obedience to a gesture from her, was seated.

"Come," he said, "we will not talk of London, then. Tell me where you are going."

She shook her head.

"To a little Paradise I know of."

"Paradise," he reminded her, "was meant for two."

"There will be two of us," she answered, smiling.

He felt his heart thump against his ribs.

"Then if one wanted to play the part of intruder?"

She shook her head.

"The third person in Paradise was always very much _de trop_," she reminded him.

"It depends upon the people who are already there," he protested.

"My friend," she said, "is in search of solitude, absolute and complete."

He shook his head.

"Such a place does not exist," he declared confidently. "Your friend might as well have stayed at home."

"She relies upon me to procure it for her," she said.

A rare smile flashed from Wrayson's lips.

"You can't imagine what a relief her s.e.x is to me!" he exclaimed.

"I don't know why," she answered pensively. "Do you know anything about the North of France, Mr. Wrayson?"

"Not much," he answered. "I hope to know more presently."

Her eyes laughed across at him.