Part 3 (1/2)
”But you said just now that you were going to take possession.”
”I have changed my mind. There are reasons which I cannot explain to you why my immediate neighborhood is likely to be dangerous for the present.
I should be sorry to subject my fair cousin to any unpleasantness.
Though not a word of this to her or anyone else, please.”
The cab was drawing up before the ducal mansion, and Forsyth forbore to put into words the astonishment which he looked. As the two men were about to ascend the steps to the entrance, a landau, which was being driven slowly by, drew to the curb, and a lady who, besides the servants, was the sole occupant, called out:
”Surely you're not going to cut me, Mr. Forsyth. Too proud to know poor little me, eh, now that you've taken to calling on dukes?”
A murmur of annoyance escaped Forsyth, but perforce he went to the carriage and shook the daintily gloved hand held out to him.
”How do you do, Mrs. Talmage Eglinton?” he said, adding the reproving whisper, ”That _is_ the Duke.”
The lady in the landau raised her lorgnettes and calmly surveyed the waiting n.o.bleman.
”How very interesting!” she purred, adding aloud so that the subject of her request could not fail to hear, ”Why don't you introduce him, instead of keeping him standing there? We Americans are death on dukes, you know.”
At a gesture from Forsyth, who tried to convey his disgust by a look, Beaumanoir limped forward, smiling. His misfortunes had made him something of a democrat, and he had always been ready to see the comic side of things till tragedy that morning had claimed him for its own. In meeting the advances of the agent Jevons in the Bowery saloon he had been largely influenced by the humor of the situation-of the scion of a ducal house consenting to ”get a bit” by pa.s.sing forged bonds.
Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, a handsome blonde with an elegant figure and a childish voice, received the Duke with effusion.
”I stopped my carriage to ask Mr. Forsyth to tea on Sat.u.r.day,” she prattled. ”I do hope your Grace will come too. I am staying at the Cecil, and shall be delighted to see you.”
The unblus.h.i.+ng effrontery of the invitation failed to strike Beaumanoir in his sudden horror at the a.s.sociations called up by it. This frivolous b.u.t.terfly of a woman occupied the next suite of rooms to those in which Ziegler was spinning his villainous web-in which that terrible old man had unfolded to him the details of his treacherous task. Strange, too, that he should be bidden to the mild dissipation of an afternoon tea-table in that hotel, of all others, on the very day when he was due to go there on business so different, for Sat.u.r.day was the day appointed by Ziegler for his call for ”further instructions.”
Conscious that the mocking eyes of the lady in the landau were watching him with a curious inquiry, he mastered his emotion, and at the same time came to a decision on the vital issue before him. Probably he would have arrived at the same one without the incentive of avoiding an unpalatable engagement, but Mrs. Talmage Eglinton's invitation to tea was undoubtedly the final influence in setting him on the straight path.
”I am very sorry,” he replied, and there was a new dignity in his tone, ”but I must ask you to excuse me. I am going down to-morrow to Prior's Tarrant, my place in Hertfords.h.i.+re, and I shall not be in town on Sat.u.r.day.”
For the fraction of a second the rebuffed hostess seemed taken aback by the refusal. She flushed slightly under her powder, and the taper fingers twitched on the handle of her sunshade. But without any appreciable pause she answered gaily:
”That's most unkind of you. Well, what must be must be. Good-bye, your Grace. Good-bye, Mr. Forsyth; I shall expect you, anyhow. Drive on, Bennett.”
The carriage rolled away.
”I am glad you snubbed her,” Forsyth exclaimed. ”She has been made a good deal of in certain circles during the last month or two, and presumes a lot on the strength of it.”
”Did I snub her?” said the Duke carelessly. ”I am sure I didn't mean to, for she deserves better things of me. You'd hardly believe it, Alec, but that little episode has jerked me into deciding a crucial point-no less than whether to be a man or a cur. At the same time it has put me quite outside the pale as a resident under the same roof as my cousin. On second thoughts, I will not go in at all, but I shall be obliged if you will see her and convey the message I gave you-that Beaumanoir House is at her disposal till she can quite conveniently leave it.”
”But what are you going to do yourself?” said Forsyth in sheer bewilderment.
”First I shall go to Bond Street, to gladden the hearts of some of my old creditors; then by an evening train to Prior's Tarrant,” was the reply. ”And, Alec,” proceeded the Duke earnestly, ”if you can get leave from the Foreign Office, pending retirement, and join me there as soon as possible, you will place me under a very deep obligation.”
CHAPTER V-_Ziegler Begins to Move_
On the following Sunday morning the Duke of Beaumanoir stood at one of the windows of the long library at Prior's Tarrant, idly beating a tattoo on the gla.s.s. The June suns.h.i.+ne flooded the bosky leaf.a.ge of the glorious expanse of park, and nearer still the parterres of the old Dutch garden were gay with summer bloom; but the beauties of the landscape were lost upon the watcher at the window.
Nearly four and twenty hours had elapsed since he had failed to keep his appointment with Mr. Ziegler, and he was wondering how and when that autocrat of high-grade crime would signalize his displeasure at the mutiny. That sooner or later an edict would issue against him from the invalid chair in the first-floor suite he had not the slightest doubt.