Читать книгу The Light Beyond - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 11

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Mark, upon his arrival at Carlton House later in the morning found from the nature of the work awaiting him that Myra’s anticipations were fully verified. In every respect it was of an entirely different character to his yesterday’s start, and the state of absorption into which it threw him was a distinct relief after the poignant sensations of the last twenty-four hours. He had no longer to fight angrily against what seemed to him in his saner moments an absolute obsession, no longer to spend the time sorting out the memory of a few kind words and glances from amidst a tangled mass of indifference. All his life, women had spoilt him. He had every advantage in the world to offer, and he found the fact recognised. Now, for the first time, he was confronted with an entirely altered situation. Estelle Dukane’s indifference was too natural to be altogether assumed. He had an uneasy conviction that he was not of her type, that his whole outlook upon life, his views and even his character, would have to be modified before she would find him in the least degree acceptable. In a few hours he had entirely lost his self-confidence, free always from any objectionable features, but a valuable aid to his dignified progress through life. He mistrusted himself, and even a brief period of forgetfulness was welcome....

Towards the end of the morning, Mr. Widdowes came unexpectedly into the room where Mark was working, accompanied by a small, rather shrunken man, pallid, with smoothly-brushed grey hair, and keen eyes, imperfectly concealed behind gold-rimmed spectacles. His appearance, though by no means insignificant, gave little indication of the fact that here was one of the most brilliant brains of the Western world.

“Good morning, Mark,” the Ambassador greeted him, as the latter rose to his feet. “How’s the work?”

“Quite all right, thank you, sir,” was the prompt reply. “I don’t think I’ve made an absolute hash of anything yet.”

Mr. Widdowes turned to his companion.

“Mark,” he continued, “I should like you to know Mr. Hugerson, who is over here from Washington upon an official mission.”

“Glad to meet you, young man,” Mr. Hugerson said, as Mark came forward with extended hand. “I used to know your father well. He wasn’t quite such a giant as you, but he was a pretty useful half-back in my last year, and he developed a wonderful head for figures later on in life. Seems to me,” he added with a twinkle in his eye, “I’ve heard of you more as a sportsman than a diplomat.”

“I’m afraid that may be so, sir,” Mark admitted deprecatingly. “I was in the Service for a short time after I left Harvard though, and I am very glad to have made another start, even though it’s rather late.”

“Work’s good for all of us,” Mr. Hugerson pronounced. “I am sixty-three, and I have never stopped. I don’t imagine really that the men of our nation have the instinct for leisure. You pick it up like a germ on this side though, if you stay over long enough.”

“I don’t mind work so long as it’s worth while,” Mark confided. “If Mr. Widdowes is able to make use of me, I’m perfectly happy here.”

“Oh, we’ll make use of you all right,” his Chief promised, “if we only keep you as a chucker-out. We get shorter-handed every day. You know Rawlinson’s laid up with the ’flu now, I suppose?”

“I heard so this morning. That’s too bad!”

“I’d offered him to Mr. Hugerson here, if he needed any help,” Mr. Widdowes went on, “and help he certainly will need presently. How should you like to take his place?”

“Nothing I should like better, sir, if Mr. Hugerson is willing,” Mark declared promptly. “I don’t know exactly what sort of work it is, of course,” he added, after a moment’s hesitation.

Mr. Hugerson toyed for a minute with his under lip.

“Well, we’ll talk about that later on,” he said. “Most people have an idea of what my mission on this side is. I never was much of a diplomatist. Figures have been my joy and my hobby in life.”

“The whole world knows that sir,” Mark acknowledged.

Mr. Hugerson smiled.

“Unromantic things I suppose they must appear to the uninitiated,” he observed, “but where international finance is concerned—well, we’ll talk about that later on. Jove, how I used to admire your father, Van Stratton. He had a wonderful head for figures, but in his younger days, he was a greater athlete than mathematician.”

“You coaxed your boat yourself, sir, the year they beat Yale,” Mark reminded him.

“Bully for you, my lad!” the other exclaimed. “George this lad’s got the makings of an Ambassador in him after all. He remembers the right things.”

“Come along and have luncheon, Mark,” the Ambassador invited....

Myra, next whom Mark found himself placed, was inclined to be admonitory.

“One dance the whole of last evening,” she reminded him, “and I am your Chief’s daughter! Do you call that diplomacy? You really ought to have devoted yourself altogether to me with a view of rapid promotion.”

“One couldn’t get near you,” he grumbled.

“You should have arranged with me beforehand.”

“But I didn’t know that I was coming until the last minute,” he reminded her. “It was your mother who suggested it. I hadn’t an invitation of my own at all.”

“You and Henry Dorchester were as bad as one another,” she complained. “You both of you stood about and gazed at that little Dresden doll beauty, Estelle Dukane. Henry did his duty by me though. I wish he danced as well as you.”

“When do we have another opportunity?” Mark enquired.

“That will come soon enough. The only worry is whether you’ll be able to keep your eyes off that amazing young woman, and devote yourself a little more to me. Mother,” she went on, “have you heard the awful thing that’s happened to Mark. For the first time in his young life I believe that he has lost his heart.”

“To you, I hope, dear,” her mother remarked pleasantly. “I think you’d make an admirable son-in-law, Mark.”

“I’m always hoping,” he confessed, “but you can’t marry into the nursery. Grow up a little, Myra dear, and learn to take life seriously.”

“That’s all because I discovered his secret,” she laughed. “Never mind! I should make you a much better wife, and it seems to me that she’s got what I call a bizarre taste in men. When we wanted to bring her home she went off with that Eastern prince after dancing with him half the evening too.”

Mark felt a ridiculous sinking of the heart. The question he had been longing to ask was miserably answered.

“I wondered what had become of you all,” he admitted. “I danced once with Edna Worthington. Then she wanted a sandwich or something, and when we got back you’d all disappeared.”

“How you must have cursed the girl who wanted a sandwich or something at the wrong time!” Myra exclaimed. “I don’t believe you enjoyed yourself a bit last night.”

“Is she allowed to come down to all her meals?” Mark asked his hostess.

“It wouldn’t help you if I weren’t,” Myra retorted promptly. “I should invite you up to the nursery and you’d have to come because your object now is not to play back for America against England for the third year in succession, but to develop your career. Your future is practically in my hands. I can do anything with father on his good days, and this is the great point—I know which are his good days.”

“Talking a lot of nonsense up there, aren’t you?” Mr. Widdowes remarked from the end of the table.

“Nonsense is the only possible form of conversation when you have for a neighbour a young man who is in love with someone else,” Myra expounded. “Father, what sort of a wife do you think a rising young diplomat ought to have.”

“Not a chatterbox,” was the severe reply.

Myra sighed.

“Oh well, I’ll leave you alone, Mark,” she promised. “They’re all against me. Pax, if you’ll take me to dance at Claridge’s to-morrow afternoon.”

“My dear child,” he remonstrated, “fancy suggesting dancing in the middle of the day to a man immersed in immense affairs. I don’t know what my new hours really are, but I imagine if I have time to change for dinner once or twice a week it is as much as I can expect.”

Myra made a little grimace.

“I always understood,” she complained, “that it was the first duty of the younger and more ornamental members of the profession to be at the service of their Chief’s daughter. However, I daresay as Mr. Brownlow has only been here three years longer than you and is clever enough to be an Ambassador himself he’ll find time somehow. Everyone is neglecting me. Now I hear that Archie Rawlinson the only person in London I can tango with, has caught the ’flu.”

The hurried entrance of Brownlow himself interrupted the conversation. He apologised first to Mrs. Widdowes and leaned over his Chief’s chair with a slip of paper in his hand. The Ambassador adjusted his glasses, glanced at it, and nodded.

“Foreign exchanges all wobbly,” he confided to Hugerson.

“Humph!”

There was a brief silence. Mr. Hugerson stroked his chin thoughtfully. It was obvious that some unspoken thought had presented itself simultaneously to the two men.

“Furthermore,” the Ambassador continued, as he tore the slip of paper into pieces, “our friend the money wizard Felix Dukane, requests a further interview. Did you arrange anything, Brownlow?”

“I told him I thought three o’clock this afternoon, sir. You’re free until four.”

“Here, I suppose?”

“He wished to come here, sir.”

Mr. Widdowes nodded.

“Very well then, I shan’t turn out till afterwards,” he decided. “More comfortable for me anyway. He’ll probably arrive down the chimney, or in a taxicab at the servants’ entrance. Hugerson, you ought to know that man.”

“Sure,” was the prompt assent. “I’m all set on meeting him. It can’t be till after I’ve got through with my job though.”

“I guess you’re right,” Mr. Widdowes admitted regretfully. “You’re not missing anything, my friend—not in the way of grace of manner or personality, or conversation—there’s no doubt about the man’s financial genius. Other men can talk money. He can produce it. Of course, we know what he’s up to now more or less, but he wants to be on the safe side according to any move Washington may make. That’s why he’s all the time fencing with me. Fortunately there’s a clear line. So much may he know and no more.”

“The day after I complete my investigations,” Mr. Hugerson declared, “I insist upon meeting the man.”

“You shall,” the Ambassador promised. “You shall also meet the prettiest girl I ever saw in my life—his daughter.”

Myra sighed.

“A pity about father,” she whispered to her neighbour. “Since he met mother and I did him the honour to become his daughter, he seems to have lost his taste. Do you think she is the prettiest girl you ever saw in your life, Mark? Look well at me before you answer.”

“I’m afraid I do,” he admitted.

Myra stretched across the table for a chocolate and sighed once more.

“After this,” she murmured, “it is either back to the nursery for me or a nunnery. Unless——”

“Unless what?”

“Unless I can convert either you or Henry. I should prefer you because you know all the new steps, but nowadays girls can’t choose....”

The Ambassador left the room arm in arm with Hugerson. His face was a little grave. He had not disclosed everything which had been written upon that slip.

“James,” he confided, “there is someone trying to play the devil with us at the London Embassies. We know about Dimsdale. The poor young fellow threw himself overboard last night, directly the steamer left Southampton, and this morning one of the Italian secretaries blew his brains out just as they were about to arrest him.”

“Guess I’m glad so long as I’ve any secrets to handle that I’m going to have Mark Van Stratton,” Mr. Hugerson observed laconically.