Читать книгу The Light Beyond - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 9

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Mark spent a disconcerting and profitless hour watching Estelle Dukane dance and avoiding so far as possible his own obvious duty to his acquaintances that he might be free to claim her if ever the chance arose. At the end of that time, however, despairing of a better opportunity, he took his courage into his hands, and boldly approached her as she sat with her most recent partner in one of the ante-rooms.

“May I have this dance?” he begged.

Even whilst she was apparently hesitating, the music struck up, and he took her firmly away. As soon as they were safely in the crowd he whispered in her ear.

“I have some news for you. I have told your father. You must spare me a minute after this dance.”

She looked up at him with a queer disturbance in her eyes. He had an idea that she, like her father, found something sinister in his avowal.

“You did not succeed?” she exclaimed. “You have bungled that affair, perhaps?”

“So your father seemed to think,” he replied, a little bitterly. “I should have thought my news would have been good.”

“Well?”

He waited for a moment, until they were outside the throng.

“The man is alive,” he confided. “He will probably live.”

“Alive!” she repeated incredulously.

“He is at my house in Curzon Street now. He has a hospital nurse with him, and the doctor says he will recover.”

She seemed suddenly tired.

“Let us sit down,” she suggested. “You dance very nicely, but this has upset me.”

They found some chairs in a retired corner, and she accepted a glass of champagne from a footman who was passing.

“Of course, in a way I am glad,” she confessed, “and yet—well, it makes complications. What are you going to do with him?”

“What can I do?” he asked. “I shall keep him until he is well. Then he is free to go wherever he wishes. So far as I can tell he does not seem vindictive. He has said nothing to the doctor about how he received his hurt, and I have explained that I picked him up in the fog. He has not contradicted me.”

“No, I do not suppose he will tell,” she reflected. “That is not the danger.”

“Is he really what your father called him—a blackmailer?”

“One of the worst type,” she answered. “And the trouble is that he has brains. He has accomplished a wonderful piece of work. I do not wish to talk of him any more for the present, I am anxious to hear what my father has to say.”

There was a moment’s pause.

“Do you care to dance again?” he ventured.

“Presently, perhaps, I am a little upset. Go on talking about anything.”

“How is it that it is so difficult to see anything of you?” he asked. “Have you no house, no friends here?”

“Very few,” she admitted. “London has never attracted me. We spend most of our time, when we are not travelling, in Paris.”

“How do you amuse yourself? How do you pass the time here?” he enquired. “You don’t play games I am sure. You must do something.”

“Have you not guessed?” she replied. “I am my father’s confidante in everything he undertakes. He never plans an enterprise without talking it over with me.”

“It seems a curious life for a girl like you,” he observed. “To watch you as you have been this evening, talking to all these men, and dancing, one would never imagine that you cared for anything more serious in life.”

“I have my moments of frivolity,” she answered. “The worst of it is that I never know when they will arrive.”

“To-night, for instance?” he suggested.

“I came on here,” she confided, “only because I wished to meet a friend who has arrived in London. Lord Dorchester is trying to find him for me. If he succeeds you must go away at once, please.”

“Who is he?” Mark asked irritably.

“Prince Andropulo of Drome. I want to talk to him.”

“Well, I hope Dorchester doesn’t find him then,” Mark declared, “because I want to talk to you myself.”

“What about?” she asked. “You are not interested in high finance, are you?”

“Is Prince Andropulo?” he rejoined.

She smiled.

“Perhaps not directly,” she admitted, “but he will be king before long of an undeveloped country. My father thinks that with capital Drome has a great future.”

“I am not interested in Drome,” Mark confessed, “and even if I were there are other things I would rather talk to you about.”

“As for instance?”

“Yourself.”

She had relaxed a little and was leaning back in her chair. The air of aloofness which all the evening had hurt and puzzled him had gone for the moment, and her eyes were watching him quizzically. Her smile mocked him.

“What interest can you have in me?” she demanded. “I have scarcely known you more than a few hours.”

“I have this interest,” he replied: “that some day I am hoping to marry you.”

She laughed; gaily this time, and without reserve.

“Delightful!” she murmured. “Now you are beginning to amuse me. I love this Anglo-Saxon candour. Would you be considered just a trifle premature, I wonder?”

“I am not making you a proposal,” he reminded her, “unless you feel disposed to give me a little more encouragement. I am simply warning you that some day I shall. I felt it directly you came into the restaurant at the Ritz. I even ventured to say something of the sort.”

“To Lord Dorchester and Colonel de Fontanay?”

“Yes.”

“You took rather a liberty, did you not?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t think so. As a matter of fact, Henry Dorchester has pronounced himself my rival.”

“A nice boy!” she murmured. “I have been dancing with him. He is not like you, though. He does not waste his time playing games. Even to-night he has been at work down in the House.”

“I too,” Mark announced, “am a working man.”

“Since when?”

“Since this morning. Not half an hour after I left you, Mr. Widdowes asked me if I could come into the Embassy for a time. They are overworked there, and Dimsdale, one of the secretaries, has crocked up. I thought of your advice, and I didn’t hesitate. All the same it was rather a coincidence, wasn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” she admitted. “Are you going to work at the Embassy itself or are you going abroad for them?”

“I shall do whatever I am told,” he answered. “So far my first job has been to go through a list of American tourists and discover who can be invited to a mere ‘At Home,’ who must be invited to lunch and who to dinner.”

“It doesn’t sound exciting,” she laughed.

“Before you are snatched away from me, there is something I want to ask you,” he begged, changing the subject abruptly. “I have been thinking about it all day. Was your advice to me altogether a coincidence?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you spoke to me of what you call my idleness. You begged me if any work were offered to take it. Within an hour’s time that work was offered. Had you any idea that such a thing was about to happen?”

“How could I have?” she rejoined. “I am a complete stranger to the Widdowes. We dined there to-night only because Mr. Widdowes wished to have an informal talk with my father.”

“But I still ask you whether you had any idea?” he persisted, dimly apprehending a certain evasiveness in her manner.

She shook her head.

“You must not ask me silly questions. Be content with knowing that I much prefer you as you are. I like men who are workers. Many of the rich idlers of your sex who do nothing but hunt and shoot and play polo are picturesque enough, but they are not my type.... Now, I shall give you one more word of advice.”

“Do.”

“If you have the choice, drop this social work. It is not of very great consequence, is it, and you look so steady and responsible that I’m sure before long they would trust you with more important matters.”

“I certainly will if I can,” he promised. “I think Dimsdale used to do some of the Chief’s private correspondence when they were busy. I may have a chance of taking his place.”

“If that is offered, accept it,” she begged earnestly. “Ah, here comes the person I want to see, at last!”

She looked across the room towards a sallow-faced man, young apparently, with black hair brushed smoothly back, dark eyes, and a very bored manner. There was nothing in his dress to offend the convenances but there seemed to be a sort of Orientalism about the size of his studs, the rings he wore on the little finger of each hand. He had the face of a young man in the early thirties, but the heavily-set figure of one ten years older.

“That is the Prince,” she pointed out. “Get up at once, please. Go straight over to him, and tell him that Miss Dukane wishes to speak to him. Hurry, please, before anyone gets hold of him. And you had better stay away.”

“Shan’t I be allowed one more dance?” he pleaded. “And how are you getting home?”

“Mr. Brownlow and Miss Widdowes have promised to drop me,” she said. “You shall have another dance afterwards if it is possible, but do not interrupt me when I am talking to Prince Andropulo, unless I call you.”

Mark performed his errand and watched from the background whilst the Prince, who had hurried eagerly to Estelle’s side, bent low over her fingers and raised them to his lips. His dark eyes glittered. It was obvious that the meeting was of import to him. Mark turned away with a black look upon his face. Myra, who was dancing with Brownlow, suddenly beckoned to him.

“Alan,” she begged, “go and find another partner, there’s a dear. We’ve had four running, and a girl in her first season can’t be too careful. Come and dance with me, Mark, and tell me why this scowl?”

They moved off to the music, after a good-humoured protest from the discarded young man.

“Well, I don’t know, Myra,” Mark confided. “I don’t feel at my best to-night, and that’s the truth. Am I getting too old, I wonder, for these big dances, where one knows so few people?”

“They aren’t so much fun as the small ones,” she admitted. “Tell me, what did you think of Miss Dukane to-night?”

“I found her very attractive,” was his prompt confession.

“I think she is almost the prettiest girl I have ever seen,” Myra decided, “and yet there is something about her face—what is it, I wonder?—which seems a little hard. I think it must be her mouth. One moment, she is smiling, and the next—well, those little lines looked to me as though they might be cruel. I am not at all sure that if I were a man I should care to be in love with her. Mark, shall I tell you a secret?”

“Go right ahead, don’t tell me, though, that Alan Brownlow has proposed to you—forward brute!”

She laughed.

“Nothing to do with me at all. It’s about you yourself. I don’t think it’s really a secret, or I wouldn’t dare tell you, and to-morrow you’ll know, anyway.”

“I’m getting terribly curious.”

“I’m telling you,” she went on, after a moment’s pause, “because you look rather bored to-night, and it may interest you. I believe dad is going to offer you some much more important work with someone who is on his way over from America. Mummie is to have someone else go through her visiting lists.”

Mark was conscious of a curious little thrill. His eyes wandered away in search of Estelle.

“Extraordinary!” he muttered.

“Why extraordinary?” she asked. “I think it’s very natural. I suppose it’s a sort of private secretaryship.”

“I haven’t had much experience of that sort of thing,” Mark reflected dubiously.

“I don’t think it’s very difficult. From what Ned used to say you don’t have much to do except wait about until your Chief is inclined to be eloquent, and then boil down the result to a typist. It must be rather thrilling, though, when there’s anything really going on.”

“I think it’s fine!” he declared.

“Don’t know anything about it to-morrow,” she enjoined.

“I won’t breathe a word,” he promised. “You’re a dear for telling me.”

Alan Brownlow discovered them presently, and they lingered for a few minutes in the refreshment room. Afterwards, Mark strolled out and found Dorchester with de Fontanay. The three stood talking for a time, Mark especially watching, with gloomy eyes, Estelle, who was dancing with the Prince. Presently she passed them, apparently oblivious of their near presence, leaning back a little and laughing into her partner’s face. Mark scowled openly. Dorchester frowned his disapproval. De Fontanay shook his head.

“Idiots, both of you!” he sighed. “You are already advanced a stage towards trouble. Can you not realise that there goes a woman who was born to break hearts?”