Читать книгу The Peer and the Woman - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 4

Table of Contents

"'Pon my word you're a very amusing fellow."

The person addressed flushed slightly as though offended by the patronizing tone in which these words were carelessly spoken. But his annoyance, if indeed he felt any, was evidently short-lived, for he answered back readily enough, with a little laugh:

"Glad you think so, very glad. It isn't every day, you see, that a poor fellow like me has the chance of amusing a milord—especially an English one."

"Milord" arched his eyebrows, and not having detected the faint tinge of sarcasm in the other's tone, put this remark down to pure snobbishness. So he withdrew a little further into the corner of the comfortable first-class railway carriage, of which the two men were the only occupants, and remained silent for a few moments, idly strumming upon the window panes with his fingers.

"How did you know my name?" he asked, abruptly, turning again toward his fellow-passenger.

"I didn't say that I did know it," was the reply. "I heard your servant call you 'my lord' on the boat, and there's a coronet on your bag there, unless my eyes deceive me, which they very seldom do. Voila tout."

"Did you cross from Calais then? I didn't see you."

The other shrugged his shoulders.

"Very likely not. In fact, it would have been very strange if you had seen me, considering that I was in my cabin all the while."

"Sea-sick?" inquired "milord" contemptuously.

"Yes, sea-sick," was the unhesitating admission of his vis-à-vis. "I've never crossed yet without being sea-sick."

The frankness of the confession was not without its effect upon the person to whom it was made. "Milord," although he was a yachtsman and a born sailor, and had all a healthy young Englishman's contempt for effeminacy in any shape or form, smiled indulgently.

"Sorry for you. I was myself once, in the Bay of Biscay when I was eleven years old, and I haven't forgotten it. Deuced uncomfortable sensation it was."

The difference between these two men, whom chance had thus thrown together on their journey from Dover to Waterloo, was very marked indeed. "Milord" was a typical young British aristocrat, with long straight limbs, smooth, fair face, a little tanned by exposure to all sorts of weather; well-cut features, about which there hovered a slight vacuity of expression common among young men of the higher orders who have nothing particular to do with themselves, and which was perhaps a little heightened by the single eye-glass which obscured one of his clear blue eyes. He was dressed in a light check travelling suit, colored shirt, with a white silk tie, and a small bunch of Parma violets in his buttonhole. He wore no gloves, and his hands, though shapely, were hard and brown. A well-worn tobacco-pouch was open by his side, from which he had recently replenished the deeply-colored meerschaum pipe which he was smoking. Taken as a whole, his appearance was distinctly aristocratic, with a dash of the Bohemian. At any rate, no one could possibly have mistaken him for anything else but a gentleman.

His companion was a man of an altogether different stamp. His hair and mustache, once jet-black, were plentifully besprinkled with gray, and his small oval face was deeply lined. His features, though not striking, were refined and delicate, and his prominent forehead and deep clear eyes gave him somewhat the air of a student, which, however, his restless, almost flippant, manner in a measure contradicted. His manners, indeed, were the least pleasing part about him—alternately nervous and inquisitive, labored and careless. He was ill, almost shabbily, dressed, and many little details about his person and tout ensemble were obnoxious to his more distinguished fellow-passenger. Still, he had told some funny stories and had made himself very amusing without attempting to be familiar, and Lord Clanavon, whom two things—railway travelling and his own company—always bored exceedingly, felt faintly grateful to this stranger of doubtful appearance for relieving the monotony of his journey, and decided to tolerate him for the brief remainder of it.

"You didn't come up from Paris, did you?" he inquired carelessly.

"Yes."

"And you were on the boat, too? Seems queer I didn't see you somewhere about."

"I was below most of the time on the boat," the other reminded him.

"Ah, yes. I suppose that was it. I thought I'd watched every one on board at Calais, too. There was a bit of a crush, though, and I must have missed you. Hallo! isn't that your ticket on the floor?" he added, pointing to it with his foot.

The other stooped forward quickly and picked it up. But Lord Clanavon's eyes were keen, and the ticket had fallen upon its back.

"Why didn't you book through from Paris?" he asked curiously. "That ticket's only from Dover, isn't it?"

"That's all. The fact is, I lost my ticket somewhere, and had to re-book from Dover. A nuisance, but it couldn't be helped."

There was a brief silence, during which Lord Clanavon yawned several times, and as his companion had ceased to be amusing, he picked up a sporting paper and studied it for a few minutes. Then the train ran into Waterloo, and he rose and stretched himself with an air of relief.

His fellow-passenger was the first to alight. Lord Clanavon returned his parting salute with a slight, condescending nod, then stepped out of the carriage himself, and, lighting a cigar, looked around for his servant. In a moment or two he came hurrying up.

"Bring out my traps and take them round to Grosvenor Square in a cab, Burdett," he ordered. "I shall walk. What the mischief's the matter with you?" he added, in an altered tone, looking hard into the man face; "you look as though you'd seen a ghost."

"It's—nothing particular, my lord," Burdett answerer plunging into the carriage and busying himself folding up papers and collecting his master's belonging "It was rather a rough passage, my lord, and I think must have upset me a little."

Lord Clanavon, one of the most truthful young me in the world, accepted his servant's explanation at once though he glanced again with some curiosity into his pale, averted face.

"I should have thought that you would have bee used to it by now," he remarked. "There's some brandy in that flask on the seat. Help yourself, if yo feel bad."

"Thank you, my lord," Burdett answered in a low tome; but instead of doing so he ceased for a moment in his task and watched his young master's retreating figure with tears in his eyes.

"I ought to have told him," he groaned; "but daren't. Oh! poor Mr. Bernard! Whatever will he do when he knows!"