Part 20 (2/2)
”Ah! ah!” he continued, examining the walls, ”the family portraits are gone--eaten away, no doubt, by the moths and the damp.”
It was quite clear to me the stranger was not here for the first time. Though his manners were free, there was something gentlemanly in his personal appearance. Still his dress was fantastic. He wore a short velvet jacket with metal b.u.t.tons, and a silk handkerchief loosely tied around his neck; tight trousers of a grey pearl colour, and polished riding-boots with spurs, and a soft felt hat.
”You've got nothing to drink here?” he asked, after a pause of some minutes. ”I have ridden for three hours, and my throat is almost choked with sand and dust.”
He spoke Dutch with a foreign accent. His age seemed to be about fifty, though he might be younger. His lively, active features were never at rest for a moment; his greenish-grey eyes, the fine wrinkles on his high sunburnt forehead, and the paleness of his cheeks, all marked him as the adventurer endued with strong pa.s.sions--an impression that was increased by his thick-set face, large nose, and the tufted mustachios hanging over his thick, sensual lips. I could not refuse him a gla.s.s of water, unwelcome as I found his presence. As I handed it to him I said--
”You seem to know this house well.”
”Yes, and that's no wonder; I played many a prank here in my boyhood. But you, sir, who are you? An adjutant of the Colonel's, or a protege of Francis's?”
”I think I have the best right to question you, and to ask who you are?”
”That's true enough; and I would tell you with pleasure, but it's a secret which concerns others besides myself. Call me Mr. Smithson--it's the name I am known by at present.”
”Very well. Now what is your business here, Mr. Smithson?”
”I wish you to tell Francis I am here.”
”Do you think the news will be agreeable to her?” I demanded.
”I cannot say, but she will come all the same.”
”Here, into my room?”
”Bah! our Major Frank is no prude.”
”Mr. Smithson, I give you fair warning that if you say a single word derogatory to the character of Miss Mordaunt, I shall instantly make you take the same way out of this room by which you entered it.”
”Oh! oh! Mr. Unknown, I am a first-rate boxer. But easy, man, easy! For I should be the last person in the world to say an offensive word about Francis. Now, since you know her, you ought to be aware that she would never refuse to a.s.sist a person in distress out of a sense of prudery. Just you ask her to come here to see--not Smithson, because she does not know me under that name, but a relation of hers, who calls himself Rudolf.”
”And if she refuses to come?”
”Oh, you make too many difficulties. Ah! is it possible you are her----I should have thought Francis Mordaunt more capable of commanding a batalion than of bowing herself under the yoke of marriage. But, after all, women do change their minds. Then you are the happy mortal?”
”A truce to your suppositions,” I answered him in a firm voice; ”I am here as a relation, a grand-nephew of the General's; my name is Leopold van Zonshoven.”
”Well, upon my word! Probably we are cousins, for I am also related to the General. Francis will not refuse to come, I a.s.sure you--especially if you tell her that I do not come to ask for money; on the contrary, I bring some with me.”
Hereupon he drew from his pocket a purse containing a number of clean, new greenbacks.
”Tell her what you have seen; it will set her mind at ease, and possibly yours also--for you seem as yet only half-and-half convinced that I am not a highwayman.”
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