Part 18 (1/2)

”The 15th!”

The echo of those words alone escaped the dry, white lips of Cecil; he showed no amaze, no indignation; once only, as the charge was made, he gave in sudden gesture, with a sudden gleam, so dark, so dangerous, in his eyes, that his comrade thought and hoped that with one moment more the Jew would be dashed down at his feet with the lie branded on his mouth by the fiery blow of a slandered and outraged honor. The action was repressed; the extraordinary quiescence, more hopeless because more resigned than any sign of pain or of pa.s.sion, returned either by force of self-control or by the stupor of despair.

The Seraph gazed at him with a fixed, astounded horror; he could not believe his senses; he could not realize what he saw. His dearest friend stood mute beneath the charge of lowest villainy--stood powerless before the falsehoods of a Jew extortioner!

”Bertie! Great Heaven!” he cried, well-nigh beside himself, ”how can you stand silent there? Do you hear--do you hear aright? Do you know the accursed thing this conspiracy has tried to charge you with? Say something, for the love of G.o.d! I will have vengeance on your slanderer, if you take none.”

He had looked for the rise of the same pa.s.sion that rang in his own imperious words, for the fearless wrath of an insulted gentleman, the instantaneous outburst of a contemptuous denial, the fire of scorn, the lightning flash of fury--all that he gave himself, all that must be so naturally given by a slandered man under the libel that brands him with disgrace. He had looked for these as surely as he looked for the setting of one sun and the rise of another; he would have staked his life on the course of his friend's conduct as he would upon his own, and a ghastly terror sent a pang to his heart.

Still--Cecil stood silent; there was a strange, set, repressed anguish on his face that made it chill as stone; there was an unnatural calm upon him; yet he lifted his head with a gesture haughty for the moment as any action that his defender could have wished.

”I am not guilty,” he said simply.

The Seraph's hands were on his own in a close, eager grasp almost ere the words were spoken.

”Beauty, Beauty! Never say that to me. Do you think I can ever doubt you?”

For a moment Cecil's head sank; the dignity with which he had spoken remained on him, but the scorn of his defiance and his denial faded.

”No; you cannot; you never will.”

The words were spoken almost mechanically, like a man in a dream. Ezra Baroni, standing calmly there with the tranquility that an a.s.sured power alone confers, smiled slightly once more.

”You are not guilty, Mr. Cecil? I shall be charmed if we can find it so.

Your proofs?”

”Proof? I give you my word.”

Baroni bowed, with a sneer at once insolent but subdued.

”We men of business, sir, are--perhaps inconveniently for gentlemen--given to a preference in favor of something more substantial.

Your word, doubtless, is your bond among your acquaintance; it is a pity for you that your friend's name should have been added to the bond you placed with us. Business men's pertinacity is a little wearisome, no doubt, to officers and members of the aristocracy like yourself; but all the same I must persist--how can you disprove this charge?”

The Seraph turned on him with a fierceness of a bloodhound.

”You dog! If you use that tone again in my presence, I will double-throng you till you cannot breathe!”

Baroni laughed a little; he felt secure now, and could not resist the pleasure of braving and of torturing the ”aristocrats.”

”I don't doubt your will or your strength, my lord; but neither do I doubt the force of the law to make you account for any brutality of the prize-ring your lords.h.i.+p may please to exert on me.”

The Seraph ground his heel into the carpet.

”We waste words on that wretch,” he said abruptly to Cecil. ”Prove his insolence the lie it is, and we will deal with him later on.”

”Precisely what I said, my lord,” murmured Baroni. ”Let Mr. Cecil prove his innocence.”

Into Bertie's eyes came a hunted, driven desperation. He turned them on Rockingham with a look that cut him to the heart; yet the abhorrent thought crossed him--was it thus that men guiltless looked?

”Mr. Cecil was with my partner at 7:50 on the evening of the 15th. It was long over business hours, but my partner to oblige him stretched a point,” pursued the soft, bland, malicious voice of the German Jew. ”If he was not at our office--where was he? That is simple enough.”