Part 6 (1/2)
”I am most grateful, Miss Metford. I cannot tell you how grateful I am.
You would not understand--”
”Oh, please leave my poor understanding alone, and tell me what has happened to you. I should like to hear it. And what is more, I like you.” She said this so carelessly, I did not feel embarra.s.sed. ”Now, then, the whole story, please.” Saying which, she sat down again.
”Do you really know nothing more of Brande's Society than you admitted when I last spoke to you about it?” I asked, without taking the chair she pushed over to me.
”This is all I know,” she answered, in the rhyming voice of a young pupil declaiming a piece of a little understood and less cared for recitation. ”The society has very interesting evenings. Brande shows one beautiful experiments, which, I daresay, would be amazingly instructive if one were inclined that way, which I am not. The men are mostly long-haired creatures with spectacles. Some of them are rather good-looking. All are wholly mad. And my friend--I mean the only girl I could ever stand as a friend--Natalie Brande, is crazy about them.”
”Nothing more than that?”
”Nothing more.”
The clock now struck the hour of nine, the warning chime for which had startled me.
”Is there anything more than that?” Miss Metford asked with some impatience.
I thought for a moment. Unless my own senses had deceived me that evening in Brande's house, I ran a great risk of sharing George Delany's fate if I remained where I was much longer. And suppose I told her all I knew, would not that bring the same danger upon her too? So I had to answer:
”I cannot tell you. I am a member now.”
”Then you must know more than any mere outsider like myself. I suppose it would not be fair to ask you. Anyhow, you will come back and see me soon. By the way, what is your address?”
I gave her my address. She wrote it down on a silver-cased tablet, and remarked:
”That will be all right. I'll look you up some evening.”
As I drove to my hotel, I felt that the mesmeric trick, or whatever artifice had been practised upon me by Brande and Grey, had now a.s.sumed its true proportion. I laughed at my fears, and was thankful that I had not described them to the strong-minded young woman to whose kindly society I owed so much. What an idiot she would have thought me!
A servant met me in the hall.
”Telegram, sir. Just arrived at this moment.”
I took the telegram, and went upstairs with it unopened in my hand. A strange fear overcame me. I dared not open the envelope. I knew beforehand who the sender was, and what the drift of the message would be. I was right. It was from Brande.
”I beg you to be more cautious. Your discussion with Miss M. this evening might have been disastrous. I thought all was over at nine o'clock.
”BRANDE.”
I sat down stupefied. When my senses returned, I looked at the table where I had thrown the telegram. It was not there, nor in the room. I rang for the man who had given it to me, and he came immediately.
”About that telegram you gave me just now, Phillips--”
”I beg your pardon, sir,” the man interrupted, ”I did not give you any telegram this evening.”
”I mean when you spoke to me in the hall.”
”Yes, sir. I said 'good-night,' but you took no notice. Excuse me, sir, I thought you looked strange.”