Part 16 (2/2)

When she went to Paris on this occasion she took a jewel-case with her.

In it there were perhaps fifty thousand pounds' worth of gems. Her maid, a woman who had been with her for years, was in charge of the case except when Lady Sellingworth was actually in the train. Then Lady Sellingworth had it with her in a reserved first-cla.s.s carriage for the whole of which she paid.

The journey was not eventful. But to Lady Sellingworth it was an adventure.

The brown man was on the train with his thin, sardonic friend, and with the old woman Lady Sellingworth had seen with him in London.

The sight of this party--she saw them stepping into the Pullman car as she was going to her reserved carriage--surprised her. She had expected that the stranger would travel alone. As she sat down in her corner facing the engine, with the jewel-case on the seat next to her, she felt an obscure irritation. A man in search of adventure does not usually take two people--one of them an old woman in a black wig--with him when he sets out on his travels. A trio banishes romance. And how can a woman be thrilled by a family party?

For a moment Lady Sellingworth felt anger against the stranger. For a moment she wished she had not undertaken the journey. It occurred to her that perhaps she had made a humiliating mistake when she thought that the brown man wished, and intended, her to go to Paris because he was going. Her pride was alarmed. She saw plainly for a moment the mud into which vanity had led her, and she longed to get out of the train and to remain in London. But how could she account to her maid for such a sudden change of plans? What could she say to her household? She knew, of course, that she owed them no explanation. But still--and her friends? She had told everybody that she was going to Paris. They would think her crazy for giving up the journey after she was actually in the train. And she had seen two or three acquaintances on the platform. No; she must make the journey now. It was too late to give it up. But she wished intensely she had not undertaken it.

At the moment of this wish of hers, coming from the Pullman, the brown man walked slowly by on the platform, alone. His eyes were searching the train with keen attention. But Lady Sellingworth happened to be leaning back, and he did not see her. She knew he was looking for her. He went on out of her sight. She sat still in her corner, and presently saw him coming back. This time he saw her, and did something which for the moment startled her. On the window of the carriage, next the seat opposite to hers, was pasted a label with ”Reserved” printed on it in big letters. Underneath was written: ”For the Countess of Sellingworth.”

When the man saw Lady Sellingworth in her corner he gave no sign of recognition but he took out of the breast pocket of his travelling coat a pocket-book, went deliberately up to the window, looked hard at the label, and then wrote something--her name, no doubt--in his book. This done, he put the book back in his pocket and walked gravely away without glancing at her again.

And now Lady Sellingworth no longer regretted that she was going to Paris. What the man had just done had rea.s.sured her. It was now evident to her that the first time they had met in Bond Street he had not known who she was or anything about her. He must simply have been struck by her beauty, and from that moment had wished to know her. Ever since then he must have been longing to know who she was. The fact that he had evidently not discovered her name till he had read it on the label pasted on the railway carriage window convinced her that, in spite of his boldness in showing her his feelings, he was a scrupulous man. A careless man could certainly have found out who she was at the Carlton, by asking a waiter. Evidently he had not chosen to do that. The omission showed delicacy, refinement of nature. It pleased her. It made her feel safe. She felt that the man was a gentleman, one who could respect a woman. Sir Seymour had been wrong in his hasty judgment. An outsider would not have behaved in such a way. That the stranger had deliberately taken down her name in his book while she was watching him did not displease her at all. He wished her to know of his longing, but he was evidently determined to keep it hidden from others.

She felt now in the very heart of a romantic adventure, and thrilled with excitement about the future. What would happen when they all got to Paris? It was evident to her now that he did not know she had an apartment there--unless, indeed, he had first seen her in Paris and had, perhaps, followed her to London! But even if that were so it was unlikely that he knew where she lived.

In any case she knew he was going to the Ritz.

The train flew on towards the sea while she mused over possibilities and imagined events in Paris.

She knew now, of course, that the stranger was absolutely out of her world. His ignorance proved to her that he could not be in any society she moved in. She guessed that he was some charming young man from a distance, come to Europe perhaps for the first time--some ardent youth from Brazil, from Peru, from Mexico! The guess gave colour to the adventure. He knew her name now. She wondered what his name was. And she wondered about the old woman in the wig and about the sardonic friend.

In what relation did the three people stand to each other?

She could not divine. But she thought that perhaps the old woman was the mother of the man she wished to know.

She had a private cabin on the boat. It was on the top deck. But, as the weather was fine and the sea fairly calm, her maid occupied it with the jewel-case, while she sat in the open on a deck chair, well wrapped up in a fur rug. Presently an acquaintance, a colonel in the Life Guards, joined her, established himself in a chair at her side, and kept her busy with conversation.

When the s.h.i.+p drew out into the Channel several men began to pace up and down the deck with the st.u.r.dy determination of good sailors resolved upon getting health from the salt briskness of the sea. Among them were the two men of the trio. The old woman had evidently gone into hiding.

As Lady Sellingworth conversed with her colonel she made time, as a woman can, for a careful and detailed consideration of the man on whom her thoughts were concentrated. Although he did not look at her as he pa.s.sed up and down the deck, she knew that he had seen where she was sitting. And, without letting the colonel see what she was doing, she followed the tall, athletic figure in the long, rough, greenish-brown overcoat with her eyes, looking away when it drew very near to her. And now and then she looked at its companion.

In the Paris _rapide_ she was again alone in a carriage reserved for her. She did not go into the restaurant to lunch, as she hated eating in a crowd. Instead, her maid brought her a luncheon basket which had been supplied by the chef in Berkeley Square. After eating she smoked a cigarette and read the French papers which she had bought at the Calais station. And then she sat still and looked out of the window, and thought and dreamed and wondered and desired.

Although she did not know it, she was living through almost the last of those dreams which are the rightful property of youth, but which sometimes, obstinate and deceitful, haunt elderly minds, usually to their undoing.

The light began to fade and the dream to become more actual. She lived again as she had lived in the days when she was a reigning beauty, when there was no question of her having to seek for the joys and the adventures of life. In the twilight of France she reigned.

A shadow pa.s.sed by in the corridor. She had scarcely seen it. Rather she had felt its pa.s.sing. But the dream was gone. She was alert, tense, expectant. Paris was near. And he was near. She linked the two together in her mind. And she felt that she was drawing close to a climax in her life. A conviction took hold of her that some big, some determining event was going to happen in Paris, that she would return to London different--a changed woman.

Happiness changes! She was travelling in search of happiness. The wild blood in her leaped at the thought of grasping happiness. And she felt reckless. She would dare all, would do anything, if only she might capture happiness. Dignity, self-respect, propriety, the conventions--what value had they really? To bow down to them--does that bring happiness? Out of the way with them, and a straight course for the human satisfaction which comes only in following the dictates of the nature one is born with!

Lights twinkled here and there in the gloom. Again the shadow pa.s.sed in the corridor. A moment later Lady Sellingworth's maid appeared to take charge of the jewel-case.

The crowd at the Gare du Nord was great, and the station was badly lit.

Lady Sellingworth did not see her reason for coming to Paris. A carriage was waiting for her. She got into it with her jewel-case, and drove away to her apartment, leaving her maid to follow with the luggage.

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