Part 28 (2/2)

There were three or four other men in the room when he entered it, but Mr. Travers picked out Julian in an instant. Their eyes met, and neither of them looked away from the other. Julian said stiffly: ”Sit down, won't you? What will you take--a whisky and soda?”

”Thanks,” said Mr. Travers, drawing up a chair opposite Julian and placing his hat and gloves carefully on the floor beside him. ”I do not drink alcohol in between meals, but I should like a little aerated water.”

Julian stared at him fixedly. This was the man Eurydice had compared with Napoleon, to the latter's disadvantage.

Mr. Travers refused a cigar, and sat in an arm-chair as if there were a desk in front of him. It annoyed Julian even to look at him.

”I have no doubt,” said Mr. Travers, ”that you are wondering why I ventured to ask you for this interview.”

”I'm afraid I am, rather,” Julian observed, with hostile politeness. ”I know your name, of course.”

”Exactly,” said Mr. Travers, as if Julian had presented him with a valuable concession greatly to his advantage. ”I had counted upon that fact to approach you directly and without correspondence. One should avoid black and white, I think, when it is possible, in dealing with personal matters.”

”I am not aware,” said Julian, coldly, ”that there are any personal matters between us to discuss.”

”I dare say not,” replied Mr. Travers, blandly, placing the tips of his fingers slowly together. ”You may have observed, Sir Julian, that coincidences bring very unlikely people together at times. I admit that they have done so in this instance.”

”What for?” asked Julian, succinctly. He found that he disliked Mr.

Travers quite as much as he intended to dislike him, and he despised him more.

”An injustice has been brought to my notice,” said Mr. Travers, slowly and impressively. He was not in the least flurried by Julian's hostile manner, which he considered was due to an insufficient business education; it only made him more careful as to his own. ”I could not overlook it, and as it directly concerns you, Sir Julian, I am prepared to make a statement to you on the subject.”

”I'm sure I'm much obliged to you,” said Julian; ”but I trust you will make the statement as short and as little personal as possible.”

”Speed,” Mr. Travers said reprovingly, ”is by no means an a.s.sistance in elucidating personal problems; and I may add, Sir Julian, that it is at least as painful for me as for you, to touch upon personal matters with a stranger.”

”The fact remains,” said Julian, impatiently, ”that you're doing it, and I'm not. Go on!”

Mr. Travers frowned. Town clerks are not as a rule ordered to go on.

Even their mayors treat them with munic.i.p.al hesitancy. Still, he went on. Julian's eyes held him as in a vice.

”You have probably heard my name,” Mr. Travers began, ”from the elder Miss Waring.” Julian nodded. ”She was for two years and a half my secretary. I may say that she was the most efficient secretary I have ever had. There have been, I think, few instances in any office where the work between a man and woman was more impersonal or more satisfactory. It is due to the elder Miss Waring that I should tell you this. It was in fact entirely due to her, for I found myself unable to continue it. There was a lapse on my part. Miss Waring was consideration itself in her way of meeting this--er--lapse; but she unconditionally refused me.”

Julian drew a quick breath, and turned his eyes away from Mr. Travers.

”At the same time,” Mr. Travers continued, ”she gave me to understand, in order, I fancy, to palliate my error of judgment, that her affections were engaged elsewhere.”

Julian could not speak. His pride had him by the throat. He could not tell Mr. Travers to go on now, although he felt as if his life depended on it.

”There are one or two points which I put together, at a later date,” Mr.

Travers continued, after a slight pause, ”and by which I was able to connect Miss Waring's statement with her subsequent actions. She is, if I may say so, a woman who acts logically. You were the man upon whom her affections were placed, Sir Julian, and that was her only reason for accepting your proposal of marriage.”

Julian stared straight in front of him. It seemed to him as if he heard again the music of Chaliapine--the unconquerable music of souls that have outlasted their defeat. He lost the sound of Mr. Travers's punctilious, carefully lowered voice. When he heard it again, Mr.

Travers was saying:

”It came to my knowledge through an interview with the younger Miss Waring, who has also become one of our staff, that she had regrettably misinformed you as to her sister's point of view. The younger Miss Waring acts at times impetuously and without judgment, but she had no intention whatever of harming her sister. She has been deeply anxious about her for the last few months, and she at length communicated her anxiety to me.”

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