Part 7 (1/2)
”Join us, by all means,” Selingman invited.
”On condition that you dine with me,” Norgate insisted, as he took up the menu.
”Impossible!” Selingman declared firmly.
”Oh! it matters nothing,” Mademoiselle Henriette exclaimed, ”so long as we dine.”
”So long,” Mademoiselle Alice intervened, ”as we have this brief glimpse of Mr. Selingman, let us make the best of it. We see him only because of a _contretemps_. I think we must be very nice to him and persuade him to take us to London to-night.”
Selingman's shake of the head was final.
”Dear young ladies,” he said, ”it was delightful to find you here. I came upon the chance, I admit, but who in Ostend would not be here between six and eight? We dine, we walk down to the quay, and if you will, you shall wave your hands and wish us _bon voyage,_ but London just now is _triste_. It is here you may live the life the _bon Dieu_ sends, where the sun s.h.i.+nes all the time and the sea laps the sands like a great blue lake, and you, mademoiselle, can wear those wonderful costumes and charm all hearts. There is nothing like that for you in London.”
They ordered dinner and walked afterwards down to the quay. Mademoiselle Henriette lingered behind with Norgate.
”Let them go on,” she whispered. ”They have much to talk about. It is but a short distance, and your steamer will not start before ten. We can walk slowly and listen to the music. You are not in a hurry, monsieur, to depart? Your stay here is too short already.”
Norgate's reply, although gallant enough, was a little vague. He was watching Selingman with his companion. They were talking together with undoubted seriousness.
”Who is Mr. Selingman?” he enquired. ”I know him only as a travelling companion.”
Mademoiselle Henriette extended her hands. She shrugged her little shoulders and looked with wide-open eyes up into her companion's grave face.
”But who, indeed, can answer that question?” she exclaimed. ”Twice he has been here for flying visits. Once Alice has been to see him in Berlin. He is, I believe, a very wealthy manufacturer there. He crosses often to England. He has money, and he is always gay.”
”And Mademoiselle Alice?”
”Who knows?” was the somewhat pointless reply. ”She came from America.
She arrived here this season with Monsieur le General.”
”What General?” Norgate asked. ”A Belgian?”
”But no,” his companion corrected. ”All the world knows that Alice is the friend of General le Foys, chief of the staff in Paris. He is a very great soldier. He spends eleven months working and one month here.”
”And she is also,” Norgate observed meditatively, ”the friend of Herr Selingman. Tell me, mademoiselle, what do you suppose those two are talking of now? See how close their heads are together. I don't think that Herr Selingman is a Don Juan.”
”They speak, perhaps, of serious matters,” his companion surmised, ”but who can tell? Besides, is it for us to waste our few moments wondering?
You will come back to Ostend, monsieur?”
Norgate looked back at the streaming curve of lights flas.h.i.+ng across the dark waters.
”One never knows,” he answered.
”That is what Monsieur Selingman himself says,” she remarked, with a little sigh. ”'Enjoy your Ostend to-day, my little ones,' he said, when he first met us this evening. 'One never knows how long these days will last.' So, monsieur, we must indeed part here?”
They had all come to a standstill at the gangway of the steamer.
Selingman had apparently finished his conversation with his companion. He hurried Norgate off, and they waved their hands from the deck as a few minutes later the steamer glided away.