Part 36 (1/2)

”Why fatal, Professor?” he asked, for it was at the bade of his head to suggest to Sir George the advisability of despatching an expedition when the time was ripe.

”Fatal to the scheme as well as to the newspaper,” was the elder man's response. ”Even you modern journalists cannot make money by exploiting sacred relics of such importance.”

”No, but we could investigate for the benefit of the Hebrew race. We sorely would not lose prestige by that?”

”Yes, you would. No Jew, or even Christian for that matter, would ever believe that a newspaper defrayed the cost of an expedition out of pure regard for the interests of the Hebrew faith.” He laughed. ”The public know too well that a `boom' means to a newspaper increased circulation, and, therefore, increased income. Before these days of the yellow journalism, the press was supposed to be above such ruses; but now the public receives the journalistic `boom' with its tongue in its cheek.”

”You're quite right, Professor, quite right!” remarked Frank, for the first time realising that to ”work” the treasure of Israel as a ”boom”

for his group of newspapers and periodicals was impossible. ”I've only regarded it from the business side, and not from the sentimental. I see now that any newspaper touching it would be treading dangerous ground, and might at once wound religious susceptibilities.”

”I'm glad you've seen it in that light!” replied the old scholar, stroking his grey hair. ”As far as I can discern, the best mode of procedure--providing of course, that we can discover the key number to the numerical cipher--is for me to write an article in the _Contemporary_ with a view to obtaining the financial a.s.sistance of the Jewish community. I know the Jew well enough to be confident, that all, from the Jew pedlar in the East End to the family of Rothschild itself, would unite in a.s.sisting to discover the sacred treasures of the Temple.” And for half an hour or so they chatted, until Frank was able to slip away with Gwen into the drawing-room where, without a single word, he clasped her in his arms pa.s.sionately and kissed her upon the lips.

He held her closely pressed to his breast, as he stroked her soft hair tenderly, and looked into those wide-open, trustful eyes. Surely that frank expression of true and abiding love could not be feigned! There is, in a true woman's eyes, a love-look that cannot lie! He saw it, and was at once satisfied.

In a low voice he begged forgiveness for misjudging her, repeating his great and unbounded affection. She heard his quick strained voice, and listened to his heartfelt words, and then, unable to restrain her joy at his return, her head fell upon his shoulders, and she burst into tears.

She was his, she whispered, still his--and his alone.

And he held her sobbing in his strong arms, as his hand still stroked her hair and his lips again bent until they touched her fair white brow in fierce and pa.s.sionate caress.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

DESCRIBES CERTAIN CURIOUS EVENTS.

Has it never struck you that this twentieth century of ours is the essential age of the very young girl?

Supreme to-day reigns the young woman between the age of--well say from sixteen to twenty--who dresses her hair with a parting and a pigtail, wears short skirts, displays a neat ankle, and persists in remaining in her teens. Grumpy old fossils tell us that this species is a product of an advanced state of civilisation which insists that everything must be new, from a dish of _peches a la Melba_ to the tint of that eternal h.o.a.rding in front of Buckingham Palace. One can only suppose that they are correct. Ours is a go-ahead age which scoffs at the horse, and pokes fun at the South-Eastern Railway, which forsakes Sat.u.r.day concerts for football, yet delights in talking-machines.

Is it any wonder therefore that the statuesque beauty and the skittish matron of a year ago no longer finds herself in demand for supper-parties, Sandown or Henley? No, she must nowadays stand aside, and watch the reign of her little sister who dashes off from the theatre to the Savoy in a motor-brougham still wearing her ribbon bow on her pigtail, much as she did in the schoolroom.

The young of certain species of wild fowl are termed ”flappers,” and some irreverent and irascible old gentleman has applied that term to the go-ahead young miss of to-day. Though most women over twenty-one may attempt to disguise the fact, it is plain that the young girl just escaped from the schoolroom now reigns supreme. Her dynasty is at its zenith. She is the ruling factor of London life. Peers of the realm, foreign potentates, hard-bitten soldiers from the East, magnates from Park Lane all hurry to her beck and call. The girl in the pigtail and short skirt rides over them all roughshod. And what is the result of all this adulation upon the dimple-faced little girl herself? In the majority of cases, I fear it results in making her a stuck-up, _blase_ and conceited little prig, for she nowadays takes upon herself a glory and exalted position to which she is entirely unsuited, but which she has been taught to consider hers by right.

Gwen Griffin was a perfect type of the very young girl, courted, petted and flattered by all the men of her acquaintance. Having no mother to forbid her, she was fond of going motor-rides and fond of flirtation, but through it all she had, fortunately, never developed any of those objectionable traits so common in girls of her age. She had managed to remain quite simple, sweet and unaffected through it all, and six months before, when she had found the man she could honestly love, she had cut her male friends and entered upon life with all seriousness.

A week had gone by, and Frank had called every evening. Once he had taken her to dine at the Carlton, and on to the theatre afterwards, for now they had, by tacit though unspoken consent, agreed that all bygones should be bygones.

Often he felt himself wondering what had been the real cause of her mysterious absence from home, yet when such suspicions arose within him, he quickly put them aside. How could he possibly doubt her love?

The Doctor was back again at Horsford, leading the same rural uneventful life as before, but daily studying everything that had any possible bearing upon the a.s.sertion of Professor Holmboe.

Frank came down to visit Lady Gavin one day, and as a matter of course was very soon seated with the ugly little man in his cottage home.

Diamond, over a cigar, was relating the result of his most recent studies, and lamenting that they were still as far from obtaining a knowledge of the actual cipher as ever.

”Yes,” murmured the young man with a sigh, ”I'm much afraid that old Haupt will get ahead of us--even if he has not already done so. How is it that you can't get your friend Mullet to a.s.sist us further?”

”He has left London, I believe. He disappeared quite suddenly from his rooms, and curiously enough, has sent me no word.”

”You hinted once that he's a `crook.' If so, he may have fled on account of awkward police inquiries--eh?”

”Most likely. Yet it's strange that he hasn't sent me news of his whereabouts.”