Part 61 (1/2)

The eagerness with which Philip had read the newspaper cutting enclosed in the letter was only equalled by the eagerness with which afterward he fell to meditating upon it; pursuing and ferreting out the truth, through a maze of personal recollection and inference.

Richard!--nonsense! He laughed, from a full throat. Not for one moment was Philip misled by Judith Sabin's mistake. He was a man of great natural shrewdness, blunted no doubt by riotous living; but there was enough of it left, aided by his recent forced contacts with his cousin Richard all turning on the subject of Hester, to keep him straight. So that without any demur at all he rejected the story as it stood.

But then, what was the fact behind it? Impossible that Judith Sabin's story should be all delusion! For whom did she mistake Richard?

Suddenly, as he sat brooding and smoking, a vision of Hester flashed upon him as she had stood laughing and pouting, beneath the full length picture of Neville Flood, which hung in the big hall of the Abbey. He had pointed it out to her on their way through the house--where she had peremptorily refused to linger--to the old garden behind.

He could hear his own question: ”There!--aren't you exactly like him?

Turn and look at yourself in the gla.s.s opposite. Oh, you needn't be offended! He was the handsome man of his day.”

Of course! The truth jumped to the eyes, now that one was put in the way of seeing it. And on this decisive recollection there had followed a rush of others, no less pertinent: things said by his dead mother about the brother whom she had loved and bitterly regretted. So the wronged lady whom he would have married but for his wife's obstinacy was ”Aunt Alice!”

Philip remembered to have once seen her from a distance in the Upcote woods. Hester had pointed her out, finger on lip, as they stood hiding in a thicket of fern; a pretty woman still. His mother had never mentioned a name; probably she had never known it; but to the love-affair she had always attributed some share in her brother's death.

From point to point he tracked it, the poor secret, till he had run it down. By degrees everything fitted in; he was confident that he had guessed the truth.

Then, abruptly, he turned to look at its bearing on his own designs and fortunes.

He supposed himself to be in love with Hester. At any rate he was violently conscious of that hawk-like instinct of pursuit which he was accustomed to call love. Hester's mad and childish imprudences, which the cooler self in Meryon was quite ready to recognize as such, had made the hawking a singularly easy task so far. Meynell, of course, had put up difficulties; with regard to this Scotch business it had been necessary to lie pretty hard, and to bribe some humble folk in order to get round him. But Hester, by the double fact that she was at once so far removed from the mere _ingenue_, and so incredibly ready to risk herself, out of sheer ignorance of life, both challenged and tempted the man whom a disastrous fate had brought across her path, to such a point that he had long since lost control of himself, and parted with any scruples of conscience he might possess.

At the same time he was by no means sure of her. He realized his increasing power over her; he also realized the wild, independent streak in her. Some day--any day--the capricious, wilful nature might tire, might change. The prey might escape, and the hawk go empty home. No dallying too long! Let him decide what to risk--and risk it.

Meantime that confounded cousin of his was hard at work, through some very capable lawyers, and unless the instructions he--Philip--had conveyed to the woman in Scotland, who, thank goodness, was no less anxious to be rid of him than he to be rid of her, were very shrewdly and exactly carried out, facts might in the end reach Hester which would give even her recklessness pause. He knew that so far Meynell had been baffled; he knew that he carried about with him evidence that, for the present, could be brought to bear on Hester with effect; but things were by no means safe.

For his own affairs, they were desperate. As he stood there, he was nothing more in fact than the common needy adventurer, possessed, however, of greater daring, and the _debris_ of much greater pretensions, than most such persons. His financial resources were practically at an end, and he had come to look upon a clandestine marriage with Hester as the best means of replenis.h.i.+ng them. The Fox-Wilton family pa.s.sed for rich; and the notion that they must and would be ready to come forward with money, when once the thing was irrevocable, counted for much in the muddy plans of which his mind was full. His own idea was to go to South America--to Buenos Ayres, where money was to be made, and where he had some acquaintance. In that way he would shake off his creditors, and the Scotch woman together; and Meynell would know better than to interfere.

Suddenly a light figure came fluttering round the corner of the road leading to the chateau and the town. Philip turned and went to meet her.

And as he approached her he was shaken afresh by the excitement of her presence, in addition to his more sordid preoccupation. Her wild, provocative beauty seemed to light up the whole wintry scene; and the few pa.s.sers-by, each and all, stopped to stare at her. Hester laughed aloud when she saw Meryon; and with her usual recklessness held up her umbrella for signal. It pleased her that two _rapins_ in large black ties and steeple hats paid her an insolent attention as they pa.s.sed her; and she stopped to pinch the cheek of a chubby child that had planted itself straight in her path.

”Am I late?” she said, as they met. ”I only just caught the train. Oh! I am so hungry! Don't let's talk--let's _dejeuner_.”

Philip laughed.

”Will you dare the hotel?”

And he pointed to the Pavillion Henri Quatre.

”Why not? Probably there won't be a soul.”

”There are always Americans.”

”Why not, again? _Tant mieux_! Oh, my hair!”

And she put up her two ungloved hands to try and reduce it to something like order. The loveliness of the young curving form, of the pretty hands, of the golden brown hair, struck full on Meryon's turbid sense.

They turned toward the hotel, and were presently seated in a corner of its glazed gallery, with all the wide, prospect of plain and river spread beneath them. Hester was in the highest spirits, and as she sat waiting for the first _plat_, chattering, and nibbling at her roll, her black felt hat with its plume of c.o.c.k feathers falling back from the brilliance of her face, she once more attracted all the attention available; from the two savants who, after a morning in the Chateau, were lunching at a farther table; from an American family of all ages reduced to silence by sheer wonder and contemplation; from the waiters, and, not least, from the hotel dog, wagging his tail mutely at her knee.

Philip felt himself an envied person. He was, indeed, vain of his companion; but certain tyrannical instincts a.s.serted themselves once or twice. When, or if, she became his possession, he would try and moderate some of this chatter and noise.

For the present he occupied himself with playing to her lead, glancing every now and then mentally, with a secret start, at the information he had possessed about her since the morning.