Part 10 (1/2)
”To-morrow morning.”
She smiled radiantly. She saw that he was angry with himself for his cowardice just now, and she tried to restore him. ”Please, will you telephone me when you arrive at your castle? I should like the experience of telephoning by private wire to Wales.”
He brightened. ”Certainly, if you really wish it. I shall arrive at ten to-morrow night, and I'll telephone you at eleven.”
”Splendid--splendid! I'll be alone in my room then. I've got a telephone instrument there, and so we could say good-night.”
”So we can say good-night,” he repeated in a low voice, and he held out his hand in good-bye. When he had gone, with a new, great hope in his heart, she sat down and tremblingly re-opened the note she had received a moment before.
”I am going abroad” it read--”to Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and St.
Petersburg. I think I've got my chance at last. I want to see you before I go--this evening, Jasmine. May I?”
It was signed ”Ian.”
”Fate is stronger than we are,” she murmured; ”and Fate is not kind to you, Ian,” she added, wearily, a wan look coming into her face.
”Mio destino,” she said at last--”mio destino!” But who was her destiny--which of the two who loved her?
BOOK II
CHAPTER VII
THREE YEARS LATER
”Extra speshul--extra speshul--all about Kruger an' his guns!”
The shrill, acrid cry rang down St. James's Street, and a newsboy with a bunch of pink papers under his arm shot hither and thither on the pavement, offering his sensational wares to all he met.
”Extra speshul--extra speshul--all about the war wot's comin'--all about Kruger's guns!”
From an open window on the second floor of a building in the street a man's head was thrust out, listening.
”The war wot's comin'!” he repeated, with a bitter sort of smile. ”And all about Kruger's guns. So it is coming, is it, Johnny Bull; and you do know all about his guns, do you? If it is, and you do know, then a shattering big thing is coming, and you know quite a lot, Johnny Bull.”
He hummed to himself an impromptu refrain to an impromptu tune:
”Then you know quite a lot, Johnny Bull, Johnny Bull, Then you know quite a lot, Johnny Bull!”
Stepping out of the French window upon a balcony now, he looked down the street. The newsboy was almost below. He whistled, and the lad looked up. In response to a beckoning finger the gutter-snipe took the doorway and the staircase at a bound. Like all his kind, he was a good judge of character, and one glance had a.s.sured him that he was speeding upon a visit of profit. Half a postman's knock--a sharp, insistent stroke--and he entered, his thin weasel-like face thrust forward, his eyes glittering. The fire in such eyes is always cold, for hunger is poor fuel to the native flame of life.
”Extra speshul, m'lord--all about Kruger's guns.”
He held out the paper to the figure that darkened the window, and he p.r.o.nounced the g in Kruger soft, as in Scrooge.
The hand that took the paper deftly slipped a s.h.i.+lling into the cold, skinny palm. At its first touch the face of the paper-vender fell, for it was the same size as a halfpenny; but even before the swift fingers had had a chance to feel the coin, or the glance went down, the face regained its confidence, for the eyes looking at him were generous. He had looked at so many faces in his brief day that he was an expert observer.