Part 9 (2/2)
”Yes,” he said. ”You had a very narrow escape, Molly. I dared not come near you, but I knew that you'd look after the girl.”
”Of course. I always look after her as though she were my own child.”
Benton's lip curled as he sipped his China tea, and said:
”Because so much depends upon her--eh? I'm glad you view the situation from a fair and proper stand-point. We're now out for a big thing, therefore we must not allow any little hitch to prevent us from bringing it off successfully.”
”I quite agree, Charles. Our great a.s.set is Louise. But she must be innocent of it all. She must know absolutely nothing.”
”True. If she had an inkling that we were forcing her to marry Hugh she would fiercely resent it. She's a girl of spirit, after all.”
”My dear Charles, I know that,” laughed the woman. ”Ever since she came home from school I've noticed how independent she is. She certainly has a will of her own. But she likes Hugh, and we must encourage it.
Recollect that a fortune is at stake.”
”I have not overlooked that,” the man said. ”But of late I've come to fear that we are treading upon thin ice. I don't like the look of affairs at the present moment. Young Henfrey is head over ears in love with that girl Dorise Rans...o...b.. and--”
”Bah! It's only a flirtation, my dear Charles,” laughed the woman.
”When just a little pressure is put upon the boy, and a sly hint to Lady Rans...o...b.. then the affair will soon be off, and he'll fall into Louise's arms. She's really very fond of him.”
”She may be, but he takes no notice of her. She told me so the other day. He's gone to the Riviera--followed Dorise, I suppose,” Benton said.
”Yvonne wrote me a few days ago to say that he was there with a friend of his named Walter Brock. Who's he?”
”Oh! a naval lieutenant-commander who served in the war and was invalided out after the Battle of Jutland. He got the D.S.O. over the Falklands affair, and has now some post at the Admiralty. He was in command of a torpedo boat which sank a German cruiser, and was afterwards blown up.”
”They are both out at Monte Carlo, Yvonne says. And Henfrey is with Dorise daily,” remarked the woman.
”Yvonne is always apprehensive lest young Henfrey should learn the secret of the old fellow's end,” said Benton. ”But I don't see how the truth of the--well, rather ugly affair can ever come out, except by an indiscretion by one or other of us.”
”And that is scarcely likely, Charles, is it?” his hostess laughed as she pushed across to him a big silver box of cigarettes and then reclined lazily among her cus.h.i.+ons.
”No. It would certainly be a very sensational affair if the newspapers got hold of the facts, my dear Molly. But don't let us antic.i.p.ate such a thing. Fortunately Louise, in her girlish innocence, knows nothing. Old Henfrey left his money to his son upon certain conditions, one of which is that Hugh shall marry Louise. And that marriage must, at all hazards, take place. After that, we care for nothing.”
The handsome woman who was rolling a cigarette between her well-manicured fingers hesitated. Her countenance a.s.sumed a strange look as she reflected. She was far too clever to express any off-hand opinion. She had outwitted the police of Paris, Brussels, and Rome in turn. Her whole career had been a criminal one, punctuated by periods of pretended high respectability--while the funds to support it had lasted.
And upon her hands had been placed Louise Lambert, the child Charles Benton had adopted ten years before.
”We shall have to exercise a good deal of discretion and caution in regard to Louise,” she declared. ”The affair is not at all so plain sailing as I at first believed.”
”No. It is a serious contretemps that you had to leave Paris, Molly,”
agreed her well-dressed visitor. ”The young American was a fool, of course, but I think--”
”Paris was flooded by rich young men from the United States who came over to fight the Boche and to spend their money like water when on leave in Paris. Frank was only one of them.”
Benton was silent. The affair was a distinctly unsavoury one. Frank van Geen, the son of the Dutch-American millionaire cocoa manufacturer of Chicago, had, by reason of his a.s.sociation with Molly, found himself the poorer by nearly a quarter of a million francs, and his body had been found in the Seine between the Pont d'Auteuil and the Ile St. Germain.
At the inquiry some ugly disclosures were made, but already the lady of the Rue Racine and her supposed niece had left Paris; and though the affair was one of suicide, the police raised a hue and cry, and the frontiers had been watched, but the pair had disappeared.
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