“Good-mornin’, George.”
“Good-morning, dad.”
“Enjoy your run to Hereford?”
“Immensely. Did you?”
“It was not so bad. Rather
tiresome, you know, travelin’ alone, but on
the return journey I fell in with a decent sort of
Frenchman who helped to pass the time.”
“Monsieur Marigny, in fact?”
“Ah, you know him, of course. I had forgotten.”
“I have met him. He is not the kind of
person I care to know.”
The Earl selected an egg, tapped it,
and asked his son what he thought of the crops did
they want rain? The two were breakfasting alone at
the moment there was not even a man-servant in the
room but Lord Fairholme had long ago established
the golden rule that controversial topics were taboo
during meals. Medenham laughed outright at the
sudden change of topic. He remembered that Dale
was sent to bed in the Green Dragon Hotel at eight
o’clock, and he had not the least doubt that
his father’s ukase was really a dodge to
secure an undisturbed dinner. But he was under
no delusions because of this placid meeting in the
breakfast-room. There was thunder in the air.
Tomkinson had warned him of it overnight.
“There’s bin ructions
while you were away, my lord,” the butler had
whispered, waylaying him in the hall just before midnight.
“Lady St. Maur has upset the Earl somethink
dreadful;” and Medenham had growled in reply:
“Her ladyship will lunch here at one o’clock
to-morrow, Tomkinson. Have an ambulance ready
at two, for she will be in little pieces before I
have done with her. The mangling will be somethink
orful.”
“But what has become of Dale,
my lord?” went on Tomkinson in a hushed voice.
“Dale? He is all right. Why?
Is he in the soup, too?”
“No, my lord. I’ve
heard nothink of that, but he sent me a wire from
Bristol ”
“A telegram about what?”
“About a horse.”
“Oh, the deuce take you and
your horses. By the way, that reminds me you
gave me a rotten tip for the Derby.”
“It was a false run race, my
lord. The favorite was swep’ off his feet
at Tattenham Corner, and couldn’t get into his
stride again till the field was opposite Langland’s
Stands. After that ”
“After that I’m going
to bed. But I forgive you, Tomkinson. You
put up a ripping good lunch. You’re a far
better butler than a tipster.”
This brief conversation had illumined
at least one dubious page in the records of the past
few days. Medenham realized now that his aunt
had emptied the vials of her wrath on Mrs. Devar,
but, that lady being absent in body, the Earl had
received the full dose. It indicated somewhat
the line he should follow when, breakfast ended, his
father suggested that they should smoke a cigarette
in the library.
Once there, and the door closed, the
Earl established himself on the hearth-rug with his
back to the fireplace. It was high summer, and
the lazy London heat crept in through the open windows;
but the hearth-rug constituted a throne, a seat of
Solomon; had his lordship stood anywhere else he would
have felt lacking in authority.
“Now, George, my boy, tell me
all about it,” he said, with a genially paternal
air that lent itself admirably to the discussion of
a youngster’s transgressions.
Medenham had a sense of humor denied
to his well-meaning sire. He recalled the last
time he had heard those words. He and another
sprig of nobility had come up to London from Winchester
without leave in order to attend a famous glove contest
between heavyweights, and there had been wigs on the
green before an irate head-master would even deign
to flog them. That had happened twelve years ago,
almost to a day. Since then he had fought through
a great war, had circled the globe, had sought the
wild places of earth and its monsters in their lairs.
He knew men and matters as his father had never known
them. A Prime Minister had urged him to adopt
a political career, and had virtually promised him
a colonial under-secretaryship as soon as he entered
parliament. He held the D.S.O., had been thanked
by the Royal Geographical Society for a paper on Kilimanjaro,
and cordially invited by the Foreign Office to send
in any further notes in his possession. Months
later, he heard that Sir Somebody Something was deeply
interested in his comments on the activity of a certain
Great Power in the neighborhood of Britain’s
chief coaling-stations in the Indian Ocean.
The absurdity of a family conclave
in which he should again be treated as a small boy,
and admonished to apologize and be flogged, while it
brought a smile to his lips, banished any notion of
angry remonstrance.
“By ‘all about it’
I suppose you mean that you wish to hear what I have
been doing since last Wednesday,” he said pleasantly.
“Well, dad, I have obeyed your orders.
You asked me to find a wife worthy to reign at Fairholme.
I have succeeded.”
“You don’t mean to say
you have married her!” shouted the Earl,
in a purple upheaval of rage whose lightning-like
abruptness was not its least amazing feature.
Certainly Medenham was taken aback by it. Indeed,
he was almost alarmed, though he had no knowledge of
apoplexy in the family.
“I have not even asked the lady
yet,” he said quietly. “I hope I
think that the idea will not be disagreeable
to her; but a future Countess of Fairholme is not
to be carried by storm in that fashion. We must
get to know her people ”
“D n her
people!” broke in the older man. “Have
you taken leave of your wits, George, to stand there
and talk such infernal nonsense?”
“Steady, dad, steady!”
and the quiet voice grew still more calm, though the
forehead wrinkled a little, and there was an ominous
tightening of the lips. “You must take that
back. Peter Vanrenen is quite as great a man
in the United States as you are in England may
I even say, without disrespect, a man who has won
a more commanding position? and his daughter,
Cynthia, is better fitted to adorn a coronet than
a great many women now entitled to wear one.”
The Earl laughed, with an immoderate
display of an amusement he was far from feeling.
“Are these Wiggy Devar’s
credentials? By gad, that shabby little wretch
is flying high when she tries to bag my son for her
pretty protegee!”
“Don’t you think it would
be wiser, sir, if you allowed me to tell you exactly
what has taken place since we met last?”
“What good purpose will that
serve? I have heard the whole story from Lady
Porthcawl, from Dale, from that Frenchman and
Heaven knows I have been well coached in Mrs. Devar’s
antecedents by your Aunt Susan. George, I am
surprised that a man of your sound commonsense should
permit yourself to be humbugged so egregiously....
Yes, yes, I am aware that an accident led you to take
Simmonds’s place in the first instance, but
can’t you see that the Devar creature must have
gone instantly on her bended knees if she
ever does pray, which I doubt and thanked
Providence for the chance that enabled her to dispose
of an earldom?... At a pretty stiff price, too,
I’ll be bound, if the truth were told.
Really, George, notwithstanding your very extensive
travels and wide experiences, you are nothing but a
kid in the hands of a managing woman of the Devar
variety.”
“I am not being given in marriage
by Mrs. Devar, I assure you,” began Medenham,
smiling anxiously, for the fatherly “tell me
all about it” was not being borne out by the
Earl’s petulance.
“No. You can trust me to take care of that.”
“But are you treating me quite
fairly? Why should the distorted version of my
affairs given by Lady Porthcawl, a woman whom Cynthia
Vanrenen could not possibly receive in her house, and
by Count Edouard Marigny, a disappointed fortune-hunter,
be accepted without cavil, while my own story is not
listened to? I leave Dale out of it. I am
sure he told you the actual truth ”
“By the way, where is he now?”
“Somewhere in the neighborhood of Chester, I
believe.”
“Have you discharged him?”
“No why should I?”
“Because I wish it.”
“Why in the world are you so unreasonable, dad?”
“Unreasonable! By gad,
I like that. Have I been gallivanting round
the country with some ”
“Stop! You are going too
far. This conversation must cease here and now.
If you have any respect for yourself, though not for
me, you must adjourn the discussion till after you
have met Miss Vanrenen and her father.”
For the first time in his life, the
Earl of Fairholme realized his limitations; he was
actually cowed for a few fleeting seconds. But
the arrogant training of the county bench, the seignory
of a vast estate, the unquestioning deference accorded
to his views by thousands of men who tacitly admitted
that what he said must be right because he was a lord these
excellent stays of self-conceit came to his help, and
he snorted indignantly:
“I absolutely refuse to meet either of them.”
“That disposes of the whole
difficulty for the hour,” said Medenham, turning
to leave the room.
“Wait, George.... I insist ”
Perhaps a clearer glimpse of a new
and, to him, utterly unsuspected force in his son’s
character withheld the imperious command that trembled
on the Earl’s lips. Medenham halted.
The two looked at each other, and the older man fidgeted
with his collar, which seemed to have grown tight
for his neck.
“Come, come, let us not leave
a friendly argument in this unsettled state,”
he said after an awkward pause. “My only
thought is for your interests, you know. Your
lifelong happiness is at stake, to say nothing of
the future of our house.”
“I recognize those considerations
so fully that I am going now in order to shirk even
the semblance of a quarrel between us.”
“Why not thresh things out?
Your aunt will be here in a couple of hours ”
“You refuse to hear a word.
You argue with a hammer, sir. I shall send a
note to Lady St. Maur telling her that she has done
mischief in plenty without adding fuel to the fire
by coming here to-day unless you
wish to consult her, that is?”
The Earl, already afraid of his sister,
was rapidly learning to fear his son.
“Dash it all! don’t tell
me you are off on this d d motoring
trip once more?” he cried passionately.
Medenham smiled, even in his anger.
“See how willfully you misunderstand
me,” he said. “I came away from Miss
Vanrenen solely because matters had gone far enough
under rather absurd conditions. She knows me
only as Fitzroy, the chauffeur; it is time to drop
masquerading. Romance is delightful in its way perhaps
there might well be more of it in this commonplace
world of ours but none of us can afford
to play the knight errant too long, so when next I
meet Cynthia it will be as a man who occupies a social
position that renders our marriage at least possible.”
Lord Fairholme threw out his hands
in a gesture of sheer bewilderment.
“And do you honestly believe that?” he
exclaimed.
“I am quite sure of it.
I may have to jump a very big fence indeed when she
learns the harmless deception I have practiced on her,
but I do hope most devoutly that she will look at
the facts more calmly than you have done.”
The Earl took a turn or two on the
hearth-rug, from which wisdom had temporarily taken
flight. He thought now he could see a way to avoid
open rupture, and he believed, quite rightly, that
his son was in no mood to accept further disillusionment.
“At any rate,” he grumbled,
“you are cutting a discred sorry,
I didn’t quite mean that you are
not rushing away from town again in pursuit of the
young lady?”
“No.”
“When is she due back in London?”
“On Sunday.”
“And you will not see her before that day?”
“I believe not in
fact, I am fairly certain of it. Mrs. Leland joined
her at Chester last night, so there should be no curtailment
of the tour.”
The Earl started.
“Mrs. Leland! Not the Mrs. Leland of Paris,
and San Remo?”
“Yes. By hazard, as it
were, you have let me tell you why I came away one
of the reasons. Mrs. Leland would have recognized
me at once.”
“Dear me, dear me, this is a
beastly muddle! Look here, George, promise me
you won’t do anything stupid for a day or so....
I have been so pestered by people ... I don’t
know which way to turn. Why not stay and meet
your aunt?”
“Because I might lose my temper with her.”
“Ah, well, she is somewhat
trying when it comes to family matters. Still,
I may tell her ”
“That she ought to mind her
own business? By all means. And oblige me,
too, by telling her that she would confer a boon on
humanity if she persuaded Lady Porthcawl to go to Jericho or
Tokio or wherever that ass, Porthcawl,
may happen to be.”
“Millicent Porthcawl was at Bournemouth, you
know.”
“Yes, I spoke to her. She
had the impudence to introduce Ducrot to Cynthia.”
“By gad! Did she, though?
I heard something from Scarland about that affair.
Well, well there’s no accounting for
tastes. I suppose you realize, George, that I
am keeping back a good deal of the tittle-tattle which
reached me during your absence. I don’t
want to hurt your feelings ”
“Thank you. The absurdity
of the present position lies in the fact that I shall
have all my work cut out to hold your wrath against
these people within bounds when once you have met
Cynthia.”
“Oh, I have no doubt she is
pretty, and fascinating, and all that sort of thing,”
growled the Earl, in a grudging access of good humor.
“Confound it, that is why we are putty in their
hands, George. Don’t forget I’ve
had fifty-five years of ’em. Gad! I
could tell you things all right, let us
chuck the dispute for the time. Shall I see you
at dinner?”
“Yes if you are alone.”
“There will be no women.
I’ll take devilish good care of that. Scarland
is in town for the show, and he is bringing Sir Ashley
Stoke, but Betty is nursing a youngster through the
measles. Good Lord! I’m glad your
aunt didn’t get hold of Betty!”
Now, Lord Fairholme’s diatribes
against the sex were not quite justified. Notorious
as a lady-killer in his youth, in middle age he was
as garrulous a gossip as Mrs. Devar herself. Indeed,
he had an uneasy consciousness that Lady St. Maur
might turn and rend him if stress were laid only on
her efforts to thwart his son’s unexpected
leaning towards matrimony. During every yard of
the journey from Chester to London he had tried to
extract information from Marigny, and the sharp-witted
Frenchman had enjoyed himself hugely in displaying
a well-feigned reluctance to yield to the Earl’s
probing. It was just as much a part of his scheme
to make the threatened alliance as objectionable on
the one side as on the other. By painting Medenham
as an unprincipled adventurer he had succeeded in
alarming Vanrenen; his sly hints, derogatory of both
Cynthia and her father, now fanned the flame of suspicion
kindled in Lord Fairholme’s breast by his sister’s
remonstrances. Unfortunately, his lordship had
gone straight to Curzon Street and told Susan St. Maur
every word that Marigny had said, and a good deal
that he had not said, but had left to be inferred
from a smirk, a malicious glance, an airy gesture.
Perhaps the two elderly guardians
of the Fairholme line were not wholly to blame for
their interference. The title descended through
male heirs only, and Medenham’s marriage thereby
attained an added importance. Lord Fairholme
himself had been singularly fortunate in escaping
a mésalliance several, in fact and
it was the one great trouble in his otherwise smooth
and self-contained life that his high-born and most
admirable countess had died soon after the birth of
her second child, the present Marchioness of Scarland.
Such a man would naturally be the most jealous scrutineer
of the pretensions of his son’s chosen wife.
Qualities of heart and mind would weigh light in the
scale against genealogy. To his thinking, blue
blood differed from the common red stream as the claret
of some noted vintage differs from the vin ordinaire
of the same year. Perhaps he had blundered on
a well-founded theory, but he certainly lacked discrimination
as to the cru.
Medenham did some shopping, lunched
at a club, surprised his tailor by a prolonged visit
and close inspection of tweeds and broadcloths,
and successfully repressed a strong desire to write
a letter. It was some consolation to peruse for
the twentieth time the four closely-written pages
on which Cynthia had set out the tour’s timetable
for the benefit of Simmonds. He had not returned
it, since she possessed a copy, and in his mind’s
eye he followed the Mercury in its flight up the map
from end to end of industrial Lancashire, through smoky
Preston to trim Lancaster and quiet Kendal, and finally,
after a long day, to the brooding peace and serene
beauty of Windermere.
At last, rousing himself from his
dreaming for he was now back in his club
again, sipping a cup of tea he glanced at
his watch. Five o’clock a likely
hour to find Mr. Vanrenen in the hotel, if, as was
most probable, Devar’s telegram to his mother
was altogether mistaken in its report of the millionaire’s
movements.
He meant, of course, to make himself
known to Vanrenen, and go through the whole adventure
from A to Z. It should provide an interesting story,
he thought lively as a novel in some of
its chapters, and calculated to appeal strongly to
the bright intelligence of an American. On his
way to the Savoy, he tried to picture to himself just
what Cynthia’s father would look like. It
was a futile endeavor, because he had never yet been
able to construct a mental portrait of any man wholly
unknown to him. One day in Madras he had telephoned
to an official for leave to shoot an elephant in a
Government reservation, and a deep voice boomed back
an answer. Apparently it belonged to a man whose
stature warranted his appointment as controller of
monsters, but when Medenham called in person for the
permit he found that the voice came from a lean and
wizened scrap of humanity about five feet high.
He smiled at the recollection of his
dumb surprise at this apparition, and was in the best
of humors with himself when he arrived at the inquiry
office of the Savoy Hotel and asked for Mr. Peter Vanrenen.
“Left here Sunday, sir,”
was the answer. “He will not return for
a week.”
This blow dished his hopes. He
had counted strongly on gaining Vanrenen’s friendship
and sympathy before Cynthia’s dainty vision
met his eyes again.
“Has he gone to Paris?” he inquired.
“Can’t say, sir, I’m
sure. My orders are to tell callers that Mr.
Vanrenen will be in town next Tuesday.”
So, if present arrangements held good,
Cynthia would reach London two days before her father.
Well, he must contrive somehow to get Lady St. Maur
in a proper frame of mind. Mrs. Leland’s
presence would be a positive blessing in that respect.
Meanwhile, there would be no harm done if he
Lest prudence should conquer him a
second time he sat down and wrote:
DEAR MISS VANRENEN I hope
the car is behaving in a manner that befits the
messenger of the gods, and that Dale has justified
my faith in him. I am here in fulfillment of my
promise to call on Mr. Vanrenen: unluckily,
he is out of town, and the hotel people say he
is not expected back till a day early next week.
If you make any change in your programme, or
even if you have a minute to spare, though proving
yourself a true American by rigidly adhering to schedule,
please send a line to yours ever sincerely
Once more he hesitated at the name,
and contented himself by signing “George, the
Chauffeur.”
The problem of an address offered
some difficulty, but he boldly declared for “91
Grosvenor Square” in a postscript, believing,
and correctly as it happened, that Cynthia shared
with Sam Weller a peculiar knowledge of London that
rendered one address very like unto another in her
eyes.
The failure to meet Vanrenen was the
first real drawback he had encountered. It was
irritating, at the time, but he gave little heed to
it after the first pang of disappointment had passed.
Fate, which had proved so kind during six days, did
not see fit to warn him that her smiles would now
be replaced by frowns. She even lulled him into
the belief that Vanrenen’s absence might prove
fortunate.
“Perhaps,” he fancied,
“I would have rubbed him up the wrong way.
He is devoted to his daughter, and he might look on
my harmless but unavoidable guile with a prejudiced
eye. In any event, I should be compelled to go
slow in analyzing Mrs. Devar’s motives, and this
pertinacious Marigny seems to have been fairly intimate
with him in Paris. Yes, on the whole, it is just
as well that I missed him. Cynthia can put matters
before him in a better light than is possible to one
who is an utter stranger. I must tell her, in
my best American, that it is up to her to explain
Fitzroy to pap.”
Before leaving the hotel he inquired
for Count Edouard Marigny. He drew a blank there.
No such name had been registered during the year.
The dinner passed without noteworthy
incident. Sir Ashley Stoke condemned the Government,
the Marquis of Scarland was more than skeptical as
to the prospects of grouse shooting after the deluge
in April and May, Lord Fairholme growled at the pernicious
effects of the Ground Game Act, and Medenham spoke
of these things with his lips but in his heart thought
of Cynthia. The four men were in the smoking-room,
and the Earl was chaffing his son on account of his
inability to play bridge, when Tomkinson entered.
He approached Medenham.
“Dale has arrived; he wishes
to see your lordship,” he said in a stage whisper.
“Dale!”
The young man sprang to his feet,
and his troubled cry brought a smile of wonderment
to his brother-in-law’s face.
“By Jove!” said the Marquis,
“you couldn’t have jumped quicker if Tomkinson
had said ‘the devil’ instead of ‘Dale.’
Who, then, is Dale?”
Medenham hurried from the room without
another word. The Earl shook his head.
“More mischief!” he muttered.
“Dale is George’s chauffeur. I suppose
he is mixed up in this Vanrenen muddle again.”
“What muddle is that?”
asked Scarland. “Is George in it? that
would be unusual.”
Fairholme suddenly bethought himself.
“Something to do with a motor,”
he said vaguely. “The Vanrenens are Americans,
friends of Mrs. Leland’s. You remember her,
Arthur, don’t you?”
“Perfectly. Is ‘Vanrenen’ the
Peter of that ilk?”
“I think so. Yes that is the
name Peter Vanrenen.”
“Oh, he’s all right.
If George has any dispute with him I’ll settle
it in a minute. He is as straight as they make
’em bought two of my prize bulls
three years ago for his ranch in Montana. By the
way, someone told me the other day that he has a very
pretty daughter ’a real peach’
the man said. Wonder if George has seen her?
Begad, he might go farther and fare worse. We
effete aristocrats can do with a strain of new blood
occasionally, eh, what?”
“‘Vanrenen’ sounds
like a blend of old Dutch and New England,” said
Sir Ashley Stoke, who was sane on all subjects save
one, his pet mania being the decay of England since
the passing of the Victorian age.
The Earl helped himself to a whisky
and soda. His egotism was severely shaken.
Who would have thought that a pillar of the state
like Scarland would approve of this Vanrenen girl as
a match for George, even in jest? But he had
the good sense to steer clear of explanations.
When he found his voice it was to swear at the quality
of the whisky.
Medenham, meanwhile, had rushed into
the hall. He expected to find Dale there, but
saw no one except the suave footman on duty. The
man opened the door.
“Dale is outside, in the car, my lord,”
he said.
“In the car!” That meant the bursting
of a meteor in a blue sky.
Sure enough, there stood the Mercury,
dusty and panting, but seemingly gathering breath
for another mighty effort if necessary.
“Come in!” shouted Medenham,
on whom the first strong shadow of impending disaster
had fallen as soon as he heard those ill-omened words
“in the car.”
Dale scrambled to the pavement and
walked stiffly up the steps, being weary after an
almost unbroken run of one hundred and eighty miles.
He nodded to the Mercury, and the footman rang for
a pageboy to mount guard. Medenham led the way
into a small anteroom and switched on the light.
“Now,” he said.
“Mr. Vanrenen kem to Chester
last night in Simmond’s car, my lord. This
mornin’ he sent for me an’ sez ‘who
are you?’ ’The chauffeur, sir,’
sez I. ‘Whose chauffeur?’ sez he.
‘Yours for the time,’ sez I, bein’
sort of ready for him. ‘Well, you can get,’
sez he. ‘Get what?’ sez I. ‘Get
out,’ sez he. Of course, my lord, I knew
well enough what he meant, but I wanted to have it
straight, an’ I got it.”
Dale’s style of speech was elliptical,
though he might have been surprised if told so.
For once, Medenham wished he was a loquacious man.
“Was nothing else said?”
he asked. “No message from anyone?
No reason given? What brought Simmonds to Chester?”
“Mr. Vanrenen picked him up
in Bristol at 4 a.m. yesterday, my lord. Simmonds
made out that that there Frenchman, Monsieur Marinny”
(Dale prided himself on a smattering of French), “had
pitched a fine olé tale about you.
In fact, the bearings got so hot at Symon’s Yat
that Simmonds chucked his job till Mr. Vanrenen sort
of apologized.”
“Can you be specific, Dale? You are hard
to follow.”
“Well, my lord, I could
do with a drink. It’s a long road that
stretches between here an’ Chester, an’
I left there at ten o’clock this morning, runnin’
through any Gord’s quantity of traps, an’
all.”
Medenham did not smile. He touched
a bell, and found that Dale’s specific was a
bottle of beer.
“I never set eyes on Miss Cynthia,”
continued the chauffeur, his wits quickening under
the soothing draught. “Another lady kem
out an’ looked me up an’ down. ‘Yes,
that is the car,’ she said, an’ with that
I remembered seein’ her at San Remo. Mrs.
Devar seemed as if she wanted to say somethink, but
she daren’t, because Mr. Vanrenen’s eye
was on her. He made no bones about it, but told
me to hike back to London the minnit Simmonds got
the carrier off.”
“I am quite clear on that point.
What I really want to know is the reason behind Simmonds’s
statement about Count Marigny’s tale-pitching,
as you term it.”
“Oh, of course Mr. Vanrenen
didn’t say anythink. Simmonds was
what you call puttin’ two an’ two together.
From what Mr. Vanrenen arsked him it was easy enough
to get at the Frenchman’s dirty tricks.”
“Tell me how Simmonds put it?”
said Medenham, with the patience of a great anger.
Dale scratched the back of his ear.
“For one thing, my lord, Mr.
Vanrenen wanted to know if you was reelly a viscount.
It was a long time before Simmonds could get him to
believe that the accident in Down Street wasn’t
a put up job. Then, he was sure you stopped in
Symon’s Yat just in order to throw Mr. Marinny
off your track. Simmonds is no fool, my lord,
an’ he guesses that the Frenchman brought Mr.
Vanrenen hot-foot from Paris so as to to ”
Dale grinned, and sought inspiration
in the bottom of an empty glass.
“Well, my lord, excuse me,”
he said, “but you know what I mean.”
Medenham completed the sentence.
“So as to prevent me from marrying Miss Cynthia.”
“Exactly what Simmonds an’ me said, my
lord.”
“He will not succeed, Dale.”
“I never thought he would.
Once your lordship is set on a thing, well, that thing
occurs.”
“Thank you. Good-night!”
Medenham did not feel equal to facing
the men in the smoking-room again. He went out,
walked up Oxford Street and across the park, and reached
his room about midnight. Next day he devoted himself
to work. In view of the new and strange circumstances
that had arisen he believed confidently that Cynthia
would reply to his letter by return of post, and there
should be no chance of delay, because she meant to
stay two days at Windermere, making that town the center
of excursions through lakeland.
While the son was seeking forgetfulness
in classifying a collection of moths and night flies
caught during a week at La Turbie, the father found
occupation in prosecuting diligent inquiries into the
social and financial standing of Peter Vanrenen.
As a result, the Earl visited Lady St. Maur, and,
as a further result, Lady St. Maur wrote a very biting
and sarcastic note to “My dear Millicent.”
Moreover, she decided not to press her nephew to visit
her at present.
Next morning, Medenham was up betimes.
He heard the early postman’s knock, and Tomkinson
in person brought the letters.
“There’s nothink in the
name of Fitzroy, my lord,” said he, having been
warned in that matter overnight.
Medenham took his packet with the
best grace possible, trying to assure himself that
Cynthia had written at a late hour and had missed
the first London mail in consequence. Glancing
hurriedly through the correspondence, however, his
glance fell on a letter bearing the Windermere postmark.
It was addressed, in an unfamiliar hand, to “Viscount
Medenham,” and the writing was bold, well-formed,
and business-like. Then he read:
SIR My daughter received
a note from you this morning, and she was about
to answer it when I informed her that she was communicating
with a person who had given her an assumed name.
I also asked her, as a favor, to permit me to reply
in her stead. Now, I have this to say Miss
Vanrenen does not know, and will never know from
me, the true nature of the trick you played on
her. You bear the label of a gentleman, so
it is my earnest hope indeed, my sincere
belief that you will respect the trust
she placed in you, and not expose her to the
idle chatter of clubs and scandal-spreading drawing-rooms.
During two days I have been very bitter against
you. To-day I take a calmer view, and, provided
that neither my daughter nor I ever see or hear
of you again, I shall be willing to credit that
you acted more in a spirit of youthful caprice
than from any foul desire to injure the good
repute of one who has done no harm to you or yours.
I
am,
Yours
truly,
PETER
VANRENEN.
Medenham read and reread this harsh
letter many times. Then, out of brooding chaos,
leaped one fiery question where was Marigny?
The gate which Cynthia’s father
had shut and bolted in his face did not frighten him.
He had leaped a wall of brass and triple steel when
he won Cynthia Vanrenen’s love in the guise of
an humble chauffeur, so it was unbelievable that the
barrier interposed by a father’s misguided wrath
should prove unsurmountable.
But Marigny! He wanted to feel
his fingers clutching that slender throat, to see
that pink and white face empurple and grow black under
their strain, and it was all-important that the scoundrel
should be brought to book before the Vanrenens returned
to London. He gave a passing thought to Mrs.
Leland, it was true. If she shared with Vanrenen
the silly little secret of his identity, it was beyond
comprehension that she should let her friend hold the
view that he (Medenham) was merely an enterprising
blackguard.
Still, these considerations were light
as thistle-down compared with the need of finding
Marigny. He and Dale began to hunt London for
the Frenchman. But they had to deal with a wary
bird, who would not break covert till it suited his
own convenience. And then, the sublime cheek
of the man! On the Friday morning, when Medenham
rose with a fixed resolve to obtain the services of
a private detective, he received this note:
DEAR VISCOUNT MEDENHAM I
have a notion, as our mutual acquaintance Mr.
Vanrenen would say (Do you know him? Now that
I consider the matter, I think not), that you are
anxious to meet me. We have things to discuss,
have we not? Well, then I await you at the
above address.
Yours
to command,
EDOUARD
MARIGNY.