CHAPTER XXIV—AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

“H AVE you been very bored, Nick?”

The week in London had nearly run its course, and Lady Anne’s eyes begged charmingly for a negative. Nick accorded it with a smile.

“I’m never bored with you, madonna; you know that,” he said. “And hotel life is always more or less amusing. One comes across such queer types. There’s one here this evening has been intriguing me enormously. At a little table by herself—do you see her? A tall, rather gorgeous-looking being—kind of cross between the Queen of Sheba and Lucretia Borgia.”

Lady Anne threw a veiled glance in the direction indicated.

“Yes, she’s a very handsome woman, obviously not English.” Her eyes travelled onwards towards the door. “I wish Blaise and Jean would hurry up,” she added impatiently. “They’re taking an unconscionable time to dress.”

The two latter had come in late from a sight-seeing expedition undertaken on Jean’s behalf, and had only returned to the hotel just as Lady Anne and Nick were preparing to make their way in to dinner.

“For such a deliberate matchmaker, you’re a lot too impatient, madonna,” commented Nick teasingly. “That they should have stayed out together until the very last moment ought to have pleased you immensely.”

Lady Anne made a small grimace.

“So it does—theoretically. Only from a practical and purely material point of view, everything else sinks into insignificance beside the fact that I am literally starving. Oh!”—joyfully catching sight of Jean and Tormarin making their way up the room—“Here they are at last! Collect our waiter, Nick, and let’s begin.”

Neither of the late-comers appeared in the least embarrassed by the tardiness of their arrival, said they responded to tentative enquiries concerning their afternoon’s amusement with a disappointing lack of self-consciousness.

Lady Anne experienced an inward qualm of misgiving. There seemed too calm and tranquil a camaraderie between the two to please her altogether. It was as though the last few days had brought about a silent understanding between them—a wordless compact.

She picked up the menu and assumed an absorption in its contents which she was far from feeling.

“What are we all going to eat?” she asked. “I think we must hurry a little, or we shall be late for the play. Then I shall lose the exquisite thrill of seeing the curtain go up.” Tormarin looked entertained.

“Does it still thrill you, you absurdly youthful person?”

“Of course it does. I always consider that the quality of the thrill produced by the rise of the curtain is the measure of one’s capacity for enjoyment. When it no longer thrills me, I shall know that I am getting old and bored, and that I only go to the theatre to kill time and because everyone else goes.”

Dinner proceeded leisurely in spite of Lady Anne’s admonition that they should hurry, and presently Nick, who had glanced across the room once or twice as though secretly amused, remarked confidentially:

“My Lucretia Borgia lady is taking a quite uncommon interest in someone of our party. I’m afraid I can’t flatter myself that she’s lost her heart to me, as I’ve only observed this development since Jean and Blaise joined us. Blaise, I believe it’s you who have won her devoted—if, probably, somewhat violent—affections.”

“Your Lucretia Borgia lady? Which is she?” enquired Jean.

“You can’t see her, because you are sitting with your back to her,” replied Nick importantly. “And it isn’t manners to screw your head round in a public restaurant—even although the modern reincarnation of an unpleasantly vengeful lady may be sitting just behind you. But if you’ll look into that glass opposite you—a little to the right side of it—you’ll see who I mean. She’s quite unmistakable.”

Jean tilted her head a little and peered slantwise into the mirror which faced her. It was precisely at the same moment that Nick’s “Lucretia Borgia lady” looked up for the second time from her p锚che Melba, and Jean found herself gazing straight into the dense darkness of the eyes of Madame de Varigny.

“Why—why————” she stammered in astonishment. “It is the Comtesse de Varigny!” She turned to Lady Anne, adding explanatorily: “You remember, madonna, I told you about her? She chaperoned me at Montavan, after Glyn had departed.”

The recognition had been mutual. Madame de Varigny had half-risen from her seat and was poised in an attitude of expectancy, smiling and gesturing with expressive hands an invitation to Jean to join her.

“I’ll go across and speak to her,” said Jean. “I can’t imagine what she is doing in London.”

“I suppose you, too, met this rather splendid-looking personage at Montavan?” enquired Nick of his brother, as Jean quitted the table.

Tormarin shook his head.

“I never spoke to her. I saw her once, on the night of a fancy-dress ball at the hotel, arrayed as Cleopatra.”

“She’d look the part all right,” commented Nick. “She gives me the impression of being one of those angel-and-devil-mixed kind of women—the latter flavour preponderating. I should rather feel the desirability of emulating Agag in any dealings I had with her. Good Lord!”—with a lively accession of interest—“Jean’s bringing her over here. By Jove! She really is a beautiful person, isn’t she. Like a sort of Eastern empress.”

“Madame de Varigny wishes to be presented to you, Lady Anne,” said Jean, and proceeded to effect introductions all round.

“I remember seeing you with Mees Peterson at Montavan,” remarked the Countess, as she shook hands with Blaise, her dark eyes resting on him curiously.

“Join us and finish your dinner at our table,” suggested Lady Anne hospitably.

But Madame de Varigny protested volubly that she had already finished her meal, though she would sit and talk with them a little if it was agreeable? It was—quite agreeable. She herself saw to that. No one could be more charming than she when she chose, and on this occasion she elected to make herself about as altogether charming as it is possible for a woman to be, entirely conquering the hearts of Lady Anne and Kick. Her simple, childlike warm-heartedness of manner was in such almost ludicrous contrast to her majestic, dark-browed type of beauty that it took them completely by storm.

“This is only just a flying visit that I pay to England,” she explained artlessly. “It is a great good fortune that I should have chanced to encounter ma ch猫re Mees Peterson.”

“It’s certainly an odd chance brought you to the same hotel,” agreed Kick. .

“Is it not?”—delightedly.

And, from the frank wonder and satisfaction she evinced at the coincidence, no one could possibly have surmised that the sole cause and origin of her “flying visit” was a short paragraph contained in the Morning Post, a copy of which, by her express order, had been delivered daily at Chateau Varigny ever since her return thither from the Swiss Alps. The paragraph referred simply to the arrival at Claridge’s of Lady Anne Brennan, accompanied by her two sons and Miss Jean Peterson.

“And are you making a long stay in London?” enquired Madame de Varigny.

Lady Anne shook her head.

“No. We go back to Staple to-morrow.”

The other’s face fell.

“But how unfortunate! I shall then see nothing of my dear Mees Peterson.”

She seemed so distressed that Lady Anne’s kind heart melted within her, albeit it accorded ill with her plans to increase the number of her party.

“We are going on to the theatre,” she said impulsively. “If you have no other engagement, why not come with us? There will be plenty of room in our box.”

Madame de Varigny professed herself enchanted. Curiously enough, she seemed to have no particular wish to draw Jean into anything in the nature of a private talk, but appeared quite content just to take part in the general conversation, while her eyes rested speculatively now upon Jean, now upon Tormarin, as though they afforded her an abstract interest of some kind.

Even at the theatre, where from her corner seat she was able to envisage the other occupants of the box, she seemed almost as much interested in them as in the play that was being performed on the stage. Once, as Tormarin leaned forward and made some comment to Jean, their two pairs of eyes meeting in a look of mutual understanding of some small joke or other, the quiet watcher smiled contentedly, as though the little byplay satisfied some inner questioning.

With the fall of the curtain at the end of the first act, she turned to Lady Anne, politely enthusiastic.

“But it is a charming play,” she said. “It is no wonder the house is so full.”

Her glance strayed carelessly over the body of the auditorium, then was suddenly caught and held. A minute later she touched Jean’s arm.

“I think there is someone in the stalls trying to attract your attention,” she observed quietly.

Even as she spoke, Nick, too, became aware of the same fact.

“Hullo!” he exclaimed. “There’s Geoffrey Burke down below. I didn’t know he was in town.”

Madame de Varigny found the effect upon her companions of this apparently innocent announcement distinctly interesting. It was as though a thrill of disconcerting consciousness ran through the other occupants of the box. Jean flushed suddenly and uncomfortably, and the dark, keen eyes that were watching from behind the fringe of dusky lashes noted an almost imperceptible change of expression flit across the faces of both Lady Anne and Tormarin. In neither case was the change altogether indicative of pleasure. Then, following quickly upon a bow of mutual recognition, the music of the orchestra suddenly ceased and the curtain went up for the second act.





Once more the curtain had fallen, and, to the hum of conversation suddenly released, the lights flashed up into being again over the auditorium. Simultaneously the door of Lady Anne’s box was opened from the corridor outside.

“May I come in?” said a voice—a pleasant voice with a gay inflection of laughter running through it as though its owner were quite sure of his welcome—and Burke, big and striking-looking in his immaculate evening kit, his ruddy hair flaming wickedly under the electric lights, strolled into the box.

He shook hands all round, his glance slightly quizzical as it met Jean’s, and then Lady Anne presented him to the Comtesse de Varigny.

It almost seemed as though something, some mutual recognition of a kindred spirit, flashed from the warm southern-dark eyes to the fiery red-brown ones, and when, a minute or two later, Burke established himself in the seat next Jean, vacated by Nick, he murmured in a low tone:

“Where did you find that Eastern-looking charmer? I feel convinced I could lose my heart to her without any effort.”

Jean could hardly refrain from smiling. This was her first meeting with Burke since the occasion of the scene which had occurred between them in the little parlour at the “honeymooners’ inn,” and now he met her with as much composure and arrogant assurance as though nothing in the world, other than of a mutually pleasing and amicable nature, had taken place. It was so exactly like Burke, she reflected helplessly.

“Then you had better go and make love to her,” she suggested. “There happens to be a husband in the background—a little hypochondriac with quite charming manners—but I don’t suppose you would consider that any obstacle.”

“None,” retorted Burke placidly. “I’m quite certain she can’t be in love with him. Her taste would be more—robust, I should say. Where is she stopping?”

“At Claridge’s. We met her there this evening. I knew her in Switzerland.”

“Well, you shall all come out to supper with me to-morrow:—-the Countess included.”

Jean shook her head demurely.

“We shall all be back at Staple to-morrow—the Countess excepted. You can take her.”

“Then the supper must be to-night,” replied Burke serenely.

“What are you doing in town, anyway?” asked Jean. “Is Judith with you?”

“No. Came up to see my tailor”—laconically.

He crossed the box to arrange matters with Lady Anne, and before the curtain rose on the last act it was settled that they should all have supper together after the play.

Later, when Burke had once more resumed his seat next

Jean, Madame de Varigny, whose hearing, like her other senses, was preternaturally acute, caught a whispered plaint breathed into Nick’s ear by Lady Anne.

“Now isn’t that provoking, Nick, darling? Why on earth need Geoffrey Burke have turned up in town on our last evening? I was hoping, later on—if you and I were very discreet and effaced ourselves—that Blaise and Jean might settle things.”

Madame de Varigny’s eyes remained fixed upon the stage. There was no change in their expression to indicate that Lady Anne’s plaintive murmur had at that moment supplied her with the key of the whole situation as it lay between Jean and the two men who were sitting one each side of her.

But the following evening, when, the Staple party having left town, she and Burke were dining alone together at a little restaurant in Soho, the knowledge she had gleaned bore fruit.

Burke never quite knew what impulse it was that had prompted him, as he made his farewells after the supper-party, to murmur in Madame de Varigny’s ear, “Dine with me to-morrow night.” It was as though the dark, mysterious eyes had spoken to him, compelling him to some sort of friendly overture which the shortness of his acquaintance with their owner would not normally have inspired.

It was not until the coffee and cigarette stage of the little dinner had been reached that Madame de Varigny suddenly shot her dart.

“So you come all the way up from this place, Coombe—Coombe Eavie?—to see Mees Peterson, and hey, presto! She vanish the next morning!”

Burke stared at her almost rudely. The woman’s perspicacity annoyed him.

“I came up to see my tailor,” he replied curtly.

“Mais parfaitement!” she laughed—low, melodious laughter, tinged with a frank friendliness of amusement which somehow smoothed away Burke’s annoyance at her shrewd summing up of the situation. “To see your tailor. Naturellement! But you were not sorry to encounter Mees Peterson also, hein? You enjoyed that?”

Burke’s eyes gleamed at her.

“Do you think a dog enjoys looking at the bone that’s out of reach?” he said bluntly.

“And is Mees Peterson, then, out of your reach? Me, I do not think so.”

Burke was moved to sudden candour.

“She might not be, if it were not that there is another man——”

“Ce Monsieur Tor-ma-rin?”

“Yes, confound him!”

“We-ell”—with a long-drawn inflection compact of gentle irony. “You should be able to win against this Monsieur Tor-ma-rin. I think”—regarding him intently—“I think you will win.”

Burke shook his head gloomily.

“He had first innings. He met her abroad somewhere—rescued her in the snow or something. That rescuing stunt always pays with a woman. All I did”—with a short, harsh laugh—“was nearly to break her neck for her out driving one day recently!”

“Is she engaged to Monsieur Tormarin?” asked Madame do Varigny quickly.

“No. Luckily, there’s some old affair in the past holds him back.”

She nodded.

“You shall marry her,” she declared with conviction. “See, Monsieur Bewrke—a茂e, a茂e, quel nom! I am clairvoyante, proph茅tesse, and I tell you that you weel marry zis leetle brown Jean.”

Her foreign accent strengthened with her increasing emphasis.

Burke looked dubious.

“I’m afraid your clairvoyance will fail this journey madame. She’ll probably marry Tormarin—unless”—his eyes glinting—“I carry her off by force.”

Madame de Varigny shook her head emphatically.

“But no! I do not see it like that. Eh bien! If she become fianc茅e—engaged to him—you shall come to me, and I will tell you how to make sure that she shall not marry him.”

“Tell me now!”

“Non, non! Win her your own way. Only, if you do not succeed, if Monsieur Tormarin wins her—why, then, come to visit me at Ch芒teau Varigny.”

That night a letter written in the Comtesse de Varigny’s flowing foreign handwriting sped on its way to France.

“Matters work towards completion,” it ran. “My visit here has chanced bien 脿 propos. There is another would-be-lover besides Blaise Tormarin. I have urged him on to win her if he can, for if I have not wrongly estimated Monsieur Tormarin—and I do not think I have—he is of the type to become more deeply in love and less able to master his feelings if he realises that he has a rival. At present he refrains from declaring himself. The opposition of a rival will probably drive him into a declaration very speedily. When the dog sees the bone about to be taken from him—he snaps! So I encourage this red-headed lion of a man, Monsieur Burke, to pursue his affaire du cour with vigour. For if Blaise Tormarin becomes actually betrothed to Mademoiselle Peterson, it will make his punishment the more complete. I pray the God of Justice that it may not now; be long delayed!”