The World's Great Snare

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  She threw her arms around his neck, and drew close to him. Her breath was upon his cheek, her hair even brushed his face, and the perfume of it lingered long afterwards. He caught hold of her wrists and held them firmly.

  “Myra,” he said, “I cannot come and see you in that way after I am married. I cannot. Listen! Lady Helen shall be your friend. You shall come to us!”

  The passionate light died out of her face, but she did not stir.

  “You forget,” she said. “She is a great lady, and I am only a poor actress—without a character. She will not come and see me. It is you, Bryan, or despair with me. Would it cost you so much to spare me just a little corner of your love?”

  “Myra, don’t ask me, don’t ask me!” he cried. “Lady Helen shall come and see you. She will be kind. You shall not be left alone here, I promise you. Only tell me that you will not receive any more visits from Sir George Conyers.”

  “I promise,” she answered sadly. “I should not have seen him to-day, but when the girl told me that a gentleman wished to see me, I thought that it was you, and I was so glad that I forgot to ask his name. Won’t you kiss me, just once?”

  He stooped down and kissed her forehead gravely. The touch of his hesitating lips seemed to chill her. She drew back, and stood looking up at him earnestly.

  “Bryan, I don’t want you to be deceived in me,” she said quietly. “I am not like some girls. So long as I had you, or the hope of you, I could live alone and see no one and be contented. But that is all over now. I am going to be very miserable, and I must have distraction. I must have life and gaiety, and friends and pleasure. I must have all these things to keep me alive, if I lose you, Bryan. There! My only chance is that Lady Helen may come, and that she may be good to me—for your sake. But, if she does not come, Bryan, then you must not blame me, whatever happens. You have cast me off! Whatever happens, it is not my fault.”

  Bryan dared not trust himself to speak. The problem of this pale, passionate girl and her sundered life was too profound for him. In his heart he felt that her words were true. Lady Helen was his only chance.

  He went out into the twilight, and passed through the crowded streets, back to his rooms, like a man in a dream; and she, as soon as the door was closed upon him, threw herself face downwards upon the rug, and sobbed.

  VI. LORD WESSEMER’S ADVICE

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  There was a letter on his table when Bryan reached home, with type-written address and foreign postmark. He threw himself into his easy-chair, and lighting a pipe, read it slowly.

  “REDSTONE PARK, S. F.

  “DEAR PARD,

  “Yours to hand. Glad you’re getting a good time. Things are booming all around. I’ve got a firm of lawyer chaps in ‘Frisco to make out a sort of statement to show how our investments stand, and if you feel like selling out for five million dollars, I reckon it can be done, for there’s a sort of syndicate as ‘ll buy us up for ten millions, that’s five each, and I’m all for selling. The gold fever is cooling, and there’ll be no more such dollar-minting as has been, and five million dollars ‘ll keep me. Now, enclosed is the address of a firm of lawyers in London who are sort of agents for my chaps, and you go and see them, and if you’re satisfied, you sign what they call an attorney, and the trick’s done. You’ll have cash for your share. I shall take half cash, half notes, because I’m on the spot, and can watch things a bit.

  “Say, old chap, come over and give us a look-up, won’t you? I’ve been and got married—powerful superior sort of woman, who reckons she’s going to lay the polish on me thick! She’s a real good sort, though! I’ve got a palace built up here, right amongst the mountains. Such a view there ain’t nowhere in the States; though it’s mostly wild country, and the valley below runs down to the sea. ‘Twas built for a chap as stood for a corner in wheat, but he busted, and I bought the place cheap. My! it’s fine, I can tell you, and if you’ll come right along, there’s a suite o’ rooms here a sight too grand for me, as ‘ll fit you down to the ground!”

  “No more at present. Writing letters ain’t much in my line, and I’ve got a secretary chap as sees to that for me; but I’ve written this myself, barring the address, as you can well see. Come right along!”

  “From your Old Pard,

  “PETE MORRISON.”

  Bryan folded the letter and put it carefully into his pocket. Then he half closed his eyes, and leaned back. The depression against which he had been battling came over him now with a rush and triumphed. For days and weeks he had been slowly sickening of this new life of his, this wearisome round of society functions, of regulation dress, of dinners, and of crushes. He was weary of the people, and of the platitudes which seemed to form the major part of their conversation; weary of the part which he himself had to play, of the small, insignificant pleasures in which there seemed to him to be nothing virile or robust. The spontaneity of life seemed to him to be choked up and stultified. All that vague longing for the open country, for the breezy solitudes of the mountains and hills, which had come to him only a few hours ago, returned now with a wider and deeper significance as he laid down his partner’s letter. The wild freedom of that vast country, and the house upon the mountains, appealed to him at that moment with a subtle and peculiar force. He found himself thinking with a certain wistfulness of those days of healthy manual labour, and long dreamy nights under the shadows of the Sierras. Life then was a much simpler thing, at any rate, and assuredly a healthier. Yet with a sudden pang he remembered that the most delightful part of the long moonlight nights had been when he had lain down upon the short turf with his face turned to the dimly outlined hills, and dreamed of a fair, proud girl who had stooped to be kind to him in a far-away country, and whom now he had won for his wife. Surely this triumph of his must atone for all, must in the end sweeten the empty days and the flavourless life! And at the thought of Lady Helen, he remembered the crisis which he had yet to face. By every law of common gratitude and humanity, he felt that he was bound to hold out his hand to Myra, to keep her from the dark unfathomable depths into which, without some such aid, it seemed to him that she must surely fall. He himself was responsible for her future! If she fell, the fall would be his; if she sinned, his would be the sin! Alone he could not help her. Only a few months ago there had been one to whom he could have gone with absolute confidence; but that was all over. She was dead! There was only Lady Helen; and though in his heart he told himself that he need have no fear, that when he had laid before her Myra’s friendless state and dangerous position, she would be swift to hold out her hand, yet even from his broad and naturally obtuse view of womankind, he saw something of the awkwardness, almost the indelicacy, of the situation.

  There was a light tap at the door. Bryan looked up, waving away the smoke which hung around him, and saw Lord Wessemer.

  “Not dressed, Bryan!” he remarked, with some surprise. “I suppose you know that you are due at Wessemer House at eight o’clock?”

  Bryan started up and looked at his watch.

  “I had no idea that it was so late!” he exclaimed. “I’ll go at once.”

  “I’ll wait for you,” Lord Wessemer said. “I’ve been to my solicitors, and was rather late, so I thought I’d call for you.”

  “I shan’t be ten minutes,” Bryan answered. “Help yourself to cigarettes, and ring for anything you’d—”

  Lord Wessemer took a cigarette, and rang the bell for a brandy and soda. A man’s toilette is not a long affair, and Bryan rejoined him in less than a quarter of an hour. Lord Wessemer looked at him thoughtfully as he came in.

  “Bryan,” he said quietly, “you’re looking ill! What is it? Town air?

  “I suppose so,” Bryan answered listlessly.

  Lord Wessemer dropped his eyeglass, and laid one hand on Bryan’s shoulder.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Better tell me. I am an old man, and I know a good deal more of life than you. I dare say I can help you.”

  Bryan looked
at him for a moment. For once the keen cynicism seemed to have faded out of his face. There was a kindly gleam in the clear gray eyes, and almost a wan smile upon his lips.

  “Thanks! I’ll tell you as we go in the carriage,” Bryan said, with a certain sense of relief. “Perhaps you can give me some advice.”

  They went out together, and entered Lord Wessemer’s brougham, which stood waiting at the door. Bryan did not hesitate, nor did he spare himself. He told Lord Wessemer, in a few rapid words, the entire story of his life with Myra in San Francisco. He laid the whole problem before him without reserve, and with absolute faithfulness, and Lord Wessemer listened with quick appreciation and sympathy.

  They were almost at Wessemer House before he had finished, and Lord Wessemer had no time to say much.

  “It does seem very hard to know what to do,” he admitted, “but there is one idea, Bryan, which you had better abandon, and at once. You must not go to Lady Helen!”

  “Why not?” Bryan demanded. “She is a woman, and though she is proud, surely she can stoop to help one of her own sex!”

  “Helen is a woman, and a good one,” Lord Wessemer answered gravely, “but she has not been brought up in the broadest of schools, and no woman would exactly relish what you are proposing to ask her. You are upon very dangerous ground, Bryan.”

  “I must take my chance of it,” Bryan answered. “It seems to me that the woman whom I am going to marry should owe something to the woman who most surely saved my life. I must not shrink from offending Helen’s prejudices when Myra’s life depends upon it!”

  The carriage stopped outside the broad double front of Wessemer House. Bryan, deeply engrossed with his own thoughts, stepped out, and mounted the steps with bent head. But Lord Wessemer lingered behind for a moment. He had seen what Bryan had not—a girl stepping across the pavement towards a cab which was waiting just in front of their carriage. The face was familiar enough to him, though not in its present aspect. He had seen it wreathed with smiles, and sparkling with a gay seductive vivacity, and now it was very different indeed. He looked after her, and shook his head involuntarily. He could only guess at her errand, but after what he had just been told, the guess was almost a divination. He followed Bryan into the house with a little sigh.

  It chanced that they three were alone at dinner. The evening had been reserved for some distant relations of Lady Helen, who were on their way home from India, and had expected to arrive during the afternoon. But a telegram had come—they were detained in Paris; and for almost the first time since they had come to town, they sat down to dinner alone. If Bryan was grateful, Lord Wessemer seemed equally so. Both men were thoughtful, and Lady Helen, who came in late with a bright spot of colour in her marble cheeks and an unusual gleam in her eyes, only spoke in monosyllables. Directly after dinner was over, Lord Wessemer lit a cigar and got up.

  “I hope you will make up your mind, Bryan, to say nothing more to Lady Helen about that matter,” he said quietly.

  Bryan shook his head.

  “I have pledged my word,” he answered.

  “We might think of some other way.”

  “There is no other safe way,” Bryan declared.

  Lord Wessemer shrugged his shoulders.

  “I shall leave you alone,” he said. “You will have your own way, I can see. I am going down to the club, and on to the House for an hour.”

  Bryan nodded.

  “I shall go to her at once,” he said.

  Lord Wessemer watched him leave the room, and stood for a moment at the head of the table in deep thought. Then he rang and ordered his brougham.

  VII. THE JUDGMENT OF THE EAST

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  Lady Helen had received two visitors during the afternoon, who had each contributed a share to the collapse of her calm equanimity. The first one had arrived immediately after her return from driving. She was sitting alone at afternoon tea, when a servant announced the Duke of Devonport. She rose and welcomed him with some surprise.

  “I had no idea that you were back,” she remarked as she held out her hand.

  “Nor that I was coming?” he asked quickly.

  She shook her head.

  “Just as I thought,” he continued. “Lord Wessemer has not been quite fair to me.”

  She looked at him with wide-open eyes. He was a small, dark man, with keen eyes and sharp features. By her side he appeared insignificant.

  “Lord Wessemer has not been fair to you?” she repeated. “I do not quite understand.”

  “Exactly!” he answered. “It is, doubtless, news to you that I wrote to Lord Wessemer a week ago, proposing myself for the honour of your hand?”

  She turned a little paler. “It is news to me!” she faltered.

  “Exactly!” he repeated. “Lady Helen, I have heard some rumours which I choose to disregard. As you know, I have been abroad for two years, or I should have made you this offer before. I want you to be my wife! Now, please don’t make me any answer whatever at present. There may be complications which a little calm thought may unravel. I shall come in a week for my answer; and if at the end of that time you can say ‘yes’ to me, you will make me very happy, and I will promise you that the Duchess of Devonport shall never regret it. Good-bye! Don’t say anything, please.”

  Calm and self-assured, be bowed over her band, and was gone before she could find any words with which to answer him. Lady Helen was left alone in the twilight, to think!

  * * * * *

  Her second visitor came whilst she was still deep in an unusual fit of abstraction. There was a knock at the door, and her maid entered.

  “There is a young lady downstairs, your ladyship, who wishes to see you,” she announced. “She has no card, and will not give her name. Parker has sent up to know what he shall tell her.”

  “Some one for a subscription, I suppose!” Lady Helen remarked. “You had better show her up, Celeste.”

  Celeste disappeared. In a few moments she returned.

  “The young lady, your ladyship!” she announced.

  The door was closed again, and Celeste withdrew. Lady Helen glanced up, and remained silent from sheer astonishment. It was Myra who was advancing slowly towards her—Myra, her dark eyes wide open, and fixed upon Lady Helen with a sort of deprecating sadness, and an unusual pallor on her dusky cheeks.

  The two women stood face to face: Lady Helen, fair, proud, and impassive, steadily regarding her visitor as though even now she was scarcely convinced as to her identity; and Myra, with a gleam in her eyes which was almost wistful. When she spoke, her voice shook a little.

  “I am Myra Mercier!” she said. “Perhaps I ought not to have come to see you!”

  “Perhaps not,” Lady Helen answered calmly. “Since you are here, may I ask what you want?”

  “I wanted to see the woman whom Bryan is going to marry; and he told me that he was going to speak to you of me. I wanted to speak to you first. That is why I came!”

  “Mr. Bryan told you that he was going to speak to me of you?” Lady Helen repeated slowly. “Surely you are mistaken!”

  The contempt of her words was lost upon Myra. She was too full of her purpose to notice it.

  “No, it is just so! Bryan is going to speak to you about me, but he will not tell you everything; and there are some things which I should like you to know. I do not want—any one—to be good to me—without knowing everything. That is why I have come! I want you to know!”

  Not a feature of Lady Helen’s moved. She stood perfectly still, and listened in icy silence, without a word of encouragement. The pathos in the low, sweet voice, and the dim softness of Myra’s eyes, were nothing to her. It was, no doubt, a piece of acting. The only womanly thing about Lady Helen at that moment was the curiosity which prompted her to stand and listen to what this strange, beautiful girl had to say, instead of ringing the bell and dismissing her, as had been her first intention.

  “I knew Bryan in San Francisco!” Myra began. “I was desperat
ely poor, and I was desperately unhappy. My husband—I was married when I was very young—had driven me away from him because I would not become his friend’s mistress. One night I met Bryan. I had no money left, not even enough for my night’s lodgings, and I was almost starving. He spoke kindly to me, and he helped me. In time, not by his persuasion but by my pleading, he took me to live with him—for a little time. Then, in a few weeks, he left me. He went to the gold-diggings. He was the first man who had ever been kind to me, and I—I could not live without him. I followed him there. It took me many days, and it was over a wild country; but I found him, and then I knew what I had always kind of feared—he did not care for me! He would rather have been alone! He would rather have spent the long evenings, after his work was over, sitting and dreaming of some one in England; it was of you, Lady Helen! But I had come all that way to him, and he could not refuse to take me in. He did it; but it made him unhappy and morose. I knew that he regretted bitterly ever having seen me. And once there was a man shot, and they said it was I, and Bryan and I had to leave. There was a man who hated Bryan, and he followed us out into the desert, and dogged our steps day and night. In the darkness he stole our mules, and we were nearly starved. One night Bryan had the fever, and we had nothing to eat or drink, and the hot sun had made us nearly mad, and this man came stealing up through the shadows; and he would have killed Bryan, but I shot him—I shot him through the heart, and he died. Thank God!”

  Myra’s arm, which had been slightly raised dropped to her side. Lady Helen drew a little breath. Despite her coldness, the woman’s story had enthralled her. A slight shudder passed through her limbs, and her fingers tightened upon the paper-cutter which she held. But her face remained as the face of a Sphinx.