‘Never saw him before.’
‘And we shall probably never see him again,’ said the Englishman. ‘That’s the worst of it. One sees such heads occasionally, but one very rarely hears what becomes of them.’
The Greek did not care a straw what became of Mr. Feist’s head, for he was waiting to renew his conversation with Margaret.
Mustapha Pasha told her that she should go to Constantinople some day and sing to the Sultan, who would give her a pretty decoration in diamonds; and she laughed carelessly and answered that it might be very amusing.
‘I shall be very happy to show you the way,’ said the Pasha. ‘Whenever you have a fancy for the trip, promise to let me know.’
Margaret had no doubt that he was quite in earnest, and would enjoy the holiday vastly. She was used to such kind offers and knew how to laugh at them, though she was very well aware that they were not made in jest.
‘I have a pretty little villa on the Bosphorus,’ said the Ambassador, ‘If you should ever come to Constantinople it is at your disposal, with everything in it, as long as you care to use it.’
‘It’s too good of you!’ she answered. ‘But I have a small house of my own here which is very comfortable, and I like London.’
‘I know,’ answered the Pasha blandly; ‘I only meant to suggest a little change.’
He smiled pleasantly, as if he had meant nothing, and there was a pause, of which Logotheti took advantage.
‘You are admirable,’ he said.
‘I have had much more magnificent invitations,’ she answered. ‘You once wished to give me your yacht as a present if I would only make a trip to Crete — with a party of archaeologists! An archduke once proposed to take me for a drive in a cab!’
‘If I remember,’ said Logotheti, ‘I offered you the owner with the yacht. But I fancy you thought me too “exotic,” as Countess Leven calls me.’
‘Oh, much!’ Margaret laughed again, and then lowered her voice, ‘by the bye, who is she?’
‘Lady Maud? Didn’t you know her? She is Lord Creedmore’s daughter, one of seven or eight, I believe. She married a Russian in the diplomatic service, four years ago — Count Leven — but everybody here calls her Lady Maud. She hadn’t a penny, for the Creedmores are poor. Leven was supposed to be rich, but there are all sorts of stories about him, and he’s often hard up. As for her, she always wears that black velvet gown, and I’ve been told that she has no other. I fancy she gets a new one every year. But people say—’
Logotheti broke off suddenly.
‘What do they say?’ Margaret was interested.
‘No, I shall not tell you, because I don’t believe it.’
‘If you say you don’t believe the story, what harm can there be in telling it?’
‘No harm, perhaps. But what is the use of repeating a bit of wicked gossip?’
Margaret’s curiosity was roused about the beautiful Englishwoman.
‘If you won’t tell me, I may think it is something far worse!’
‘I’m sure you could not imagine anything more unlikely!’
‘Please tell me! Please! I know it’s mere idle curiosity, but you’ve roused it, and I shall not sleep unless I know.’
‘And that would be bad for your voice.’
‘Of course! Please—’
Logotheti had not meant to yield, but he could not resist her winning tone.
‘I’ll tell you, but I don’t believe a word of it, and I hope you will not either. The story is that her husband found her with Van Torp the other evening in rooms he keeps in the Temple, and there was an envelope on the table addressed to her in his handwriting, in which there were four thousand one hundred pounds in notes.’
Margaret looked thoughtfully at Lady Maud before she answered.
‘She? With Mr. Van Torp, and taking money from him? Oh no! Not with that face!’
‘Besides,’ said Logotheti, ‘why the odd hundred? The story gives too many details. People never know as much of the truth as that.’
‘And if it is true,’ returned Margaret, ‘he will divorce her, and then we shall know.’
‘For that matter,’ said the Greek contemptuously, ‘Leven would not be particular, provided he had his share of the profits.’
‘Is it as bad as that? How disgusting! Poor woman!’
‘Yes. I fancy she is to be pitied. In connection with Van Torp, may I ask an indiscreet question?’
‘No question you can ask me about him can be indiscreet. What is it?’
‘Is it true that he once asked you to marry him and you refused him?’
Margaret turned her pale face to Logotheti with a look of genuine surprise.
‘Yes. It’s true. But I never told any one. How in the world did you hear it?’
‘And he quite lost his head, I heard, and behaved like a madman—’
‘Who told you that?’ asked Margaret, more and more astonished, and not at all pleased.
‘He behaved so strangely that you ran into the next room and bolted the door, and waited till he went away—’
‘Have you been paying a detective to watch me?’
There was anger in her eyes for a moment, but she saw at once that she was mistaken.
‘No,’ Logotheti answered with a smile, ‘why should I? If a detective told me anything against you I should not believe it, and no one could tell me half the good I believe about you!’
‘You’re really awfully nice,’ laughed Margaret, for she could not help being flattered. ‘Forgive me, please!’
‘I would rather that the Nike of Samothrace should think dreadful things of me than that she should not think of me at all!’
‘Do I still remind you of her?’ asked Margaret.
‘Yes. I used to be quite satisfied with my Venus, but now I want the Victory from the Louvre. It’s not a mere resemblance. She is you, and as she has no face. I see yours when I look at her. The other day I stood so long on the landing where she is, that a watchman took me for an anarchist waiting to deposit a bomb, and he called a policeman, who asked me my name and occupation. I was very near being arrested — on your account again! You are destined to turn the heads of men of business!’
At this point Margaret became aware that she and Logotheti were talking in undertones, while the conversation at the table had become general, and she reluctantly gave up the idea of again asking where he had got his information about her interview with Mr. Van Torp in New York. The dinner came to an end before long, and the men went out with the ladies, and began to smoke in the drawing-room, standing round the coffee.
Lady Maud put her arm through Margaret’s.
‘Cigarettes are bad for your throat, I’m sure,’ she said, ‘and I hate them.’
She led the Primadonna away through a curtained door to a small room furnished according to Eastern ideas of comfort, and she sat down on a low, hard divan, which was covered with a silk carpet. The walls were hung with Persian silks, and displayed three or four texts from the Koran, beautifully written in gold on a green ground. Two small inlaid tables stood near the divan, one at each end, and two deep English easy-chairs, covered with red leather, were placed symmetrically beside them. There was no other furniture, and there were no gimcracks about, such as Europeans think necessary in an ‘oriental’ room.
With her plain black velvet, Lady Maud looked handsomer than ever in the severely simple surroundings.
‘Do you mind?’ she asked, as Margaret sat down beside her. ‘I’m afraid I carried you off rather unceremoniously!’
‘No,’ Margaret answered. ‘I’m glad to be quiet, it’s so long since I was at a dinner-party.’
‘I’ve always hoped to meet you,’ said Lady Maud, ‘but you’re quite different from what I expected. I did not know you were really so young — ever so much younger than I am.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh, yes! I’m seven-and-twenty, and I’ve been married four years.’
‘I’m twenty-four,’ said Margaret, ‘
and I’m not married yet.’
She was aware that the clear eyes were studying her face, but she did not resent their scrutiny. There was something about her companion that inspired her with trust at first sight, and she did not even remember the impossible story Logotheti had told her.
‘I suppose you are tormented by all sorts of people who ask things, aren’t you?’
Margaret wondered whether the beauty was going to ask her to sing for nothing at a charity concert.
‘I get a great many begging letters, and some very amusing ones,’ she answered cautiously. ‘Young girls, of whom I never heard, write and ask me to give them pianos and the means of getting a musical education. I once took the trouble to have one of those requests examined. It came from a gang of thieves in Chicago.’
Lady Maud smiled, but did not seem surprised.
‘Millionaires get lots of letters of that sort,’ she said. ‘Think of poor Mr. Van Torp!’
Margaret moved uneasily at the name, which seemed to pursue her since she had left New York; but her present companion was the first person who had applied to him the adjective ‘poor.’
‘Do you know him well?’ she asked, by way of saying something.
Lady Maud was silent for a moment, and seemed to be considering the question.
‘I had not meant to speak of him,’ she answered presently. ‘I like him, and from what you said at dinner I fancy that you don’t, so we shall never agree about him.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Margaret. ‘But I really could not have answered that odious man’s question in any other way, could I? I meant to be quite truthful. Though I have met Mr. Van Torp often since last Christmas, I cannot say that I know him very well, because I have not seen the best side of him.’
‘Few people ever do, and you have put it as fairly as possible. When I first met him I thought he was a dreadful person, and now we’re awfully good friends. But I did not mean to talk about him!’
‘I wish you would,’ protested Margaret. ‘I should like to hear the other side of the case from some one who knows him well.’
‘It would take all night to tell even what I know of his story,’ said Lady Maud. ‘And as you’ve never seen me before you probably would not believe me,’ she added with philosophical calm. ‘Why should you? The other side of the case, as I know it, is that he is kind to me, and good to people in trouble, and true to his friends.’
‘You cannot say more than that of any man,’ Margaret observed gravely.
‘I could say much more, but I want to talk to you about other things.’
Margaret, who was attracted by her, and who was sure that the story Logotheti had told was a fabrication, as he said it was, wished that her new acquaintance would leave other matters alone and tell her what she knew about Van Torp.
‘It all comes of my having mentioned him accidentally,’ said Lady Maud. ‘But I often do — probably because I think about him a good deal.’
Margaret thought her amazingly frank, but nothing suggested itself in the way of answer, so she remained silent.
‘Did you know that your father and my father were friends at Oxford?’ Lady Maud asked, after a little pause.
‘Really?’ Margaret was surprised.
‘When they were undergrads. Your name is Donne, isn’t it? Margaret Donne? My father was called Foxwell then. That’s our name, you know. He didn’t come into the title till his uncle died, a few years ago.’
‘But I remember a Mr. Foxwell when I was a child,’ said Margaret. ‘He came to see us at Oxford sometimes. Do you mean to say that he was your father?’
‘Yes. He is alive, you know — tremendously alive! — and he remembers you as a little girl, and wants me to bring you to see him. Do you mind very much? I told him I was to meet you this evening.’
‘I should be very glad indeed,’ said Margaret.
‘He would come to see you,’ said Lady Maud, rather apologetically, ‘but he sprained his ankle the other day. He was chivvying a cat that was after the pheasants at Creedmore — he’s absurdly young, you know — and he came down at some hurdles.’
‘I’m so sorry! Of course I shall be delighted to go.’
‘It’s awfully good of you, and he’ll be ever so pleased. May I come and fetch you? When? To-morrow afternoon about three? Are you quite sure you don’t mind?’
Margaret was quite sure; for the prospect of seeing an old friend of her father’s, and one whom she herself remembered well, was pleasant just then. She was groping for something she had lost, and the merest thread was worth following.
‘If you like I’ll sing for him,’ she said.
‘Oh, he simply hates music!’ answered Lady Maud, with unconscious indifference to the magnificence of such an offer from the greatest lyric soprano alive.
Margaret laughed in spite of herself.
‘Do you hate music too?’ she asked.
‘No, indeed! I could listen to you for ever. But my father is quite different. I believe he hears half a note higher with one ear than with the other. At all events the effect of music on him is dreadful. He behaves like a cat in a thunderstorm. If you want to please him, talk to him about old bindings. Next to shooting he likes bindings better than anything in the world — in fact he’s a capital bookbinder himself.’
At this juncture Mustapha Pasha’s pale and spiritual face appeared between the curtains of the small room, and he interrupted the conversation by a single word.
‘Bridge?’
Lady Maud was on her feet in an instant.
‘Rather!’
‘Do you play?’ asked the Ambassador, turning to Margaret, who rose more slowly.
‘Very badly. I would rather not.’
The diplomatist looked disappointed, and she noticed his expression, and suspected that he would feel himself obliged to talk to her instead of playing.
‘I’m very fond of looking on,’ she added quickly, ‘if you will let me sit beside you.’
They went back to the drawing-room, and presently the celebrated Señorita da Cordova, who was more accustomed to being the centre of interest than she realised, felt that she was nobody at all, as she sat at her host’s elbow watching the game through a cloud of suffocating cigarette smoke. Even old Griggs, who detested cards, had sacrificed himself in order to make up the second table. As for Logotheti, he was too tactful to refuse a game in which every one knew him to be a past master, in order to sit out and talk to her the whole evening.
Margaret watched the players with some little interest at first. The disagreeable Mr. Feist lost and became even more disagreeable, and Margaret reflected that whatever he might be he was certainly not an adventurer, for she had seen a good many of the class. The Ambassador lost even more, but with the quiet indifference of a host who plays because his guests like that form of amusement. Lady Maud and the barrister were partners, and seemed to be winning a good deal; the peer whose hobby was applied science revoked and did dreadful things with his trumps, but nobody seemed to care in the least, except the barrister, who was no respecter of persons, and had fought his way to celebrity by terrorising juries and bullying the Bench.
At last Margaret let her head rest against the back of her comfortable chair, and when she closed her eyes because the cigarette smoke made them smart, she forgot to open them again, and went sound asleep; for she was a healthy young person, and had eaten a good dinner, and on evenings when she did not sing she was accustomed to go to bed at ten o’clock, if not earlier.
No one even noticed that she was sleeping, and the game went on till nearly midnight, when she was awakened by the sound of voices, and sprang to her feet with the impression of having done something terribly rude. Every one was standing, the smoke was as thick as ever, and it was tempered by a smell of Scotch whisky. The men looked more or less tired, but Lady Maud had not turned a hair.
The peer, holding a tall glass of weak whisky and soda in his hand, and blinking through his gold-rimmed spectacles, asked her if she were going
anywhere else.
‘There’s nothing to go to yet,’ she said rather regretfully.
‘There are women’s clubs,’ suggested Logotheti.
‘That’s the objection to them,’ answered the beauty with more sarcasm than grammatical sequence.
‘Bridge till all hours, though,’ observed the barrister.
‘I’d give something to spend an evening at a smart women’s club,’ said the playwright in a musing tone. ‘Is it true that the Crown Prince of Persia got into the one in Mayfair as a waiter?’
‘They don’t have waiters,’ said Lady Maud. ‘Nothing is ever true. I must be going home.’
Margaret was only too glad to go too. When they were downstairs she heard a footman ask Lady Maud if he should call a hansom for her. He evidently knew that she had no carriage.
‘May I take you home?’ Margaret asked.
‘Oh, please do!’ answered the beauty with alacrity. ‘It’s awfully good of you!’
It was raining as the two handsome women got into the singer’s comfortable brougham.
‘Isn’t there room for me too?’ asked Logotheti, putting his head in before the footman could shut the door.
‘Don’t be such a baby,’ answered Lady Maud in a displeased tone.
The Greek drew back with a laugh and put up his umbrella; Lady Maud told the footman where to go, and the carriage drove away.
‘You must have had a dull evening,’ she said.
‘I was sound asleep most of the time,’ Margaret answered. ‘I’m afraid the Ambassador thought me very rude.’
‘Because you went to sleep? I don’t believe he even noticed it. And if he did, why should you mind? Nobody cares what anybody does nowadays. We’ve simplified life since the days of our fathers. We think more of the big things than they did, and much less of the little ones.’
‘All the same, I wish I had kept awake!’
‘Nonsense!’ retorted Lady Maud. ‘What is the use of being famous if you cannot go to sleep when you are sleepy? This is a bad world as it is, but it would be intolerable if one had to keep up one’s school-room manners all one’s life, and sit up straight and spell properly, as if Society, with a big S, were a governess that could send us to bed without our supper if we didn’t!’
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1208
