The Ghost - Arnold Bennett (top 10 books to read .TXT) 📗

stranger."

I nodded acquiescence, and, waving a farewell to the poor girl, sank back into my seat. "This is a nice commission!" I thought.

Mr. Watts was no longer in his corner. Also my jewel-case was gone.

"A deliberate plant!" I exclaimed; and I could not help admiring the cleverness with which it had been carried out.

I rushed into the corridor, and looked through every compartment; but Mr. Watts, whom I was to keep from drunkenness, had utterly departed. Then I made for the handle of the communication cord. It had been neatly cut off. The train was now travelling at a good speed, and the first stop would be Amiens. I was too ashamed of my simplicity to give the news of my loss to the other passengers in the carriage.

"Very smart indeed!" I murmured, sitting down, and I smiled—for, after all, I could afford to smile.

CHAPTER XI A CHAT WITH ROSA

"And when I sat down it was gone, and the precious Mr. Watts had also vanished."

"Oh!" exclaimed Rosa. That was all she said. It is impossible to deny that she was startled, that she was aghast. I, however, maintained a splendid equanimity.

We were sitting in the salon of her flat at the Place de la Concorde end of the Rue de Rivoli. We had finished lunch, and she had offered me a cigarette. I had had a bath, and changed my attire, and eaten a meal cooked by a Frenchman, and I felt renewed. I had sunned myself in the society of Rosetta Rosa for an hour, and I felt soothed. I forgot all the discomforts and misgivings of the voyage. It was nothing to me, as I looked at this beautiful girl, that within the last twenty-four hours I had twice been in danger of losing my life. What to me was the mysterious man with the haunting face of implacable hate? What to me were the words of the woman who had stopped me on the pier at Dover? Nothing! A thousand times less than nothing! I loved, and I was in the sympathetic presence of her whom I loved.

I had waited till lunch was over to tell Rosa of the sad climax of my adventures.

"Yes," I repeated, "I was never more completely done in my life. The woman conspirator took me in absolutely."

"What did you do then?"

"Well, I wired to Calais immediately we got to Amiens, and told the police, and did all the things one usually does do when one has been robbed. Also, since arriving in Paris, I have been to the police here."

"Do they hold out any hope of recovery?"

"I'm afraid they are not sanguine. You see, the pair had a good start, and I expect they belong to one of the leading gangs of jewel thieves in Europe. The entire business must have been carefully planned. Probably I was shadowed from the moment I left your bankers'."

"It's unfortunate."

"Yes, indeed. I felt sure that you would attach some importance to the jewel-case. So I have instructed the police to do their utmost."

She seemed taken aback by the lightness of my tone.

"My friend, those jewels were few, but they were valuable. They were worth—I don't know what they were worth. There was a necklace that must have cost fifteen thousand pounds."

"Yes—the jewels."

"Well! Is it not the jewels that are missing?"

"Dear lady," I said, "I aspire to be thought a man of the world—it is a failing of youth; but, then, I am young. As a man of the world, I cogitated a pretty good long time before I set out for Paris with your jewels."

"You felt there was a danger of robbery?"

"Exactly."

"And you were not mistaken." There was irony in her voice.

"True! But let me proceed. A man of the world would see at once that a jewel-case was an object to attract the eyes of those who live by their wits."

"I should imagine so."

"Therefore, as a man of the world, I endeavored to devise a scheme of safeguarding my little cargo."

"And you—"

"I devised one."

"What was it?"

"I took all the jewels out of the case, and put them into my various pockets; and I carried the case to divert attention from those pockets."

She looked at me, her face at first all perplexity; gradually the light broke upon her.

"Simple, wasn't it?" I murmured.

"Then the jewels are not stolen?"

"Certainly not. The jewels are in my pockets. If you recollect, I said it was the jewel-case that was stolen."

I began to smile.

"Mr. Foster," she said, smiling too, "I am extremely angry."

"Forgive the joke," I entreated. "Perhaps it is a bad one—but I hope not a very bad one, because very bad jokes are inexcusable. And here are your jewels."

I put on the expression of a peccant but hopeful schoolboy, as I emptied one pocket after another of the scintillating treasures. The jewels lay, a gorgeous heap, on her lap. The necklace which she had particularly mentioned was of pearls. There were also rubies and emeralds, upon which she seemed to set special store, and a brooch in the form of a butterfly, which she said was made expressly for her by Lalique. But not a diamond in the collection! It appeared that she regarded diamonds as some men regard champagne—as a commodity not appealing to the very finest taste.

"I didn't think you were so mischievous," she laughed, frowning.

To transfer the jewels to her possession I had drawn my chair up to hers, and we were close together, face to face.

"Ah!" I replied, content, unimaginably happy. "You don't know me yet. I'm a terrible fellow."

"Think of my state of mind during the last fifteen minutes."

"Yes, but think of the joy which you now experience. It is I who have given you that joy—the joy of losing and gaining all that in a quarter of an hour."

She picked up the necklace, and as she gazed at the stones her glance had a rapt expression, as though she were gazing through their depths into the past.

"Mr. Foster," she said at length, without ceasing to look at the pearls, "I cannot tell you how glad I am that you are in Paris. Shall you stay till I have appeared at the Opéra Comique?"

"I was hoping to, and if you say you would like me to—"

"Ah!" she exclaimed, "I do." And she looked up.

Her lovely eyes had a suspicion of moisture. The blood rushed through my head, and I could feel its turbulent throb-throb across the temples and at my heart.

I was in heaven, and residence in heaven makes one bold.

"You really would like me to stay?" I almost whispered, in a tone that was equivalent to a declaration.

Her eyes met mine in silence for a few instants, and then she said, with a touch of melancholy:

"In all my life I've only had two friends—I mean since my mother's death; and you are the third."

"Is that all?"

"You don't know what a life like mine is," she went on, with feeling. "I'm only a prima donna, you know. People think that because I can make as much money in three hours as a milliner's girl can make in three years, and because I'm always in the midst of luxuries, and because I have whims and caprices, and because my face has certain curves in it, and because men get jealous with each other about kissing my hand, that therefore I've got all I want."

"Certain curves!" I burst out. "Why, you're the most beautiful creature I ever saw!"

"There!" she cried. "That's just how they all talk. I do hate it."

"Do you?" I said. "Then I'll never call you beautiful again. But I should have thought you were fairly happy."

"I'm happy when I'm singing well," she answered—"only then. I like singing. I like to see an audience moved. I must sing. Singing is my life. But do you know what that means? That means that I belong to the public, and so I can't hide myself. That means that I am always—always—surrounded by 'admirers.'"

"Well?"

"Well, I don't like them. I don't like any of them. And I don't like them in the mass. Why can't I just sing, and then belong simply to myself? They are for ever there, my 'admirers.' Men of wealth, men of talent, men of adventure, men of wits—all devoted, all respectful, all ready to marry me. Some honorable, according to the accepted standard, others probably dishonorable. And there is not one but whose real desire is to own me. I know them. Love! In my world, peculiar in that world in which I live, there is no such thing as love—only a showy imitation. Yes, they think they love me. 'When we are married you will not sing any more; you will be mine then,' says one. That is what he imagines is love. And others would have me for the gold-mine that is in my throat. I can read their greed in their faces."

Her candid bitterness surprised as much as it charmed me.

"Aren't you a little hard on them?" I ventured.

"Now, am I?" she retorted. "Don't be a hypocrite. Am I?"

I said nothing.

"You know perfectly well I'm not," she answered for me.

"But I admire you," I said.

"You're different," she replied. "You don't belong to my world. That's what pleases me in you. You haven't got that silly air of always being ready to lay down your life for me. You didn't come in this morning with a bunch of expensive orchids, and beg that I should deign to accept them." She pointed to various bouquets in the room. "You just came in and shook hands, and asked me how I was."

"I never thought of bringing any flowers," I said awkwardly.

"Just so. That's the point. That's what I like. If there is one thing that I can't tolerate, and that I have to tolerate, it's 'attentions,' especially from people who copy their deportment from Russian Archdukes."

"There are Archdukes?"

"Why! the air is thick with them. Why do men think that a woman is flattered by their ridiculous 'attentions?' If they knew how sometimes I can scarcely keep from laughing! There are moments when I would give anything to be back again in the days when I knew no one more distinguished than a concierge. There was more sincerity at my disposal then."

"But surely all distinguished people are not insincere?"

"They are insincere to opera singers who happen to be young, beautiful, and rich, which is my sad case. The ways of the people who flutter round a theatre are not my ways. I was brought up simply, as you were in your Devonshire home. I hate to spend my life as if it was one long diplomatic reception. Ugh!"

She clenched her hands, and one of the threads of the necklace gave way, and the pearls scattered themselves over her lap.

"There! That necklace was given to me by one of my friends!" She paused.

"Yes?" I said tentatively.

"He is dead now. You have heard—everyone knows—that I was once engaged to Lord Clarenceux. He was a friend. He loved me—he died—my friends have a habit of dying. Alresca died."

The conversation halted. I wondered whether I might speak of Lord Clarenceux, or whether to do so would be an indiscretion. She began to collect the pearls.

"Yes," she repeated softly, "he was a friend."

I drew a strange satisfaction from the fact that, though she had said frankly that he loved her, she had not even hinted that she loved him.

"Lord Clarenceux must have been a great man," I said.

"That is exactly what he was," she answered with a vague enthusiasm. "And a great nobleman too! So different from the others. I wish I could describe him to you, but I cannot. He was immensely rich—he looked on me as a pauper. He had the finest houses, the finest judgment in the