The Swindler - Ethel May Dell (inspiring books for teens .txt) 📗

a gas-lamp.
She overtook him and fled past him without a pause. He caught a glimpse of a pale face and fair hair in wild disorder.
Then she was gone again into the night, running swiftly. The darkness closed about her, and hid her from view.
The man on the parade paused for several seconds, then walked back to his original resting-place by the sea-wall.
The band on the pier was playing a jaunty selection from a comic opera. It came in gusts of gaiety. The wash of the sea, as it crept up the beach, was very mysterious and remote.
Below, on the piled shingle, a man stood alone, staring out over the darkness, motionless and absorbed.
The watcher above him struck a match at length and kindled a cigarette. His face was lit up during the operation. It was the face of a man who had seen a good deal of the world and had not found the experience particularly refreshing. Yet, as he looked down upon the silent figure below him, there was more of compassion than cynicism in his eyes. There was a glint of humour also, like the shrewd half-melancholy humour of a monkey that possesses the wisdom of all the ages, and can impart none of it.
Suddenly there was a movement on the shingle. The lonely figure had turned and flung itself face downwards among the tumbling stones. The abandonment of the action was very young, and perhaps it was that very fact that made it so indescribably pathetic. To Lester Cheveril, leaning on the sea-wall, it appealed as strongly as the crying of a child. He glanced over his shoulder. The place was deserted. Then he deliberately dropped his cigarette-case over the wall and exclaimed: "Confound it!"
The prone figure on the shingle rolled over and sat up.
"Hullo!" said Cheveril.
There was a distinct pause before a voice replied: "Hullo! What's the matter?"
"I've dropped my cigarette-case," said Cheveril. "Beastly careless of me!"
Again there was a pause. Then the man below him stumbled to his feet.
"I've got a match," he said. "I'll see if I can find it."
"Don't trouble," said Cheveril politely. "The steps are close by."
He walked away at an easy pace and descended to the beach. The flicker of a match guided him to the searcher. As he drew near, the light went out, and the young man turned to meet him.
"Here it is," he said gruffly.
"Many thanks!" said Cheveril. "It's so confoundedly dark to-night. I scarcely expected to see it again."
The other muttered an acknowledgment, and stood prepared to depart.
Cheveril, however, paused in a conversational attitude. He had not risked his property for nothing.
"A pretty little place, this," he said. "I suppose you are a visitor here like myself?"
"I'm leaving to-morrow," was the somewhat grudging rejoinder.
"I only came this afternoon," said Cheveril. "Is there anything to see here?"
"There's the sea and the lighthouse," his companion told him curtly--"nothing else."
Cheveril smiled faintly to himself in the darkness.
"Try one of these cigarettes," he said sociably. "I don't enjoy smoking alone."
He was aware, as his unknown friend accepted the offer, that he would have infinitely preferred to refuse.
"Been here long?" he asked him, as they plunged through the shingle towards the sand.
"I've lived here nearly all my life," was the reply. And, after a moment, as if the confidence would not be repressed: "I'm leaving now--for good."
"Ah!" said Cheveril sympathetically. "It's pretty beastly when you come to turn out. I've done it, and I know."
"It's infernal," said the other gloomily, and relapsed into silence.
"Going abroad?" Cheveril ventured presently.
"Yes. Going to the other side of the world." Surliness had given place to depression in the boy's voice. Sympathy, albeit from an unknown quarter, moved him to confidence. "But it isn't that I mind," he said, a moment later. "I should be ready enough to clear out if it weren't for--some one else!"
"A woman, I suppose?" Cheveril said.
He was aware that his companion glanced at him sharply through the gloom, and knew that he was momentarily suspected of eavesdropping.
Then, with impulsive candour, the answer came:
"Yes; the girl I'm engaged to. She has got to stay behind and marry--some one else."
Cheveril's teeth closed silently upon his lower lip. This, also, was one of the things he knew.
"You can't trust her, then?" he said, after a pause.
"Oh, she cares for me--of course!" the boy answered. "But there isn't a chance for us. They are all dead against me, and the other fellow will be on the spot. He hasn't asked her yet, but he means to. And her people will simply force her to accept him when he does. Of course they will! He is Cheveril, the millionaire. You must have heard of him. Every one has."
"I know him well," said Cheveril.
"So do I--by sight," the boy plunged on recklessly--"an undersized little animal with a squint."
"I didn't know he squinted," Cheveril remarked into the darkness. "But, anyhow, they can't make her marry against her will."
"Can't they?" returned the other fiercely. "I don't know what you call it, then. They can make her life so positively unbearable that she will have to give in, if it is only to get away from them. It's perfectly fiendish; but they will do it. I know they will do it. She hasn't a single friend to stand by her."
"Except you," said Cheveril.
They had nearly reached the water. The rush and splash of the waves held something solemn in their harmonies, like the chords of a splendid symphony. Cheveril heard the quick, indignant voice at his side like a cry of unrest breaking through.
"What can I do?" it said. "I have never had a chance till now. I have just had a berth in India offered to me; but I can't possibly hope to support a wife for two years at least. And meanwhile--meanwhile----"
It stopped there; and a long wave broke with a roar, and rushed up in gleaming foam almost to their feet. The younger man stepped back; but Cheveril remained motionless, his face to the swirling water.
Quite suddenly at length he turned, as a man whose mind is made up, and began to walk back to the dimly lighted parade. He marched straight up the shingle, as if with a definite purpose in view, and mounted the rickety iron ladder to the pavement.
His companion followed, too absorbed by his trouble to feel any curiosity regarding the stranger to whom he had poured it out.
Under a flaring gas-lamp, Cheveril stood still.
"Do you mind telling me your name?" he said abruptly.
That roused the boy slightly. "My name is Willowby," he answered--"James Willowby."
He looked at Cheveril with a dawning wonder, and the latter uttered a short, grim laugh. The light streamed full upon his face.
"You know me well, don't you," he said, "by sight?"
Young Willowby gave a great start and turned crimson. He offered neither apology nor excuse.
"I like you for that," Cheveril said, after a moment. "Can you bring yourself to shake hands?"
There was unmistakable friendliness in his tone, and Willowby responded to it promptly. He was a sportsman at heart, however he might rail at circumstance.
As their hands met, he looked up with a queer, mirthless smile.
"I hope you are going to be good to her," he said.
"I am going to be good to you both," said Lester Cheveril quietly.
In the silence that followed his words, the band on the pier became audible on a sudden gust of wind. It was gaily jigging out the tune of "The Girl I Left Behind Me."
* * * * *


"What a secluded corner, Miss Harford! May I join you?"
Evelyn Harford looked up with a start of dismay. He was the last person in the world with whom she desired a _tete-a-tete_; but he was dining at her father's house, and she could not well refuse. Reluctantly she laid aside the paper on her knee.
"I thought you were playing bridge," she said, in a chilly tone.
"I cried off," said Cheveril.
He stood looking down at her with shrewd, kindly eyes. But the girl was too intent upon making her escape to notice his expression.
"Won't you go to the billiard-room?" she said. "They are playing pool."
He shook his head.
"I came here expressly to talk to you," he said.
"Oh!" said Evelyn.
She leaned back in her chair, and tried to appear at her ease; but her heart was thumping tumultuously. The man was going to propose, she knew--she knew; and she was not ready for him. She felt that she would break down ignominiously if he pressed his suit just then.
Cheveril, however, seemed in no hurry. He sat down facing her, and there followed a pause, during which she felt that he was studying her attentively.
Growing desperate at length, she looked him in the face, and spoke.
"I am not a very lively companion to-night, Mr. Cheveril," she said. "That is why I came away from the rest."
There was more of appeal in her voice than she intended; and, realising it, she coloured deeply, and looked away again. He was just the sort of man to avail himself of a moment's weakness, she told herself, with rising agitation. Those shrewd eyes of his missed nothing.
But Cheveril gave no sign of having observed her distress. He maintained his silence for some seconds longer. Then, somewhat abruptly, he broke it.
"I didn't follow you in order to be amused, Miss Harford," he said. "The fact is, I have a confession to make to you, and a favour to ask. And I want you to be good enough to hear me out before you try to answer. May I count on this?"
The dry query did more to quiet her perturbation than any solicitude. She was quite convinced that he meant to propose to her, but his absence of ardour was an immense relief. If he would only be businesslike and not sentimental, she felt that she could bear it.
"Yes, I will listen," she said, facing him with more self-possession than she had been able to muster till that moment. "But I shall want a fair hearing, too--afterwards."
A faint smile flickered across Cheveril's face.
"I shall want to listen to you," he said. "The confession is this: Last night I went down to the parade to smoke. It was very dark. I don't know exactly what attracted me. I came upon two people saying good-bye on the beach. One of them--a woman--was crying."
He paused momentarily. The girl's face had frozen into set lines of composure. It looked like a marble mask. Her eyes met his with an assumption of indifference that scarcely veiled the desperate defiance behind.
"When does the confession begin?" she asked him, with a faint laugh that sounded tragic in spite of her.
He leaned forward, scrutinising her with a wisdom that seemed to pierce every barrier of conventionality and search her very soul.
"It begins now," he said. "She came up on to the parade immediately after, and I waited under a lamp to get a glimpse of her. I saw her face, Miss Harford. I knew her instantly." The girl's eyes flickered a little, and she bit her lip. She was about to speak, but he stopped her with sudden authority. "No, don't answer!" he said. "Hear me out. I waited till she was gone, and then I joined the young fellow on the beach. He was in the mood for a sympathetic listener,