A Bid for Fortune - Guy Boothby (ready player one ebook TXT) 📗

box. You may be sure of all that vast concourse of people there were none who stared harder than Beckenham and myself. And it was certainly enough to make any man stare, for there, sitting on her ladyship’s right hand, faultlessly dressed, was the exact image of the young man by my side. The likeness was so extraordinary that for a moment I could hardly believe that Beckenham had not left me to go up and take his seat there. And if I was struck by the resemblance, you may be sure that he was a dozen times more so. Indeed, his bewilderment was most comical, and must have struck those people round us, who were watching, as something altogether extraordinary. I looked again, and could just discern behind the front row the smug, self-satisfied face of the tutor Baxter. Then the play commenced, and we were compelled to turn and give it our attention.

Here I must stop to chronicle one circumstance that throughout the day had struck me as peculiar. When our vessel arrived at Williamstown it so happened that we had travelled up in the train to Melbourne with a tall, handsome, well-dressed man of about thirty years of age. Whether he, like ourselves, was a new arrival in the Colony, and only passing through Melbourne, I cannot say; at any rate he went on to Sydney in the mail train with us. Then we lost sight of him, only to find him standing near the public library when we had emerged from it that afternoon, and now here he was sitting in the stalls of the theatre not half a dozen chairs from us. Whether this continual companionship was designed or only accidental, I could not of course say, but I must own that I did not like the look of it. Could it be possible, I asked myself, that Nikola, learning our departure for Australia in the Pescadore, had cabled from Port Said to this man to watch us? It seemed hardly likely, and yet we had had sufficient experience of Nikola to teach us not to consider anything impossible for him to do.

The performance over, we left the theatre and set off for the ferry, only reaching it just as the boat was casting off. As it was I had to jump for it, and on reaching the deck should have fallen in a heap but for a helping hand that was stretched out to me. I looked up to tender my thanks, when to my surprise I discovered that my benefactor was none other than the man to whom I have just been referring. His surprise was even greater than mine, and muttering something about “a close shave,” he turned and walked quickly aft. My mind was now made up, and I accordingly reported my discovery to Beckenham, pointing out the man and warning him to watch for him when he was abroad without me. This he promised to do.

Next morning I donned my best attire (my luggage having safely arrived), and shortly before eleven o’clock bade Beckenham goodbye and betook myself to Potts Point to call upon the Wetherells.

It would be impossible for me to say with what varied emotions I trod that well-remembered street, crossed the garden, and approached the ponderous front door, which somehow had always seemed to me so typical of Mr. Wetherell himself. The same butler who had opened the door to me on the previous occasion opened it now, and when I asked if Miss Wetherell were at home, he gravely answered, “Yes, sir,” and invited me to enter. Though I had called there before, it must be remembered that this was the first time I had been inside the house, and I must confess the display of wealth in the hall amazed me.

I was shown into the drawing-room⁠—a large double chamber beautifully furnished and possessing an elegantly painted ceiling⁠—while the butler went in search of his mistress. A few moments later I heard a light footstep outside, a hand was placed upon the handle of the door, and before I could have counted ten, Phyllis⁠—my Phyllis! was in the room and in my arms! Over the next five minutes, gentle reader, we will draw a curtain with your kind permission. If you have ever met your sweetheart after an absence of several months, you will readily understand why!

When we had become rational again I led her to a sofa, and, seating myself beside her, asked if her father had in any way relented towards me. At this she looked very unhappy, and for a moment I thought was going to burst into tears.

“Why! What is the matter, Phyllis, my darling?” I cried in sincere alarm, “What is troubling you?”

“Oh, I am so unhappy,” she replied. “Dick, there is a gentleman in Sydney now to whom papa has taken an enormous fancy, and he is exerting all his influence over me to induce me to marry him.”

“The deuce he is, and pray who may⁠—” but I got no further in my enquiries, for at that moment I caught the sound of a footstep in the hall, and next moment Mr. Wetherell opened the door. He remained for a brief period looking from one to the other of us without speaking, then he advanced, saying, “Mr. Hatteras, please be so good as to tell me when this persecution will cease? Am I not even to be free of you in my own house? Flesh and blood won’t stand it, I tell you, sir⁠—won’t stand it! You pursued my daughter to England in a most ungentlemanly fashion, and now you have followed her out here again.”

“Just as I shall continue to follow her all my life, Mr. Wetherell,” I replied warmly, “wherever you may take her. I told you on board the Orizaba, months ago, that I loved her; well, I love her ten thousand times more now. She loves me⁠—won’t you hear her tell you so? Why then should you endeavour