Mysterious Mr. Sabin - E. Phillips Oppenheim (best free ebook reader for android .TXT) 📗

Harcutt looked at him curiously.

“Poor old chap,” he said softly. “I had no idea that you were so hard hit as all that, you know.”

They passed through the crowded room to their table. Suddenly Harcutt stopped short and laid his hand upon Densham’s arm.

“Great Scott!” he exclaimed. “Look at that! No wonder we had to wait for Wolfenden!”

Mr. Sabin and his niece were occupying the same table as on the previous night, only this time they were not alone. Wolfenden was sitting there between the two. At the moment of their entrance, he and the girl were laughing together. Mr. Sabin, with the air of one wholly detached from his companions, was calmly proceeding with his supper.

“I understand now,” Harcutt whispered, “what Wolfenden meant this afternoon. When I reminded him about to-night, he laughed and said: ‘Well, I shall see you, at any rate.’ I thought it was odd at the time. I wonder how he managed it?”

Densham made no reply. The two men took their seats in silence. Wolfenden was sitting with his back half-turned to them, and he had not noticed their entrance. In a moment or two, however, he looked round, and seeing them, leaned over towards the girl and apparently asked her something. She nodded, and he immediately left his seat and joined them.

There was a little hesitation, almost awkwardness in their greetings. No one knew exactly what to say.

“You fellows are rather late, aren’t you?” Wolfenden remarked.

“We were here punctually enough,” Harcutt replied; “but we have been waiting for you nearly a quarter of an hour.”

“I am sorry,” Wolfenden said. “The fact is I ought to have left word when I came in, but I quite forgot it. I took it for granted that you would look into the room when you found that I was behind time.”

“Well, it isn’t of much consequence,” Harcutt declared; “we are here now, at any rate, although it seems that after all we are not to have supper together.”

Wolfenden glanced rapidly over his shoulder.

“You understand the position, of course,” he said. “I need not ask you to excuse me.”

Harcutt nodded.

“Oh, we’ll excuse you, by all means; but on one condition—we want to know all about it. Where can we see you afterwards?”

“At my rooms,” Wolfenden said, turning away and resuming his seat at the other table.

Densham had made no attempt whatever to join in the conversation. Once his eyes had met Wolfenden’s, and it seemed to the latter that there was a certain expression there which needed some explanation. It was not anger—it certainly was not envy. Wolfenden was puzzled—he was even disturbed. Had Densham discovered anything further than he himself knew about this man and the girl? What did he mean by looking as though the key to this mysterious situation was in his hands, and as though he had nothing but pity for the only one of the trio who had met with any success? Wolfenden resumed his seat with an uncomfortable conviction that Densham knew more than he did about these people whose guest he had become, and that the knowledge had damped all his ardour. There was a cloud upon his face for a moment. The exuberance of his happiness had received a sudden check. Then the girl spoke to him, and the memory of Densham’s unspoken warning passed away. He looked at her long and searchingly. Her face was as innocent and proud as the face of a child. She was unconscious even of his close scrutiny. The man might be anything; it might even be that every word that Felix had spoken was true. But of the girl he would believe no evil, he would not doubt her even for a moment.

“Your friend,” remarked Mr. Sabin, helping himself to an ortolan, “is a journalist, is he not? His face seems familiar to me although I have forgotten his name, if ever I knew it.”

“He is a journalist,” Wolfenden answered. “Not one of the rank and file—rather a dilettante, but still a hard worker. He is devoted to his profession, though, and his name is Harcutt.”

“Harcutt!” Mr. Sabin repeated, although he did not appear to recollect the name. “He is a political journalist, is he not?”

“Not that I am aware of,” Wolfenden answered. “He is generally considered to be the great scribe of society. I believe that he is interested in foreign politics, though.”

“Ah!”

Mr. Sabin’s interjection was significant, and Wolfenden looked up quickly but fruitlessly. The man’s face was impenetrable.

“The other fellow,” Wolfenden said, turning to the girl, “is Densham, the painter. His picture in this year’s Academy was a good deal talked about, and he does some excellent portraits.”

She threw a glance at him over her gleaming white shoulder.

“He looks like an artist,” she said. “I liked his picture—a French landscape, was it not? And his portrait of the Countess of Davenport was magnificent.”

“If you would care to know him,” Wolfenden said, “I should be very happy to present him to you.”

Mr. Sabin looked up and shook his head quickly, but firmly.

“You must excuse us,” he said. “My niece and I are not in England for very long, and we have reasons for avoiding new acquaintances as much as possible.”

A shade passed across the girl’s face. Wolfenden would have given much to have known into what worlds those clear, soft eyes, suddenly set in a far away gaze, were wandering—what those regrets were which had floated up so suddenly before her. Was she too as impenetrable as the man, or would he some day share with her what there was of sorrow or of mystery in her young life? His heart beat with unaccustomed quickness at the thought. Mr. Sabin’s last remark, the uncertainty of his own position with regard to these people, filled him with sudden fear; it might be that he too was to be included in the sentence which had just been pronounced. He looked up from the table to find Mr. Sabin’s cold, steely eyes fixed upon him, and acting upon a sudden impulse he spoke what was nearest to his heart.

“I hope,” he said, “that the few acquaintances whom fate does bring you are not to suffer for the same reason.”

Mr. Sabin smiled and poured himself out a glass of wine.

“You are very good,” he said. “I presume that you refer to yourself. We shall always be glad that we met you, shall we not, Helène? But I doubt very much if, after to-night, we shall meet again in England at all.”

To Wolfenden the light seemed suddenly to have gone out, and the soft, low music to have become a wailing dirge. He retained some command of his features only by a tremendous effort. Even then he felt that he had become pale, and that his voice betrayed something of the emotion that he felt.

“You are going away,” he said slowly—“abroad!”

“Very soon indeed,” Mr. Sabin answered. “At any rate, we leave London during the week. You must not look upon us, Lord Wolfenden, as ordinary pleasure-seekers. We are wanderers upon the face of the earth, not so much by choice as by destiny. I want you to try one of these cigarettes. They were given to me by the Khedive, and I think you will admit that he knows more about tobacco than he does about governing.”

The girl had been gazing steadfastly at the grapes that lay untasted upon her plate, and Wolfenden glanced towards her twice in vain; now, however, she looked up, and a slight smile parted her lips as her eyes met his. How pale she was, and how suddenly serious!

“Do not take my uncle too literally, Lord Wolfenden,” she said softly. “I hope that we shall meet again some time, if not often. I should be very sorry not to think so. We owe you so much.”

There was an added warmth in those last few words, a subtle light in her eyes. Was she indeed a past mistress in all the arts of coquetry, or was there not some message for him in that lowered tone and softened glance? He sat spellbound for a moment. Her bosom was certainly rising and falling more quickly. The pearls at her throat quivered. Then Mr. Sabin’s voice, cold and displeased, dissolved the situation.

“I think, Helène, if you are ready, we had better go,” he said. “It is nearly half-past twelve, and we shall escape the crush if we leave at once.”

She stood up silently, and Wolfenden, with slow fingers, raised her cloak from the back of the chair and covered her shoulders. She thanked him softly, and turning away, walked down the room followed by the two men. In the ante-room Mr. Sabin stopped.

“My watch,” he remarked, “was fast. You will have time after all for a cigarette with your friends. Good-night.”

Wolfenden had no alternative but to accept his dismissal. A little, white hand, flashing with jewels, but shapely and delicate, stole out from the dark fur of her cloak, and he held it within his for a second.

“I hope,” he said, “that at any rate you will allow me to call, and say goodbye before you leave England?”

She looked at him with a faint smile upon her lips. Yet her eyes were very sad.

“You have heard what my inexorable guardian has said, Lord Wolfenden,” she answered quietly. “I am afraid he is right. We are wanderers, he and I, with no settled home.”

“I shall venture to hope,” he said boldly, “that some day you will make one—in England.”

A tinge of colour flashed into her cheeks. Her eyes danced with amusement at his audacity—then they suddenly dropped, and she caught up the folds of her gown.

“Ah, well,” she said demurely, “that would be too great a happiness. Farewell! One never knows.”

She yielded at last to Mr. Sabin’s cold impatience, and turning away, followed him down the staircase. Wolfenden remained at the top until she had passed out of sight; he lingered even for a moment or two afterwards, inhaling the faint, subtle perfume shaken from her gown—a perfume which reminded him of an orchard of pink and white apple blossoms in Normandy. Then he turned back, and finding Harcutt and Densham lingering over their coffee, sat down beside them.

Harcutt looked at him through half-closed eyes—a little cloud of blue tobacco smoke hung over the table. Densham had eaten little, but smoked continually.

“Well?” he asked laconically.

“After all,” Wolfenden said, “I have not very much to tell you fellows. Mr. Sabin did not call upon me; I met him by chance in Bond Street, and the girl asked me to supper, more I believe in jest than anything. However, of course I took advantage of it, and I have spent the evening since eleven o’clock with them. But as to gaining any definite information as to who or what they are, I must confess I’ve failed altogether. I know no more than I did yesterday.”

“At any rate,” Harcutt remarked, “you will soon learn all that you care to know. You have inserted the thin end of the wedge. You have established a visiting acquaintance.”

Wolfenden flicked the end from his cigarette savagely.

“Nothing of the sort,” he declared. “They have not given me their address, or asked me to call. On the contrary, I was given very clearly to understand by Mr. Sabin that they were only travellers and desired no acquaintances. I know them, that is all; what the next step is to be I have not the faintest idea.”

Densham leaned over towards them. There was a strange light in his eyes—a peculiar, almost tremulous, earnestness in his tone.

“Why should there be any next step at all?” he said. “Let us all drop this ridiculous business. It has gone far enough. I have a presentiment—not altogether presentiment either, as it is based upon a certain knowledge. It is true that these are not ordinary people, and