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

“The German Embassy,
“Wednesday evening.

“Alas! my dear Prince, had I been able, nothing could have given me so much pleasure as to have joined your little party, but, unfortunately, this wretched climate, which we both so justly loathe, has upset my throat again, and I have too much regard for my life to hand myself over to the English doctors. Accordingly, all being well, I go to Berlin to-morrow night to consult our own justly-famed Dr. Steinlaus.

“Accept, my dear Prince, this expression of my most sincere regret, and believe me, yours most sincerely,

”Karl von Knigenstein.”

“The doctor whom he has gone to consult is no man of medicine,” the Prince said thoughtfully. “He has gone to the Emperor.”

“Lord Wolfenden?”

He laughed at her surprise, and took off his cap. He was breathless, for he had been scrambling up the steep side of the hill on which she was standing, looking steadfastly out to sea. Down in the valley from which he had come a small boy with a bag of golf clubs on his back was standing, making imaginary swings at the ball which lay before him.

“I saw you from below,” he explained. “I couldn’t help coming up. You don’t mind?”

“No; I am glad to see you,” she said simply. “You startled me, that is all. I did not hear you coming, and I had forgotten almost where I was. I was thinking.”

He stood by her side, his cap still in his hand, facing the strong sea wind. Again he was conscious of that sense of extreme pleasure which had always marked his chance meetings with her. This time he felt perhaps that there was some definite reason for it. There was something in her expression, when she had turned so swiftly round, which seemed to tell him that her first words were not altogether meaningless. She was looking a little pale, and he fancied also a little sad. There was an inexpressible wistfulness about her soft, dark eyes; the light and charming gaiety of her manner, so un-English and so attractive to him, had given place to quite another mood. Whatever her thoughts might have been when he had first seen her there, her tall, slim figure outlined so clearly against the abrupt sky line, they were at all events scarcely pleasant ones. He felt that his sudden appearance had not been unwelcome to her, and he was unreasonably pleased.

“You are still all alone,” he remarked. “Has Mr. Sabin not arrived?”

She shook her head.

“I am all alone, and I am fearfully and miserably dull. This place does not attract me at all: not at this time of the year. I have not heard from my uncle. He may be here at any moment.”

There was no time like the present. He was suddenly bold. It was an opportunity which might never be vouchsafed to him again.

“May I come with you—a little way along the cliffs?” he asked.

She looked at him and hesitated. More than ever he was aware of some subtle change in her. It was as though her mental attitude towards him had adapted itself in some way to this new seriousness of demeanour. It was written in her features—his eyes read it eagerly. A certain aloofness, almost hauteur, about the lines of her mouth, creeping out even in her most careless tones, and plainly manifest in the carriage of her head, was absent. She seemed immeasurably nearer to him. She was softer and more womanly. Even her voice in its new and more delicate notes betrayed the change. Perhaps it was only a mood, yet he would take advantage of it.

“What about your golf?” she said, motioning down into the valley where his antagonist was waiting.

“Oh, I can easily arrange that,” he declared cheerfully. “Fortunately I was playing the professional and he will not mind leaving off.”

He waved to his caddie, and scribbled a few lines on the back of a card.

“Give that to McPherson,” he said. “You can clean my clubs and put them in my locker. I shall not be playing again this morning.”

The boy disappeared down the hill. They stood for a moment side by side.

“I have spoilt your game,” she said. “I am sorry.”

He laughed.

“I think you know,” he said boldly, “that I would rather spend five minutes with you than a day at golf.”

She moved on with a smile at the corners of her lips.

“What a downright person you are!” she said. “But honestly to-day I am not in the mood to be alone. I am possessed with an uneasy spirit of sadness. I am afraid of my thoughts.”

“I am only sorry,” he said, “that you should have any that are not happy ones. Don’t you think perhaps that you are a little lonely? You seem to have so few friends.”

“It is not that,” she answered. “I have many and very dear friends, and it is only for a little time that I am separated from them. It is simply that I am not used to solitude, and I am becoming a creature of moods and presentiments. It is very foolish that I give way to them; but to-day I am miserable. You must stretch out that strong hand of yours, my friend, and pull me up.”

“I will do my best,” he said. “I am afraid I cannot claim that there is anything in the shape of affinity between us; for to-day I am particularly happy.”

She met his eyes briefly, and looked away seawards with the ghost of a sorrowful smile upon her lips. Her words sounded like a warning.

“Do not be sure,” she said. “It may not last.”

“It will last,” he said, “so long as you choose. For to-day you are the mistress of my moods!”

“Then I am very sorry for you,” she said earnestly.

He laughed it off, but her words brought a certain depression with them. He went on to speak of something else.

“I have been thinking about you this morning,” he said. “If your uncle is going to play golf here, it will be very dull for you. Would you care for my mother to come and see you? She would be delighted, I am sure, for it is dull for her too, and she is fond of young people. If you——”

He stopped short She was shaking her head slowly. The old despondency was back in her face. Her eyes were full of trouble. She laid her delicately gloved fingers upon his arm.

“My friend,” she said, “it is very kind of you to think of it—but it is impossible. I cannot tell you why as I would wish. But at present I do not desire any acquaintances. I must not, in fact, think of it. It would give me great pleasure to know your mother. Only I must not. Believe me that it is impossible.”

Wolfenden was a little hurt—a good deal mystified. It was a very odd thing. He was not in the least a snob, but he knew that the visit of the Countess of Deringham, whose name was still great in the social world, was not a thing to be refused without grave reasons by a girl in the position of Mr. Sabin’s niece. The old question came back to him with an irresistible emphasis. Who were these people? He looked at her furtively. He was an observant man in the small details of a woman’s toilette, and he knew that he had never met a girl better turned out than his present companion. The cut of her tailor-made gown was perfection, her gloves and boots could scarcely have come from anywhere but Paris. She carried herself too with a perfect ease and indefinable distinction which could only have come to her by descent. She was a perfect type of the woman of breeding—unrestrained, yet aristocratic to the tips of her finger-nails.

He sighed as he looked away from her.

“You are a very mysterious young woman,” he said, with a forced air of gaiety.

“I am afraid that I am,” she admitted regretfully. “I can assure you that I am very tired of it. But—it will not last for very much longer.”

“You are really going away, then?” he asked quickly.

“Yes. We shall not be in England much longer.”

“You are going for good?” he asked. “I mean, to remain away?”

“When we go,” she said, “it is very doubtful if ever I shall set my foot on English soil again.”

He drew a quick breath. It was his one chance, then. Her last words must be his excuse for such precipitation. They had scrambled down through an opening in the cliffs, and there was no one else in sight. Some instinct seemed to tell her what was coming. She tried to talk, but she could not. His hand had closed upon hers, and she had not the strength to draw it away. It was so very English this sudden wooing. No one had ever dared to touch her fingers before without first begging permission.

“Don’t you know—Helène—that I love you? I want you to live in England—to be my wife. Don’t say that I haven’t a chance. I know that I ought not to have spoken yet, but you are going away so soon, and I am so afraid that I might not see you again alone. Don’t stop me, please. I am not asking you now for your love. I know that it is too soon—to hope for that—altogether! I only want you to know, and to be allowed to hope.”

“You must not. It is impossible.”

The words were very low, and they came from her quivering with intense pain. He released her fingers. She leaned upon a huge boulder near and, resting her face upon her hand, gazed dreamily out to sea.

“I am very sorry,” she said. “My uncle was right after all. It was not wise for us to meet. I ought to have no friends. It was not wise—it was very, very foolish.”

Being a man, his first thoughts had been for himself. But at her words he forgot everything except that she too was unhappy.

“Do you mean,” he said slowly, “that you cannot care for me, or that there are difficulties which seem to you to make it impossible?”

She looked up at him, and he scarcely knew her transfigured face, with the tears glistening upon her eyelashes.

“Do not tempt me to say what might make both