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

It was more than ever apparent that she was not amongst those who feared him.

“I am perfectly sane,” she said, “and I am very much in earnest. Ours shall be a strategic victory, or we will not triumph at all. I believe that you are planning some desperate means of securing those papers. I repeat that I will not have it!”

He looked at her with curling lips.

“Perhaps,” he said, “it is I who have gone mad! At least I can scarcely believe that I am not dreaming. Is it really you, Helène of Bourbon, the descendant of kings, a daughter of the rulers of France, who falters and turns pale at the idea of a little blood, shed for her country’s sake? I am very much afraid,” he added with biting sarcasm, “that I have not understood you. You bear the name of a great queen, but you have the heart of a serving-maid! It is Lord Wolfenden for whom you fear!”

She was not less firm, but her composure was affected. The rich colour streamed into her cheeks. She remained silent.

“For a betrothed young lady,” he said slowly, “you will forgive me if I say that your anxiety is scarcely discreet. What you require, I suppose, is a safe conduct for your lover. I wonder how Henri would——”

She flashed a glance and an interjection upon him which checked the words upon his lips. The gesture was almost a royal one. He was silenced.

“How dare you, sir?” she exclaimed. “You are taking insufferable liberties. I do not permit you to interfere in my private concerns. Understand that even if your words were true, if I choose to have a lover it is my affair, not yours. As for Henri, what has he to complain of? Read the papers and ask yourself that! They chronicle his doings freely enough! He is singularly discreet, is he not?—singularly faithful!”

She threw at him a glance of contempt and turned as though to leave the room. Mr. Sabin, recognising the fact that the situation was becoming dangerous, permitted himself no longer the luxury of displaying his anger. He was quite himself again, calm, judicial, incisive.

“Don’t go away, please,” he said. “I am sorry that you have read those reports—more than sorry that you should have attached any particular credence to them. As you know, the newspapers always exaggerate; in many of the stories which they tell I do not believe that there is a single word of truth. But I will admit that Henri has not been altogether discreet. Yet he is young, and there are many excuses to be made for him. Apart from that, the whole question of his behaviour is beside the question. Your marriage with him was never intended to be one of affection. He is well enough in his way, but there is not the stuff in him to make a man worthy of your love. Your alliance with him is simply a necessary link in the chain of our great undertaking. Between you you will represent the two royal families of France. That is what is necessary. You must marry him, but afterwards—well, you will be a queen!”

Again he had erred. She looked at him with bent brows and kindling eyes.

“Oh! you are hideously cynical!” she exclaimed. “I may be ambitious, but it is for my country’s sake. If I reign, the Court of France shall be of a new type; we will at least show the world that to be a Frenchwoman is not necessarily to abjure morals.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“That,” he said, “will be as you choose. You will make your Court what you please. Personally, I believe that you are right. Such sentiments as you have expressed, properly conveyed to them, would make yours abjectly half the bourgeois of France! Be as ambitious as you please, but at least be sensible. Do not think any more of this young Englishman, not at any rate at present. Nothing but harm can come of it. He is not like the men of our own country, who know how to take a lady’s dismissal gracefully.”

“He is, at least, a man!”

“Helène, why should we discuss him? He shall come to no harm at my hands. Be wise, and forget him. He can be nothing whatever to you. You know that. You are pledged to greater things.”

She moved back to her place by the window. Her eyes were suddenly soft, her face was sorrowful. She did not speak, and he feared her silence more than her indignation. When a knock at the door came he was grateful for the interruption—grateful, that is, until he saw who it was upon the threshold. Then he started to his feet with a little exclamation.

“Lord Wolfenden! You are an early visitor.”

Wolfenden smiled grimly, and advanced into the room.

“I was anxious,” he said, “to run no risk of finding you out. My mission is not altogether a pleasant one!”

CHAPTER XXXI “I MAKE NO PROMISE”

A single glance from Mr. Sabin into Wolfenden’s face was sufficient. Under his breath he swore a small, quiet oath. Wolfenden’s appearance was unlooked for, and almost fatal, yet that did not prevent him from greeting his visitor with his usual ineffusive but well bred courtesy.

“I am finishing a late breakfast,” he remarked. “Can I offer you anything—a glass of claret or Benedictine?”

Wolfenden scarcely heard him, and answered altogether at random. He had suddenly become aware that Helène was in the room; she was coming towards him from the window recess, with a brilliant smile upon her lips.

“How very kind of you to look us up so early!” she exclaimed.

Mr. Sabin smiled grimly as he poured himself out a liqueur and lit a cigarette. He was perfectly well aware that Wolfenden’s visit was not one of courtesy; a single glance into his face had told him all that he cared to know. It was fortunate that Helène had been in the room. Every moment’s respite he gained was precious.

“Have you come to ask me to go for a drive in that wonderful vehicle?” she said lightly, pointing out of the window to where his dogcart was waiting. “I should want a step-ladder to mount it!”

Wolfenden answered her gravely.

“I should feel very honoured at being allowed to take you for a drive at any time,” he said, “only I think that I would rather bring a more comfortable carriage.”

She shrugged her shoulders, and looked at him significantly.

“The one you were driving yesterday?”

He bit his lip and frowned with vexation, yet on the whole, perhaps, he did not regret her allusion. It was proof that she had not taken the affair too seriously.

“The one I was driving yesterday would be a great deal more comfortable,” he said; “to-day I only thought of getting here quickly. I have a little business with Mr. Sabin.”

“Is that a hint for me to go?” she asked. “You are not agreeable this morning! What possible business can you have with my uncle which does not include me? I am not inclined to go away; I shall stay and listen.”

Mr. Sabin smiled faintly; the girl was showing her sense now at any rate. Wolfenden was obviously embarrassed. Helène remained blandly unconscious of anything serious.

“I suppose,” she said, “that you want to talk golf again! Golf! Why one hears nothing else but golf down here. Don’t you ever shoot or ride for a change?”

Wolfenden was suddenly assailed by an horrible suspicion. He could scarcely believe that her unconsciousness was altogether natural. At the bare suspicion of her being in league with this man he stiffened. He answered without looking at her, conscious though he was that her dark eyes were seeking his invitingly, and that her lips were curving into a smile.

“I am not thinking of playing golf to-day,” he said. “Unfortunately I have less pleasant things to consider. If you could give me five minutes, Mr. Sabin,” he added, “I should be very glad.”

She rose immediately with all the appearance of being genuinely offended; there was a little flush in her cheeks and she walked straight to the door. Wolfenden held it open for her.

“I am exceedingly sorry to have been in the way for a moment,” she said; “pray proceed with your business at once.”

Wolfenden did not answer her. As she passed through the doorway she glanced up at him; he was not even looking at her. His eyes were fixed upon Mr. Sabin. The fingers which rested upon the door knob seemed twitching with impatience to close it. She stood quite still for a moment; the colour left her cheeks, and her eyes grew soft. She was not angry any longer. Instinctively some idea of the truth flashed in upon her; she passed out thoughtfully. Wolfenden closed the door and turned to Mr. Sabin.

“You can easily imagine the nature of my business,” he said coldly. “I have come to have an explanation with you.”

Mr. Sabin lit a fresh cigarette and smiled on Wolfenden thoughtfully.

“Certainly,” he said; “an explanation! Exactly!”

“Well,” said Wolfenden, “suppose you commence, then.”

Mr. Sabin looked puzzled.

“Had you not better be a little more explicit?” he suggested gently.

“I will be,” Wolfenden replied, “as explicit as you choose. My mother has given me her whole confidence. I have come to ask how you dare to enter Deringham Hall as a common burglar attempting to commit a theft; and to demand that you instantly return to me a letter, on which you have attempted to levy blackmail. Is that explicit enough?”

Mr. Sabin’s face did not darken, nor did he seem in any way angry or discomposed. He puffed at his cigarette for a moment or two, and then looked blandly across at his visitor.

“You are talking rubbish,” he said in his usual calm, even tones, “but you are scarcely to blame. It is altogether my own fault. It is quite true that I was in your house last night, but it was at your mother’s invitation, and I should very much have preferred coming openly at the usual time, to sneaking in according to her directions through a window. It was only a very small favour I asked, but Lady Deringham persuaded me that your father’s mental health and antipathy to strangers was such that he would never give me the information I desired, voluntarily, and it was entirely at her suggestion that I adopted the means I did. I am very sorry indeed that I allowed myself to be over-persuaded and placed in an undoubtedly false position. Women are always nervous and imaginative, and I am convinced that if I had gone openly to your father and laid my case before him he would have helped me.”

“He would have done nothing of the sort!” Wolfenden declared. “Nothing would induce him to show even a portion of his work to a stranger.”

Mr. Sabin shrugged his shoulders gently, and continued without heeding the interruption.

“As to my blackmailing Lady Deringham, you have spoken plainly to me, and you must forgive me for answering you in the same fashion. It is a lie! I had letters of hers, which I voluntarily destroyed in her presence; they were only a little foolish, or I should have destroyed them long ago. I had the misfortune to be once a favoured suitor for your mother’s hand; and I think I may venture to say—I am sure she will not contradict me—that I was hardly treated. The only letter I ever had from her likely to do her the least harm I destroyed fifteen years ago, when I first embarked upon what has been to a certain extent a career of adventure. I told her that it was not in the packet which we burnt together yesterday. If she understood from that that it was still in my possession, and that I was retaining it for