This carelessness on his own part caused him to growl. It was now a question either of knocking up some tavern, or of tramping to London – about twenty-one miles. However, twenty-one miles made no continent to him, and, after posting himself by questions as to the route, he set out.
Throwing his overcoat over his left arm, he put his elbows to his ribs, lifted his face skyward, and went away at a long, slow, swinging trot. One mile winded him. He stopped and walked for five minutes, then away he went again at a steady jog-trot; and now, with this second wind, he could have run in one heat to Bow Bells without any feeling but one of joy and power. He had seen Indians run all day long with pauses. He had learned the art from them, and London had scarce had time as yet to enervate him. Up hill and down dale he went steadily away, like a machine. It was dark at first, dismal in some places, the sky black, crowded with stars, like diamond-seed far sown; but suddenly, while he was trotting through the main street of Uxbridge, all this was changed, the whole look and mood of things underwent transformation, as the full moon floated like a balloon of light into the sky. It was then about one-thirty in the morning. Thenceforth his way was almost as clearly lit as by day.
Through dead villages he passed, through dead Ealing to Shepherd’s Bush; there were cats, and there were policemen, and one running man, little else. Here or there a constable was half-drawn into giving chase, but wisely forbore – he never would have caught David Harcourt. But at Shepherd’s Bush David came to the foot of a long hill, which he shirked, and drew up. From that point he walked to Notting Hill, past Kensington Gardens, toward Oxford Circus. It was near three A.M.
Walking on the south side of Oxford-St. eastward, he stopped to look at some books behind a grille. The moonshine was so luminous, the sky so clear, that he could see well enough to read their titles. This was the only quiet hour of London. There was not a sound, save the echo of a policeman’s tread some way off down Regent-St. Not even a night cab rattled in the distance. And then, on the other side of the street, his quick ears caught the passing of swift-gliding feet – a woman’s.
When David glanced round, already she was gone well past him, making westward, most silently, with a steady haste. She gave him the impression of having been overtaken by, of being shy at, the moonlight. His heart leaped in a spasm of recognition, almost of fear. And he followed, he could not help it; as water flows downward, as the needle follows the magnet, he followed, with the stealthy pace of the stalker, as silently as if he was tracking a deer, and as keenly.
His breathing, meantime, was as if suspended, his heart seemed to stand still. That form and motion, his instincts would have recognized them in midnight glimmer of dull lamps, and now they were before him in light. Still he could not believe his wits. He doubted whether he was not moonstruck, chasing a phantom made of the clair-obscure stuff of those dead hours of the night when dreams are rife in the world, and ghosts leer through the haunted chambers of the brain. That
she
should be walking the streets of London at three in the morning, alone, hastening secretly homeward like some poor outcast foreconscious of the light of dawn! – this savored somewhat of limbo and lunacy. For what good reason could she be thus abroad? A swarm of doubts, half-doubts, queer bodings, jostled in David’s heart. She might, indeed, have come out to summon a doctor, to obtain a drug in an emergency. But something in her air and pace, something clandestine, desperate, illicit, seemed to belie this hope. She turned north when she had gone so far west as Orchard-St., little thinking, apparently, that she was being shadowed, and thence sped on west and north alternately through smaller streets, a region in which the desolation of the sleeping city seemed even more confirmed. And David followed, with this thought in his mind, that, though he had not seen her face, he had a certain means of determining her identity – for, if the flying figure before him went to 60A, Porchester Gardens, the address which he had of Violet Mordaunt, then this must be Violet.
Not that in the later part of his chase he had the slightest doubt. The long black cloak, like those that nurses wear, inflated behind her, the kind of toque above it, the carriage of her head, the slope of her shoulders, all these were hers: and she sped direct, notwithstanding turns and twists, to Porchester Gardens. David, from behind the corner of a street, could see her go up the house-steps, bend over something in her hand, open the door, and slip on what must have been rubber overshoes. This secrecy revolted him, and again he almost doubted that it was she. But when she had gone in, he hastened from his street-corner to the door to read the house-number, and it was 60A.
She was gone now. It was too late to challenge and upbraid her. He already regretted that he had not dared. He was bitter at it. Something said within him: “Both sisters!” Some envenomed fang of anger, spite, and jealousy plagued him, a feeling that he was wholly out of it, and had no part nor lot in her life and acts; and then, also, like oil on the waters, came pity. He must home to his haunted flat, where the scent of the violets which he had bought greeted him on his entrance. It was near four o’clock. After looking gloomily for some time at the head in chalks, he read three letters which he had found in the letter-box. One of them was from Miss L’Estrange, and in it she said:
“I have asked my girl, Jenny, about the marriage and birth certificates which fell out of the picture, and there’s something funny about her.” (A woman never means humor when she uses that word funny.) “She wants to make out that she knows nothing about what became of them, but I believe she does. Perhaps she has found out Strauss and sold them to him, or perhaps she only means to do so, and you may get them from her if you be quick and bid high. Anyway, I have done my best for you, and now it is in your own hands. You can come here whenever you like.”
But David was now suddenly not so devoted to the affairs of Violet and Gwendoline Mordaunt as he had been. What he had seen within the past hour made him bitter. He went foraging in the kitchen for something to eat, then threw himself into bed in a vexed mood, as some gray of morning mingled with the night.
CHAPTER IX
COMING NEAR
As for Henry Van Hupfeldt, he, too, at that morning hour lay awake in his bed. If ever man knew panic, it was he all that night. He had gone home from his interview with Violet, cringing in his carriage even from the glance of the passers in the streets, stricken to the heart by that unsigned note of David’s to Violet: “A pretty certain thing that your sister was a duly wedded wife” … “the proofs of it will be forthcoming.” Some one knew!
But who? And how? Van Hupfeldt locked himself away from his valet – he lived in chambers near Hanover Square – and for hours sat without a movement, staring the stare of the hopeless and the lost. The fact that he had as good as won from Violet the pledging of herself to him – that fact which at another time would have filled him with elation, was now almost forgotten in the darkness of his calamity, as a star is swallowed up by clouds. The thing was known! That known which had been between the chamber of his heart and God alone! A bird of the air had whispered it, another soul shared in its horror. The faintest hiss of a wish to commit murder came from between his teeth. He had meant well, and ill had come; but because he had meant not badly and had struggled hard with fate, let no man dare to meddle! He could be flint against the steel of a man.
His eyes, long bereft of sleep, closed of themselves at last, and he threw himself upon his bed. But the pang which pierces the sleep of the condemned criminal soon woke him. He opened his eyes with a clearer mind, and set to thinking. The unsigned note to Violet was in a man’s hand. Some nights before in the cemetery he had found a man near the grave with her, and the man had seemed to be talking with her, a young, sunburned man. Who he was he had no idea; he had no reason to think this was the man who had sent the note. There was left only Miss L’Estrange. She might have sent it, getting a man to write for her – suspicion of itself fixed upon her. Always he had harbored this fear, that some paper, something to serve as a clue, had been left in the flat, which would lie hidden for a time, and then come forth into the noonday to undo him utterly. Gwendoline, he knew, had wished to screen him; but the chances were against him. He had never dared to go into the flat alone, to take the flat in his own name, and search it inside out. The place was haunted by a light step, and a sigh was in the air which no other ear could hear, but which his ear would hear without fail. Within those walls his eyes one night had seen a sight!
He had not dared to take the place; but he had put Miss L’Estrange into it, and she had failed him; so, suspecting at last that she did not search according to the bargain, he had threatened to stop supplies, in order merely to spur her to search, for his heart had always foreboded that there was something to find.
Gwen, he knew, had kept a diary. Where was that? His photographs, where were they? His last letter to her? The certificates? Had they all been duly destroyed by her? Had she forgotten nothing? But when he had attempted to spur L’Estrange, the woman had flown into a fury, and he had allowed himself to lose his temper. How bitter now was his remorse at this folly! He ought to have kept some one in perpetuity in the flat, till all fear of anything lying hidden in it was past. He suspected now that L’Estrange might have found some document, and had kept it from him through his not being well in her favor during the last weeks of her residence. He groaned aloud at this childishness of his. It was his business to have kept in touch with her, to have made her rich. But it was not too late.
So, on the following evening, he presented himself at the stage-door of the theater where Miss Ermyn L’Estrange was then displaying her charms, in his hand an
écrin
containing a
rivière
of diamonds. He said not one word about his motive for coming to her after so long, but put out an every-day hand, as if no dispute had been between them.
“Well, this is a surprise!” said she. “What’s the game now?”
“No game,” said he, assuming the necessary jauntiness. “Should old acquaintance be forgot?” They drove together to the Café Royal.
“It was just as I tell you,” she explained in the cab, driving later to Chelsea. “I never saw one morsel of any paper until that last day, when the two certificates dropped out of the picture, and them I wouldn’t give you because of the tiff. I’m awfully sorry now that I didn’t,” she glanced down at the
rivière
on her palm; “but there, it’s done, and can’t be undone – nature of the beast, I s’pose.”
“And you really think Jenny has them? Are you sure, now? Are you sure?” asked Van Hupfeldt, earnestly.
“That’s my honest belief,” she answered. “I think I remember tossing them to Jenny, and as Jenny knew that I had gone into the flat specially to search for papers for you, she must have said to herself: ‘These papers may be just what have been wanted, and they’ll be worth their weight in gold to me, if I can find Mr. Strauss.’ No doubt she’s been looking for you ever since, or waiting for you to turn up. When I said to her yesterday: ‘What about those two papers that dropped out of the picture at Eddystone Mansions?’ she turned funny, and couldn’t catch her breath. ‘Which two papers, miss?’ she says. ‘Oh, you go on,’ I said to her; ‘you know very well. Those that dropped out of the picture that fell down.’ – ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘now I remember. I wonder what could have become of them? Didn’t you throw them into the fireplace, Miss L’Estrange?’ – ‘No, I didn’t, Jenny,’ I said to her, ‘and a woman should lie to a man, not to another woman; for it takes a liar to catch a liar.’ – ‘But what lie am I telling, Miss L’Estrange?’ says she. ‘I am not sure,’ I said, ‘but I know that you ought to tie your nose with string whenever you’re telling a lie, for your nostrils keep opening and shutting, same as they’re doing now.’ – ‘I didn’t know that, I’m sure,’ says she. ‘That’s queer, too, if my nostrils are opening and shutting.’ – ‘It’s only the truth,’ I said to her; ‘your mouth is accustomed to uttering falsehood, and it doesn’t mind, but when your nostrils smell the lie coming out, they get excited, my girl.’ – ‘Fancy!’ says she. ‘That’s funny!’ – ‘So where’s the use keeping it up, Jenny?’ I said to her. ‘You do make me wild, for I know that you’re lying, and you know that I know, and yet you keep it up, as if I was a man, and didn’t know you. If you’ve got the papers, say so; you are perfectly welcome to them, for I don’t want to take them from you,’ I said. ‘Well, you seem to know more than I do myself, miss,’ she says. ‘Oh, you get out!’ I said to her, and I pushed her by the shoulders out of the room. That’s all that passed between us.”
“For what reason did you ask her about these papers yesterday in particular?” demanded Van Hupfeldt, thickly, a pain gripping at his heart.
“I’ll tell you. The new tenant of the flat came to me – ”
“Ah! the flat is let again?”
“What, didn’t you know? He’s only just moved in – a young man named David Harcourt.”
“And he came to you? What about?”
“Asking about papers – ”
“Papers? What interest can he have in them? And you told him about the certificates?”
“Yes.”
“
Gott in Himmel!
”
“Why, what’s the matter?”
“You told him about the certificates? Then it was he who wrote the note!”
“Which note? Don’t take on like that – in a cab!”
“You told him! Then it was he – it was he! How does he look, this young man? What kind of young man?” Van Hupfeldt wanted to choke the woman as she sat there beside him.
“Come, cheer up, pull yourself together; it will be all the same a hundred years hence. I’m sure I didn’t know that I was injuring you by telling him, and even if I had known, I should still have told him – there’s nothing like being frank, is there? You and I weren’t pals – ”
“But what is he like, this young man?”
“Not a bad sort, something like a Jameson raider, a merry, upstanding fellow – ”
“It was he who was at the grave with her!” whispered Van Hupfeldt to himself, while his eyes seemed to see a ghost. “And you told him all, all! It was he, no other. What name did you give him as that of the husband on the marriage-lines? Did he ask that, too? Did you tell him?” With a kind of crazy secrecy he asked it at her ear, panting for the answer.
“I didn’t remember the husband’s name,” she answered. “I told him it wasn’t Strauss, but van or von Something. And don’t lean against me in that way. People will think you are full.”
“Van? You told him that? And what did he say then?”
“He asked if it wasn’t van Something, I forget what, Van Hup – something. I have an awful bad memory for names, and, look here, don’t come worrying me with your troubles, for I’ve got my own to look after.”
Van Hupfeldt’s finger-nails were pressed into the flesh of his palms. This new occupier of the flat, then, even knew his name, even suspected the identity of Strauss with Van Hupfeldt. How could he know it, except from Violet? To the pains of panic in Van Hupfeldt was added a stab of jealousy. That Violet knew this young man he no longer doubted, nor doubted that the meeting at the grave was by appointment. Perhaps Violet, eager to find suspected papers of her sister’s, had even put this man into the flat, just as he, Van Hupfeldt, had once put Miss L’Estrange there. At all events, here was a man in the flat having some interest or other in Violet and in Gwendoline’s papers, with the name Van Hupfeldt on his lips, and a suspicion that Van Hupfeldt was Strauss, the evil genius of Gwendoline!
“But there must be no meddling in my life!” Van Hupfeldt whispered to himself, with an evil eye that meant no good to David.
When the cab drew up before Miss L’Estrange’s dwelling, she said: “You can’t come up, you know; it is much too late. And there isn’t any need. I will let Jenny go to you as early as you like in the morning if you give me your address, or you can come yourself to-morrow – ”
“Ah, don’t be hard on me,” he pleaded. “I mustn’t lose a night. Send her down to me, if I can’t go up.”
“Go on, the poor girl’s asleep,” she answered. “Where’s the use in carrying on like a loony? Can’t you take it coolly?”
In the end he had to go without seeing Jenny, having left his card on the understanding that she should be with him not later than ten in the morning, and that Miss L’Estrange should keep his address an inviolable secret.
The moment he was gone from her, Ermyn L’Estrange darted up the stairs, as if to catch something, and, on entering her flat, tripped into her bed-room, turned on the light, threw off her cloak, and put on the necklace before her mirror. It was a fine affair, and no mistake, all lights and colors playing bo-peep in the stones. She made a curtsy to her image, inspected herself on every side, stepping this way and that, daintily, like a peacock, keenly enjoying the gift, till the novelty of possessing it was gone stale. But at no time did she feel any gratitude to the giver, or think of him at all in connection with it – just the fact of having it occupied her mind, it didn’t matter whence.
And the mere knowledge that it was so valuable proved it to be a bribe, pointed to a weakness in the giver. Some gifts to women, especially splendid ones, produce not only no gratitude, but a certain hardness of heart, contempt, and touch of enmity. Perhaps there is a feeling of “I ought to be grateful,” but being too happy to be grateful, they are bored with a sense of fault, and for this they punish the giver with the opposite of gratitude.
At all events, by the time Miss L’Estrange had taken off the string of gems, a memory had grown up within her of David Harcourt, and with it came a mild feeling of partizanship and liking for David as against Strauss. It was a wayward machine, that she-heart under the bodice of Miss Ermyn L’Estrange – wayward without motive, subtle without thought, treacherous for treachery’s sake. As a matter of fact, before waking Jenny, it came into her head to “give a friendly tip” to David on the ground that he was “not a bad sort,” and she actually went out of her way to send him a post-card, telling him that she had expected him to call on Jenny that day, and that, if he meant business, he must see her not later than half-past nine the next morning, or he would be too late.
What a web, this, which was being spun round the young adventurer from Wyoming!
CHAPTER X
THE MARRIAGE-LINES
David had not gone to interview Jenny the day before in obedience to Miss L’Estrange’s first note, because of the sullen humor to which he relapsed after his experiences at three in the morning in the streets of London. He resented the visiting of the glimpses of the moon by a young lady who donned rubber overshoes before re-entering her house, and he said to himself: “The day’s work, and skip the Violets.”
Then, the next morning, came Miss L’Estrange’s second letter – “he must see Jenny not later than half-past nine” or he would be “too late.” Again this failed to rouse him. With those lazy, lithe movements of the body which characterized him, he strolled for some time about the flat after his early breakfast, uncertain what to do. He saw, indeed, that some one else must be after the certificates – Strauss – Van Hupfeldt – if Strauss and Van Hupfeldt were one; but still he halted between two opinions, thinking: “Where do I come in, anyway?”
Then again the face which he had seen at the grave rose before him with silent pleadings, a face touching to a man’s heart, with dry rose-leaf lips which she had a way of wetting quickly, and in her cheeks a die-away touch of the peach, purplish like white violets. And how did he know, the jealous youth, by what hundred reasons her nightly wandering might be accounted for? Why did he nourish that sort of resentment against a girl who was a perfect stranger? Perhaps there was really some jealousy in it! At which thought he laughed aloud, and suddenly darted into action, snatched a hat, and went flying. But then it was already past nine.
When he reached Miss L’Estrange’s flat, for some time no one answered his ring, and then the door opened but a little way to let out a voice which said: “What is it? I am not dressed. She’s gone. I told you you’d be too late.”
“Is she gone?” said David, blankly, eager enough now to see her.
“Look here, why should I be bothered with the lot of you at this ungodly hour of the morning?” cried the fickle L’Estrange. “
I
can’t help your troubles! Can’t you see when anybody is in bed?”
“But why did you let her go before I came?” asked David.
“You are cool! Am I your mother?”
“I wish you were for this once.”
“Nice mother and son we little two would make, wouldn’t we?”
“That’s not the point. I’m afraid you are getting cold. You ought to have contrived to keep the girl till I came, though it is my own fault. But can’t anything be done now? Where is she gone to?”
“To Strauss, of course.”
“With the certificates?”
“I suppose so. I know nothing about it, and care less. I did try to keep her back a bit for your sake, but she was pretty keen to be gone to him when once she had his address, the underhanded little wretch!”
“But stop – how long is it since she has gone?”
“Not three minutes. It’s just possible that you might catch her up, if you look alive.”
“How can that be? I shouldn’t know her. I have never seen her. We may have passed each other in the street.”
“Listen. She is a small, slim girl with nearly white hair and little Chinese eyes. She has on a blue serge skirt with my old astrakhan bolero and a sailor hat. Now you can’t miss her.”
“But which way? Where does Strauss live?”
“I promised not to tell, and I’m always as good as my word,” cried the reliable Miss Ermyn L’Estrange, “but between you and me, it’s not a thousand miles from Piccadilly Circus; and that is where Jenny will get down off her bus; so if you take a cab – ”
“Excellent. Good-by! See you again!” said David.
David was gone, in a heat of action. He took no cab, however, but took to his heels, so that he might be able to spy at the occupants within and on the top of each bus on the line of route, by running a little faster than the vehicles. At this hour London was already out of doors, going shopping, going to office and works. It was a bright morning, like the beginning of spring. People turned their heads to look at the man who ran faster than the horses, and pried into the buses. Victoria, Whitehall, Charing Cross, he passed – still he could see no one quite like Jenny. He began to lose hope, finding, moreover, that running in London was not like running in Wyoming, or even like his run from Bucks. Here the air seemed to lack body and wine. It did not repay the lungs’ effort, nor give back all that was expended, so that in going up the steep of Lower Regent-St. he began to breathe short. Nevertheless, to reward him, there, not far from the Circus, he saw sitting patient in a bus-corner the sailor hat, the bolero, the Chinese eyes, and reddish white hair of Jenny.
The moment she stepped out, two men sprang forward to address her – David and Van Hupfeldt’s valet. Van Hupfeldt lived near the lower portion of Hanover Square, the way to which being rather shut in and odd to one who does not know it, his restlessness had become unbearable when Jenny was a little late, so he had described her to his valet, a whipper-snapper named Neil – for Van Hupfeldt had several times seen Jenny with Miss L’Estrange – and had sent Neil to Piccadilly Circus, where he knew that Jenny would alight, in order to conduct her to his rooms. However, as Neil moved quickly forward, David was before him, and the valet thought to himself: “Hello, this seems to be a case of two’s company and three’s none.”
David was saying to Jenny: “You are Miss L’Estrange’s servant?”
“I am,” answered Jenny.
“She sent me after you. I must speak with you urgently. Come with me.”
Now, in Jenny’s head were visions of nothing less than wealth – wealth which she was eager to handle that hour. She said, therefore, to David: “I don’t know who you are. I can’t go anywhere – ”
They stood together on the pavement, with Neil, all unknown to David, behind them listening.
“There’s no saying ‘No,’” insisted David. “You’re going to see Mr. Strauss, aren’t you? Well, I am here instead of Mr. Strauss in this matter.”
But this ambiguous remark failed of its effect, for Neil, whose master had told him that in this affair he was not Van Hupfeldt but Strauss, intervened with the pert words: “Begging your pardon, but I am Strauss.”
However, this short way of explaining that he was there on behalf of Strauss was promptly misunderstood by Jenny, who looked with disdain at the valet, saying: “You are not Mr. Strauss!”
“Of course he isn’t,” said David, quickly. “How dare you, sir, address this lady? Come right away, will you? Come, now. Let’s jump into this cab.”
“Who are you? I don’t even know you!” cried the perplexed Jenny.
“I didn’t say I was Mr. Strauss himself,” began Neil.
“Yes, you did say so,” said Jenny, “and it isn’t the truth, for I know Mr. Strauss very well, and neither of you isn’t going to get over me, so you know!”
“Don’t you see,” suggested David, his wits all at work, “that one of us must be true, and as you are aware that he is false – ”
“What is all this about?” demanded Jenny. “I have no business with either of you. Just tell me the way to Hanover Square, please, and let me go about my business.”
“That’s just why I’m here, to show you the way,” said Neil. “I dunno why this gentleman takes it upon himself – ”
“Best hold your tongue, young man,” growled David. “You must be stupid to think this young girl would go off with you, a man she never saw before, especially after detecting you in a direct untruth – ”
“As for that, she don’t know you any more than me, seemingly,” retorted Neil. “Mr. Strauss sent me – ”
“How is she to know that? Miss L’Estrange sent me. Didn’t I know your name, Jenny, and your mistress’s name?”
“Well, that’s right enough,” agreed Jenny on reflection.
“Then trust to me.”
“But what is it you want, sir?”
“It is about the papers,” whispered David, confidentially. “It is all to your good to come with me first and hear what I have to say. Miss L’Estrange – ”
“Well, all right; but you must be quick,” said Jenny, rushing to a decision.
David hailed a cab, and he and Jenny turned their backs upon the defeated valet, got in, and drove off. However, Neil, who had witnessed Van Hupfeldt’s fever of eagerness to see this girl, followed in another cab. David drove to the Tube Station near Oxford Circus – she would accompany him no farther – and, while he talked with Jenny in a corner there, Neil, lurking among the crowd of shop-gazers across the street, kept watch.
“I propose to you,” David said to Jenny, “to give the certificates to me, and in doing so, I understand that you are a poor girl – ”
“That’s just it,” answered Jenny, “and I must know first how much I am to get for them – if it’s true that I have any certificates.”
“Right enough,” said David, “but the main motive which I hold out to you is not what you will receive in hard cash, but that you will do an immense amount of good, if you give the papers to me. They don’t belong to this Mr. Strauss, but they do belong to the mother and sister of a poor wronged lady, a lady whose character they will clear.”
“Ah, no doubt,” agreed Jenny, with the knowing leer of a born Cockney; “still, a girl has got to look after herself, you see, and not mind other people’s troubles.”
“What!” cried David, “would you rather do the wrong thing and earn twenty pounds, or do the right thing and earn five pounds? You can’t be in earnest saying that.”
“It isn’t a question of five pounds, nor yet of twenty,” snapped Jenny, offended at the mere mention of such paltry sums, “it’s a question of hundreds and of thousands.” Her mouth went big for the “thousands.” “Don’t think that I’m going to part with the papers under high figures, if so be I have any papers.”
“Under what?” asked David – “under hundreds, or under thousands?”
“Under thousands.”
“Now hold on a bit. Are you aware that I could have the papers taken from you this minute, papers that don’t belong to you, which you propose to sell to some one other than the rightful owners?”
At this Jenny changed color. There was a policeman within a few yards, and she saw her great and golden dream dissolving.
“It remains to be seen if I have got any papers. That’s the very question, you see!” she said.
“You might be searched, you know, just to clear the point. Yet you needn’t be afraid of that, for I’m disposed to meet you, and you aren’t going to refuse any reasonable offer, with no trouble from the police to follow. So I offer you now – fifty golden sovereigns for the papers, cash down.”
“You leave me alone,” muttered Jenny, sheepishly, turning her shoulder to him.
“Well, I thought we were going to be friends; but I see that I must act harshly,” David said, making a threatening movement to leave her.
“You can have them for one hundred pounds,” the girl murmured in a frail voice with downcast eyes; to which David, not to drive a hard bargain with her, at once answered: “Well, you shall have your one hundred pounds.”
The next moment, however, he was asking himself: “Who’s to pay? Can I afford these royal extravagances in other people’s affairs? Steady! Not too much Violet!”
He walked a little way from the girl, considering it. He could not afford it. There was no earthly reason why he should. But he might go to Violet, to Mrs. Mordaunt, and obtain the one hundred pounds, or their authorization to spend that sum on their behalf. In that case, however, how make sure of Jenny in the meantime? It would hardly do to leave her there in the station, so near to Strauss. She would be drawn to him as by a magnet, and he thought that if