“After this avowal, he did not speak for some little time, all the while regarding me with an intense gaze that embarrassed me very much.
”‘Thanks for telling me the truth,’ he said at length. ‘Your confidence is quite safe with me.’ He added after a pause, ‘So you are a poor man, in spite of the fact that your appearance does not suggest the fact. Well, I may tell you that from the first moment I made your acquaintance I was pretty certain you were.’
“I told him a little more. ‘I am so poor,’ I said frankly, ‘that I cannot afford to keep up appearances any longer. In a few days I shall leave a world I ought never to have entered. Anyway, it is the last time I shall dine with you, and I don’t suppose we shall ever meet again, unless we run across each other by chance in a very different sphere.’
”‘You have absolutely made up your mind to do this, for the reasons you have given?’ he asked presently.
”‘Absolutely,’ I replied. ‘I may say it is Hobson’s choice. I am heavily in debt. If I cut my wants down to next to nothing, it will take me a year to pay off what I owe.’ I laughed bitterly – ‘Unless I turned thief, I could not possibly go on.’
”‘I don’t want to force your confidence,’ was Lord Frederick’s next remark. ‘But having had a taste of this rather glittering world, I presume you will leave it with considerable regret.’
”‘I dare not say what I feel,’ I said with conviction. ‘It seems to me that in the old life to which I am returning I shall suffer the tortures of lost souls.’
“Then he shot at me an extraordinary question. ‘I wonder whether you would care to become a partner in my business?’
“My heart suddenly grew light. Was there a chance that I could still keep on, that through his assistance I could find a decently paid occupation? After all, I only wanted a few hundreds a year more. A bachelor can live in the best society on comparatively little, but he must have that little, and the insurance office did not furnish it.
”‘If I were competent enough,’ I faltered.
“He smiled; I thought there was a little touch of a sneer in that smile. ‘Oh, I think you would be competent enough. But I am not at all sure that you would like the business sufficiently.’
”‘I can’t say positively, of course, till I know the nature of it. But I don’t think I should be very difficult to please, nor do I want any extravagant remuneration, just enough to keep up a decent appearance.’
”‘The share would be half, neither more nor less,’ he said curtly; then he relapsed into a long silence, as if he were thinking very hard.
“When he spoke it was in a low, strained voice. ‘Look here, Esmond, I don’t know very much of you. But I believe you to be a gentleman. The business I am engaged in is a very peculiar one, and it is more than probable it will not appeal to you. If you refuse, you are to give me your word of honour that this conversation between us shall be forgotten.’
“I gave him more than my word, I added my solemn oath that I would never divulge a syllable.
“I had for some little time felt that there was a mystery about him. I hazarded to myself that he was perhaps engaged in some spying work repugnant to any man of fine susceptibilities but quite remunerative.
“I was startled, and to an extent horrified, by what he told me. He was a professional card-sharper, made his living by robbing his rich acquaintances. He had been at the game since he was twenty-five.
”‘I do pretty well, as you can guess, by the way in which I live,’ he remarked at the conclusion of his strange confession. ‘But with a smart confederate, and I am sure you would prove one, I could quadruple my gains. One is hampered by working alone. It’s a scoundrel’s business, of course. But I can always persuade myself I am not really doing very much harm, certainly not as much as the swindling sort of company-promoter. I win money from rich fools, rob them, if you like; it does at least as much good in my pockets as theirs.’
“I suppose there was already some moral kink in me waiting to blossom forth under proper encouragement. For though I was very much startled, I cannot say that I was profoundly shocked, as I might have been by a less subtle form of robbery.
“I did not accept or refuse that night, I wanted to think. I knew it was the turning of the ways. On the one hand well-paid roguery, with the accompanying delights of the fashionable world, on the other the deadly, drab life of the poor City drudge. In the morning my mind was made up. I went into partnership with my new friend.”
“And you made a fortune, I suppose?” asked Spencer, in a very cold voice.
Esmond shook his head, and Spencer was not at all sure that the next words were truthful ones.
“No, a comfortable living, nothing more. We made a good deal, but we had to lose a good deal, too, in order to avert suspicion.”
“Your friend is dead, you say. So you went on with it after his death?”
“Yes, for a little time alone. Then I, too, got in a partner, the man who was with me to-night.”
There was a long silence between the two men. Spencer broke it first.
“And what are your plans?” he asked.
“I shall sneak out of the country to-morrow morning and make my way to France. I shall hide myself in some little out-of-the-way village under an assumed name, and rust out.” The little man rose and looked at his former friend with an embarrassed air. “Well, thanks for having listened to me so patiently. It has been a tremendous relief to me to pour it all out.”
He did not offer his hand, for he felt certain it would not be taken. Spencer stopped him as he was at the door.
“You have money, I suppose, something put by out of your – your winnings?”
Esmond’s voice was hesitating. Again it was very doubtful if he was speaking the truth. “Hardly a sou out of them. It was lightly come, lightly go, all the time. But my father left me a little bit which will keep me going in a cheap place.”
Spencer did not believe him. The probability was he had put away safely a snug little nest-egg, in view of the detection which might come at any moment of such a hazardous occupation.
“One word before you go,” said the young man finally. “Is there much cheating going on at Elsinore Gardens?”
Esmond turned and looked the speaker straight in the face. This time he certainly seemed to be speaking the truth, but he might be a most accomplished liar.
“None at all, except when I and my partner were there. If there had been, I should have spotted it. I’m awfully sorry for Mrs L’Estrange, for it having happened at her house, for I daresay people will hint nasty things.”
“She didn’t suspect anything, then?”
“Not a bit,” replied Esmond. “We didn’t play there more than about twice a week, and we never went in for high stakes. And, of course, we had to lose pretty often, to make things look square.”
“And Miss Keane suspected nothing either.” As he remembered the girl’s beautiful face, and sad history, Spencer felt almost ashamed of himself for putting the question.
“Bless your soul, no, a thousand times no.” The little rogue seemed to speak with unusual warmth. “Why, she loathes cards, she never can be got to join in. She has suffered too much from gambling.”
He went out of the room slowly and into the night. Spencer half pitied the poor devil who had made such a hash of his life through his desire to step out of his own class. He sat down and ruminated a long time over the strange history which had been unfolded to him.
The next morning, the fugitive, Tommy Esmond, caught the morning train from Charing Cross. He looked very sad and woebegone, a pitiable figure, friendless and alone.
But not quite friendless. A young woman closely-veiled and dressed very plainly rose up from one of the seats as he came on the platform, and touched him lightly on the arm. He recognised her, and glanced round anxiously.
“It was very dear and sweet of you to come, Stella, but very imprudent. You might be seen by half a dozen people.”
“I know,” answered Miss Keane, for the closely-veiled woman was she. “I got your letter this morning and could not bear you should go without a last good-bye. Well, I can see you are anxious. I will say it, and get back.”
She lifted the veil for a second, and held up her face. The little man kissed her hastily, and then made for his train.
It was evident he had one friend left in the London he was flying from as a fugitive and outlaw, one woman who pitied him.
And, at the same time that Stella was walking swiftly from the station, Guy Spencer was making up his mind that he would pay a visit to Elsinore Gardens in the afternoon, to see how the land lay there.
Chapter Thirteen
About five o’clock on the afternoon of the day following Esmond’s confession, Guy Spencer rang the bell at Mrs L’Estrange’s flat in Elsinore Gardens.
The decorous-looking butler opened the door. He seemed to wear a sad and chastened demeanour, as if overborne with the tragic events of the previous night. Of course, all servants know what is going on in the house of their employers. A scandal such as this must have quickly penetrated to them.
“Is Mrs L’Estrange at home?”
The sad-faced butler answered at once; he could tell a lie with as much grace as anybody, but here there was no need to lie.
“Mrs L’Estrange is at home, sir, in a manner of speaking, but she is very ill, as a matter of fact in bed. Of course she cannot see any visitors.”
“Oh, I quite understand,” said Spencer hastily. “Is Miss Keane in? If so, I would like to see her for a few moments.”
The melancholy man in black opened the door a few inches. “Miss Keane is in, sir, but I am afraid she is not very well, either. Will you kindly step in, sir, and I will find out if she can see you?”
It was evident that Tommy Esmond and his equally nefarious partner had cast a gloom over the whole establishment. Spencer was ushered into the pretty drawing-room. In a few moments, Stella Keane came in. She was evidently under the stress of great emotion. There were dark shadows round the eyes, as if she had passed a sleepless night. Even her perfect mouth had a listless droop.
But, in spite of her pallor, the dark shadows round her eyes, and that pathetic droop, she was still very beautiful. Pathos became her. Guy Spencer’s heart gave a great leap as he saw her. There was about her an overpowering, an irresistible fascination.
She advanced towards him with outstretched hands. She spoke in a broken voice, the perfectly moulded lips trembled:
“It is so sweet of you to come. Of course you have heard? It is all over the town by now. Oh, this thrice-accursed gambling, the love of which induces decent men to cheat, and become outcasts from their world.”
She spoke with the deepest emotion, her bosom heaving, her voice broken by the catchings of the breath.
“He was such a good little man, he was always so kind to me,” she went on. “And last night those awful happenings. Branded a cheat, he and his friend, and they could not deny it. They had to slink out. I have hardly closed my eyes during the night, Mr Spencer; my poor cousin is prostrated.” She added with a shudder: “My girlhood was passed amidst a gambling set, but I never had an experience like this.”
She collected herself, and rang for tea. “You will sit down,” she said. “You can understand I should have denied myself to anybody but you, I am so terribly upset. It is still like a nightmare.”
Spencer sat down as he was bidden. “I had a visit from Esmond last night,” he said briefly. “He came straight on from Elsinore Gardens. He told me what had happened, he told me the whole history of the terrible thing, how he has been making his living by cheating at cards, since he was a young man.” Miss Keane raised her hands in mute deprecation. “How awful! That, of course, I did not know. I had a letter from him this morning, apologising, if one can apologise for such a thing, telling me he was going to live abroad under an assumed name. It was a very short letter. His chief concern seemed to be that he had, incidentally, made it unpleasant for Mrs L’Estrange.”
“How does Mrs L’Estrange take it?”
Miss Keane shrugged her shoulders. “She is a little bit hysterical, you know. One moment, she vows she will shut up the flat and go abroad, for fear of the nasty things that people will say. The next moment, she says that, confident in her perfect innocence, she will stay and face the music, and give her parties as usual.”
“Has she asked your advice?” queried Spencer.
“She has, and my advice is to go on as usual. It is not her fault that blacklegs have crept into her circle. They creep into the best houses, the best clubs. So long as this curséd gambling goes on, there will be sharpers.”
“That’s true,” remarked Spencer, remembering a few episodes that had occurred in his time. “And, I suppose, you will still cast in your lot with her?”
The look on the beautiful face grew more pathetic than ever.
“What can I do, Mr Spencer? I have told you my position. I wish my cousin were a different woman altogether, I wish she were not so infatuated with this horrible gambling. But I cannot influence her. She is too old and set to turn over a new leaf.”
Every moment the girl’s fascination took a deeper hold of him. She was so very beautiful, so very seductive. But he still kept himself in check.
“Tell me what actually happened last night. How were Esmond and his partner found out?”
There was a little interruption by the solemn-faced butler who brought in tea. Miss Keane busied herself amongst the cups before she replied.
“It is, as I told you, all a nightmare to me. I was wandering aimlessly about; as I have told you before, I never play, I loathe cards too much. Suddenly there was a scene at the table where Mr Esmond and his partner were playing. Three men were standing watching the game, they had come here often, I knew their names.”
“They were friends of Mrs L’Estrange?” queried Spencer.
Just a faint shade of hesitation crept into the low voice.
“Oh yes, friends of my cousin.”
“Straight sort of chaps, of course.”
“I have no doubt of that. They accused Mr Esmond and his partner, Major Golightly, of cheating. Of course the charge was denied, but very half-heartedly. These three men were backed by others who had seen something suspicious. It seems Mr Esmond and his partner had aroused suspicion before. Finally they confessed, and slunk out of the house.”
She paused a moment, and then laid her hand impulsively on his arm.
“That first night you came to our house, you lost. Did you play at the same table with Tommy Esmond? I forget.”
The answer came straight. “No, I lost something, what was it? – something about a hundred and fifty. But Tommy Esmond did not rook me that time, he was playing at another table. I remember he was very cock-a-hoop, he was winning hand over fist. I say, I know I am putting a very impertinent question, but were Tommy Esmond and his partner, this Major Golightly, the only sharpers who came to this flat? Did I lose my hundred and fifty, or whatever it was, quite honestly?”
Miss Keane covered her face with her hands for a few seconds, and when she took them away, he could see that tears were slowly trickling down her cheeks.
“Heaven knows, Mr Spencer, I don’t. My cousin is a strange woman. She is fond of gaiety, of excitement. She asks people about whom she knows nothing to her flat, I think,” she added with an hysterical laugh; “she fancies she is making herself a queen of Society. If she can get her rooms full that is all she wants. When she does that, she fancies herself the Duchess.”
“I think I understand,” said Spencer gravely. “And I take it you would give heaven and earth to get out of this environment?”
“If you only knew how I loathe it,” she cried, in a fervent tone. “Sometimes I think I would rather run away and be a shopgirl or a waitress, to get rid of this horrible atmosphere.”
Guy Spencer was very perturbed. He rose and walked up and down the room – it was his habit to walk about, even in confined spaces, when he was in an emotional mood.
At length he turned, and faced her squarely. “Look here, Miss Keane. It’s rather nonsense talking about being a waitress or a shopgirl. You told me you had a small income saved from the wreck. How much is it? I am asking in no spirit of impertinent curiosity. I have a reason for asking.”
She hesitated for a moment before she replied: “Something like a hundred a year – paid to me quarterly by my cousin, Mr Dutton, who is my trustee.”
“Then you are not exactly a pauper. Shopgirls and waitresses don’t earn that.”
“But it would help,” said Miss Keane, in a stifled voice. “A hundred a year does not go far; with clothes and everything.”
He longed to take her in his arms there and then and ask her to be his wife, so far was he subjugated by her subtle fascination. But certain things occurred to him. He thought of his old ancestry, his uncle whose heir he would be, even a faint idea of his cousin Nina flashed through his mind. What would his relatives say to a marriage like that, the marriage with a girl, however beautiful, picked up in a flat, owned by a woman of good family but doubtful reputation?
But he could not afford to lose her. He was rich, he could indulge any passing whim. Out of his new-born ideas he spoke.
“Miss Keane, I am very interested in you. Will you agree to look upon me as a friend?”
She looked up at him from under downcast eyes.
“Mr Spencer, somehow I have always looked upon you as a friend, as something different from the ordinary man I meet in a place like this.”
“You want to get out of this atmosphere, away from your card-playing cousin, who cannot keep her parties free from disgraceful scandals.”
“I have told you how fervently I long to say good-bye to it all.”
Spencer had made up his mind as to what he was going to do. It was quixotic, but then he was a quixotic person. And, anyway, he was marking time. He would ask her to marry him in the end, but, at the moment, he did not clearly see his way to do so.
“Suppose a woman friend offered to lend you five hundred pounds, to enable you to get clear of this stifling atmosphere, what would you say? You could go and live where you like and look around.”
“If a woman friend asked me that I think I should say, yes.”
“You have agreed that I am your friend, true, a man friend,” said Guy. “Suppose I made you the same offer, what is your answer?”
“From a man friend I fear my answer must be an unhesitating ‘no,’ even to you.”
He admired her answer. He could gather from it that she respected herself too much to snatch at any offer that came along.
But he would play with her still. “Why?” he asked.
The beautiful eyes, still a little clouded with her tears, met his unfalteringly.
“You know as well as I do,” was her answer. “I am poor, Mr Spencer, but I am very proud.”
He sat down beside her, and took her hand in his.
“I admire you for that answer, Stella. I may call you Stella, may I not? But I am not quite the ordinary type of man. I am going to speak quite plainly to you. If you accept that five hundred pounds, I am not going to ask you for any return. I want you to understand that.”
She shot at him a swift glance from under the downcast eyes.
“You are a man out of a thousand, nay, out of ten thousand,” she said, and in her voice there was a note of great appreciation. If Stella Keane ever felt a good impulse in her life, it was towards this man who was doing his best to befriend her.
“Listen to me,” said Spencer persuasively, her delicate hand still lying in his. “I don’t know that I have done much good to other people in my life, but I do want to help you. I should like to get you out of this beastly hole. My proposal is, that I shall take for you a little furnished flat and supplement your income, or give you the five hundred pounds down, to do what you like with. It is for you to choose.”
“You would do this for me?” said Stella softly. “You must really like me, then! Men don’t do this sort of thing for women unless they like them.”
“I like you very much, Stella, and I want to help you.”
He knew that he could take her in his arms and kiss her at his will. But he forebore. He was not going to spoil this somewhat idyllic wooing.
“It cannot take place for a week or so,” she said presently. “I cannot quite leave my cousin in the lurch. I must give her some sort of notice. Of course, I can make the excuse that the events of last night have completely shattered my nerve.”
“I don’t wonder,” was Spencer’s comment. “Now, about this little matter we have been speaking of. I think it would be better if I paid this money into your bank, and left you to make your own arrangements. I suppose you have a bank?”
Yes, Miss Keane had a banking-account, a very small one. She smilingly remarked that it would give the manager a shock when such a large sum was paid into it.
“I will draw the money in cash to-morrow and bring it to you,” said Spencer. “Then nobody will be able to guess from whom it comes.”
He rose, he could not trust himself to stay very much longer. At any moment his reserve might break down. He might be impelled to change the rôle of the benevolent friend into that of the ardent lover.
And for a long time after he had left, Stella Keane sat absorbed in the most serious thoughts.
There was no doubt he was ardently in love with her. But he was not yet quite prepared to screw up his courage to the sticking place.
It was easy to understand. The obligations he owed his family were weighing on his mind. The woman he made his wife would one day be the Countess of Southleigh. He had to think of all this. And all he knew about her was learned from her own statement, and she had a cousin who was, from his point of view, certainly not a gentleman.
Above all things, Stella Keane was a very business-like young woman, and never shrank from looking facts squarely in the face. She must play a waiting game. Guy Spencer was very deeply in love, but he was not a hotheaded, impetuous boy, the sort of amorous youth who runs off with a chorus-girl, regardless of consequences. Lovers of this kind were very rarely met with.
If Guy Spencer did marry her, and she could not at the moment be sure he would, he would be fully conscious of the disadvantages to himself entailed by such a marriage. Would her fascination be strong enough to conquer his better judgment?
At any rate, for the present he was prepared to advance her five hundred pounds, and ask nothing but her friendship in return. It was an offer that she would have been a fool to refuse.
Presently she rose and went up to Mrs L’Estrange’s bedroom. That sorely perturbed lady had risen, flung on a dressing-gown, and was reclining on a sofa.
“I can’t sleep, I only fidget and fidget about,” was the explanation. “So I thought I might as well get up.”
“Very wise,” said Stella calmly. “You’re a little bit too hysterical, you know. You should keep your nerves in order as I do mine.”
“Not always,” was the sarcastic rejoinder. “They go to pieces in thunderstorms and air-raids, don’t they?”
“The exception proves the rule, my dear lady. Well, I haven’t come up here to indulge in a sparring match. I have some very great news for you. Mr Spencer called this afternoon; he hasn’t left me very long.” The elder woman became interested at once. “You don’t mean to say he has asked you to marry him?”
Stella laughed. “No, he hasn’t, although it will not be my fault if he doesn’t later on. It seems Tommy Esmond called on him last night, and made a clean breast of his whole history.”
Mrs L’Estrange frowned. “Then I think he was a great fool. Everybody, of course, will know what actually happened, that he was discovered cheating. But he need not go and tell him more than he would learn from general rumour.”
Stella’s face hardened a little. “You must make some allowances for him. He must have been in a terrible state of tension when he felt that his career was ended. He was so very proud, you know, of the position in society that he had won for himself. He must have felt like a man on the eve of execution. He was hardly responsible for his thoughts or actions. He is very highly-strung.”
Mrs L’Estrange spoke more gently. “Yes, of course. I am sorry I said that, my dear. And after all, it doesn’t make any difference how much he told or how little. The result to him is the same. And now for your great news, what are they? You say Spencer has not asked you to marry him.”
Stella told her of Guy’s suggestion, and her acceptance of it. “It is too good a chance to refuse. So, my dear, I shall have to leave you at the earliest possible moment.”
It was some time before the elder woman seemed quite able to grasp it. When she did, her astonishment seemed unbounded.
“Of all the strange things I have ever heard,” she began, but Stella cut her short with a little mocking laugh.
“Not quite so strange when you think it quietly out,” she said. “If he really knew anything about me, if I could produce a few respectable relatives, if I had some of your blue blood in my veins, he would have proposed this afternoon.”
Mrs L’Estrange nodded her rather dishevelled head. “I think I see.”
“He is very much in love with me,” went on Stella quietly. “Anyway, so much so that he doesn’t want to lose sight of me, while he is making up his mind. Hence his offer.”
“But he could see you here.”
Stella shook her head. “He would loathe this house after what occurred last night, and he thinks I am in an unholy set. He really is an awful dear, you know, so high-minded and upright. His great aim is to get me away from the environment.”
Mrs L’Estrange settled herself comfortably amongst her sofa cushions. She was an excitable and fussy person about trifles, but she took the great things of life with a calm and equal mind.
“Well, my dear, go as soon as it suits yourself. You have been a good pal to me, and I shall be sorry to lose you. But if you have got a decent chance you would be a fool not to take it.”
Miss Keane was strongly of the same opinion. Anyway she was glad the interview was over, that Mrs L’Estrange had taken everything in such good part. She might have turned nasty if the mood had seized her.
Later on, Miss Keane wrote a long letter to Tommy Esmond to an address which he had communicated to her in his note of the morning.
The same evening, she held a long conversation with her cousin and trustee, Mr Dutton, who came to Elsinore Gardens in obedience to an urgent summons on the telephone.