Rogues & Company/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
Mademoiselle Theodora de Melville sat in the sitting-room which Dr. Frohlocken had vacated for her on her arrival on the previous day. The room had once been his "Museum" and in spite of pathetic attempts with flowers, gim-crack vases and other supposed feminine trifles it still bore the impress of its origin. A forgotten skull grinned mirthlessly over the doorway and something in a bottle—what it was the new inhabitant had not cared to enquire—adorned the chimney-piece. Yet to all appearances Mademoiselle Theodora felt herself at home, even if she was not particularly happy. She was arrayed in a dark blue tailor-made costume which showed up her graceful figure to perfection and the gloomy room and heavy depressing furniture formed an admirable background for her fair, somewhat fragile beauty. She had taken her place before the fire and her attitude was sufficiently haughty and self- possessed to make the young man opposite her feel less at his ease than he liked. To cover his discomfort he removed his lavender-coloured gloves and smoothed them out carefully on his knee.
"It was deuced nice of you to send me that card, Theo," he drawled. "I was getting a bit nervous about you—I promise you I was."
"I have no doubt," she said coldly and ironically.
"You don't need to be nasty. My alarm was genuine—"
"—and financial," she suggested.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I certainly don't pretend that finance played no rôle in my anxiety," he admitted. "My duns are pressing me worse and worse every day, and if relief doesn't come from somewhere the crash will—and well, I've explained the sequel to you before."
"Very often and at some length." Her face was impassive and only a slight tension about the mouth betrayed that her teeth were hard set. "I don't think we need discuss the matter any further," she went on slowly. "It only makes me angry and it does no good to either of us."
"Oh come!" he said, stroking his little fair moustache, "you've pulled it off splendidly so far, Theo—"
"I've pulled off nothing so far," she interrupted passionately, "and what is more I am not going to. That is what I wanted to tell you and why I sent for you. Now you know. I meant to help you—I started out with the full intention of carrying the wretched business through but—but now I can't."
"Why not?" he asked. His small vacant-looking face had flushed with consternation, but his mouth was vicious and a little threatening. She looked at him steadily, her white slender fingers interlocked.
"Because—I don't quite see—after all—why I should marry a man I don't care for," she said.
"Oh, I see. You might have thought of that before. My dear Theo—it's too pretty an excuse. I simply don't believe it. You're afraid."
"That is not true!"
Her companion smiled satirically.
"Are you quite, quite sure? Is there not at the bottom of that scrupulous heart a little fear of breaking the eleventh commandment—'Thou shalt not be found out'?"
"None," she answered firmly. "I had already counted the cost and you ought to know that I am not a coward. From that point of view the situation is unchanged. There remains the Count de Beaulieu."
"Certainly."
She got up and stood very erect. Her mouth trembled at the corners, but she spoke without faltering.
"I don't like him," she said, "and I simply do not choose to cheat him."
"My dear Theo, if you will excuse my saying so, those two statements are somewhat inconsistent. Or do you only cheat the people you are fond of? In any case, who is proposing to cheat him? He is engaged to marry Mademoiselle Theodora de Melville and Mademoiselle Theodora, fully authorized so to speak, presents herself to be married. What more do you want?"
"It's unfair to him," she persisted. "I don't like him, but it is taking a cruel advantage of his misfortune. He doesn't know me—he has forgotten everyone. If he marries me it is out of chivalry—out of nobility—"
"—for which characteristics he has incurred your displeasure" he put in with a sneer.
"I detest you!" she said deliberately.
"I know that, dear Theo. But frankly, all you have said is beside the point. We counted on his chivalry and nobility and all the rest of it, and now you discover that these virtues are a stumbling block. Women are never satisfied."
"I, at least, am satisfied to go no further," she retorted.
Her companion was silent for a moment. He was evidently at a loss for an answer and the entrance of the butler with a letter tray caused him to give a smothered sigh of relief.
"The Doctor has told me to give you this telegram, madam," the man said. "It has just come for him and he would be glad to see madam—your ladyship—as soon as possible."
"Very well."
She took up the opened telegram and, when the butler had left the room, unfolded it. She glanced over the contents and then let the flimsy paper flutter to the ground and laughed. The laugh was a somewhat cheerless one, and her companion bent down and picked up the apparent cause with delicate fingers.
"I can't read French," he said. "What's it all about?"
"It is from the Count de Melville," she said in a voice sharp with bitterness. "He begs to inform Dr. Frohlocken that he has every reason to suppose from the description that the person whom Dr. Frohlocken has protected is his renegade daughter. Under the circumstances, how- ever, he forbids any further communication on the subject. In other words the Countess Theodora is disowned."
The young man with the lavender gloves smiled.
"Most satisfactory," he said.
She turned on him furiously.
"What do you mean?"
"Just what I say. The Count is nailed. His chivalry and nobility won't allow him to desert a lonely maiden who has been flung off by her family for his sake. I see myself at St. Mary's this afternoon after all."
She looked at him. A vivid flush had mounted her cheeks and her grey eyes had grown hard and bright.
"You miscalculate," she said. "You underestimate me."
"Does that mean you are going to back out?"
"Yes."
Her companion put his hand in his pocket and drew out a couple of letters which he handed to her.
"I don't make any appeal for myself," he said in a businesslike tone. "I know well enough that if the ocean swallowed me up to-morrow you would only be too glad. But the letters will plead for themselves. Pray read them—then you can decide."
She took the letters from his hand reluctantly, with her eyes on his face as though she suspected some trick, and carried them to the window. Ten minutes passed during which the young man stared absently and apparently indifferently into the fire. Then Mademoiselle Theodora came back and faced him. She was very pale now and the black eyelashes were wet with recent tears.
"You are very clever," she said with a little broken laugh. "I congratulate you. Had your talent been directed in another channel—"
He waved his hand.
"Don't preach, Theo. I've heard all that before. What are you going to do about it?"
For a minute she said nothing, battling for her voice. Then she broke down. Her sobs were inaudible but their violence shook her slender frame from head to foot and she leant against the mantelpiece with her face buried in her arms. Her companion rose to his feet. His expression was coolly triumphant.
"Well?" he said.
"For their sake—I shall go through with it," she said unsteadily.
"Thank you." He took up his hat. "I shall hope to hear from you in the next few days—as soon as possible in fact—and afterwards you can arrange to introduce me as your old friend, Mr. Cecil Saunders." He laughed lightly. "Well, good-bye, Theo. Good luck and all happiness!"
She made no answer and he lounged out of the room and down stairs. In the hall he passed Dr. Frohlocken who stared at him suspiciously, but Mr. Cecil Saunders was evidently not a man to be easily upset, and he continued on his way undisturbed.
Dr. Frohlocken waited until the hall door had banged on the unknown guest and then hurried upstairs and softly opened the door of his old "Museum." He peered in. Mademoiselle Theodora was still by the mantelpiece and the sound of her uneven breathing told him even more than her attitude of complete abandonment. The torn telegram lay at her feet and the Doctor nodded and scowled in mingled sympathy and annoyance.
"Damned idiot!" he muttered and, closing the door, crept away as softly as he had come.