Royal Amethyst/Chapter 2
II
My companion, too, paused, and her foot tapped impatiently upon the pavement.
“Well, sir?” she began.
“Forgive me,” I said earnestly. “I am afflicted with an unfortunate habit of laughing at anything which strikes me as curious or uncommon, and—”
“And you think all this curious, uncommon?” she interrupted.
“Is it not?” I inquired.
“In sober truth, it isn't,” she replied calmly. “I told you, I think, that I had something to say to you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“It appears to me that the best place to say it will be within the shelter of four walls,” she answered. “One does not talk of secret matters in the public streets.”
“This matter, then, is secret?” I asked.
“It may be a matter of life and death.”
“Ah!” I said.
“My flat is within a few minutes' walk,” she told me. “I'll will give you coffee and cigarettes, and ask your advice.”
We had reached the junction of the Edgware and Harrow Roads, and were turning in the direction of Paddington Green.
“My advice and help are alike at your service,” I said as we walked across the green.
“Here we are,” she exclaimed, pausing before a block of new apartments in St. Mary's Terrace.
She touched a bell button, and the door was opened by a smartly dressed maid. My hostess swept in; I followed. We stood in a tiny hall, paneled in dull oak and lined with old armor. Through an open door I caught glimpses of a pretty drawing-room.
From a great rug in one corner of the hall rose a borzoi hound, which came leisurely forward and pushed its muzzle into my hostess's hand. She turned to the maid, who stood waiting her mistress's pleasure.
“Miss Smith is still out?” she inquired.
“Yes, madam.”
“Take her into the drawing-room when she returns. I shall be engaged for a little time. Mr. Hanmer, will you follow me?”
She opened the door of a room on the left, and preceded me into it. The room was small—a library and study. The walls were lined with cabinets full of rare china and glass, and bookshelves packed with volumes. In the middle of the floor stood a substantial and businesslike-looking desk, covered with papers, reference books, and the paraphernalia of a person who has important affairs to transact. Somehow I identified it with my hostess.
Standing near the desk, she pulled off her gloves, flung them aside, produced a key, unlocked a drawer, took out a small cash box, and laid three shillings and a sixpence before me.
“We must square our accounts first, must we not?” she said gayly. Then her mood suddenly changed. “Oh, dear!” she went on, with a sigh. “I don't know if I am doing right—I really don't!”
“I believe you wished for my advice,” I reminded her.
“Mr. Hanmer,” she said, “I'm in a fix, and I don't know any one who can advise me properly. It struck me that you—how is it that one seems to recognize these things so quickly in some men?—that you can be trusted, and that you are a man of at least some resource.”
“I am to be trusted,” I assured her. “If you feel disposed to tell me your difficulty, I will do what I can; but you forget that I do not even know your name.”
“How foolish and forgetful I am!” she said with a sudden blush. “But surely you know me—surely you have seen me before?”
“Indeed, no,” I replied.
She lifted her hand and pointed to something behind me. I turned—on the mantelpiece rested two or three large photographs, studies of her: and at the foot of each ran the signature “Selma St. Clair.”
“Surely you have seen me before?” she said.
“Never,” I replied. 'I should not have forgotten.”
She smiled and shook her head.
“So much for fame, Mr. Hanmer! Ah, I was fool enough to imagine that all the world had seen and heard me at Covent Garden last summer—”
“Ah!” I said. “I understand. Last summer? I had not even half a crown to spare for the gallery. Yet—if I had known!”
“Yes?” she said, with a question writ large in her eyes and her smile. “Yes?”
“Had we not better talk about your difficulty, Miss St. Clair?” I asked.
She laughed, and signed to me to sit down. Taking a seat near the desk, she touched an electric bell. The smart maid came, received an order for coffee, and retired noiselessly.
“Mr. Hanmer,” my hostess said, “I believe you're the very man to help me out of my difficulty—that is, to help me, and—well, and some one else.”
“The some one else,” I guessed, “is, of course, a woman?”
“A woman?” she exclaimed. “Yes, of course. Somehow I formed a sort of notion, when we were at Frascati's, and you had told me of your present state, that you happen to be exactly the man of whose services I stand in need. You have a pleasant contempt for the buffetings of fortune, you can smile when your last shilling is reached. Am I right, Mr. Hanmer?”
“A few shillings and the clothes I now wear are all that I possess in the world,” I made answer.
“Not quite all,” she said, “for you possess youth and strength and some other qualities. I am sure you are the man to do what I want done. Do you feel inclined to play the part of a knight-errant, Mr. Hanmer?”
“I could wish that it might be played in the garments of to-day,” I said.
“I am serious,” said she. “I am puzzling you—”
The entrance of the maid, bearing coffee, interrupted her. The fragrance of the coffee and the aroma of a cigarette stole into my brain. After all, life was very pleasant. I prepared to fall away into a daydream; but my hostess's voice brought me back to plain prose.
“And now I'll tell you all about it,” she was saying. “When I was sixteen years of age, my father, who until the time of his death last year was organist of St. Luke's in Soho, and a well known teacher of the piano, sent me to the conservatory at Leipzig, where I studied singing. There I made the acquaintance of a young lady of high rank. Our acquaintance developed into warm affection, and we became as devoted to each other as sisters. We were together at Leipzig for two years, and when we separated we kept up a regular correspondence. When I made my début as Marguérite she traveled hundreds of miles to be present. Once, when she was dangerously ill, I threw up an engagement in New York and hastened across the Atlantic to her bedside. You may judge, Mr. Hanmer, how fond we are of each other. Now my dearest friend is in sore trouble, and she has come to me for help. I am in trouble myself because of it, and I believe you can help me.”
I shook my head.
“Miss St. Clair,” I said hurriedly, “you're doing me a great honor in giving me your confidence like this, and I appreciate it fully; but do you remember what I told you? I'm a broken reed altogether. It's a fact that this silver in my pocket is all I have in the world, and—”
She interrupted me with a sudden burst of silvery laughter.
“Oh!” she said. “One would think I was asking you for your last sixpence. Do hear me out!”
“And there's another thing,” I went on. “I feel, Miss St. Clair, that I'm an absolute cad for having permitted you to tell me so much. Upon my word, I ought to be kicked out! Because you are kind enough to allow me to do you a trifling service, I presume upon your kindness so much as to let myself, a stranger—”
I had risen from my chair, and stood ready to go. She, too, had risen, and now stood at her desk.
“Please remember that it has been entirely by my own wish that you are here, and that I have given you my confidence,” she said.
But she was not to persuade me. I moved toward the door, and my fingers closed on the latch.
“So you will not help me—because we are strangers?” she said.
“Miss St. Clair,' I said, “I—” I stopped, miserably uncertain. “You ought to know who I am, you know,” I said.
She burst into another peal of laughter. A smile of merriment brightened her face, and she suddenly rushed toward me, holding out her hands.
“Are you sure I don't know you?” she said. “Oh, Cosmo, Cosmo, don't you know me? Have you forgotten the old days in Dublin, and all the sweets and toys you used to carry in your pockets for Nancy Flynn, when you came to tootle on the flute in Nancy's father's shabby little parlor? Cosmo!”
All the mists of fifteen years rolled away, and I stood like a dumb man staring at Nancy Flynn, and wondering that I had not known her before.