CHAPTER X
MARCUS WHITE RETURNS
The usual Monday morning movements had kept the hotel in a bustle for some little time, and Herrick’s cab was waiting at the door. There was a motor-car waiting also, and one that the barrister promptly recognised. An impulse led him to return from the hotel steps to the office in the vestibule. Here a lady-clerk with frizzy hair was bending her eyes and her glasses over the visitors’ register. She looked up as he asked his question: Oh yes, she knew; the car belonged to Mr Marcus White, the rich gentleman from Mexico.
Suddenly the girl turned scarlet, as she saw that some one was standing by Herrick’s side. “Oh, I beg pardon,” she said confusedly.
“Perhaps you are interested in motors?” The enquiry was addressed to Herrick, and the speaker was the man of the New Bailey, the man who had landed at the harbour on the previous morning. The sarcastic intonation, the half contemptuous look, and the quiet way in which the stranger had drawn near, all served to cause embarrassment.
Herrick, angry with himself, blurted out a “Yes.”
“If you would like to test the speed of mine,” said White, nodding towards the hotel entrance, “I could perhaps give you an opportunity. I return to town to-night.”
“Thanks, but I return this morning,” answered Herrick, recovering his self-possession.
“Ah! you return to the pursuit of your interesting profession!”
“I hope yet to render some service to the cause of law and order,” said Herrick, thinking of a certain letter.
“You mean to make hay while the sun shines. Perhaps you are wise.”
“Plenty of sunshine at present.”
“Yes; but it won’t last,” was the reflective retort.
“Prophecy is dangerous.”
“Yes, but not so dangerous as the law.”
“You mean to the clients?”
“On the contrary, I was thinking of the lawyers.”
“I’m afraid I can’t stop to argue that.” The younger man lifted his hat--very slightly. Marcus White raised his--with a bow and gesture of such exaggerated respect as almost to constitute an insult. He stood for a moment watching the departure of the other, then turned his gaze upon the puzzled clerk.
“Sir John Westwood is staying here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Will you send some one up with my card?”
“I am afraid----,” began the girl.
“You will be good enough to send up this card.”
She took the card nervously, but mustered courage for another effort to withstand this masterful man. “Sir John Westwood is ill, sir.”
“We are old--acquaintances.”
“I’m afraid he can’t see you.”
“I shall be waiting here for an answer.”
He strolled slowly through the vestibule, with a calm but patient air, which seemed to imply that to him it was the most natural assumption in the world that his behests should be complied with.
Five minutes later Marcus White was ushered into a handsome room on the first floor, and at the same time Aldwyth entered by another doorway. The manifest and immediate effect produced in him by her appearance bewildered her. The dark-skinned face of the visitor paled, his eyes narrowed, and gazing at her face intently, he grasped the back of a chair as if for support. They stood and gazed in silence. Then, mastering his emotion, White spoke, as if by way of explanation:
“It was some resemblance,” he said; “I was hardly prepared, and it startled me.”
“You mean a resemblance to my father?”
“No, to your mother.”
“You knew my mother?” She looked at him, wonderingly.
There was something in his face and bearing which made her look and look again. Lately she had been reading the life-history of Balzac, and fragmentary accounts of his appearance, and also of that of Armand de Montriveau--in whom the great romancist reproduced some of his own characteristics--came swiftly to her mind, as she watched the face of Marcus White. “He seemed to have reached some crisis in his life, but all took place within his own breast, and he confided nothing to the world without.... He was of medium height, broad in the chest, and muscular as a lion. When he walked, his carriage, his step, his least gesture, bespoke a consciousness of power which was imposing; there was something even despotic about it.” Then, again, another passage: “The black hair, shining and radiant, receding from the temple in bright waves ... the eyes steeped in a golden penumbra with tawny eyeballs ... send out a glance of astonishing acuteness.”
“You knew my mother?” she repeated quietly.
The question was not answered. White had turned his eyes towards the window and seemed to be gazing at a distant sail.
“Of course you expected to see my father,” Aldwyth began, after an awkward pause. “I am sorry it is impossible. But if there is anything that I can tell him----”
He turned his eyes upon her swiftly. “Miss Westwood, there are some things that must be discussed between men alone.”
“My father is ill. So, unfortunately----”
“Is he really ill?”
“I don’t understand you,” she said stiffly.
“I beg your pardon, but, as I daresay you know, there are such things as legal fictions, political fictions, illnesses of expediency.”
“Is it on political business that you are here?”
“In a sense, yes.”
“The doctor has given the most positive orders that my father is to have complete rest from every sort of worry and anxiety.”
“Desirable, but impossible. Then he does not know that I am here?”
“No,” coldly.
“I should say that there is only one way in which your father can make sure of carrying out the doctor’s orders.” She looked at him with gathering resentment, but he continued calmly: “He would do well to throw up the appointment he holds under the Crown”--she listened, amazed; but she was obliged to listen--” and resign his seat in Parliament.”
Her face flushed angrily.
“He must also abandon his profession.”
“Must!” she repeated, indignantly and wonderingly.
“I can assure you I am giving you excellent advice.”
“We are not asking for advice.”
“There are reasons which lead me to volunteer it.”
“My father has been threatened by some cowardly writer of anonymous letters,” she said impulsively, “but the police will soon stop that.”
His smile checked her. “Ah, the police,” he said quietly. “But of course Sir John Westwood is not afraid?”
There was an implication in his words, a subtle intonation, that stung her to the quick. She moved across the room with outstretched hand, to touch the bell.
“One moment,” he interposed.
“My time is not my own to-day,” said Aldwyth.
“You think me brutal and presumptuous?”
“Extremely presumptuous.”
“It is necessary for Sir John Westwood to be warned. He shall have a fair chance.”
“What you say is quite unaccountable to me,” she answered, and looked at him again. It flashed upon her that only madness could be the explanation of this extraordinary conversation. And yet the man was manifestly calm and resolute.
“As to the time of warning him----” he continued.
“Of what?”
“Of the necessity for doing what I have suggested. As to the time of telling Sir John Westwood what I have said this morning, something may be left to your discretion.”
“You are very kind!” with scornful emphasis.
“I don’t claim to be kind, but I am candid, and I think that when, at your discretion, you tell your father of this interview, he will see the futility of hurling himself against the rocks.”
“What rocks?” she demanded.
“He will discover in due time, if he does not know already.”
She rang the bell, and walked towards the window.
“I am sorry,” she heard him add. There was a short pause. “I am sorry for _you_.”
She turned her head, with an angry retort upon her lips; but the door was closing, and she found herself alone.