CHAPTER XIV.

A SOCIAL CONSPIRACY.

About ten o'clock on the evening of the third day after the meeting with Captain Huston, William Hicks entered a large and crowded ball-room with his usual pleasant condescension.

The dance was of a semi-parliamentary character, and although the society papers were pleased to announce that all the 'best' people were out of town, there was a crowd of well-dressed men and women round the door when Hicks made his appearance. There were many greetings to be exchanged, a few diplomatic dances to be asked for, and then the artist leisurely stroked his golden moustache as he looked critically round the room.

His smiling face contracted into gravity for a moment, and it was only after a pause that he continued his investigations.

'Trist!' he murmured to himself. 'Trist _here_? What is the meaning of that? Is it war, I wonder? Or is Brenda coming? I will find out.'

Presently he moved away, and after some time joined a group of grave-faced elderly men, among whom Theo Trist was standing. There were politicians among these gentlemen, and several faces were of a distinctly foreign type, while more than one language could be heard. Hicks looked a trifle out of his element amidst such surroundings, and the foreign languages troubled him. No one looked towards him invitingly--not even Trist, who was talking with a broad-shouldered little man with a large head, and a peculiar listless manner which stamped him as an Oriental. Hicks did not even know what language they were speaking. It was not European in sound or intonation. Here and there he caught a word or a name.

Once he heard Trist mention the name of a Russian general then scarcely known. Though the pronunciation was rather different from that of most Englishmen, Hicks recognised the word 'Skobeleff,' and, glancing towards the smaller man, he saw upon his long, mournful features a singular look of uneasiness.

There was something fascinating about the man's face which attracted the artist's attention, and he stood gazing with a greater fixity than is usually considered polite. Without looking towards him, the Oriental was evidently aware of his attention, for he spoke to Trist, who turned with deliberate curiosity.

'Ah, Hicks!' he said, 'how do you do?'

Then he turned again to his unemotional companion and made a remark, which was received apathetically.

Hicks had not wished to make his advent so prominent. It now appeared as if he had sought out Trist for some special purpose, to make some important communication which could not brook delay.

Trist evidently read his action thus, for he left the group of statesmen and joined him. Hicks was equal to the occasion.

'You remember,' he said confidentially, as he touched his companion's sleeve and they walked down the room together--'you remember what I once told you about the Hustons?'

Trist's meek eyes rested upon the speaker's face with a persistence which was not encouraging to idle gossip.

'The night I left for Servia?' he inquired.

Hicks nodded his head.

'Yes. I remember.'

The artist paused, and his gloved fingers sought the beauteous moustache. Trist's calm eyes were not easy to meet. They were so unconsciously scrutinizing.

'Well, I saw Huston the other day,' he said at length. 'He has not improved in appearance. In fact, I should say that there is some truth in the story I repeated to you.'

There was no encouragement forthcoming, but Hicks was not lacking in assurance. He was a true son of the pavement--that is to say, an individual radical. His opinion was, in his own mind, worth that of Theodore Trist.

'There are,' he continued, 'other stories going about at present. Do you not think ... Trist ...--I mean, had we not better, for Brenda's sake, settle upon a certain version of the matter and stick to it? You and I, old fellow, are looked upon by the general world as something more than ordinary friends of Alice and Brenda. Mrs. Wylie is not going out just now. They have no one to stick up for them, except us. If you know more than you care to confess, I am sorry if I am forcing your hand....'

He paused again, and again his companion preserved that calm non-committing silence which he knew so well how to assume. He held a hand which could not have been forced by a player possessing ten times the power and ten times the cunning of William Hicks.

'But, Trist, I know what the London world is. Something must be done.'

Trist shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly.

'Silence,' continued Hicks significantly, 'in this case would be a mistake. I don't mind ... your knowing that it is not from mere curiosity that I am doing this. Brenda ... I want to save ... her ... from anything unpleasant.'

At this point Trist appeared to relent. It was not until afterwards that Hicks realized that he had learnt absolutely nothing from him.

'What do you think ought to be done?' he asked gently.

The question remained unanswered for some time, and then it was only met by another.

'Is Brenda coming to-night?'

'Yes.'

'And Alice?'

'No.'

They walked through the brilliant rooms together, each wondering what lay behind the eyes of the other, each striving to penetrate the thoughts of the other, to divine his motives, to reach his heart.

'I really think,' said Hicks at length, 'that it rests with you. You must say what is to be done, what story is to be told, what farce is to be acted. It seems to me that you know more about it than I do. Somehow I have lately dropped out of Mrs. Wylie's confidence, and ... and Brenda has not spoken to me about her sister.'

'But,' said Trist, 'I know nothing of what you refer to as the common gossip of ... of all these.'

He indicated the assembled multitude with a gesture which was scarcely complimentary. Hicks looked uncomfortable, and bit his red lip nervously.

'Don't be hard on us,' he pleaded with an unnatural laugh. 'I am one of them.'

'Tell me,' said Trist with a sudden gravity of manner, '... tell me what they are saying.'

'Well ... it is hardly fair to ask me.'

'Why?'

'Because you will not thank me for having told you. We ... we don't, as a rule, give the benefit of the doubt, you know.'

The elder man turned and looked at his companion with a slow smile.

'My dear Hicks,' he said, 'it is many years since I gave up caring what the world might say, or expecting the benefit of the doubt.'

'For yourself?'

'Yes; for myself. What do you mean?'

'I mean that they are not giving Alice the benefit of the doubt either.'

They happened just then to be near two chairs placed invitingly within an alcove by a soft-hearted hostess who had not yet forgotten her flirting-days.

'Let us sit down,' said Trist, indicating these chairs.

'Now,' he continued in a calm voice when they were seated, 'tell me what the world is saying about Alice.'

Hicks was not devoid of a certain moral courage, and for once in his life he was actuated by a motive which was not entirely selfish.

'They say,' he answered boldly, 'that she ran away from her husband to join you.'

To some natures there is a vague enjoyment in imparting bad news, and the dramatic points in this conversation were by no means lost to William Hicks, who was a born actor. His listener, however, received the news without the slightest indication of surprise or annoyance. He merely nodded his head and murmured:

'Yes; what else?'

'Oh ... nothing much--nothing, at least, that I have heard, except that Huston was supposed to have followed her home and caught her just in time. He is also said to have announced his intention of shooting you at the first convenient opportunity.'

Hicks ceased speaking, and waited for some exclamation of disgust, some heated denial or indignant proof of the utter falseness of the accusations made against Alice Huston. None of these was forthcoming. Theo Trist merely indicated his comprehension of the cruel words, and sat thinking. Beneath that calm exterior the man's brain was very busy, and as he raised his head with a slight pensive frown Hicks recognised for the first time the resemblance to the great Corsican which was currently attributed to the war-correspondent.

'Suppose,' said Trist at length, 'suppose that I were to walk arm-in-arm into this room with Huston. Would that do?'

'Can you manage it?' inquired the artist incredulously.

'I think so; if I can only find him. Suppose Huston were to dance with Brenda, and we were all to give it out that Alice is staying with her father in Cheltenham or somewhere.'

Hicks' first inclination was towards laughter. The proposal was made so simply and so readily that the whole affair appeared for a moment merely ludicrous.

'Yes,' he said vaguely; 'that will do; that will do very well. But ... is Huston invited?'

'I will manage that.'

There was a peaceful sense of capability about this man before which all obstacles seemed to crumble away. Hicks felt slightly dissatisfied. His own part was too small in this social comedy. The conduct of Brenda's affairs was slipping from his grasp, and yet he could do nothing but submit. Trist had unconsciously taken command, and when command is unconscious it is also arbitrary.

'I will go now and bring Huston,' he added presently, and without further words left his seat.

Hicks caressed the golden moustache, and watched him as he moved easily through the gay, heedless throng--a sturdy, strong young figure, full of manhood, full of purpose, the absurdly meek eyes shunning rather than seeking the many glances of recognition that met him on his way.

He went up to his hostess, and with her came apparently straight to the point, for Hicks saw the lady listen attentively and then acquiesce with a ready smile.

Nearly half an hour elapsed before Brenda arrived. She was one of a large party, and her programme had been in other hands before Hicks became possessed of it. He glanced keenly down the column of hieroglyphics. The initials were all genuine, but three dances had been kept by a little cross carefully inserted. Hicks obtained two waltzes, and returned the card with his usual self-satisfied smile. He knew that Brenda expected Trist, although she was not looking round as if in search of anybody. But he was fully convinced that there was some mystery on foot. One dance, he had observed, which was marked with a cross, was a square. Trist and Brenda had met by appointment--not as young men meet maidens every night in the year at dances for purposes of flirtation, or the more serious pastime of love-making, but to discuss some point of mutual interest.

As a rival Hicks had no fear of Theodore Trist, who, he argued, was a very fine fellow in his way, but quite without social accomplishments. He was a good dancer--that point he generously admitted--but beyond that he had nothing to recommend him in the eyes of a clever and experienced girl like Brenda, who had had the advantages of association with some of the most talented men of her day, and intimacy with himself, William Hicks. There was only that trivial matter of athletic and muscular superiority, which really carried no great weight with a refined womanly intellect. In a ball-room Theodore Trist, with his brown, grave face, his absorbed eyes, and his sturdy form, was distinctly out of place. He had not even a white waistcoat, wore three studs in the front of his shirt, and sometimes even forgot to sport a flower in his coat. His very virtues (of an old fashion), such as steadfastness, truth, and honesty, prevented him from shining in society. Fortunately, however, for his own happiness he was without vanity, and therefore unconscious of his own shortcomings. It is just within the scope of possibility that he was moved by no ambition to shine in society.

While the first bars of the waltz were in progress, Hicks found Brenda. He had little difficulty in doing so, because he had been watching her. Moreover, she was dressed in black, which was a rare attire in that room. In choosing this sombre garb she had made no mistake; the style suited exactly her slim, strong young form, and in contrast her neck and arms were dazzling in their whiteness.

They began dancing at once, and Hicks was conscious that there was no couple in the room so perfectly harmonious in movement, so skilled, so intensely refined.

'Trist,' he said presently in a confidential way, 'has been here.'

'Indeed!' was the guarded reply, made with pleasant indifference.

'Yes ... Brenda, he and I had a little talk, and, in consequence, he will be absent for some time, but he is coming back.'

'What,' she inquired calmly, 'did you talk about?'

All this time they were dancing, smoothly and with the indefatigable rhythm of skilled feet.

'It has come to my knowledge,' he replied, 'that gossip has connected the names of Alice and Trist, and there are foolish stories going about concerning Huston, who is said to be searching for Trist with the intention of shooting him. Trist has gone to bring Huston here; they will come into the room arm-in-arm. We arranged it, and I think no further contradiction is required.'

Had she winced he would have been aware of it, because his arm was round her yielding waist, and her hand was within his. She turned her head slightly as if to assist him in steering successfully through a narrow place; and he, glancing down, saw that her face was as white as marble, but her step never faltered. She drew a deep unsteady breath, and spoke in a grateful voice.

'It is very good of you ... both,' she said simply.

They continued dancing for some time before the silence was again broken.

'Some day, Brenda,' whispered Hicks, while preserving with immaculate skill an indifferent face before the world, 'I will tell you why I was forced to interfere even at the risk of displeasing you. Some other time, not now.'

A peculiar contraction seemed to pass over her face, and it was only with an effort that she smiled while acknowledging a passing bow from a girl-acquaintance.

Soon afterwards she began talking cheerily on a safer subject; and despite all his experience, all his cleverness, William Hicks could not bring the conversation round again to the topic she had shelved.

Her spirits seemed to rise as the evening progressed. There was a task before her, the dimensions of which were soon apparent. Almost everyone in the room had heard something of Alice, and the only contradiction possible, until Trist and Huston arrived, lay in the brave carriage of a cheerful face before them all.

There was a clock upon the mantelpiece of a small room where refreshments were set forth, and the merits of this secluded retreat were retailed by her to more than one of her partners. The pointers of the dainty timepiece seemed to crawl--once or twice she listened for the beat of the pendulum. Midnight came, and one o'clock. Still there was no sign of Theodore Trist. At two o'clock her chaperon suggested going home, and Brenda was compelled to apologize laughingly to several grumbling young men, who attempted to cut off her retreat at the door.

The spacious hall was full of departing guests; through the open door came the hoarse confusing shouts of policemen and footmen. Brenda pressed her hands together beneath her opera-cloak and shivered.

Theodore Trist never returned, and his absence passed unnoticed by all except William Hicks, who waited till the end.

END OF VOL. II.

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.