CHAPTER II

Tallente's first impressions of Jane Partington were that an exceedingly attractive but somewhat imperious young woman had surprised him in a most undignified position. She had come cantering down the drive on a horse which, by comparison with the Exmoor ponies which every one rode in those parts, had seemed gigantic, and, finding a difficulty in making her presence known, had motioned to him with her whip. He climbed down from the steps where he had been busy fastening up some roses, removed a nail from his mouth and came towards her.

"How is it that I can make no one hear?" she asked. "Do you know if Mrs. Tallente is at home?"

Tallente was in no hurry to reply. He was busy taking in a variety of pleasant impressions. Notwithstanding the severely cut riding habit and the hard little hat, he decided that he had never looked into a more attractively feminine face. For some occult reason, unconnected, he was sure, with the use of any skin food or face cream, this young woman who had the reputation of living out of doors, winter and summer, had a complexion which, notwithstanding its faint shade of tan, would have pa.s.sed muster for delicacy and clearness in any Mayfair drawing-room.

Her eyes were soft and brown, her hair a darker shade of the same colour. Her mouth, for all its firmness, was soft and pleasantly curved. Her tone, though a trifle imperative, was kindly, gracious and full of musical quality. Her figure was moderately slim, but indistinguishable at that moment under her long coat. She possessed a curious air of physical well-being, the well-being of a woman who has found and is enjoying what she seeks in life.

"Won't you tell me why I can make no one hear?" she repeated, still good-naturedly but frowning slightly at his silence.

"Mrs. Tallente is in London," he announced. "She has taken most of the establishment with her."

The visitor fumbled in her side pocket and produced a diminutive ivory case. She withdrew a card and handed it to Tallente, with a glance at his gloved hands.

"Will you give this to the butler?" she begged. "Tell him to tell his mistress that I was sorry not to find her at home."

"The butler," Tallente explained, "has gone for the milk. He shall have the card immediately on his return."

She looked at him for a moment and then smiled.

"Do forgive me," she said. "I believe you are Mr. Tallente?"

He drew off his gloves and shook hands.

"How did you guess that?" he asked.

"From the ill.u.s.trated papers, of course," she answered. "I have come to the conclusion that you must be a very vain man, I have seen so many pictures of you lately."

"A matter of snapshots," he replied, "for which, as a rule, the victim is not responsible. You should abjure such a journalistic vice as picture papers."

"Why?" she laughed. "They lead to such pleasant surprises. I had been led to believe, for instance, by studying the Daily Mirror, that you were quite an elderly person with a squint."

"I am becoming self-conscious," he confessed. "Won't you come in?

There is a boy somewhere about the premises who can look after your horse, and I shall be able to give you some tea as soon as Robert gets back with the milk."

He cooeed to the boy, who came up from one of the lower shelves of garden, and she followed him into the hall. He looked around him for a moment in some perplexity.

"I wonder whether you would mind coming into my study?" he suggested.

"I am here quite alone for the present, and it is the only room I use."

She followed him down a long pa.s.sage into a small apartment at the extreme end of the house.

"You are like me," she said. "I keep most of my rooms shut up and live in my den. A lonely person needs so much atmosphere."

"Rather a pigsty, isn't it?" he remarked, sweeping a heap of books from a chair. "I am without a secretary just now--in fact," he went on, with a little burst of confidence engendered by her friendly att.i.tude, "we are in a mess altogether."

She laughed softly, leaning back amongst the cushions of the chair and looking around the room, her kindly eyes filled with interest.

"It is a most characteristic mess," she declared. "I am sure an interviewer would give anything for this glimpse into your tastes and habits. Golf clubs, all cleaned up and ready for action; trout rod, newly-waxed at the joints--you must try my stream, there is no water in yours; tennis racquets in a very excellent press--I wonder whether you're too good for a single with me some day? Typewriter--rather dusty. I don't believe that you can use it."

"I can't," he admitted. "I have been writing my letters by hand for the last two days."

She sighed.

"Men are helpless creatures! Fancy a great politician unable to write his own letters! What has become of your secretary?"

Tallente threw some books to the floor and seated himself in the vacant easy-chair.

"I shall begin to think," he said, a little querulously, "that you don't read the newspapers. My secretary, according to that portion of the Press which guarantees to provide full value for the smallest copper coin, has 'disappeared'."

"Really?" she exclaimed. "He or she?"

"He--the Honourable Anthony Palliser by name, son of Stobart Palliser, who was at Eton with me."

She nodded.

"I expect I know his mother. What exactly do you mean by 'disappeared'?"

Tallente was looking out of the window. A slight hardness had crept into his tone and manner. He had the air of one reciting a story.

"The young man and I differed last Tuesday night," he said. "In the language of the novelists, he walked out into the night and disappeared.

Only an hour before dinner, too. Nothing has been heard of him since."

"What a fatuous thing to do!" she remarked. "Shall you have to get another secretary?"

"Presently," he a.s.sented. "Just for the moment I am rather enjoying doing nothing."

She leaned back amongst the cushions of her chair and looked across at him with interest, an interest which presently drifted into sympathy.

Even the lightness of his tone could not mask the inwritten weariness of the man, the tired droop of the mouth, and the lackl.u.s.tre eyes.

"Do you know," she said, "I have never been more intrigued than when I heard you were really coming down here. Last summer I was in Scotland--in fact I have been away every time the Manor has been open.

I am so anxious to know whether you like this part of the world."

"I like it so much," he replied, "that I feel like settling here for the rest of my life."

She shook her head.

"You will never be able to do that," she said, "at least not for many years. The country will need so much of your time. But it is delightful to think that you may come here for your holidays."

"If you read the newspapers," he remarked, a little grimly, "you might not be so sure that the country is clamouring for my services."

She waved away his speech with a little gesture of contempt.

"Rubbish! Your defeat at h.e.l.lesfield was a matter of political jobbery.

Any one could see through that. Horlock ought never to have sent you there. He ought to have found you a perfectly safe seat, and of course he will have to do it."