They swerved through Tonbridge Junction, glistening sootily under a drizzle of rain, and dived into the yawning tunnel of River Hill as though into refuge from the bleakness of the open country. Two fellow-travellers with Riviere were discussing the gloomy outlook of a threatened railway strike which rumbled through the daily papers like distant thunder. Fragment of talk came to his ears:--

"Minimum wage.... d.a.m.ned insolence.... Tie up the whole country.... Have them all flogged to work.... Not a statesman in the House.... Weak-kneed set of vote-s.n.a.t.c.hers.... If I had my way...."

The train ran them roof-high through endless vistas of the mean grey streets of south-east London, where the street-lamps were beginning to throw out a yellow haze against the murky drizzle of the late afternoon; slowed to a crawl in obedience to the raised arms of imperious signals; stopped over viaducts for long wearisome minutes while flaunting sky-signs drummed into the pa.s.sengers the superabundant merits of Somebody's Whisky or Somebodyelse's Soap.

Half-an-hour late at the terminus, Riviere had his valise sent to the Avon Hotel, hailed a taxi, and told the man to drive as fast as possible to Leadenhall Street. In that narrow canon of commerce was a large, substantial building bearing the simple sign--a sign ostentatious in its simplicity--of "Lars Larssen--Shipping."

"Tell Mr Larssen that Mr John Riviere wishes to see him," he said to a clerk at the inquiry desk.

"I'm sorry, sir, but Mr Larssen left the office not ten minutes ago."

"Can you tell me where he went to?"

"If you'll wait a moment, sir, I'll send up an inquiry to his secretary.

What name did you say?"

"Riviere--John Riviere. The brother of Mr Clifford Matheson."

Presently the answer came down the house 'phone that Mr Larssen had gone to his home in Hampstead.

Riviere re-entered the taxi and gave an address on the Heath. He wanted to thrash out the matter with Larssen with the least possible delay. He would have preferred to confront the shipowner in his office, but since that plan had miscarried, he would seek him out in his private house.

Near King's Cross another taxi coming out from a cross-street skidded as it swerved around the corner, and jolted into his own with a crash of gla.s.s and a crumple of mudguards. Delay followed while the two chauffeurs upbraided one another with crimson epithets, and gave rival versions of the incident to a gravely impartial policeman. When Riviere at length reached Hampstead Heath, it was to find that the shipowner had just left the house.

Riviere explained to the butler that it was very important he should reach Larssen without delay, and his personality impressed the servant as that of a visitor of standing. He therefore told Riviere what he knew.

"Mr Larssen changed into evening dress, sir, and went off in his small covered car. I don't know where he's gone, sir, but he told me if anything important arose I was to ring him up at P. O. Richmond, 2882."

That telephone number happened to be quite familiar to Riviere. It was the number of his own house at Roehampton.

He jumped into the waiting taxi once again, and ordered the chauffeur to drive across London to Barnes Common and Roehampton. If he could not confront Larssen at office or house, he would run him to earth that evening in his own home. No doubt Larssen was going there to talk business with Sir Francis.

Roehampton is a country village held within the octopus arms of Greater London. Round it are a number of large houses with fine, s.p.a.cious grounds--country estates they were when Queen Victoria ascended the throne of England. At Olive's special choice, her husband had purchased one of the mansions and had it re-decorated for her in modern style. She liked its nearness to London proper--it gave her touch with Bond Street and theatreland in half-an-hour by fast car. She liked its s.p.a.cious lawns and its terraced Italian garden--they were so admirable for garden parties and open-air theatricals. She liked the useless size of the house--it ministered to her love of opulence.

Riviere had grown to hate it in the last few years.

The name of the estate was "Thornton Chase." The approach lay through a winding drive bordered by giant beeches, and pa.s.sed one of the box-hedged lawns to curl before a front door on the further side of the house.

When at the very gates another delay in that evening of delays occurred.

This time it was a tyre-burst. Riviere, impatient of further waste of time, paid off the chauffeur and started on foot along the entrance drive. The drizzle of the afternoon had ceased, and a few stars shone halfheartedly through rents in the ragged curtain of cloud, as though performing a duty against their will.

When pa.s.sing through the box-hedged lawn as a short cut to the front door, one of the curtains of the lighted drawing-room was suddenly thrown back, and the broad figure of man stood framed in a golden panel of light. It was Lars Larssen.

Riviere stopped involuntarily. It was as though his antagonist had divined his presence and had come boldly forward to meet him. And, indeed, that was not far from the fact. Larssen, waiting alone in the drawing-room, had had one of his strange intuitive impulses to throw wide the curtain and look out into the night. Such an impulse he never opposed. He had learnt by long experience that there were centres of perception within him, uncharted by science, which gathered impressions too vague to put a name to, and yet vitally real. He always gave rein to his intuition and let it lead him where it chose.

Looking out into the night, the shipowner could not see Riviere, who had stopped motionless in the shadow of a giant box clipped to the shape of a peac.o.c.k standing on a broad pedestal.

Riviere waited.

Presently Larssen turned abruptly as though someone had entered the room. A smile of welcome was on his lips. Olive swept in, close-gowned in black with silvery scales. She offered her hand with a radiant smile, and Larssen took it masterfully and raised it to his lips. Riviere noted that it was not the shipowner who had moved forward to meet Olive, but Olive who had come gladly to him.

They stood by the fireplace, and Olive chatted animatedly to her guest.

Riviere scarcely recognized his wife in this transformation of spirit.

With him she was cold and abrupt, and captious, eyes half-lidded and cheeks white and mask-like. Now her eyes flashed and sparkled, and there was warm colour in her cheeks.

Of what Olive and Larssen said to one another, no word came to Riviere.

But att.i.tude and gesture told him more than words could have done. It was as though he were a spectator of a bioscope drama, standing in darkness while a scene was being pictured for him in remorseless detail behind the lighted window. That Olive's feeling for Larssen had grown beyond mere friendship was plain beyond question. She was infatuated with the man; and he was playing with her infatuation.

For a moment Riviere's fist clenched; then his fingers loosened, and he watched without stirring. Larssen must, in view of his action on the Hudson Bay coup, believe Matheson to be dead. To him, Olive was now a widow. Therefore Riviere had no quarrel with the shipowner on the ground of what he was now witnessing. His desire to crumple Larssen in the hollow of his hand and fling him into the mud at his feet was based on very different grounds.

On the other hand, Olive must believe Matheson to be alive. Larssen would have told her that her husband was away in Canada on business for a few weeks, and he would keep up the fiction until the Hudson Bay scheme were floated to a public issue.

That Riviere could watch the scene pictured before him without stirring--could watch in silence the spectacle of his wife's infatuation for another man--might seem superficially as the height of cynical cold-bloodedness. Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. Riviere was a man of very deep and very strong feelings held habitually under a rigid control. Self-control is very often mistaken superficially for cold-bloodedness, just as heartiness is mistaken for big-heartedness.

He was balanced enough to hold no blame for Olive. Within two years of marriage he had plumbed her to the depths. It was not in her to be more than a reckless spender of other people's money and other people's lives. She was born to waste just as another is born to create. The way in which she was throwing herself at Larssen during his absence for a few weeks was typical of her inborn character, which nothing could uproot.

It was clear beyond doubt that Olive did not want him back. She preferred him out of her way. If he could disappear for ever, leaving his fortune in her hands, she would unquestionably be glad of it. What he had in fact brought about by taking up the personality of John Riviere was what she seemed most to desire.

He was coming home as an intruder. Even in his own house there would be no welcome for him. _He was not wanted._

There was a sudden stiffening on the part of Olive, as though she heard someone about to enter the room. Sir Francis came in, shook hands cordially with Larssen, and all three made their way to dinner.

Riviere was left looking into an empty room. With sudden decision he made his way out of the grounds of Thornton Chase. He would see the shipowner to-morrow in his office at Leadenhall Street rather than thrash out the coming quarrel in front of Olive and Sir Francis.

His duty lay in taking up once more the role of Clifford Matheson and returning to Olive's side. Though what he had seen that evening made the duty trebly distasteful, he must carry it out to the end. Yet to himself he was glad of the short respite. For one night more he would breathe freedom as John Riviere.

Only one night more!

For the moment, time was no object to him, and he proceeded on foot through Roehampton village and by the sodden coppices of Putney Heath to the Portsmouth high road and the railway station of East Putney.

He waited at the station until an underground train snaked its way in like a giant blindworm, and went with it to the Temple and so to the quiet hotel he had chosen in Lincoln's Inn Fields. On his way, he sent off a telegram to the shipowner stating that John Riviere would call at Leadenhall Street at eleven o'clock in the morning.

In the coffee-room of the Avon Hotel he sat down to write a long letter to Elaine which would explain all that had been hidden from her. Without sparing himself one jot he told her of the circ.u.mstances of his life since the crucial night of March 14th, and of the deception he carried out with her as well as with the rest of the world. It was long past midnight before he put to the letter the signature of "Clifford Matheson."

And then with a stab of pain he remembered that Elaine could not read it. There were pa.s.sages in the letter which must not be read to her by any outside person. It was evident that what he had to tell her would have to be said by word of mouth.

Riviere tore up his letter into small fragments and burnt them carefully in the grate.

CHAPTER XIX

A THRONE-ROOM

Dinner was over at Thornton Chase, and the three were back in the drawing-room--Olive, Larssen, and Sir Francis. The men smoked at Olive's request; and she herself lighted one of a special brand of cigarettes which she had made for her by Antonides.

"I hate to have my drawing-room smelling of afternoon-tea and feminine chit-chat," she explained. "The two Carleton-Wingate frumps called on me this afternoon for a couple of solid hours' boring, which they dignify to themselves as a duty call. Please smoke away the remembrance of them."