CHAPTER THREE.

WOMAN'S WORLD.

The more I reflected, the greater mystery appeared to surround my pretty acquaintance of that well-remembered evening.

Three days went by, and, truth to tell, I remained in an uncertain, undecided mood. For a year past I had been the closest friend and confidant of Muriel Moore, but not her lover. The words of love I had spoken had been merely in jest, although I could not disguise from myself that she regarded me as something more than a mere acquaintance.

Yet the strange, half-tragic beauty of Aline Cloud was undeniable.

Sometimes I felt half-inclined to write to her and endeavour to again see her, but each time I thought of her, visions of Muriel rose before me, and I recollected that I admired her with an admiration that was really akin to love.

On the third evening I looked in at the St Stephen's Club, finding Roddy stretched in one of the morocco-covered chairs in the smoking-room, with a long whisky and soda on the table by his side.

"Hullo!" he cried gaily, as I advanced, "where did you get to the other night?"

"No, old fellow," I answered, sinking into a chair near him; "ask yourself that question. You slipped away so very quickly that I thought you'd met some creditor or other."

"Well," he answered, after a pause, "I did see somebody I didn't want to meet."

"A man?" I asked, for my old chum had but few secrets from me.

"No; a woman."

I nodded.

At that instant a thought occurred to me, and I wondered whether Roddy had encountered Aline, and whether she was the woman he did not wish to meet. "Was she young?" I asked, laughing.

"Not very," he replied vaguely, adding, "There are some persons who, being a.s.sociated with the melancholy incidents in one's life, bring back bitter memories that one would fain forget."

"Yes, yes; I understand," I said.

Then presently, when I had got my cigar under way, I related to him what had afterwards occurred, omitting, however, to tell him of the remarkable fusion of my crucifix. The latter fact was so extraordinary that it appeared incredible.

He listened in silence until I had finished, and then I asked him--

"Now, you've had a good long experience of all kinds of adventure. What do you think of it?"

"Well, when you commenced to tell me of her loneliness I felt inclined to think that she was deceiving you. The alone-in-London dodge has too often been worked. But you say that she was evidently a lady--modest, timid, and apparently unused to London life. What name did she give you?"

"Cloud--Aline Cloud."

"Aline Cloud!"--he gasped, starting forward with a look of inexpressible fear.

"Yes. Do you know her?"

"No!" he answered promptly, instantly recovering himself.

But his manner was unconvincing. The hand holding his cigar trembled slightly, and it was apparent that the news I had imparted had created an impression upon him the reverse of favourable.

I did not continue the subject, yet as we chatted on, discussing other things, I pondered deeply.

"Things in the House are droning away as usual," Roddy said, in answer to a question. "I get sick of this never-ending talk. The debates seem to grow longer and longer. I'm heartily weary of it all." And he sighed heavily.

"Yet the papers report your speeches, and write leaders about them," I remarked. "That speech of yours regarding Korea the other night was splendid."

"Because I know the country," he replied. "I'm the only man in the House who has set foot in the place, I suppose. Therefore, I spoke from personal observation."

"But with the reputation you've gained you ought to be well satisfied,"

I urged. "You are among the youngest men in the House, yet you are hailed as a coming man."

"That's all very well," he answered. "Nevertheless I wish I'd never gone in for it," and he yawned and stretched himself.

Then, after a pause, he said reflectively--

"That was really a remarkable adventure of yours--very remarkable!

Where did you say the girl lived?"

"In Ellerdale Road, Hampstead. She lives with an aunt named Popejoy."

"Ah!" he exclaimed, then lapsed into a sullen silence, his brow clouded by a heavy, thoughtful look, as though he were reflecting upon some strange circ.u.mstance of the past.

I remained about an hour, when suddenly the division-bell rang and we parted: he entering the House to record his vote, I to stroll along to my own club to write letters.

Whether Roddy was acquainted with my pretty companion I was unable to determine. It seemed very much as if he were, for I could not fail to notice his paleness and agitation when I had p.r.o.nounced her name. Still I resolved to act with discretion, for I felt myself on the verge of some interesting discovery, the nature of which, however, I knew not.

Next evening, in response to a telegram, Muriel Moore met me, and we dined together on the balcony of Frascati's Restaurant, in Oxford Street.

First let me confess that our attachment was something of a secret, for there was considerable difference in our social positions; I had known her for years, indeed ever since her hoydenish days when she had worn short frocks. Her father, a respectable tradesman in Stamford, a few miles from Tixover, had failed, and within a year had died, with the result that at nineteen she had drifted into that channel wherein so many girls drift who are compelled to seek their own living, and had become an a.s.sistant at a well-known milliner's in Oxford Street. In the shop world milliners' a.s.sistants and show-room hands rank higher than the ordinary girl who serves her wealthier sisters with tapes, ribbons, or underclothing, therefore Muriel had been decidedly fortunate in obtaining, this berth. It was, no doubt, on account of her beauty that the shrewd manageress of the establishment had engaged her, for her chief duty seemed to be to try on hats and bonnets for customers to witness the effect, and as nearly everything suited her she was enabled to effect many advantageous sales. Dozens of women, ugly and a trifle _pa.s.se_, were cajoled into believing that a certain hat suited them when they saw it upon her handsome, well-poised head.

She was dark, with refined, well-cut, intelligent features; not the doll-like, dimpled face of the average shop-girl, but a countenance open and handsome, even though her hair was arranged a trifle coquettishly, a fact which she explained was due to the wishes of the manageress. Her mouth was small, and had the true arch of Cupid, her teeth even and well-matched, her chin pointed and showing considerable determination, and her eyes black as those of any woman of the South. Many men who went with their wives and sisters to choose hats glanced at her in admiration, for she was tall, with a figure well-rounded, a small waist and an easy, graceful carriage, enhanced perhaps by the well-fitting costume of black satin supplied her by the management.

My family had bought their smaller drapery goods of her father for years, and it was in my college days that I had first seen and admired her in the little old-fashioned shop in St Martin's, in Stamford. Old Mr Moore, a steady-going man of antiquated ideas, had been overtaken and left behind in the race of life, for cheap "cash drapers" had of recent years sprung up all around him, his trade had dwindled down, until it left him unable to meet the invoices from Cook's, Pawson's, and other firms of whom he purchased goods, and he was compelled to file his pet.i.tion.

I knew nothing of this, for I was abroad at the time. It must, however, have been a terrible blow to poor Muriel when she and her father were compelled to leave the old shop and take furnished rooms in a back street at the further end of the town, and a still more serious misfortune fell upon her when a few months later her father died, leaving her practically alone in the world. Through the influence of one of the commercial travellers from London, who had been in the habit of calling upon her father, she had obtained the berth at Madame Gabrielle's, and for the past year had proved herself invaluable at that establishment, one of the most noted in London as selling copies of "the latest models."

We did not very often meet, for she well understood that a union was entirely out of the question. We were excellent friends, purely Platonic, and it gave her pleasure and variety to dine sometimes with me at a restaurant. There was nothing loud about her; no taint of the London shop-girl, whose tastes invariably lie in the direction of the lower music-halls, Cinderella dances, and Sunday up-river excursions.

She was a thoroughly honest, upright, and modest girl, who, compelled to earn her own living, had set out bravely to do so.

From where we sat dining we could listen to the music and look down upon the restaurant below. The tables were filled with diners and the light laughter and merry chatter general.

We had not met for nearly a month, as I had been down to Tixover, where we had had a house-party with its usual round of gaiety, shooting and cycling. Indeed, since June I had been very little in London, having spent the whole summer at Zermatt.

"It seems so long since we were last here," she exclaimed suddenly, casting her eyes around the well-lit restaurant. "I suppose you had quite a merry time at home?"

"Yes," I answered, and then began to tell her of all our doings, and relating little bits of gossip from her home--that quiet, old-fashioned market town with its many churches, its broad, br.i.m.m.i.n.g Welland winding through the meadows, and picturesque, old-world streets where the gra.s.s springs from between the pebbles, and where each Friday the farmers congregate at market. I told her of the new shops which had sprung up in the High Street, of the death of poor old Goltmann who kept the fancy shop where in my youth I had purchased mechanical toys, and of the latest alterations at Burleigh consequent upon the old Marquis's death.

All this interested her, for like many a girl compelled to seek her living in London, the little town where she was born was always dearly cherished in her memory.

"And you?" I said at last. "How have you been going along?"

She placed both her elbows on the table and looked straight into my eyes.