Mr. Bernard Falcon, the writer of the letter to Dora, was princ.i.p.al partner in the somewhat incongruously named firm of solicitors, Messrs.

Falcon and Lambe, of Mansion House Chambers, E.C. The firm did all sorts of work, provided only that it paid; the highest cla.s.s under their style, and the other sorts--the money-lending and "speculative business"--through their own "jackals," that is to say seedy and broken-down solicitors who had made a failure of their own business, but had managed to keep on the Rolls and were not above doing "commission work" for more prosperous firms.

Mr. Lambe, away from his business, was a most excellent person; a good husband and father, a regular church-goer, and a generous supporter of all good works in and about Denmark Hill, where he lived. He was one of those strangely const.i.tuted men--of whom there are mult.i.tudes in the world--who will earn money by the most questionable, if not absolutely dishonest, methods, without a qualm of conscience, and give liberally of that same money without recognising for a moment that what they honestly believe they are giving to G.o.d, is a portion of the Wages of Sin--which, as good Christians, they ought never to have earned.

Mr. Bernard Falcon, on the other hand, in his private life, aimed at nothing more than respectability in the worst sense of the word. His wife and his two little girls went to church. He himself went on Sunday mornings when he had no more pressing engagements. His name appeared regularly on the subscription lists published in connection with St.

Michael's, Brondesbury, his parish church, and he also paid the rent of No. 15, Melville Gardens, Brook Green, in addition to one hundred and fifty pounds a year as what he would have called "a retainer" to Miss Dora Russell--to say nothing of certain milliner's and jeweller's bills which he liquidated, sometimes cheerfully and sometimes grudgingly, according to his humour and their amount.

When Carol and Dora got out of their cab at the door of the "West End"

and went into the little vestibule-bar to the left, they found two men in evening dress waiting for them. One of them--a man of about forty, bald on the temples, of medium height, well-fed and well-groomed, and not by any means bad-looking, though of an entirely mediocre type--Carol greeted with the easy familiarity of old acquaintance, for she had known him for nearly a year as Dora's 'particular friend.' The other, tall, well-built, handsome, and with that unmistakable stamp of breeding on him which Mr. Bernard Falcon totally lacked, she instantly recognised as Reginald Garthorne, her intended companion for the evening.

The first thing he did when they had been introduced by Bernard Falcon, was to apologise for what he had said in front of the Criterion the night before. He did it with admirably calculated deference, and in such perfectly chosen words, that it was quite impossible for her not to accept his apology and "make friends."

During the evening he became completely fascinated, not only by her beauty, but far more so by the extraordinary charm of her manner. He was a man who, apart from his physical qualities and good looks, could, when he chose, make himself very pleasing to women, and, without showing a trace of effort, he did his very best to please Miss Carol, and succeeded so completely, that when, a few days later, he made a proposal of a partly domestic nature to her, she, after a brief consultation with Dora, accepted it.

At the end of the month the house in Melville Gardens was to let, and Carol and Dora were installed in a flat in Densmore Gardens, South Kensington, for the rent of which Reginald Garthorne and Mr. Bernard Falcon were jointly responsible--of course, under other names. The only condition that Carol had made with Garthorne, was that, whatever happened, he would not tell Vane of her change of address, and he, for very good reasons of his own, had promised unconditionally.

CHAPTER V.

The next day Enid Raleigh came home.

Almost the first thing she said to her mother, who had met her at the station with the carriage, was:

"Well, and where is Master Vane, please? He is in town, isn't he? Why didn't he come to meet me? I shall have to make him do penance for this."

The words were lightly spoken, spoken in utter unconsciousness of the deep meaning which Fate had put into them. So far as Enid herself was concerned, and as, in fact, she was just thinking at the moment, all they meant was that at their next meeting she would refuse Vane his long-accustomed lover's kiss, and then, after an explanation occupying some three or four minutes at most, surrender at discretion, after which would come the luxury of playing at being offended and standing on her dignity for a few minutes more, and then enjoying the further luxury of making it up.

"Yes, dear," said her mother, "Vane is in town still. I think he doesn't go back to Oxford until the end of the week, but he hasn't been very well lately----"

"Not well!" exclaimed Enid, sitting up out of the corner of the carriage into which she had leaned back with that easy abandon which comes so naturally to people accustomed to comfort all their lives. "Ill! Why, Vane's never been ill in his life. What's the matter? It isn't anything serious, is it? You don't mean that he's really ill, mother, do you?"

There was no mistaking the reality of the anxiety in her tone. Her mother recognised it instantly, but she also saw that a brougham rattling over the streets of London was not exactly the place to enter upon such explanations as it was her destiny and her duty to make to this brilliant, beautiful, spoilt darling of a daughter who was sitting beside her.

So far as she knew, every hope, every prospect of Enid's life, that bright young life which, in the fuller acceptation of the term, was only just going to begin, was connected more or less intimately with Vane Maxwell.

Ever since they had come home together from Bombay on that memorable voyage, she and Vane had been sweethearts. They were very much in love with each other, and so far their love had been a striking exception to that old proverb which comes true only too often. Saving only those lovers' quarrels which don't count because they end so much more pleasantly than they begin, there had never been a cloud in that morning-sky of life towards which they had so far walked hand in hand.

It seemed as though the Fates themselves had conspired to make everything pleasant and easy for them; and of course it had never struck either of them that when the Fates do this kind of thing, they always have a more or less heavy account on the other side--to be presented in due course.

Lady Raleigh knew this, and her daughter did not. She knew that the terrible explanation had to come, but she very naturally shrank from the inevitable--and so, woman-like, she temporised.

"Really, dear," she said, "I can't talk with all this jolting and rattle. When we get home I will tell you all about it. Vane himself is not ill at all. He is just as well as ever he was. It isn't that."

"Then I suppose," said Miss Enid, looking round sharply, "my lord has been getting himself into some sc.r.a.pe or other--something that has to be explained or talked away before he likes to meet me. Is that it?"

"No, Enid, that is not it," replied her mother gravely, "but really, dear, I must ask you to say nothing more about it just now. When we get home we'll have a cup of tea, and then I'll tell you all about it."

"Oh, very well," said Enid, a trifle petulantly. "I suppose there's some mystery about it. Of course there must be, or else he'd have come here himself, so we may as well change the subject. How do you like the new flat, and what's it like?"

As she said this she threw herself back again into the corner and stared out of the opposite window of the brougham with a look in her eyes which seemed to say that for the time being she had no further interest in any earthly affairs.

Lady Raleigh, glad of the relief even for the moment, at once began a voluble and minute description of the new flat in Addison Gardens into which they had moved during her daughter's last sojourn in Paris, and this, with certain interjections and questions from Enid, lasted until the brougham turned into the courtyard and drew up in front of the arched doorway out of which the tall, uniformed porter came with the fingers of his left hand raised to the peak of his cap, to open the carriage door.

Sir G.o.dfrey was out, and would not be back until dinner time; so, as soon as they had taken their things off, Lady Raleigh ordered tea in her own room, and there, as briefly as was consistent with the gravity of the news she had to tell, she told Enid everything that her husband had heard from Sir Arthur.

Enid, although she flushed slightly at certain portions of the narrative, listened to the story with a calmness which somewhat surprised her mother.

The little damsel for whose kisses those two boys had fought ten or eleven years ago, had now grown into a fair and stately maiden of eighteen, very dainty and desirable to look upon, and withal possessing a dignity which only comes by birth and breeding and that larger training and closer contact with the world which modern girls of her cla.s.s enjoy. Young as she was, hers was not the innocence of ignorance.

She had lived too late in the century, and had already been too far afield in the world for that.

"It comes to this, then," she said quietly, almost hardly, "instead of being dead, as we have believed all along, Vane's mother is alive; an imbecile who has become so through drink, and who seems to have misbehaved herself very badly when Vane was a baby. She is in an asylum, and will probably remain there till she dies. No one but ourselves and this interesting young person, Miss Carol Vane, appears to know anything about it, and I really don't see why Vane is to be held responsible for his mother's insanity--for I suppose that's what it comes to.

"And then there is Miss Carol herself. Of course she's not a particularly desirable family connection; but I don't suppose Vane would expect me to meet her, much less fall upon her neck and greet her as his long-lost sister. I suppose, too, that between us we could manage to do something for her, and put her in a more respectable way of living and induce her to hold her tongue.

"As for Vane getting drunk that night, of course it's very improper and all that sort of thing from the Sunday School point of view; but I don't suppose he was the only undergraduate who took too much to drink that night. Probably several hundreds of them did, and I daresay a good many of them were either engaged or going to be. Would they consider that a reason why they should go and break off their engagements? I'm afraid there wouldn't be many marriages nowadays if engagements were broken off on that account.

"Of course, mam, dear, what you've told me is not exactly pleasant to hear, but still, after all, I really can't see anything so very dreadful in it. Most families have a skeleton of some sort, I suppose, and this is ours, or will be when Vane and I are married. We must simply keep the cupboard door shut as closely as possible. It's only what lots of other people have to do."

"Well, my dear," said her mother, "I must say I'm very glad to see you take it so reasonably. I'm afraid I could not have done so at your age, but then girls are so different now, and, besides, you always had more of your father's way of looking at things than mine. Then, I suppose, Vane may come and see you. I think it was very nice of him not to come until you had been told everything."

"May come!" said Enid. "I should think so. If he doesn't I shall be distinctly offended. I shall expect him to come round and make his explanations in person before long, and when he does we will have a few minutes chat _a deux_--and I don't think I shall have very much difficulty in convincing him of the error of his ways, or, at any rate, of his opinions."

"What an extremely conceited speech to make, dear!" said her ladyship mildly, and yet with a glance of motherly pride at the beauty which went so far towards justifying it. "Well, perhaps you are right. Certainly, if anyone can, you can, and I sincerely hope you will. It would be dreadful if anything were to happen to break it off after all these years."

The colour went out of Enid's cheeks in an instant, and she said in quite an altered voice:

"Oh, for goodness sake, mamma, don't say anything about that! You know how fond I am of Vane. I simply couldn't give him up, whatever sort of a mother he had, and if he had a dozen half-sisters as disreputable as this Miss Carol Vane--the very idea of her having the impudence to use his name! No, I shan't think of that--I couldn't. If Vane did that it would just break my heart--it really would. It would be like taking half my life away, and it would simply kill me. I couldn't bear it."

She honestly meant what she said, not knowing that she said it in utter ignorance of the self that said it.

It was in Enid's mind, as it also was in her mother's, to send a note round to Warwick Gardens to ask both Vane and his father to come round to an informal dinner, and to discuss the matter there and then; but neither of them gave utterance to the thought. Lady Raleigh, knowing her daughter's proud and somewhat impetuous temperament, instinctively shrank from making a suggestion which she would have had very good grounds for rejecting, more especially as she had already given such a very decided opinion as to Vane's scruples.

As for Enid herself, she honestly thought so little of these same scruples that she felt inclined to accuse Vane of a Quixotism which, from her point of view at least, was entirely unwarrantable. It was, therefore, quite impossible for her to first suggest that they should meet after a parting during which they might have unconsciously reached what was to be the crisis of both their lives.

The result was that the thought remained unspoken, and Enid, after spending the evening in vexed and anxious uncertainty, went to bed; and then, as soon as she felt that she was absolutely safe in her solitude, discussed the whole matter over again with herself, and wound the discussion up with a good hearty cry, after which she fell into the dreamless slumber of the healthy and innocent.

When she woke very early the next morning, or, rather, while she was on that borderland between sleeping and waking where the mind works with such strange rapidity, she reviewed the whole of the circ.u.mstances, and came to the conclusion that she was being very badly treated. Vane knew perfectly well that she was coming back yesterday afternoon, and therefore he had no right to let these absurd scruples of his prevent him from performing the duties of a lover and meeting her at the station. But, even granted that something else had made it impossible for him to do so, there was absolutely no excuse for his remaining away the whole afternoon and evening when he must have known how welcome a visit would have been.

Meanwhile Vane had been doing the very last thing that she would have imagined him doing.

After his fateful conversation with his father he had left the house in Warwick Gardens to wander he knew and cared not whither. His thoughts were more than sufficient companionship for him, and, heeding neither time nor distance, he walked as he might have walked in a dream, along the main road through Hammersmith and Turnham Green and Kew, and so through Richmond Hill till he had climbed the hill and stopped for a brief moment of desperate debate before the door of the saloon bar of the "Star and Garter." The better impulse conquered the worse, and he entered the park, and, seating himself on one of the chairs under the trees, he made an effort to calmly survey the question in all its bearings.

It was the most momentous of all human tasks--the choosing of his own future life-path at the parting of the ways. One of them, flower-bordered and green with the new-grown gra.s.s of life's spring-time, and the other dry, rugged and rock-strewn--the paths of inclination and duty: the one leading up to the golden gates of the Paradise of wedded love, and the other slanting down to the wide wilderness which he must cross alone, until he pa.s.sed alone into the shadows which lay beyond it.

A few days before he had seen himself well on the way to everything that can make a man's life full and bright and worthy to be lived. He was, thanks to his father's industry, relieved from all care on the score of money, and, better still, he had that within him which made him independent of fortune, perfect health and great abilities, already well-proved, although he had yet to wait nearly a year for his twenty-first birthday.