"I admit, my friend," she said, holding out her hand to Douglas, "that my visit is unusual, but I can a.s.sure you that I am not a ghost. Try my fingers, they are very real."

Douglas recovered himself and drew a long breath.

"I am very glad to see you," he said, "but if I had had any idea that you really wished to see me I would have spared you the trouble of coming to such an outlandish place."

"Oh, I can a.s.sure you that I have rather enjoyed it," she answered him.

"My coachman believes that I am mad, and my maid is sure of it. Won't you introduce me to your friend--your sister, perhaps?"

Douglas preserved his composure.

"This is my cousin, Cicely Strong," he said, "the Countess de Reuss.

The Countess de Reuss was very kind to me, Cicely, when I was ill. I think I told you about her."

Cicely was timid and nervous, nor did she at all understand the situation.

The Countess nodded to her kindly.

"You have a very clever relation," she said. "We are all expecting great things from him. Now let me tell you, Douglas, why I have come.

There are two men coming to see me to-morrow whom you positively must meet. One is Mr. Anderson, who owns the great Provincial Syndicate of Newspapers, and pays enormous prices for letters from London, the other is an American. I've asked them purposely for you, and you see I've taken some pains to make sure of your coming."

"It is very good of you," Douglas replied. "I will come, of course, with pleasure."

"At eight o'clock," she said, gathering up her skirts into her hand.

"Now, good-by, young people."

She nodded pleasantly and turned away. Douglas took the lamp and hurried to the door.

"You will let me see you to your carriage," he said.

"Cissy, I shall only be a moment. Do you mind the darkness?"

She answered him blithely. The Countess laid her delicate fingers upon his arm, and held up her skirts till he could see her shapely feet with diamond buckles carefully feeling for each stair.

"My friend," she exclaimed, "what ill taste you have shown. You are abominably lodged."

"I am not a chooser," he answered; "but at least here I can pay my way."

She laughed at him.

"Bourgeois."

"Maybe. I believe my ancestors were shopkeepers."

"And the little cousin?" she said, looking at him sideways.

"She is the dearest little girl in the world," he answered, heartily.

"I am not sure that I approve of her, though," the Countess said gaily, "not, at any rate, if it has been she who has kept you away from me all this time."

There was a more personal note in her conversation, the touch of her fingers upon his arm was warm and firm. Thinking of these things, Douglas did not hear the rustle of a skirt behind him as they stepped out upon the pavement. The Countess saw it and kept him talking there lightly for a moment. When at last she let him go, and he ran upstairs, he nearly dropped the lamp he was carrying in surprise. For his little room was empty. Cicely was gone.

CHAPTER XXV

A TRAGIC INTERRUPTION

"So you see, my friend Douglas, we must dine alone. Try to look as though the calamity were not so great."

The frown did not pa.s.s from Douglas's face, although he made the answer which was expected of him. In a sense he felt that he had been trapped.

Opposite to him was Emily de Reuss in her favourite att.i.tude, leaning a little forward, her hands clasped around her right knee, rocking herself backwards and forwards with a slow, rhythmical motion. She wore a gown of vivid scarlet, soft yet brilliant in its colouring. Her arms and shoulders were bare, and a string of pearls around the neck was her only ornament. Dressed exactly as she now was, he had once told her with honest and boyish frankness that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. That she, whose wardrobe was a miracle, and jewel-case the envy of every woman in London, should have chosen to appear to-night in precisely the same toilette, was at the same time an embarra.s.sment and a warning to him. The image of Drexley rose up, the sound of his despairing warning seemed still in his ears. There was a colour in her cheeks, a light in her eyes--subtle indications that his visit was a thing looked forward to, no ordinary occasion. They were in one of the smaller rooms; outside a round table was laid for dinner in the palm-lined conservatory. Presently they sat there together; through the gla.s.s was a dazzling view of blue sky, starlit and clear; within, a vista of exotics, whose perfume hung heavy upon the air. Great palms were above their heads, the silver waters of a fountain rose and fell a few feet behind. They were served by a single servant in the de Reuss liveries of grey and silver; everything on the table was daintily fashioned and perfect of its sort. To Douglas, who at heart was pa.s.sionately fond of beautiful things, it seemed after his gloomy garret a retaste of paradise. Champagne was served to them in a long gla.s.s jug of Venetian workmanship, rendered cloudy by the ice, like frosted ware.

Emily herself filled his gla.s.s and pledged him a toast.

"To the novel," she cried. "May it be as successful in literature as your other work has been in journalism! And Douglas, of course you've dedicated it to me."

"I haven't imposed a dedication upon any one," he answered. "Aren't they out of date?"

She shrugged her shoulders. Her elbows were both on the table, and she leaned across towards him.

"Tell me about your story," she begged. "There is fruit coming, and coffee. Let me fill your gla.s.s and you shall tell me of what things you have written, evil or good, the things which are, or the things which should be."

She raised the jug and the wine fell in a Little yellow shower into his foaming gla.s.s. He raised it to his lips thoughtfully.

"It is wonderful," he said, "that you should be so interested."

"In the man or his story?"

"In either," he answered. "As a story-writer I am altogether unproven.

My novel may prove an utter failure."

She shook her head.

"You are not of the race of men who fail, my dear Douglas," she said.

"I think that that is why I like you.',

"I have been as near failure as any man can go," he said.

"It is over," she answered. "Now tell me of your story."

He told her its outline. She listened with slowly nodding head, grasping every point quickly, electrically, sympathetically. His slight awkwardness in speaking of his own work pa.s.sed away. He expatiated, was coherent and convincing. More than once she interrupted him. Her insight was almost miraculous. She penetrated with perfect ease beneath his words, a.n.a.lysed his motives with him, showed him a psychological weakness in the workings of one of his characters. She was liberal with her praise, called his characters by their christian names as though they were old friends, suggested other moves across the chessboard of his plot, until he felt that he and she, and those dear puppets of his own creations, were denizens together of some fairy and ethereal world, wandering through the fascinating maze of imaginative life. It was almost an intoxication, this wonderfully stimulating contact with a mind so receptive, so brilliant, so sympathetic. He forgot his garret, Cicely, the drear past, the pa.s.sionate warnings of Drexley and Rice. As a weaver of stories he was in his first youth. He had peopled but few worlds with those wonderfully precious creations--the children of the brain. They were as dear to him as the offspring of his own flesh and blood could ever be. Hitherto they had been the mysterious but delightful companions of his solitude. There was a peculiar pleasure in finding that another, too, could realise them. They seemed indeed to pa.s.s, as they two sat there and talked of them, into an actual and material existence, to have taken to themselves bodily shapes, the dear servants of his will, delightful puppets of his own creation. The colour mounted into his cheeks, and the fire of hot life flashed through his pulses. He drank wine again, conscious only of a subtle and quickening happiness, a delicious sense of full and musical life.

"You have given me a wonderful idea of your story," she murmured.

"Nothing has charmed me so much for a long while. Now the only thing which I am curious about is the style."

"The style," he repeated. "I don't think I have ever thought of that."

"And yet," she said, "you must have modified your usual style. Your journalistic work, I think, is wonderful--strong, full of life and colour, lurid, biting, rivetting. Yet I doubt whether one could write a novel like that."