They exchanged the glances of duelists. Her plain black frock was b.u.t.toned up to her throat. Her colourless face seemed set in exact and expressionless lines. Her eyes were like windows of gla.s.s. He felt only their scrutiny; nothing of the reason for it, or of the thoughts which stirred behind in her brain. There was nothing about her att.i.tude which seemed in any way threatening, yet he had the feeling that in this interview it was she who possessed the upper hand.

"You are a foolish person," she said calmly. "You are so foolish that you are not, in all probability, in the slightest degree dangerous.

Believe me, ours is an unequal duel. There is a bell upon this table which has apparently escaped your notice. I sit with my finger upon the b.u.t.ton--so. I have only to press it, and the servants will be here. I do not wish to press it. I do not desire that you should be, as you certainly would be, banished from this house."

He was immensely puzzled. She had not resented his strange intrusion.

She had accepted it, indeed, with curious equanimity. Her forefinger lingered still over the little ivory k.n.o.b of the bell attached to her desk. He shrugged his shoulders.

"You have the advantage of me," he admitted, a little curtly. "All the same, I think I could possess myself of those sheets of paper, you know, before the bell was answered."

"Would it be wise, I wonder, then, to ensure their safety?" she asked coolly.

Her finger pressed the bell. He took a quick step forward. She held out her hand.

"Stop!" she ordered. "These sheets will tell you nothing which you do not know already unless you are a fool. Never mind the bell. That is my affair. I am sending you away."

He leaned a little towards her.

"It wouldn't be possible to bribe you, I suppose?"

She shook her head.

"I wonder you haven't tried that before. No, it would not--not with money, that is to say."

"You'll tell Mr. Fentolin, I presume?" he asked quickly.

"I have nothing to tell him," she replied. "Nothing has happened.

Richards," she went on, as a servant entered the room, "Mr. Hamel is looking for Miss Fentolin. Will you see if you can find her?"

The man's expression was full of polite regret.

"Miss Fentolin went over to Legh Woods early this morning, sir," he announced. "She is staying to lunch with Lady Saxthorpe."

Hamel stood quite still for a moment. Then he turned to the window. In the far distance he could catch a glimpse of the Tower. Mr. Fentolin's chair had disappeared from the walk.

"I am sorry," he said. "I must have made a mistake. I will hurry back."

There were more questions which he was longing to ask, but the cold negativeness of her manner chilled him. She sat with her fingers poised over the keys, waiting for his departure. He turned and left the room.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Mr. Fentolin, his carriage drawn up close to the beach, was painting steadily when Hamel stood once more by his side. His eyes moved only from the sea to the canvas. He never turned his head.

"So your wooing has not prospered, my young friend," he remarked gently.

"I am sorry. Is there anything I can do?"

"Your niece has gone out to lunch," Hamel replied shortly.

Mr. Fentolin stopped painting. His face was full of concern as he looked up at Hamel.

"My dear sir," he exclaimed, "how can I apologise! Of course she has gone out to lunch. She has gone out to Lady Saxthorpe's. I remember the subject being discussed. I myself, in fact, was the instigator of her going. I owe you a thousand apologies, Mr. Hamel. Let me make what amends are possible for your useless journey. Dine with us to-night."

"You are very kind."

"A poor amends," Mr. Fentolin continued. "A morning like this was made for lovers. Sunshine and blue sky, a salt breeze flavoured just a little with that lavender, and a stroll through my spring gardens, where my hyacinths are like a field of purple and gold, a mantle of jewels upon the brown earth. Ah, well! One's thoughts will wander to the beautiful things of life. There were once women who loved me, Mr. Hamel."

Hamel looked doubtfully at the strange little figure in the chair. Was this genuine, he wondered, a voluntary outburst, or was it some subtle attempt to incite sympathy? Mr. Fentolin seemed almost to have read his thought.

"It is not for the sake of your pity that I say this," he continued.

"Mine is only the pa.s.sing across the line which age as well as infirmity makes inevitable. No one in the world who lives to grow old, and who has loved and felt the fire of it in his veins, can pa.s.s that line without sorrow, or look back without a pang. I am among a great army. Well, well, I shall paint no more to-day," he concluded abruptly.

"Where is your servant?" Hamel asked.

Mr. Fentolin glanced around him carelessly.

"He has wandered away out of sight. He knows well how necessary solitude is to me if once I take the brush between my fingers--solitude natural and entire, I mean. If any one is within a dozen yards of me I know it, even though I cannot see them. Meekins is wandering somewhere the other side of the Tower."

"Shall I call him?"

"On no account," Mr. Fentolin begged. "Presently he will appear, in plenty of time. There is the morning to be pa.s.sed--barely eleven o'clock, I think, now. I shall sit in my chair, and sink a little down, and dream of these beautiful lights, these rolling, foam-flecked waves, these patches of blue and shifting green. I can form them in my brain. I can make a picture there, even though my fingers refuse to move. You are not an aesthete, I think, Mr. Hamel? The study of beauty does not mean to you what it did to your father, and my father, and, in a smaller way to me."

"Perhaps not," Hamel confessed. "I believe I feel these things somewhere, because they bring a queer sense of content with them. I am afraid, though, that my artistic perceptions are not so keen as some men's."

Mr. Fentolin looked at him thoughtfully.

"It is the physical life in your veins--too splendid to permit you abstract pleasures. Compensations again, you see--compensations. I wonder what the law is that governs these things. I have forgotten sometimes," he went on, "forgotten my own infirmities in the soft intoxication of a wonderful seascape. Only," he went on, his face a little grey, "it is the physical in life which triumphs. There are the hungry hours which nothing will satisfy."

His head sank, his chin rested upon his chest. He had all the appearance now of a man who talks in bitter earnest. Yet Hamel wondered. He looked towards the Tower; there was no sign of Meekins. The sea-gulls went screaming above their heads. Mr. Fentolin never moved. His eyes seemed half closed. It was only when Hamel rose to his feet that he looked swiftly up.

"Stay with me, I beg you, Mr. Hamel," he said. "I am in one of the moods when solitude, even for a moment, is dangerous. Do you know what I have sometimes thought to myself?"

He pointed to the planked way which led down the steep, pebbly beach to the sea.

"I have sometimes thought," he went on, "that it would be glorious to find a friend to stand by my side at the top of the planks, just there, when the tide was high, and to bid him loose my chair and to steer it myself, to steer it down the narrow path into the arms of the sea. The first touch of the salt waves, the last touch of life. Why not? One sleeps without fear."

He lifted his head suddenly. Meekins had appeared, coming round from the back of the Tower. Instantly Mr. Fentolin's whole manner changed. He sat up in his chair.

"It is arranged, then," he said. "You dine with us to-night. For the other matters of which you have spoken, well, let them rest in the hands of the G.o.ds. You are not very kind to me. I am not sure whether you would make Esther a good husband. I am not sure, even, that I like you.

You take no pains to make yourself agreeable. Considering that your father was an artist, you seem to me rather a dull and uninspired young man. But who can tell? There may be things stirring beneath that torpid brain of yours of which no other person knows save yourself."

The concentrated gaze of Mr. Fentolin's keen eyes was hard to meet, but Hamel came out of the ordeal without flinching.

"At eight o'clock, Mr. Fentolin," he answered. "I can see that I must try to earn your better opinion."

Hamel read steadily for the remainder of the morning. It was past one o'clock when he rose stiffly from his seat among the sand knolls and, strolling back to the Tower, opened the door and entered. The cloth was laid for luncheon in the little sitting-room, but there were no signs of Hannah c.o.x. He pa.s.sed on into the kitchen and came to a sudden standstill. Once more the memory of his own work pa.s.sed away from him.

Once more he was back again among that queer, clouded tangle of strange suspicions, of thrilling, half-formed fears, which had a.s.sailed him at times ever since his arrival at St, David's. He stopped quite short.

The words which rose to his lips died away. He felt the breathless, compelling need for silence and grew tense in the effort to make no sound.