CHAPTER XXVII

BY CHANCE OR DESIGN

Wolfenden sent his phaeton to the station with Harcutt, who had been summoned back to town upon important business. Afterwards he slipped back to the hall to wait for its return, and came face to face with Mr. Blatherwick, who was starting homewards.

“I was looking for you,” Wolfenden said; “your luncheon party turned out a little differently to anything we had expected.”

“I am happy,” Mr. Blatherwick said, “to be able to believe that the letter was after all a hoax. There was no one in the room, as you would doubtless observe, likely to be in any way concerned in the matter.”

Wolfenden knocked the ash off his cigarette without replying.

“You seem,” he remarked, “to be on fairly intimate terms with Miss Merton.”

“We were fellow workers for several months,” Mr. Blatherwick reminded him; “naturally, we saw a good deal of one another.”

“She is,” Wolfenden continued, “a very charming girl.”

“I consider her, in every way,” Mr. Blatherwick said with enthusiasm, “a most delightful young lady. I—I am very much attached to her.”

Wolfenden laid his hand on the secretary’s shoulder.

“Blatherwick,” he said, “you’re a good fellow, and I like you. Don’t be offended at what I am going to say. You must not trust Miss Merton; she is not quite what she appears to you.”

Mr. Blatherwick took a step backward, and flushed red with anger.

“I do not understand you, Lord Wolfenden,” he said. “What do you know of Miss Merton?”

“Not very much,” Wolfenden said quietly; “quite enough, though, to justify me in warning you seriously against her. She is a very clever young person, but I am afraid a very unscrupulous one.”

Mr. Blatherwick was grave, almost dignified.

“Lord Wolfenden,” he said, “you are the son of my employer, but I take the liberty of telling you that you are a l—l——”

“Steady, Blatherwick,” Wolfenden interrupted; “you must not call me names.”

“You are not speaking the truth,” Mr. Blatherwick continued, curbing himself with an effort. “I will not listen to, or—or permit in my presence any aspersion against that young lady!”

Wolfenden shook his head gently.

“Mr. Blatherwick,” he said, “don’t be a fool! You ought to know that I am not the sort of man to make evil remarks about a lady behind her back, unless I knew what I was talking about. I cannot at this moment prove it, but I am morally convinced that Miss Merton came here to-day at the instigation of the person who wrote to you, and that she only refrained from making you some offer because she knew quite well that we were within hearing.”

“I will not listen to another word, Lord Wolfenden,” Mr. Blatherwick declared vigorously. “If you are honest, you are cruelly misjudging that young lady; if not you must know yourself the proper epithet to be applied to the person who defames an innocent girl behind her back! I wish you good afternoon, sir. I shall leave Deringham Hall to-morrow.”

He strode away, and Wolfenden watched him with a faint, regretful smile upon his lips. Then he turned round suddenly; a little trill of soft musical laughter came floating out from a recess in the darkest corner of the hall. Miss Merton was leaning back amongst the cushions of a lounge, her eyes gleaming with amusement. She beckoned Wolfenden to her.

“Quite melodramatic, wasn’t it?” she exclaimed, moving her skirts for him to sit by her side. “Dear little man! Do you know he wants to marry me?”

“What a clever girl you are,” Wolfenden remarked; “really you’d make an admirable wife for him.”

She pouted a little.

“Thank you very much,” she said. “I am not contemplating making any one an admirable wife; matrimony does not attract me at all.”

“I don’t know what pleasure you can find in making a fool of a decent little chap like that,” he said; “it’s too bad of you, Blanche.”

“One must amuse oneself, and he is so odd and so very much in earnest.”

“Of course,” Wolfenden continued, “I know that you had another object.”

“Had I?”

“You came here to try and tempt the poor little fellow with a thousand pounds!”

“I have never,” she interposed calmly, “possessed a thousand shillings in my life.”

“Not on your own account, of course: you came on behalf of your employer, Mr. Sabin, or some one behind him! What is this devilry, Blanche?”

She looked at him out of wide-open eyes, but she made no answer.

“So far as I can see,” he remarked, “I must confess that foolery seems a better term. I cannot imagine anything in my father’s work worth the concoction of any elaborate scheme to steal. But never mind that; there is a scheme, and you are in it. Now I will make a proposition to you. It is a matter of money, I suppose; will you name your terms to come over to my side?”

A look crept into her eyes which puzzled him.

“Over to your side,” she repeated thoughtfully. “Do you mind telling me exactly what you mean by that?”

As though by accident the delicate white hand from which she had just withdrawn her glove touched his, and remained there as though inviting his clasp. She looked quickly up at him and drooped her eyes. Wolfenden took her hand, patted it kindly, and replaced it in her lap.

“Look here, Blanche,” he said, “I won’t affect to misunderstand you; but haven’t you learnt by this time that adventures are not in my way?—less now than at any time perhaps.”

She was watching his face and read its expression with lightning-like truth.

“Bah!” she said, “there is no man who would be so brutal as you unless——”

“Unless what?”

“He were in love with another girl!”

“Perhaps I am, Blanche!”

“I know that you are.”

He looked at her quickly.

“But you do not know with whom?”

She had not guessed, but she knew now.

“I think so,” she said; “it is with the beautiful niece of Mr. Sabin! You have admirable taste.”

“Never mind about that,” he said; “let us come to my offer. I will give you a hundred a year for life, settle it upon you, if you will tell me everything.”

“A hundred a year,” she repeated. “Is that much money?”

“Well, it will cost more than two thousand pound,” he said; “still, I would like you to have it, and you shall if you will be quite frank with me.”

She hesitated.

“I should like,” she said, “to think it over till to-morrow morning; it will be better, for supposing I decide to accept, I shall know a good deal more of this than I know now.”

“Very well,” he said, “only I should strongly advise you to accept.”

“One hundred a year,” she repeated thoughtfully. “Perhaps you will have changed your mind by to-morrow.”

“There is no fear of it,” he assured her quietly.

“Write it down,” she said. “I think that I shall agree.”

“Don’t you trust me, Blanche?”

“It is a business transaction,” she said coolly; “you have made it one yourself.”

He tore a sheet from his pocket-book and scribbled a few lines upon it.

“Will that do?” he asked her.

She read it through and folded it carefully up.

“It will do very nicely,” she said with a quiet smile. “And now I must go back as quickly as I can.”

They walked to the hall door; Lord Wolfenden’s carriage had come back from the station and was waiting for him.

“How are you going?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“I must hire something, I suppose,” she said. “What beautiful horses! Do you see, Hector remembers me quite well; I used to take bread to him in the stable when I was at Deringham Hall. Good old man!”

She patted the horse’s neck. Wolfenden did not like it, but he had no alternative.

“Won’t you allow me to give you a lift?” he said, with a marked absence of cordiality in his tone; “or if you would prefer it, I can easily order a carriage from the hotel.”

“Oh! I would much rather go with you, if you really don’t mind,” she said. “May I really?”

“I shall be very pleased,” he answered untruthfully. “I ought perhaps to tell you that the horses are very fresh and don’t go well together: they have a nasty habit of running away down hill.”

She smiled cheerfully, and lifting her skirts placed a dainty little foot upon the step.

“I detest quiet horses,” she said, “and I have been used to being run away with all my life. I rather like it.”

Wolfenden resigned himself to the inevitable. He took the reins, and they rattled off towards Deringham. About half-way there, they saw a little black figure away on the cliff path to the right.

“It is Mr. Blatherwick,” Wolfenden said, pointing with his whip. “Poor little chap! I wish you’d leave him alone, Blanche!”

“On one condition,” she said, smiling up at him, “I will!”

“It is granted already,” he declared.

“That you let me drive for just a mile!”

He handed her the reins at once, and changed seats. From the moment she took them, he could see that she was an accomplished whip. He leaned back and lit a cigarette.

“Blatherwick’s salvation,” he remarked, “has been easily purchased.”

She smiled rather curiously, but did not reply. A hired carriage was coming towards them, and her eyes were fixed upon it. In a moment they swept past, and Wolfenden was conscious of a most unpleasant sensation. It was Helène, whose dark eyes were glancing from the girl to him in cold surprise; and Mr. Sabin, who was leaning back by her side wrapped in a huge fur coat. Blanche looked down at him innocently.

“Fancy meeting them,” she remarked, touching Hector with the whip. “It does not matter, does it? You look dreadfully cross!”

Wolfenden muttered some indefinite reply and threw his cigarette savagely into the road. After all he was not so sure that Mr. Blatherwick’s salvation had been cheaply won!