CHAPTER XII

The Duchess waved her sugar tongs imperiously, and David, who had hesitated upon the threshold of her drawing-room, made his way towards her. There were a dozen people sitting around, drinking tea and chatting in little groups.

"Now don't look sulky, please," she begged, as she gave him her left hand. "This is not a tea party, and it is quite true that I did ask you to come and have a chat with me alone, but I couldn't keep these people away. They'll all go directly, and if they don't I shall turn them out. Letitia has promised me to take care of you and to see that no one bites. Letitia, here is the shy man," she added. "There!"—thrusting a cup of tea into his hand. "Take that, help yourself to a muffin and go and hide behind the piano."

Letitia rose from her place by the side of an extremely loquacious politician, to whose animated conversation she had paid no attention since David's entrance.

"You hear my aunt's orders?" she said, nodding. "Don't try to shake hands, with that collection of things to carry. I am to pilot you into a corner and keep you quite safe until she is ready to take possession of you herself."

David looked longingly at some French windows which led out on to a wide stone terrace.

"Why not outside?" he suggested. "It's really quite warm to-day."

"Why not, indeed?" she assented. "Come along."

They passed out together, found two comfortable wicker chairs and a small table, on which, with a sigh of relief, David deposited his burden. Below them was a stretch of the Park, from which they themselves were screened by a row of tall trees.

"Don't sit down," she begged him. "Get me another of those small muffins first, and a cup of tea. If any one suggests coming out here, bolt the windows after you."

David executed his task as speedily as possible. Letitia watched him a little curiously as he returned.

"You aren't really a bit shy, you know," she told him. "I watched you through the window there. How clever you were not to see that tiresome Mrs. Raymond!"

"Why should I see her?" he asked. "She is a perfect stranger to me. She came up to me at a party, the other night, and asked me, as a great favour, to dine at her house and to tell her how to invest some money so that she could double it."

"I know," Letitia assented, with her mouth full of muffin. "She does that to all the financiers and expects them to give her tips just because she has dark eyes and asks them to a tête-à-tête dinner. I expect we are all as bad, though," she went on rather gloomily, "even if we are not quite so blatant. What on earth have you been doing to father? He swaggers about as though he were already a millionaire."

"I expect we are all as bad, though," she went on rather gloomily, "even if we are not quite so blatant."

"I expect we are all as bad, though," she went on rather gloomily, "even if we are not quite so blatant."

David smiled a little sadly as he looked out across the tree tops.

"Your father has rather a sanguine temperament," he said.

"Well, don't encourage him to speculate, please," Letitia begged. "We couldn't afford to lose a single penny. As it is," she went on, "we are only able to come to Mandeleys because you've taken that ramshackle old barn close by and paid twice as much as it's worth. About the shooting, too! I almost laughed aloud when you mentioned it! Do you know, Mr. Thain, that we haven't reared a pheasant for years, and that we don't even feed the wild ones?"

"What about the partridges, though," he reminded her, "and the hares? I talked to a farmer when I was down there the other day, and he complained bitterly that there was only one vermin-killer on the whole estate and that the place was swarming with rabbits. I rather enjoy rabbit shooting."

"Oh, well, so long as you understand," Letitia replied, with a little shrug of the shoulders, "take the shoot, for goodness' sake, and pay dad as much as he chooses to ask for it. I've always noticed," she went on reflectively, "one extraordinary thing about people who haven't the faintest idea of business. They are always much cleverer than a real business man in asking ever so much more than a thing is worth. A person with a sense of proportion, you see, couldn't do it."

"One would imagine," he complained, "that you were trying to keep me away from Mandeleys."

"Don't, please, imagine such a thing," she begged earnestly. "If there is anything I hate, it's London—or rather hate the way we have to live here. You are entirely our salvation. If you desert us now, I shall be the most miserable person alive. Only, you see, I know what father is, and what you do you must do with your eyes open."

He was silent for a moment. The echo of her words lingered in his ears. He moved a little uneasily in his place, more uneasily still when he found that she was watching him intently.

"You are really a very mysterious person, Mr. Thain," she declared, with a note of curiosity in her tone. "I hear that you decline to be interviewed, and you won't even tell the newspapers whether this is your first visit to England or not."

"I don't see what business it is of the newspapers," he rejoined. "I am not a person of any possible interest to any one. I have done nothing except make a great deal of money. That, too, was purely a matter of good fortune and a little foresight. In America," he went on, "one expects to meet with that personal curiosity. Over here, I must say that it surprises me."

"I suppose you are right," she admitted, "but, you see, under the present conditions of living, the possession of money does give such enormous power to any one. Then you must remember that our press has become Americanised lately. However, I am not a journalist, so will you answer me one question?"

"Certainly," he replied.

"Have you ever been in England before?"

"Once."

"Long ago?"

"A great many years ago."

"I don't really know why I am curious," she went on thoughtfully, "but there was a time, when I saw you first—doesn't this sound hackneyed, but it's quite true—when I fancied that I'd seen you before. It worried me for days. Even now it sometimes perplexes me."

He hated the lie which had risen so readily to his lips and choked it back.

"A dear lady, a friend of the Duchess, made the same remark to me when we were introduced," he said. "She excused herself gracefully by saying that people were so much alike, nowadays."

"I don't think that you are particularly like other people," she observed, studying him. "Would you like to hear what Ada Honeywell thinks about you?"

"So long as it leaves me still able to hold up my head," he murmured. "Mrs. Honeywell struck me as being rather severe in her strictures."

"It was only of your appearance she was speaking," Letitia continued. "She said that she could see three things in your face—a Franciscan monk, a head maïtre d'hôtel at the most select of French restaurants, and the modern decadent criminal, as opposed to the Charles Peace type."

"I am much obliged, I'm sure," he remarked, leaning back and laughing for once quite naturally. "My type of criminal, I presume, is one who brings art to his aid in working out his nefarious schemes."

"Precisely," she murmured. "Like Wainwright, the poisoner, or the Borgias. But at any rate we agreed upon something. There is purpose in your face."

"You speak as though that were unusual! I suppose we all have a set course in life."

She nodded.

"And a good deal depends upon the goal, doesn't it?"

There was a brief—to David, an enigmatic pause. Letitia's questions had puzzled him. She might almost have suspected his identity. They both listened idly for a few moments to the music of a violin, which some one was playing in the drawing-room.

"You've asked me a great many questions," he said abruptly. "What about you? What is your goal?"

"My dear Mr. Thain," she replied, "how can you ask! I am an impecunious young woman of luxurious tastes. It is my purpose to entrap somebody with a comfortable income into marrying me. I have been at it for several seasons," she went on a little dolefully, "but so far Charles Grantham is my only certainty, and he wobbles sometimes—especially when he sees anything of Sylvia Laycey."

"Sylvia Laycey," he repeated. "Is she the daughter of the present tenant of Broomleys?"

Letitia nodded.

"And a very charming girl, too," she declared. "You'll most certainly fall in love with her. Everybody does when she comes up to stay with me."

"Falling in love isn't one of my ordinary amusements," he observed a little drily.

"Superior person!" she mocked.

The Duchess suddenly appeared upon the balcony.

"Look here," she said, "there's been quite enough of this. Mr. Thain came especially to see me. Every one else has gone."

"I wonder if that might be considered a hint," Letitia observed, glancing at the watch upon her wrist. "All right, aunt, I'll go. You wouldn't believe, Mr. Thain," she added, buttoning her gloves, "that one's relations are supposed to be a help to one in life?"

"You're only wasting your time with Mr. Thain, dear," her aunt replied equably. "I've studied his character. We were eight days on that steamer, you know, and all the musical comedy young ladies in the world seemed to be on board, and I can give you my word that Mr. Thain is a woman-hater."

"I am really more interested in him now than I have ever been before," Letitia declared, laughing into his eyes. "My great grievance with Charlie Grantham is that he cannot keep away from our hated rivals in the other world. However, you'll talk to me again, won't you, Mr. Thain?"

David was conscious of a curious fit of reserve, a sudden closing up of that easy intimacy into which they seemed to have drifted.

"I shall always be pleased," he said stiffly.

Letitia kissed her aunt and departed. The Duchess sank into her empty place.

"I am going to be a beast," she began. "Have you been lending money to my brother?"

"Not a sixpence," David assured her.

The Duchess was evidently staggered.

"You surprise me," she confessed. "However, so much the better. It won't interfere with what I have to say to you. I first took you to Grosvenor Square, didn't I?"

"You were so kind," he admitted.

"Now I come to think of it," she reflected, "I remember thinking it strange at the time that, though I couldn't induce you to go anywhere else, or meet any one else, you never hesitated about making Reginald's acquaintance."

"He was your brother, you see," David reminded her.

"It didn't occur to me," she replied drily, "that that was the reason. However, what I want to say to you is this, in bald words—don't lend him money."

David looked once more across the tops of the trees.

"I gather that the Marquis, then, is impecunious?" he said.

"Reginald hasn't a shilling," the Duchess declared earnestly. "Let me just tell you how they live. Letitia has two thousand a year, and so has Margaret, from their mother. Margaret's husband, who is a decent fellow, won't touch her money and makes her an allowance, so that nearly all her two thousand, and all of Letitia's, except the few ha'pence she spends on clothes, go to keeping an establishment together. Reginald has sold every scrap of land he could, years ago. Mandeleys is the only estate he has left, and there isn't a square yard of that that isn't mortgaged to the very fullest extent. It's always a scramble between his poor devils of lawyers and himself, whether there's a little margin to be got out of the rents after paying the interest. If there is, it goes, I believe, towards satisfying the claims of a lady down at Battersea."

"A lady down at Battersea," David replied. "Is it—may I ask—an old attachment?"

"A very old one indeed," the Duchess replied, "and, to tell you the truth, it's one of the most reputable things I know connected with Reginald. He is inconstant in everything else he does, and without being in any way wilfully dishonest, he is absolutely unreliable. But this lady at Battersea—she belonged to one of his tenants or something—I forget the story—has kept him within reasonable bounds for more years than I should like to say— What do you see over there, Mr. Thain?" she broke off suddenly, following his steadfast gaze.

David dropped his eyes from the clouds. His fingers relaxed their nervous clutch of the sides of his chair.

"Nothing," he answered. "I am interested. Please go on."

"Reginald has stuck at nothing to get money," the Duchess continued. "He has been on the board of any company willing to pay him a few guineas for his name. I believe things have come to such a pitch in that direction that the most foolhardy investor throws the prospectus away if his name is on it. He has drained his relatives dry. And yet, if you can reconcile all these things, he is, in his way, the very soul of honour. Now, having told you this, you can do as you please. If you lend him money, you'll probably never get it back. If you've any to chuck away, I can show you a hundred deserving charities. Reginald without money is really a harmless and extraordinarily amusing person. Reginald in search of money is the most dangerous person I know. That is what I wanted to tell you, and if you like now you can run away. My hairdresser is waiting for me, and he is just a little more independent than my chef. Stop, though, there's one thing more."

The Duchess had rung a bell with her foot, and a servant was waiting at the windows to show David out. The latter turned back.

"You are not making a fool of yourself with Letitia, are you?"

David was very white and cold for a moment. He looked his hostess in the face, and, as she expressed it afterwards, froze her up.

"I am afraid that I do not understand you, Duchess," he said.

"Oh, don't be silly!" she replied. "Remember that I am your oldest friend in this country, and I say what I like to everybody. You avoid most women as you would the plague—most women except Letitia. I've warned you against the father. Now I am warning you against the daughter. And then you can go and lose your heart to one and lend a million to the other, if you want. Letitia, for all her apparent amiability, is the proudest girl I ever knew. I hope you understand me?"

"Perfectly!"

"Letitia will marry for money, all right," her aunt continued. "She understands that that is her duty, and she will do it. But it will be some one—you will forgive me, Mr. Thain—with kindred associations, shall I say? Letitia, fortunately, takes after her father. She has no temperament, but a sense of family tradition which will give her all the backbone she needs."

"Is there any other member of the family," David began—

"Don't be a silly boy," the Duchess interrupted, "because that's what you are, really, in this world and amongst our stupid class of people. You are just as nice as can be, though. Run along, and don't forget that you are coming to dine on Friday. You'll meet the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he's going to try and persuade you to settle down here, for the sake of your income tax."

"Another plunderer!" David groaned. "I am beginning to feel rather like a lamb with an exceedingly long fleece."

"You would look better with your hair cut," the Duchess remarked, as she waved her hand. "Try that place at the bottom of Bond Street. The Duke always goes there. A Mr. Saunders is his man. Better ask for him. You'll find him at the top end of the room."