IV.
He found them in their sitting-room with their bonnets on, as if theyhad just come in. Mr. Power was also present, reading a newspaper, butMrs. Goodman had gone out to a neighbouring shop, in the windows ofwhich she had seen something which attracted her fancy.
When De Stancy entered, Paula's thoughts seemed to revert to Dare, foralmost at once she asked him in what direction the youth was travelling.With some hesitation De Stancy replied that he believed Mr. Dare wasreturning to England after a spring trip for the improvement of hismind.
'A very praiseworthy thing to do,' said Paula. 'What places has hevisited?'
'Those which afford opportunities for the study of the old masters, Ibelieve,' said De Stancy blandly. 'He has also been to Turin, Genoa,Marseilles, and so on.' The captain spoke the more readily to herquestioning in that he divined her words to be dictated, not by anysuspicions of his relations with Dare, but by her knowledge of Dare asthe draughtsman employed by Somerset.
'Has he been to Nice?' she next demanded. 'Did he go there in companywith my architect?'
'I think not.'
'Has he seen anything of him? My architect Somerset once employed him.They know each other.'
'I think he saw Somerset for a short time.'
Paula was silent. 'Do you know where this young man Dare is at thepresent moment?' she asked quickly.
De Stancy said that Dare was staying at the same hotel with themselves,and that he believed he was downstairs.
'I think I can do no better than send for him,' said she. 'He may beable to throw some light upon the matter of that telegram.'
She rang and despatched the waiter for the young man in question, DeStancy almost visibly trembling for the result. But he opened the towndirectory which was lying on a table, and affected to be engrossed inthe names.
Before Dare was shown in she said to her uncle, 'Perhaps you will speakto him for me?'
Mr. Power, looking up from the paper he was reading, assented to herproposition. Dare appeared in the doorway, and the waiter retired. Dareseemed a trifle startled out of his usual coolness, the message havingevidently been unexpected, and he came forward somewhat uneasily.
'Mr. Dare, we are anxious to know something of Miss Power's architect;and Captain De Stancy tells us you have seen him lately,' said Mr. Powersonorously over the edge of his newspaper.
Not knowing whether danger menaced or no, or, if it menaced, from whatquarter it was to be expected, Dare felt that honesty was as good asanything else for him, and replied boldly that he had seen Mr. Somerset,De Stancy continuing to cream and mantle almost visibly, in anxiety atthe situation of the speaker.
'And where did you see him?' continued Mr. Power.
'In the Casino at Monte Carlo.'
'How long did you see him?'
'Only for half an hour. I left him there.'
Paula's interest got the better of her reserve, and she cut in upon heruncle: 'Did he seem in any unusual state, or in trouble?'
'He was rather excited,' said Dare.
'And can you remember when that was?'
Dare considered, looked at his pocket-book, and said that it was on theevening of April the twenty-second.
The answer had a significance for Paula, De Stancy, and Charlotte, towhich Abner Power was a stranger. The telegraphic request for money,which had been kept a secret from him by his niece, because of hisalready unfriendly tone towards Somerset, arrived on the morning of thetwenty-third--a date which neighboured with painfully suggestive nicetyupon that now given by Dare.
She seemed to be silenced, and asked no more questions. Dare havingfurbished himself up to a gentlemanly appearance with some of his recentwinnings, was invited to stay on awhile by Paula's uncle, who, as becamea travelled man, was not fastidious as to company. Being a youth of theworld, Dare made himself agreeable to that gentleman, and afterwardstried to do the same with Miss De Stancy. At this the captain, to whomthe situation for some time had been amazingly uncomfortable, pleadedsome excuse for going out, and left the room.
Dare continued his endeavours to say a few polite nothings to CharlotteDe Stancy, in the course of which he drew from his pocket his new silkhandkerchief. By some chance a card came out with the handkerchief, andfluttered downwards. His momentary instinct was to make a grasp at thecard and conceal it: but it had already tumbled to the floor, where itlay face upward beside Charlotte De Stancy's chair.
It was neither a visiting nor a playing card, but one bearing aphotographic portrait of a peculiar nature. It was what Dare hadcharacterized as his best joke in speaking on the subject to Captain DeStancy: he had in the morning put it ready in his pocket to give to thecaptain, and had in fact held it in waiting between his finger and thumbwhile talking to him in the Platz, meaning that he should make use of itagainst his rival whenever convenient. But his sharp conversation withthat soldier had dulled his zest for this final joke at Somerset'sexpense, had at least shown him that De Stancy would not adopt the jokeby accepting the photograph and using it himself, and determined him tolay it aside till a more convenient time. So fully had he made up hismind on this course, that when the photograph slipped out he did not atfirst perceive the appositeness of the circumstance, in putting into hisown hands the role he had intended for De Stancy; though it was assertedafterwards that the whole scene was deliberately planned. However, oncehaving seen the accident, he resolved to take the current as it served.
The card having fallen beside her, Miss De Stancy glanced over it, whichindeed she could not help doing. The smile that had previously hung uponher lips was arrested as if by frost and she involuntarily uttered alittle distressed cry of 'O!' like one in bodily pain.
Paula, who had been talking to her uncle during this interlude, startedround, and wondering what had happened, inquiringly crossed the roomto poor Charlotte's side, asking her what was the matter. Charlotte hadregained self-possession, though not enough to enable her to reply, andPaula asked her a second time what had made her exclaim like that. MissDe Stancy still seemed confused, whereupon Paula noticed that her eyeswere continually drawn as if by fascination towards the photograph onthe floor, which, contrary to his first impulse, Dare, as has beensaid, now seemed in no hurry to regain. Surmising at last that the card,whatever it was, had something to do with the exclamation, Paula pickedit up.
It was a portrait of Somerset; but by a device known in photographythe operator, though contriving to produce what seemed to be a perfectlikeness, had given it the distorted features and wild attitude of a manadvanced in intoxication. No woman, unless specially cognizant of suchpossibilities, could have looked upon it and doubted that the photographwas a genuine illustration of a customary phase in the young man'sprivate life.
Paula observed it, thoroughly took it in; but the effect upon her was byno means clear. Charlotte's eyes at once forsook the portrait to dwellon Paula's face. It paled a little, and this was followed by a hotblush--perceptibly a blush of shame. That was all. She flung the picturedown on the table, and moved away.
It was now Mr. Power's turn. Anticipating Dare, who was advancing witha deprecatory look to seize the photograph, he also grasped it. When hesaw whom it represented he seemed both amused and startled, and afterscanning it a while handed it to the young man with a queer smile.
'I am very sorry,' began Dare in a low voice to Mr. Power. 'I fear I wasto blame for thoughtlessness in not destroying it. But I thought it wasrather funny that a man should permit such a thing to be done, and thatthe humour would redeem the offence.'
'In you, for purchasing it,' said Paula with haughty quickness from theother side of the room. 'Though probably his friends, if he has any,would say not in him.'
There was silence in the room after this, and Dare, finding himselfrather in the way, took his leave as unostentatiously as a cat that hasupset the family china, though he continued to say among his apologiesthat he was not aware Mr. Somerset was a personal friend of the ladies.
Of all the thoughts which filled
the minds of Paula and Charlotte DeStancy, the thought that the photograph might have been a fabricationwas probably the last. To them that picture of Somerset had all thecogency of direct vision. Paula's experience, much less Charlotte's, hadnever lain in the fields of heliographic science, and they would as soonhave thought that the sun could again stand still upon Gibeon, asthat it could be made to falsify men's characters in delineating theirfeatures. What Abner Power thought he himself best knew. He might haveseen such pictures before; or he might never have heard of them.
While pretending to resume his reading he closely observed Paula, as didalso Charlotte De Stancy; but thanks to the self-management whichwas Miss Power's as much by nature as by art, she dissembled whateveremotion was in her.
'It is a pity a professional man should make himself so ludicrous,' shesaid with such careless intonation that it was almost impossible,even for Charlotte, who knew her so well, to believe her indifferencefeigned.
'Yes,' said Mr. Power, since Charlotte did not speak: 'it is what Iscarcely should have expected.'
'O, I am not surprised!' said Paula quickly. 'You don't know all.' Theinference was, indeed, inevitable that if her uncle were made aware ofthe telegram he would see nothing unlikely in the picture. 'Well, youare very silent!' continued Paula petulantly, when she found that nobodywent on talking. 'What made you cry out "O," Charlotte, when Mr. Daredropped that horrid photograph?'
'I don't know; I suppose it frightened me,' stammered the girl.
'It was a stupid fuss to make before such a person. One would think youwere in love with Mr. Somerset.'
'What did you say, Paula?' inquired her uncle, looking up from thenewspaper which he had again resumed.
'Nothing, Uncle Abner.' She walked to the window, and, as if to tideover what was plainly passing in their minds about her, she began tomake remarks on objects in the street. 'What a quaint being--look,Charlotte!' It was an old woman sitting by a stall on the opposite sideof the way, which seemed suddenly to hit Paula's sense of the humorous,though beyond the fact that the dame was old and poor, and wore a whitehandkerchief over her head, there was really nothing noteworthy abouther.
Paula seemed to be more hurt by what the silence of her companionsimplied--a suspicion that the discovery of Somerset's depravity waswounding her heart--than by the wound itself. The ostensible ease withwhich she drew them into a bye conversation had perhaps the defectof proving too much: though her tacit contention that no love was inquestion was not incredible on the supposition that affronted pridealone caused her embarrassment. The chief symptom of her heart beingreally tender towards Somerset consisted in her apparent blindness toCharlotte's secret, so obviously suggested by her momentary agitation.