CHAPTER VI
THE MASK
The bride and bridegroom departed amid a storm of rice and good wishes,Ina's face still wearing that slightly contemptuous smile to the last.Piers, in the foremost of the crowd, threw a handful straight into herlap as the car started, but only he and Dick Guyes saw her gather it upwith sudden energy and fling it back in his face.
Piers dropped off the step laughing. "Ye gods! What fun for DickGuyes!" he said.
A hand grasped his shoulder, and he turned and saw Lennox Tudor.
"Hullo!" he said, sharply freeing himself.
"I want a word with you," said Tudor briefly.
A wary look came into Piers' face on the instant. He looked at Tudor withthe measuring eye of a fencer.
"What about?" he asked.
"I can't tell you here. Will you walk back with me? Lady Evesham hasalready gone in the car."
Piers' black brows went up, "Why was that? Wasn't she well?"
"No," said Tudor curtly.
"But she will send the car back," said Piers, stubbornly refusing tobetray himself.
"No, she won't. I told her we would walk."
"The devil you did!" said Piers.
He turned his back on Tudor, and went into the house.
But Tudor was undaunted. In a battle of wills, he was fully a match forPiers. He kept close behind.
Eventually, Piers turned upon him. "Look here! I'll give you five minutesin the library. I'm not going to walk three miles with you in thisblazing heat. It would be damned unhealthy for us both. Moreover, I'vepromised to spend the evening with Colonel Rose."
It was the utmost he could hope for, and Tudor had the sense to acceptwhat he could get. He followed him to the library in silence.
They found it empty, and Tudor quietly turned the key.
"What's that for?" demanded Piers sharply.
"Because I don't want to be disturbed," returned Tudor.
He moved forward into the middle of the room and faced Piers.
"I have an unpleasant piece of news for you," he said, in a grim,emotionless voice. "That cousin of Guyes'--you have met him before, Ithink? He claims to know something of your past, and he has beentalking--somewhat freely."
"What has he been saying?" said Piers.
He stood up before Tudor with the arrogance of a man who mocks defeat,but there was a gleam of desperation in his eyes--something of thecornered animal in his very nonchalance.
A queer touch of pity moved Tudor from his attitude of cold informer.There was an undercurrent of something that was almost sympathy in hisvoice as he made reply.
"The fellow was more or less drunk, but I am afraid he was rathercircumstantial. He recognized in you a man who had killed some chum ofhis years ago, in Queensland."
"Well?" said Piers.
Just the one word, uttered like a command! Tudor's softer impulse passed.
"He was bawling it out at the top of his voice. A good many people musthave heard him. I was in this room with Lady Evesham. We heard also."
"Well?" Piers said again.
He spoke without stirring an eyelid, and again, involuntarily, Tudor wasmoved, this time with a species of unwilling admiration. The fellow wasno coward at least.
He went on steadily. "It was impossible not to hear what the beast said.He mentioned names also,--your name and the name of the man whom healleged you had killed. Lady Evesham heard it. We both heard it."
He paused. Piers had not moved. His face was like a mask in itscomposure, but it was a dreadful mask. Tudor had a feeling that it hidunutterable things.
"What was the man's name?" Piers asked, after a moment.
"Denys--Eric Denys."
Piers nodded, as one verifying a piece of information. His next questioncame with hauteur and studied indifference.
"Lady Evesham heard, you say? Did she pay any attention to these maudlinrevelations?"
"She fainted," said Tudor shortly.
"Oh? And what happened then?"
It was maddeningly cold-blooded; but it was the mask that spoke. Tudorrecognized that.
"I brought her round," he made answer. "No one else was present. Shebegged me to let her go home alone. I did so."
"She also asked you to make full explanation to me?" came in measuredtones from Piers.
"She did." Tudor paused a moment as though he found some difficulty informing his next words. But he went on almost at once with resolution."She said to me at parting: 'I must be alone. I must think. Beg Piers tounderstand! Beg him not to see me again to-day! I will talk to him inthe morning!' I promised to deliver the message exactly as she gave it."
"Thank you," said Piers. He turned with the words, moved away to thewindow, and looked forth at the now deserted marquee.
Tudor stood mutely waiting; he felt as if it had been laid uponhim to wait.
Suddenly Piers jerked his head round and glanced at the chair in whichAvery had been sitting, then abruptly turned himself and looked at Tudor.
"What were you--and my wife--doing in here?" he said.
Tudor frowned impatiently at the question. "Oh, don't be a fool,Evesham!" he said with vehemence.
"I'm not a fool." Piers left the window with the gait of a prowlinganimal; he stood again face to face with the other man. But though hisfeatures were still mask-like, his eyes shone through the mask; and theywere eyes of leaping flame. "Oh, I am no fool, I assure you," he said,and in his voice there sounded a deep vibration that was almost like asnarl. "I know you too well by this time to be hoodwinked. You would comebetween us if you could."
"You lie!" said Tudor.
He did not raise his voice or speak in haste. His vehemence had departed.He simply made the statement as if it had been a wholly impersonal one.
Piers' hands clenched, but they remained at his sides. He looked at Tudorhard, as if he did not understand him.
After a moment Tudor spoke again. "I am no friend of yours, and I nevershall be. But I am the friend of your wife, and--whether you like it ornot--I shall remain so. For that reason, whatever I do will be in yourinterests as well as hers. I have not the smallest intention or desire tocome between you. And if you use your wits you will see that I couldn'tif I tried. Your marriage with her tied my hands."
"What proof have I of that?" said Piers, his voice low and fierce.
Tudor made a slight gesture of disgust. "I am dealing with facts, notproofs," he said. "You know as well as I do that though you obtained herlove on false pretences, still you obtained it. Whether you will keep itor not remains to be seen, but she is not the sort of woman to solaceherself with anyone else. If you lose it, it will be because you failedto guard your own property--not because anyone deprived you of it."
"Damnation!" exclaimed Piers furiously, and with the word the storm ofhis anger broke like a fiery torrent, sweeping all before it, "are youtaking me to task, you--you--for this accursed trick of Fate? How was Ito know that this infernal little sot would turn up here? Why, I don't somuch as know the fellow's name! I had forgotten his very existence! Wherethe devil is he? Let me find him, and break every bone in his body!" Hewhirled round to the door, but in a moment was back again. "Tudor! Damnyou! Where's the key?"
"In my pocket," said Tudor quietly. "And, Piers, before you go--since Iam your ally in spite of myself--let me warn you to keep your head!There's no sense in murdering another man. It won't improve your case.There's no sense in running amok. Sit down for Heaven's sake, and reviewthe situation quietly!"
The calm words took effect. Piers stopped, arrested in spite of himselfby the other's steady insistence. He looked at Tudor with half-sullenrespect dawning behind his ungoverned fury.
"Listen!" Tudor said. "The fellow has gone. I packed him off myself. Itwas a piece of sheer ill-luck that brought him home in time for thisshow. He starts for America _en route_ for Australia in less than a week,and it is utterly unlikely that either you or any of your friends willsee or hear anything more of him. Guyes himself is by no means keen onhim an
d only had him as best man because a friend failed him at the lastminute. If you behave rationally the whole affair will probably pass offof itself. Everyone knows the fellow was intoxicated, and no one islikely to pay any lasting attention to what he said. Treat the matter asunworthy of notice, and you will very possibly hear no more of it! But ifyou kick up a row, you will simply court disaster. I am an older man thanyou are. Take my word for it,--I know what I am talking about."
Piers listened in silence. The heat had gone from his face, but his eyesstill gleamed with a restless fire.
Tudor watched him keenly. Not by his own choice would he have rangedhimself on Piers' side, but circumstances having placed him there he wasoddly anxious to effect his deliverance. He was fighting heavy odds, andhe knew it, but there was a fighting strain in his nature also. Herelished the odds.
"For Heaven's sake don't be a fool and give the whole show away!" heurged. "You have no enemies. No one will want to take the matter up ifyou will only let it lie. No one wants to believe evil of you. Possiblyno one will."
"Except yourself!" said Piers, with a smile that showed his set teeth.
"Quite so." Tudor also smiled, a grim brief smile. "But then I happen toknow you better than most. You gave yourself away so far as I amconcerned that night in the winter. I knew then that once upon a time inyour career--you had--killed a man."
"And you didn't tell Avery!" The words shot out unexpectedly. Piers wasplainly astonished.
"I'm not a woman!" said Tudor contemptuously. "That affair wasbetween us two."
"Great Scott!" said Piers.
"At the same time," Tudor continued sternly, "if I had known what I knownow, I would have told her everything sooner than let her ruin herhappiness by marrying you."
Piers made a sharp gesture that passed unexplained. He had made noattempt at self-defence; he made none then. Perhaps his pride kicked atthe idea; perhaps in the face of Tudor's shrewd grip of the situation itdid not seem worth while.
He held out his hand. "May I have that key?"
Tudor gave it to him. He was still watching narrowly, but Piers' facetold him nothing. The mask had been replaced, and the man behind it wassecurely hidden from scrutiny. Tudor would have given much to have rentit aside, and have read the thoughts and intentions it covered. But heknew that he was powerless. He knew that he was deliberately barred out.
Piers went to the door and fitted the key into the lock. His actions wereall grimly deliberate. The volcanic fires which Tudor had seen raging buta few seconds before had sunk very far below the surface. Whatever washappening in the torture-chamber where his soul agonized, it was certainthat no human being--save possibly one--would ever witness it. What hesuffered he would suffer in proud aloofness and silence. It was only theeffect of that suffering that could ever be made apparent, when the soulcame forth again, blackened and shrivelled from the furnace.
Yet ere he left Tudor, some impulse moved him to look back.
He met Tudor's gaze with brooding eyes which nevertheless held a faintwarmth like the dim reflection of a light below the horizon.
"I am obliged to you," he said, and was gone before Tudor couldspeak again.