next morning early i picked a quarrel with hubbard, and left him biting his finger nails. i went straight to jermyn street with my valise. weldon was in bed. i told him i had had a fight with hubbard and asked to be put up for a few days. he agreed with acclamation, though i am sure he was perfectly astounded at my strange request. i proceeded to astound him further. i mendaciously informed him that my nerves were in rags and that i was obsessed with a horrible hallucination of a mysteriously threatened life at night. would, then, he give me a shakedown in his own bedroom, just for a week? it is wonderful how easy lying comes to one after the first plunge. i did the thing thoroughly. mind you, i felt all along the utmost scorn for dr. belleville's threats against young weldon's life. but miss ottley had asked me to look after him, and i was determined to fulfil the trust to the very foot of the letter. he was a splendid fellow to live with. it gives me a heartache to remember the anxiety to make me comfortable, the almost absurd cordiality[pg 146] of his welcome, the unselfish sincerity of his desire to please. one would have thought me a superior creation, a sort of divinity in disguise, the way he treated me. i had never awakened such affection in any living thing before, except in a mongrel retriever which once upon a time followed me home and which i had to turn away after it had licked my hand. and the amazing thing was, i had done nothing in the world to deserve it. i had never put myself out of my way in the smallest particular to serve the captain. when we first met i had treated him with the scantest courtesy and afterwards with a sort of good-natured contempt. even now i cannot understand it properly. it may have arisen from a secret disposition to hero-worship. some men are like that. they are fond of investing a sentient figure-head with exaggerated attributes of majesty and bowing down before it. it is the survival of an aboriginal instinct to glorify the insubordinate. weldon admired two things above all others: strength of body and strength of mind. in both these gifts he felt himself inferior to me, therefore he must needs put me on a pedestal. his gratitude in finding me willing to stoop to ask a favour of him was unbounded. it resembled that of an eton fag to a monitor kind enough to take an interest in his doings. i have said before that he was essentially a boy at heart. but what an honest, clean-minded, fresh, wholehearted boy! i found myself liking and admiring[pg 147] him more and more each day. he taught me one of the greatest truths a man may learn. it is this—there is a more admirable thing in the world than intellect. weldon's intellect was not of the first order. that is why i began by very nearly despising him. but he was the straightest, truest, manliest and simplest-minded man i have ever met. and i ended by half-humorously but none the less sincerely, reverencing him. if it were only for his sake i shall while i live regard the highest type of brain as incomplete without a paramount ideal of morality. and the best thing about weldon was that he was utterly unconscious of his goodness. he was perfectly incapable of posing, but he had a fine, robust vanity of sorts, and he liked to regard himself as a bit of a "sad dog!" romance was at the bottom of this. he envied the more than questionable experience of some of his acquaintances. it was because of the glamour of their perfumed wickedness. but their callous self-extrication from entanglements after growing weary of their chains made him long to wring their necks. for his own part, a certain shop girl had once fallen in love with him. he twirled his moustache and cast furtive glances at the mirror near him. it appears he had dallied with the temptation for a while—the "sad dog"—but miss ottley's portrait had saved him. he had kissed the shop girl once—horror of horrors!—in the park after dark. he apologised to her father with a thousand pounds and fled to[pg 148] south america. when he came back she was married. he had confessed the whole of his truly dreadful criminality to miss ottley in a letter—and she had kept him waiting three miserable days for a reply. he believed he would have gone to the dogs headlong if she had refused to pardon him. but she did not. vanity told him the reason. but it was beautiful to see the colour flush his cheeks and his eyes sparkle as he protested that he couldn't understand why she ever brought herself to speak to him again. i believe that was as far as weldon ever got to telling a downright falsehood; the dear, great gander.
on the third afternoon of my stay at jermyn street i was busily at work writing, when a knock sounded. weldon was out; he had gone to take miss ottley for a drive in his newest dogcart. his man, too, had a day off, so i was quite alone. i said "come in," and there entered lady helen—hubbard's wife. she was a vision of lace fripperies and arch, mincing daintiness.
"so! run to earth!" she cried.
i sprang up and offered her a chair.
she settled into it with a swish and a sigh. "been searching for you everywhere! i had thought of applying to the police."
i suppose i looked astonished, for she laughed.
i stammered, "why have you been searching for me?"
she gave me a glance of scorn. "should a [pg 149]dutiful wife regard with indifference the sudden desertion of her husband by the only friend he possesses? just tell me that."
"you take my breath away."
"no," she flashed, "the 'dutiful wife' did that. confess!"
"well, since you insist—i admit that helen becomes you better than joan," i said audaciously.
her eyes glittered. "may be, my fine gentleman—but would you say 'dixon' was synonymous with 'darby'?"
"not quite. still, they both commence with a 'd.' that is something, eh?"
"so does another word which rhymes with lamb," she retorted cuttingly. "oh! i might have known that you would take his part. you men always stick together."
"i beg your pardon, lady helen. i consider that you deserve well of your country. you have improved hubbard past belief. he is worth improving."
she smiled. "i have humanised him, just a little, don't you think?"
i nodded.
she leaned forward suddenly and looked me in the eye. "it's only the commencement, the thin edge of the wedge."
"oh!"
she began speaking through her teeth. "i'll[pg 150] make a man of him yet if i have to beggar him in the process."
"i beg you to excuse me."
she fell back and began to laugh. "oh, how solemn you are. you disapprove of me. ha! ha! ha! you don't even begin to hide it."
"you see i do not understand you."
"yet you disapprove?"
"no. i wonder."
"you are a man, doctor, that one can't help trusting!" she stood up and began to move about the room. "i am going to confide in you," she announced, stopping suddenly.
"a dangerous experiment," i observed.
"one risks death every time one crosses a car-crowded thoroughfare. i'll take the risk."
i shrugged my shoulders.
she frowned. "you used to like me once. what stopped you?"
"i haven't stopped."
she smiled bewitchingly and, gliding forward, placed her hand upon my arm. "he wanted to take me away to south america—he owns a ranch there—and to bury us two for ever from the world. that was his idea of marriage. it all came of a rooted disbelief in his own ability to keep me interested in himself while i possessed an opportunity to contrast him with his social equals. he saw a rival in every man i looked at or who looked at me. he should have been born a turk. i should[pg 151] then have been the queen of his zenana. but no, i must do him justice—he is not polygamously inclined. still, he would have shut me up."
"the poor devil," i muttered. "it is his disposition. he cannot help himself."
"but he may be cured of it," said lady helen. "he thinks every woman is a rake at heart. but he is mad. i for one am not. mind you, i love society. i like men. i live for admiration. but as to—pshaw!"—she spread out her hands.
"you quarrelled?" i inquired.
"no, we argued the matter out and came to an arrangement. we are good friends. but he does not conceal his opinion that some day or another i will go to the devil. he thinks it inevitable. pride, however, forbids him from looking on except at a distance. that is why he separated from me. he imagines that no woman can keep true to one man unless she is immured. the fool, the utter fool! as if walls and locks and keys were ever an encumbrance. love is the only solid guarantee of a woman's faith."
"but my dear lady helen, your husband has not the faintest idea that you love him!"
she drew back gasping. "you—you—you!" she cried. she was scarlet. then she said, "how dare you!" she looked so lovely that i no longer wondered at hubbard's infatuation.
"you should not have kept it from him," i said severely. "but there, it's wonderful. how did[pg 152] you ever manage it? he is not an attractive man. and you—a butterfly. it is a miracle. there must be depths in you. are marriages made in heaven? i thought—he thinks—you married him for his money. and you love him! i shall never get over this. lady helen, you are a most amazing woman!"
she rushed at me panting with rage and, seizing my arm, shook it with both hands. "if ever you tell him—i'll—i'll kill you!" she hissed.
"but why?"
"he must find out himself. he must suffer. he deserves it. he has bitterly insulted me. he has shamed my sex. he must gnaw out his heart. in no other way can he be made like other men. i'll teach him. i'll teach him. oh, if you dare to interfere! but you shan't—you would not dare."
"no," i said, "i would not dare."
next second she was in another mood. her anger melted to pathos and the little siren began to plead to me. "you know what i really want you to do is to help me," she murmured, oh! so prettily. "and it is all for dixon's sake, or really and truly i would not ask. you see, doctor, i am working on a system. goodness, how i am trusting you! and you can help, oh! ever so much."
"only tell me how."
"do not lose a chance to revile me."
i was staggered. "i beg your pardon, lady helen!" i cried.
"ah! i thought you would understand. don't you see you are his only friend? more than that, you are the only man he ever speaks to. he is a hermit. well, then, who else is there to reproach me to his ears? to put his own thoughts of me into words?"
"but what on earth do you want that done for?"
"it will compel him to defend me, first by lip, then by heart."
i confess i whistled.
"i felt it to be necessary to have this talk with you," went on lady helen. "hitherto he has done all the reviling and you the defending of me. is it not so?"
"you little witch."
"and that is not right, since it is he, and not you, who is my husband."
"lady helen, you are surely the cleverest woman in the world."
"i have thought the matter out," she answered, with a sad little smile. "is it wonderful that a woman should wish to be happy and that she should fight for that with every weapon she can find?" she rose and held out her hand. "you will go and make friends soon, will you not? he is fretting because you have deserted him."
"in a very few days, lady helen. i wish i could this moment, but i cannot."
"you are very busy, eh?"
"i have a task to carry out. it will be finished at the end of the week."
"so!" she said and shrugged her shoulders. "and are you quite engaged? could you not come to me to-night? your friend captain weldon comes, and some others. we are to have our fortunes told. signor navarro has promised us a séance. miss ottley has arranged it. she tells me he is a truly marvellous clairvoyant, medium, et-cetera. have you a curiosity to know your future? do come! dixon will be there."
"thank you very much; yes, i shall be glad to go."
i opened the door for her and she blew me a kiss from the stairs. i returned to my work, but it was very little i was able to do the rest of that afternoon. what could have induced miss ottley to arrange this séance? were her nerves giving way under the strain of dr. belleville's threats? did she really believe this rascal navarro capable of predicting events? was she becoming superstitious? these reflections profoundly disturbed me.
