said Sir Paget. Waldo looked up with an awakened, though still sullen, animation. I was listening with a lively interest; somehow I felt sure that these two wise children of the world – what things must they not have seen between them? – would get at something.
“When her note came – that note, you know – what would you have said in her place? No, I don’t mean that. You’d have said: ‘Well, I’m damned!’ But what would you have expected her to say?”
“‘Great God!’ or perhaps ‘Good gracious!’” Sir Paget suggested doubtfully.
“She’s gone – gone!” I ventured to submit.
“Just so – just what I should have said,” Aunt Bertha agreed. “Something like that. What our friend Mrs. Knyvett did say to me was, ‘Miss Fleming, she’s done it!’”
“What did you say?” Sir Paget as nearly snapped this out as a man of his urbanity could snap.
“I don’t think I said anything. There seemed nothing to – ”
“Then you knew what she meant?”
Aunt Bertha pouted her lips and looked, as it might be, apprehensively, at Sir Paget.
“Yes, I suppose I must have,” she concluded – with an obvious air of genuine surprise.
“We sometimes find that we have known – in a way – things that we never realized that we knew,” said Sir Paget – “much what I said before. But – well, you and Mrs. Knyvett both seem to have had somewhere in your minds the idea – the speculation – that Lucinda might possibly do what she has done. Can you tell us at all why? Because that sort of thing doesn’t generally happen.”
“By God, no!” Waldo grunted out. “And I don’t see much good in all this jaw about it.”
A slight, still pretty, flush showed itself on Aunt Bertha’s wrinkled cheeks – hers seemed happy wrinkles, folds that smiles had turned, not furrows plowed by sorrow – “I’ve never been married,” she said, “and I was only once in love. He was killed in the Zulu war – when you were no more than a boy, Paget. So perhaps I’m no judge. But – darling Waldo, can you forgive me? She’s never of late looked like – like a girl waiting for her lover. That’s all I’ve got to go upon, Paget, absolutely all.”
I saw Waldo’s hands clench; he sat where he was, but seemed to do it with an effort.
“And Mrs. Knyvett?”
“Nothing to be got out of her just now. But, of course, if she really had the idea, it must have been because of Arsenio Valdez!”
The name seemed a spur-prick to Waldo; he almost jumped to his feet. “Oh, we sit here talking while – !” he mumbled. Then he raised his voice, giving his words a clearer, a more decisive articulation. “I’ve told you what I’m going to do. Julius can come with me or not, as he likes.”
“No, Waldo, you’re not going to do it. I love – I have loved – Lucinda. I held my arms open to her. I thought I was to have what I have never had, what I have envied many men for having – a daughter. Well, now – ” his voice, which had broken into tenderness, grew firm and indeed harsh again. “But now – what is she now?”
“Monkey Valdez’s woman!”
These words, from Waldo’s lips, were to me almost incredible. Not for their cruelty – I knew that he could be cruel in his rage – but for their coarse vulgarity. I did not understand how he could use them. A second later he so far repented – so far recovered his manners – as to say, “I beg your pardon for that, Aunt Bertha.”
“My poor boy!” was all the old lady said.
“Whatever she may be – even if she were really all that up to to-day you thought – you mustn’t go after her now, Waldo – neither you nor Julius with you.” He paused a moment, and then went on slowly. “In my deliberate judgment, based on certain facts which have reached me, and reënforced by my knowledge of certain persons in high positions, all Europe will be at war in a week, and this country will be in it – in a war to the death. You fellows will be wanted; we shall all be wanted. Is that the moment to find you two traipsing over the Continent on the track of a runaway couple, getting yourselves into prison, perhaps; anyhow quite uncertain of being able to get home and do your duty as gentlemen? And you, Waldo, are a soldier!”
Waldo sat down again; his eyes were set on his father’s face.
“You can’t suspect me of a trick – or a subterfuge. You know that I believe what I’m telling you, and you know that I shouldn’t believe it without weighty reasons?”
“Yes,” Waldo agreed in a low tone. His passion seemed to have left him; but his face and voice were full of despair. “This is pretty well a matter of life and death to me – to say nothing of honor.”
“Where does your honor really lie?” He threw away his cigarette, walked across to his son, and laid a hand on his shoulder. But he spoke first to me. “As I told you, I am breaking my word in mentioning this knowledge of mine. It is desirable to confine that breach of confidence to the narrowest possible limits. If I convince Waldo, will you, Julius, accept his decision?”
“Of course, Sir Paget. Besides, why should I go without him? Indeed, how could I – well, unless Mrs. Knyvett – ”
“Mrs. Knyvett has nothing to do with our side of the matter. Waldo, will you come out with me for an hour?”
Waldo rose slowly. “Yes. I should like to change first.” He still wore his frock coat and still had a white flower in his buttonhole. Receiving a nod of assent from Sir Paget, he left the room. Sir Paget returned to the fireplace and lit a fresh cigarette.
“He will do what’s right,” he pronounced. “And I think we’d better get him to Cragsfoot to-morrow. You come too, Julius. We’ll wait developments there. I have done and said what I could in quarters to which I have access. There’s nothing to do now but wait for the storm.”
He broke away from the subject with an abrupt turn to Aunt Bertha. “It’s a damned queer affair. Have you any views?”
“The mother’s weak and foolish, and keeps some rather second-rate company,” said the old lady. “Surroundings of that sort have their effect even on a good girl. And she’s very charming – isn’t she?”
“You know her yourself,” Sir Paget observed with a smile.
“To men, I mean. In that particular way, Paget?”
“Well, Julius?”
“Oh, without a doubt of it. Just born to make trouble!”
“Well, she’s made it! We shall meet again at tea, Aunt Bertha? I’ll pick up Waldo at his room along the passage. And I’d better get rid of my wedding ornament too.” He took the rose out of the lapel of his coat, flung it into the fireplace, and went out of the room, leaving me with Aunt Bertha.
“On the face of it, she has just suddenly and very tardily changed her mind, hadn’t the courage to face it and own up, and so has made a bolt of it?” I suggested.
“From love – sudden love, apparently – of Arsenio Valdez, or just to avoid Waldo? For there seems no real doubt that Arsenio’s taken her. He’s only once been to the flat, but the girl’s
