Covers were laid on the table in the centre of the room, and the apartment was lit by clusters of wax candles in solid chandeliers. Miss Challoner’s new friend was standing by the fireplace. He came forward to meet her, and taking her hand at once remarked on its coldness. She confessed that she was still feeling chilly, and told him that the stage had been full of draughts. She went to the fire, and spread out her hands to the blaze. “I find this very welcome, sir,” she said, smiling up at him. “You are indeed kind to invite me to sup with you.”
He surveyed her somewhat enigmatically. “You shall let me know later how I may serve you further,” he said. “Will you not be seated?”
She walked to the table, and sat down at his right hand. A liveried servant came in noiselessly, and set soup before them. He would have stayed behind his master’s chair, but a slight sign dismissed him.
Miss Challoner drank her soup, realizing suddenly that it was many hours since she had partaken of food. She was relieved to find that her host did not seem to require an immediate explanation of her peculiar circumstances, but talked gently instead on a number of impersonal subjects. He had a caustic way with him, which Miss Challoner found entertaining. There was often a twinkle in her eye, and since her knowledge was sufficiently wide (for, unlike her friend Juliana, she had not wasted her time at school), she was able not only to listen, but to contribute her own share to the conversation. By the time the sweetmeats were set on the table she and her host were getting on famously, and she had quite lost any shyness that she might at first have felt. He encouraged her to talk, sitting back in his chair, sipping his wine, and watching her. To begin with, she had found his scrutiny a little trying, for his face told her nothing of what he might be thinking, but she was not the woman to be easily unnerved, and she looked back at him, whenever occasion demanded, with her usual friendly calm.
She could not be rid of the conviction that she had met him before, and the effort to remember where brought a crease between her brows. Observing it, her host said: “Something troubles you, Miss Challoner?”
She smiled. “No, sir, hardly that. Perhaps it is ridiculous of me to suppose it, but I have an odd feeling that I have met you before. I have not?”
He set his glass down, and stretched out his hand for the decanter. “No, Miss Challoner, you have not.”
She was tempted to ask his name, but since he was so very much older than herself she did not care to appear in the least familiar. If he wished her to know it no doubt he would tell her.
She laid down her napkin, and rose. “I have been talking a great deal, I fear,” she said. “May I thank you, sir, for a pleasant evening, and for your exceeding kindness, and so bid you good-night?”
“Don’t go,” he said. “Your reputation is quite safe, and the night is still young. Without wishing to seem idly curious, I should like to hear why you are journeying unprotected, through France. Do you think I am entitled to an explanation?”
She remained standing beside her chair. “Yes, sir, I do think it,” she answered quietly. “For my situation must seem indeed strange. But unhappily I am not able to give you the true explanation, and since I do not wish to repay your kindness with lies it is better that I should offer none. May I wish you good-night, sir?”
“Not yet,” he said. “Sit down, my child.”
She looked at him for a moment, and after some slight hesitation, obeyed, lightly clasping her hands in the lap of her grey gown.
The stranger regarded her over the brim of his wineglass. “May I ask why you find yourself unable to proffer the true explanation?”
She seemed to ponder her reply for a while. “There are several reasons, sir. The truth is so very nearly as strange as Mr. Walpole’s famous romance that perhaps I fear to be disbelieved.”
He tilted his glass, observing the reflection of the candlelight in the deep red wine. “But did you not say, Miss Challoner, that you would not lie to me?” he inquired softly.
Her eyes narrowed. “You are very acute, sir.”
“I have that reputation,” he agreed.
His words touched a chord of memory in her brain, but she was unable to catch the fleeting remembrance. She said: “You are quite right, sir: that is not my reason. The truth is there is someone else involved in my story.”
“I had supposed that there might be,” he replied. “Am I to understand that your lips are sealed out of consideration for this other person?”
“Not entirely, sir, but in part, yes.”
“Your sentiments are most elevating, Miss Challoner. But this punctiliousness is quite needless, believe me. Lord Vidal’s exploits have never been attended by any secrecy.”
She jumped, and her eyes flew to his face in a look of startled interrogation. He smiled. “I had the felicity of meeting your esteemed grandparent at Newmarket not many days since,” he said. “Upon hearing that I was bound for France he requested me to inquire for you on my way through Paris.”
“He knew?” she said blankly.
“Without doubt he knew.”
She covered her face with her hands. “My mother must have told him,” she said almost inaudibly. “It is worse, then, than I thought.”
He put his wineglass down, and pushed his chair a little way back from the table. “I beg you will not distress yourself, Miss Challoner. The role of confidant is certainly new to me, but I trust I know the rules.”
She got up and went over to the fire, trying to collect her thoughts, and to compose her natural agitation. The gentleman at the table took snuff, and waited for her to return. She did so in a minute or two, with a certain brisk determination that characterized her. She was rather pale, but completely mistress of herself. “If you know that I — left England with Lord Vidal, sir, I am more than ever grateful for your hospitality to-night, and an explanation is beyond doubt due to you,” she said. “I do not know how much you have learned of me, but since no one in England knows the whole truth, I fear you may have been quite misinformed on several points.”
“It is more than likely,” agreed her host. “May I suggest that you tell me the whole story? I have every intention of helping you out of your somewhat difficult situation, but I desire to know exactly why you left England with Lord Vidal, and why I find you to-day, apparently alone and friendless.”
She leaned towards him, her face eager. “Will you help me, sir? Will you help me to obtain a post as governess in some French family, so that I need not go back to England, but can maintain myself abroad?”
“Is that what you want?” he inquired incredulously.
“Yes, sir, indeed it is.”
“Dear me!” he remarked. “You seem to be a female of great resource. Pray begin your story.”
“In doing so, sir, I am forced to betray the — folly — of my sister. I dare say I need not ask you to — to forget that part of the tale.”
“My memory is most adaptable, Miss Challoner.”
“Thank you, sir. You must know then that I have a sister who is very young, foolish as girls are sometimes, and very, very lovely. Her path was crossed, not so long ago, by the Marquis of Vidal.”
“Naturally,” murmured her host.
“Naturally, sir?”
“Oh, I think so,” he said, with a faintly satirical smile. “If she is — very, very lovely — I feel sure that the Marquis of Vidal would cross her path. But continue, I beg of you!”
She inclined her head. “Very well, sir. This part of the story is very hard to tell, for I do not wish to give you to understand that the Marquis — forced his attentions upon an unwilling female. My sister encouraged him, and led him to suppose that she was — that she — ”
“I comprehend perfectly, Miss Challoner.”
She threw him a grateful look. “Yes, sir. Well, the end of it was that the Marquis induced my sister to consent to fly with him. I discovered their assignation, which was for eleven o’clock one evening. I should explain that the billet his lordship sent my sister, appointing the hour, fell into my hands, and not hers. There were reasons, sir, into which I shall not drag you, which prevented me from informing my mother of this dreadful elopement. I need not tell you, sir, that his lordship did not contemplate marriage. It seemed to me that I must contrive not only to stop the actual flight, but to put an end to an affair that would only mean Sophia’s ruin. When I look back I marvel at my own simplicity. I conceived the notion of taking Sophia’s place in the coach, and when he discovered the imposture it was my intention to make him believe that Sophia and I had planned it between us, for a jest. I thought that nothing would more surely disgust him.” She paused, and added dryly: “I was quite right.”
The gentleman twisted the emerald ring on his finger. “Do I understand that you carried out this remarkable
