champion come to the defense of an unhappy and persecuted woman.
He wondered when an opportunity should arise which would enable him to commence his chivalrous operations; almost daily he anticipated instructions to the effect that Mrs. Leroux would be leaving for Paris immediately. But the days glided by and the weeks glided by, without anything occurring to break the monotony of the Leroux household.
Mr. Soames sought an opportunity to express his respectful readiness to Mrs. Leroux; but the lady was rarely visible outside her own apartments until late in the day, when she would be engaged in preparing for the serious business of the evening: one night a dance, another, a bridge-party; so it went. Mr. Leroux rarely joined her upon these festive expeditions, but clung to his study like Diogenes to his tub.
Great was Mr. Soames' contempt; bitter were the reproaches of the cook; dark were the predictions of the housemaid.
At last, however, Soames, feeling himself neglected, seized an opportunity which offered to cement the secret bond (the TOO secret bond) existing between himself and the mistress of the house.
Meeting her one afternoon in the lobby, which she was crossing on the way from her bedroom to the drawing-room, he stood aside to let her pass, whispering:
'At your service, whenever you are ready, madam!'
It was a non-committal remark, which, if she chose to keep up the comedy, he could explain away by claiming it to refer to the summoning of the car from the garage—for Mrs. Leroux was driving out that afternoon.
She did not endeavor to evade the occult meaning of the words, however. In the wearily dreamy manner which, when first he had seen her, had aroused Soames' respectful interest, she raised her thin hand to her hair, slowly pressing it back from her brow, and directed her big eyes vacantly upon him.
'Yes, Soames,' she said (her voice had a faraway quality in keeping with the rest of her personality), 'Mr. King speaks well of you. But please do not refer again to'—she glanced in a manner at once furtive and sorrowful, in the direction of the study-door—'to the … little arrangement of'…
She passed on, with the slow, gliding gait, which, together with her fragility, sometimes lent her an almost phantomesque appearance.
This was comforting, in its degree; since it proved that the smiling Gianapolis had in no way misled him (Soames). But as a man of business, Mr. Soames was not fully satisfied. He selected an evening when Mrs. Leroux was absent—and indeed she was absent almost every evening, for Leroux entertained but little. The cook and the housemaid were absent, also; therefore, to all intents and purposes, Soames had the flat to himself; since Henry Leroux counted in that establishment, not as an entity, but rather as a necessary, if unornamental, portion of the fittings.
Standing in the lobby, Soames raised the telephone receiver, and having paused with closed eyes preparing the exact form of words in which he should address his invisible employer, he gave the number: East 18642.
Following a brief delay:—
'Yes,' came a nasal voice, 'who is it?'
'Soames! I want to speak to Mr. King!'
The words apparently surprised the man at the other end of the wire, for he hesitated ere inquiring:—
'What did you say your name was?'
'Soames—Luke Soames.'
'Hold on!'
Soames, with closed eyes, and holding the receiver to his ear, silently rehearsed again the exact wording of his speech. Then:—
'Hullo!' came another voice—'is that Mr. Soames?'
'Yes! Is that Mr. Gianapolis speaking?'
'It is, my dear Soames!' replied the sing-song voice; and Soames, closing his eyes again, had before him a mental picture of the radiantly smiling Greek.
'Yes, my dear Soames,' continued Gianapolis; 'here I am. I hope you are quite well—perfectly well?'
'I am perfectly well, thank you; but as a man of business, it has occurred to me that failing a proper agreement—which in this case I know would be impossible—a trifling advance on the first quarter's'…
'On your salary, my dear Soames! On your salary? Payment for the first quarter shall be made to you to- morrow, my dear Soames! Why ever did you not express the wish before? Certainly, certainly!'…
'Will it be sent to me?'
'My dear fellow! How absurd you are! Can you get out to-morrow evening about nine o'clock?'
'Yes, easily.'
'Then I will meet you at the corner of Victoria Street, by the hotel, and hand you your first quarter's salary. Will that be satisfactory?'
'Perfectly,' said Soames, his small eyes sparkling with avarice. 'Most decidedly, Mr. Gianapolis. Many thanks.'…
'And by the way,' continued the other, 'it is rather fortunate that you rang me up this evening, because it has saved me the trouble of ringing you up.'
'What?'—Soames' eyes half closed, from the bottom lids upwards:—'there is something'…
'There is a trifling service which I require of you—yes, my dear Soames.'
'Is it?'…
'We will discuss the matter to-morrow evening. Oh! it is a mere trifle. So good-by for the present.'
Soames, with the fingers of his two hands interlocked before him, and his thumbs twirling rapidly around one another, stood in the lobby, gazing reflectively at the rug-strewn floor. He was working out in his mind how handsomely this first payment would show up on the welcome side of his passbook. Truly, he was fortunate in having met the generous Gianapolis… .
He thought of a trifling indiscretion committed at the expense of one Mr. Mapleson, and of the wine-bill of Colonel Hewett; and he thought of the apparently clairvoyant knowledge of the Greek. A cloud momentarily came between his perceptive and the rosy horizon.
But nearer to the foreground of the mental picture, uprose a left-hand page of his pass book; and its tidings of great joy, written in clerkly hand, served to dispel the cloud.
Soames sighed in gentle rapture, and, soft-footed, passed into his own room.
Certainly his duties were neither difficult nor unpleasant. The mistress of the house lived apparently in a hazy dream-world of her own, and Mr. Leroux was the ultimate expression of the non-commercial. Mr. Soames could have robbed him every day had he desired to do so; but he had refrained from availing himself even of those perquisites which he considered justly his; for it was evident, to his limited intelligence, that greater profit was to be gained by establishing himself in this household than by weeding-out five shillings here, and half-a-sovereign there, at the risk of untimely dismissal.
Yet—it was a struggle! All Mr. Soames' commercial instincts were up in arms against this voice of a greater avarice which counseled abstention. For instance: he could have added half-a-sovereign a week to his earnings by means of a simple arrangement with the local wine merchant. Leroux's cigars he could have sold by the hundreds; for Leroux, when a friend called, would absently open a new box, entirely forgetful of the fact that a box from which but two—or at most three—cigars had been taken, lay already on the bureau.
Mr. Soames, in order to put his theories to the test, had temporarily abstracted half-a-dozen such boxes from the study and the dining-room and had hidden them. Leroux, finding, as he supposed, that he was out of cigars, had simply ordered Soames to get him some more.
'Er—about a dozen boxes—er—Soames,' he had said; 'of the same sort!'
Was ever a man of business submitted to such an ordeal? After receiving those instructions, Soames had sat for close upon an hour in his own room, contemplating the six broken boxes, containing in all some five hundred and ninety cigars; but the voice within prevailed; he must court no chance of losing his situation; therefore, he 'discovered' these six boxes in a cupboard—much to Henry Leroux's surprise!
Then, Leroux regularly sent him to the Charing Cross branch of the London County and Suburban Bank with open checks! Sometimes, he would be sent to pay in, at other times to withdraw; the amounts involved varying from one guinea to 150 pounds! But, as he told himself, on almost every occasion that he went to Leroux's bank, he was deliberately throwing money away, deliberately closing his eyes to the good fortune which this careless and
