That letter from Celia was like vitriol dropped into an open wound. Edward had not forgiven Laura for accepting John Treverton, or the estate that went with him. He hated John Treverton with a vigorous hatred that would stand a great deal of wear and tear. He pondered long over Celia’s letter, trying to discover the clue to the mystery. It seemed to him tolerably clear. Mr. and Mrs. Treverton had married with a deliberate understanding. Love between them there was none, and they had been too honest to pretend an affection which neither felt. They had agreed to marry and live apart, sharing the dead man’s wealth, fulfilling the letter of the law, but not the spirit.
“I call it sheer dishonesty,” said Edward. “I wonder that Laura can lend herself to such an underhand course.”
It was all very well to talk about John Treverton’s liberality in settling the entire estate upon his wife. No doubt they had their private understanding, duly set forth in black and white. The husband was to have his share of the fortune, and squander it how he pleased in London or Paris, or any part of the globe that seemed best to him.
“There never was such confounded luck,” exclaimed Edward, angry with Fate for having given this man so much and himself so little; “a fellow who three months ago was a beggar.”
In his idle reverie he found himself thinking what he would have done in John Treverton’s place, with, say, seven thousand a year at his disposal.
“I would have chambers in the Albany,” he thought, “furnished on the purest aesthetic principles. I’d keep a yacht at Cowes, and three or four hunters at Melton Mowbray. I’d spend February and March in the south, and April and May in Paris, where I should have a pied-à-terre in the Champs Élysées. Yes, one could lead a very pleasant life, as a bachelor, on seven thousand a year.”
Thus it will be seen that, although Mr. Clare had been seriously in love with Miss Malcolm, it was the loss of Jasper Treverton’s money which he felt most keenly, and it was the possession of that fortune for which he envied John Treverton.
One afternoon in February, one of those rare afternoons on which the winter sun glorifies the gloomy London streets, Mr. Clare called at the office of comic periodical, the editor of which had accepted some of his lighter verses—society poems in the Praed and Locker manner. Two or three of his contributions had been published within the last month, and he came to the office with the pleasant consciousness that there was a cheque due to him.
“I shall treat myself to a careful little dinner at the Restaurant du Pavillon,” he told himself, “and a stall at the Prince of Wales’s to wind up the evening.”
He was not a man of vicious tastes. It was not the aqua fortis of vice, but the champagne of pleasure that he relished. He was too fond of himself, too careful of his own well-being, to fling away youth, health, and vigour in the sloughs and sewers of evil living. He had a refined selfishness that was calculated to keep him pure of low iniquities. He had no aspiration to scale mountain peaks, but he had sufficient regard for himself to eschew gutters.
The cheque was ready for him, but, when he had signed the formal receipt, the clerk told him the editor wanted to speak to him presently, if he would be kind enough to wait a few minutes.
“There’s a gentleman with him, but I don’t suppose he’ll be long,” said the clerk, “if you don’t mind waiting.”
Mr. Clare did not mind, particularly. He sat down on an office stool, and made himself a cigarette, while he thoughtfully planned his dinner.
He was not going to be extravagant. A plate of bisque soup, a slice of salmon en papilotte, a wing of chicken with mushrooms, an omelette, half a bottle of St. Julien, and a glass of vermouth.
While he was musing pleasantly thus, the swinging inner door of the office was dashed open, and a gentleman walked quickly through to the open doorway that led into the street, with only a passing nod to the clerk. Edward Clare just caught a glimpse of his face as he turned to give that brief salutation.
“Who’s that?” he asked, starting up from his stool, and dropping the half-made cigarette.
“Mr. Chicot, the artist.”
“Are you sure?”
The clerk grinned.
“Pretty positive,” he said. “He comes here every week, sometimes twice a week. I ought to know him.”
Edward knew the name well. The slapdash caricatures, more Parisian in style than English, which adorned the middle page of the weekly paper called Folly as It Flies, were all signed “Chicot.” The dancer’s admirers, for the most part, gave her the credit of those productions, an idea which Mr. Smolendo had taken care to encourage. It was an advantage that his dancer should be thought a woman of many accomplishments—a Sarah Bernhardt, in a small way.
Edward Clare was mystified. The face which he had seen turned towards the clerk had presented a wondrous likeness of John Treverton. If this man who called himself Chicot had been John Treverton’s twin brother, the two could not have been more alike. Edward was so impressed with this idea that, instead of waiting to see his editor, he hurried out into the street, bent upon following Mr. Chicot the artist. The office was in one of the narrow streets northward of the Strand. If Chicot had turned to the left, he must be by this time following the strong current of the Strand, which flows westward at this
