Once he heard Trist mention the name of a Russian general then scarcely known. Though the pronunciation was rather different from that of most Englishmen, Hicks recognised the word “Skobeleff,” and, glancing towards the smaller man, he saw upon his long, mournful features a singular look of uneasiness.
There was something fascinating about the man’s face which attracted the artist’s attention, and he stood gazing with a greater fixity than is usually considered polite. Without looking towards him, the Oriental was evidently aware of his attention, for he spoke to Trist, who turned with deliberate curiosity.
“Ah, Hicks!” he said, “how do you do?”
Then he turned again to his unemotional companion and made a remark, which was received apathetically.
Hicks had not wished to make his advent so prominent. It now appeared as if he had sought out Trist for some special purpose, to make some important communication which could not brook delay.
Trist evidently read his action thus, for he left the group of statesmen and joined him. Hicks was equal to the occasion.
“You remember,” he said confidentially, as he touched his companion’s sleeve and they walked down the room together—“you remember what I once told you about the Hustons?”
Trist’s meek eyes rested upon the speaker’s face with a persistence which was not encouraging to idle gossip.
“The night I left for Serbia?” he inquired.
Hicks nodded his head.
“Yes. I remember.”
The artist paused, and his gloved fingers sought the beauteous moustache. Trist’s calm eyes were not easy to meet. They were so unconsciously scrutinizing.
“Well, I saw Huston the other day,” he said at length. “He has not improved in appearance. In fact, I should say that there is some truth in the story I repeated to you.”
There was no encouragement forthcoming, but Hicks was not lacking in assurance. He was a true son of the pavement—that is to say, an individual radical. His opinion was, in his own mind, worth that of Theodore Trist.
“There are,” he continued, “other stories going about at present. Do you not think … Trist … —I mean, had we not better, for Brenda’s sake, settle upon a certain version of the matter and stick to it? You and I, old fellow, are looked upon by the general world as something more than ordinary friends of Alice and Brenda. Mrs. Wylie is not going out just now. They have no one to stick up for them, except us. If you know more than you care to confess, I am sorry if I am forcing your hand. …”
He paused again, and again his companion preserved that calm non-committing silence which he knew so well how to assume. He held a hand which could not have been forced by a player possessing ten times the power and ten times the cunning of William Hicks.
“But, Trist, I know what the London world is. Something must be done.”
Trist shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly.
“Silence,” continued Hicks significantly, “in this case would be a mistake. I don’t mind … your knowing that it is not from mere curiosity that I am doing this. Brenda … I want to save … her … from anything unpleasant.”
At this point Trist appeared to relent. It was not until afterwards that Hicks realized that he had learnt absolutely nothing from him.
“What do you think ought to be done?” he asked gently.
The question remained unanswered for some time, and then it was only met by another.
“Is Brenda coming tonight?”
“Yes.”
“And Alice?”
“No.”
They walked through the brilliant rooms together, each wondering what lay behind the eyes of the other, each striving to penetrate the thoughts of the other, to divine his motives, to reach his heart.
“I really think,” said Hicks at length, “that it rests with you. You must say what is to be done, what story is to be told, what farce is to be acted. It seems to me that you know more about it than I do. Somehow I have lately dropped out of Mrs. Wylie’s confidence, and … and Brenda has not spoken to me about her sister.”
“But,” said Trist, “I know nothing of what you refer to as the common gossip of … of all these.”
He indicated the assembled multitude with a gesture which was scarcely complimentary. Hicks looked uncomfortable, and bit his red lip nervously.
“Don’t be hard on us,” he pleaded with an unnatural laugh. “I am one of them.”
“Tell me,” said Trist with a sudden gravity of manner, “… tell me what they are saying.”
“Well … it is hardly fair to ask me.”
“Why?”
“Because you will not thank me for having told you. We … we don’t, as a rule, give the benefit of the doubt, you know.”
The elder man turned and looked at his companion with a slow smile.
“My dear Hicks,” he said, “it is many years since I gave up caring what the world might say, or expecting the benefit of the doubt.”
“For yourself?”
“Yes; for myself. What do you mean?”
“I mean that they are not giving Alice the benefit of the doubt either.”
They happened just then to be near two chairs placed invitingly within an alcove by a softhearted hostess who had not yet forgotten her flirting-days.
“Let us sit down,” said Trist, indicating these chairs.
“Now,” he continued in a calm voice when they were seated, “tell me what the world is saying about Alice.”
Hicks was not devoid of a certain moral courage, and for once in his life he was actuated by a motive which was not entirely selfish.
“They say,” he answered boldly, “that she ran away from her husband to join you.”
To some natures there is a vague enjoyment in imparting bad news, and the dramatic points in this conversation were by no means lost to William Hicks, who was a born actor. His listener, however, received the news without the slightest indication of surprise or annoyance. He merely nodded his head and murmured:
“Yes; what else?”
“Oh … nothing much—nothing, at least, that I have heard, except that Huston was supposed to have followed her home and caught her
