“I tell you,” he said, his elbows on the cloth and his hands clasped together in front of him. “I hate such tales as these. I deal with very great matters, the liberties and lives of people who have just that one life in that one body. Therefore I must be very careful, lest wrong be done. If through fault of mine you do worse than lose five years out of your few, if you keep them, but keep them in hardship and penance, nothing can make my fault up to you. I must be always sure—yes, I must always know before I move. I must be able to say to myself, ‘This man or that woman has deliberately done this or that thing which the law forbids,’ before I lay the hand upon the shoulder. But a story like yours—and I ask myself, ‘What do I know? Can I ever be sure?’ ”
“Then you don’t laugh?” cried Mr. Ricardo, at once relieved and impressed.
Hanaud threw wide his hands.
“I laugh—yes—with my friends, at my friends, as I hope they laugh with me and at me. I am human—yes. But stories like this one of yours make me humble too. I don’t laugh at them. I know men and women who have but to look into a crystal and they see strange people moving in strange rooms, and all more vivid than scenes upon a stage. But I! I see nothing—never! Never! It is I who am blind? Or that other who is crazy? I don’t know. But sometimes I am troubled by these questions. They are not good for me. No! They make me uneasy about myself—yes, I doubt Hanaud! Conceive that, if it is possible!”
He unclasped his hands and flung out his arms with something burlesque and extravagant in the gesture. But Mr. Ricardo was not deceived. His friend had confessed the truth. There were moments when Hanaud doubted Hanaud—moments when he, like Mr. Ricardo, was aware of cracks in the opal crust.
Hanaud bent his eyes again upon that handwriting which had so alarming a message for just one person alone, and not an atom of significance for the rest.
“She has broken off her engagement—this young lady, Miss Tasborough,” he said, pronouncing the name as Tasbruff. “That is curious too.” He sat for a moment or two in an abstraction. “There are three explanations, my friend, of which we may take our choice. One. Your Miss Whipple is playing some trick on you, for some end we do not know of. To establish her credit—after something has happened. To be able to say: ‘I foresaw—I tried to avert it. I warned Mr. Ricardo.’ Eh? Have you thought of that?”
He nodded his head slowly and emphatically at his friend, who certainly had not thought of anything of the kind. But the notion disturbed Mr. Ricardo a little now. He had after all been troubled on his way home after that conversation. Troubled by an excuse which Joyce Whipple had given for her own inability to interfere. “Cinderellas must be off the premises by midnight.” What sort of an excuse was that for a young lady with a pipe-well of oil in California? No, it certainly wouldn’t do!
But Hanaud, reading his thoughts, raised a warning hand.
“Let us not run too fast. There are still two explanations. The second? Miss Whipple is an hysterical—she must make excitements. She is vain, as the hysterical invariably are.”
Here Mr. Ricardo shook his head; as emphatically as a moment ago Hanaud had nodded his. That spruce young lady with tidiness for her monomark dwelt thousands of leagues away from the country of hysteria. Mr. Ricardo preferred explanation number one. It was more likely and infinitely more thrilling. But he must not be in a hurry.
“And your third explanation?” he asked.
Hanaud pushed the letter back to Ricardo and rose from his chair, slapping his hands against his hips.
“Why, simply that she was speaking the truth. That some warning came to her through that handwriting, even though the writer knew nothing of the warning she was sending.”
Hanaud turned away to the window and stood for a while looking out over the little pleasant Spa, its establishment of baths down here by the park, its gay casino over there, and its villas and hotels shining amongst green streets. But he was deep in his own reflections. He might have been gazing at a wall for all that he saw. Mr. Ricardo had seen him in such a mood before, and he knew that this was a moment which it would be definitely inadvisable to interrupt. A sensation of awe stole over him. He felt the floor of the opal very brittle beneath his feet.
Hanaud turned his head towards his companion, without in any other way relaxing his attitude.
“The Château Suvlac is thirty kilometres from Bordeaux?” he asked.
“Thirty-eight and a half,” Mr. Ricardo replied helpfully. He was nothing if not accurate.
Hanaud turned once again to the window. But a minute afterwards with a great heave of his shoulders, he shook his perplexities from him.
“I am on my holiday,” he cried. “Let me not spoil it! Come! Your servant, the invaluable Thomson, shall pack up my Hanaudski paraphernalia and send it back at your expense to the Odéon Theatre from which I borrowed it yesterday. You and I, we will motor in your fine car to the Lake Bourget, where we will take our luncheon, and then like good wholesome tourists we will make an excursion on the steamboat.”
He was all gaiety and good humour. But he had broken in upon the sacred curriculum of his holiday; and all that day, as Mr. Ricardo was aware, some grave speculations were with an effort held at bay.
