"Well," he answered, "ever since I left Oxford I've been going about London and Paris gathering information of all sorts. I've lived among the queerest set of people in Europe. My father thinks I'm a waster, but he doesn't know. My mother, angel that she is, understands me perfectly. She knows that I've only postponed going into politics until I have had more experience than the ordinary young man in my position gets. I absolutely refused to be shoved into the House directly I had come down with my degree, the Union, and all those sort of blushing honors thick upon me. In a year or two you will see, Tom, and meanwhile here's the Moulin à Vent."
Anatole poured out that delightful but little known burgundy for us himself, and it was a wine for the gods.
"A little interval," said Arthur, "in which a cigarette is clearly indicated, and then we are to have some slices of bear ham, stewed in champagne, which I rather think will please you."
We sat and smoked, looking up the long room, when the swing doors at the end opened and a man and a girl entered. They came down towards us, obviously approaching a table reserved for them in the short arm of the restaurant, and I noticed the man at once.
For one thing he was in full evening dress, whereas the only other diners who were in evening kit at all wore dinner jackets and black ties. He was a tall man of about fifty with wavy, gray hair. His face was clean shaved, and a little full. I thought I had never seen a handsomer man, or one who moved with a grace and ease which were so perfectly unconscious. The girl beside him was a pretty enough young creature with a powdered face and reddened lips – nothing about her in the least out of the ordinary. When he came opposite our table, his face lighted up suddenly. He smiled at Arthur, and opened his mouth as if to speak.
Arthur looked him straight in the face with a calm and stony stare – I never saw a more cruel or explicit cut.
The man smiled again without the least bravado or embarrassment, gave an almost imperceptible bow and passed on towards his table without any one but ourselves having noticed what occurred. The whole affair was a question of some five or six seconds.
He sat down with his back to us.
"Who is he?" I asked of Arthur.
He hesitated for a moment and then he gave a little shudder of disgust. I thought, also, that I saw a shade come upon his face.
"No one you are ever likely to meet in life, Tom," he replied, "unless you go to see him tried for murder at the Old Bailey some day. He is a fellow called Mark Antony Midwinter."
"A most distinguished looking man."
"Yes, and I should say he stands out from even his own associates in a preëminence of evil. Tom," he went on, with unusual gravity, "deep down in the soul of every man there's some foul primal thing, some troglodyte that, by the mercy of God, never awakes in most of us. But when it does in some, and dominates them, then a man becomes a fiend, lost, hopeless, irremediable. That man Midwinter is such an one. You could not find his like in Europe. He walks among his fellows with a panther in his soul; and the high imagination, the artistic power in him makes him doubly dangerous. I could tell you details of his career which would make your blood run cold – if it were worth while. It isn't.
"But I perceive our bear's flesh stewed in Sillery is approaching. Let's forget this intrusion."
Well, we dined after the fashion of Sybaris, went to the Club for an hour and smoked, and then Arthur returned to his chambers in Jermyn Street to dress. I went back to mine, found from Preston that little Mr. Rolston was safely in bed and fast asleep, changed into a dinner jacket and walked the few yards to the Ritz Hotel, my heart beating high with hope.
I was shown up at once to the floor inhabited by the millionaire, and knew, therefore, that I was expected. The man who conducted me knocked at a door, opened it, and I entered. I found myself in a comfortable room with writing tables and desks, telephone and a typewriter. A young man of two or three and twenty was seated at one of the tables smoking a cigarette.
He jumped up at once.
"Oh, Sir Thomas," he said, "Mr. Morse has not yet returned, and I think it quite likely he may be some little time. But the Señora Balmaceda and Miss Morse are in the drawing-room and perhaps you would like to – "
"I shall be delighted," I said, cutting him short, but who on earth was Señora Balmaceda? The chaperone, I supposed, confound it!
The obliging young man led me through two or three very gorgeously furnished rooms and at last into a large apartment brilliantly lit from the roof, and with flowers everywhere. At one end was a little alcove.
"I have brought Sir Thomas, Señora," he said, looking about the room, but there was no one remotely resembling a Señora there. Nevertheless, directly he spoke, some one stepped out of the conservatory from behind a tropical shrub in a green tub, and came towards us.
It was Juanita, and she was alone. The secretary withdrew and I advanced to meet her.
"How do you do, Sir Thomas," she said in her beautiful, bell-like voice. "Father said you might be coming and I'm afraid he won't be in just yet. And it's so tiresome, poor Auntie has gone to bed with a bad headache."
"I'm very sorry, Miss Morse," I answered as we shook hands, "I must do what I can to take her place," and then I looked at her perfectly straight.
Yes, I dared to look into those marvelous limpid eyes and I know she saw the hunger in mine, for she took her hand away a little hurriedly.
"What a charming room! Is that a little conservatory over there? It must look out over the Green Park?"
"Yes, it does," she replied almost in a whisper.
"Then do let's sit there, Miss Morse."
Was I acting in a play or what on earth gave me this sense of confidence and strength? Heaven only knows, but I never faltered from the first moment that I entered the room. Oh, the gods were with me that night!
We went to the alcove without a further word, and she sat down upon a couch. I have described her once, at Lady Brentford's ball, but at this moment I am not going to attempt to describe her at all.
For half a minute we said nothing and then I took her hand and pressed it to my lips.
"Juanita," I said, "there are mysterious currents and forces in this world stronger than we are ourselves. This is the third time that I've seen you, but no power on earth can prevent me from telling you – "
She was looking at me with parted lips and eyes suffused with an angelic tenderness and modesty. My voice broke in my throat with unutterable joy. I was certain that she loved me.
And then, just as I was about to say the sealing words – remember, I had invoked the gods – there was the sound of a door opening sharply.
I stiffened and rose to my feet. From where we sat we could survey the whole, rich room. Through the open door – I must say there were several doors in the room – came a tall man, walking backwards.
He was in full evening dress with a camellia in his button-hole.
He stepped back lightly with cat-like steps, his arms a little curved, his fingers all extended.
I saw his face. It was convulsed with the satanic fury of an old Japanese mask. Line for line, it was just like that, and it was also the face of the bland and smiling man I had seen two hours before at the restaurant of The Golden Snail.
I felt something warm and trembling at my side. Juanita was clinging to me and I put my arm around her waist. Through the open door there now came another figure.
A quiet, resonant voice cut into the tense, horrible silence.
"Quick, Mark Antony Midwinter – that's your door, quick – quick!"
The big man paused for an instant and a hissing spitting noise came from his mouth.
There was a sharp crack and a great mirror on the wall shivered in pieces. There was another, and then the big man turned and literally bounded over the soft carpet, flung himself through the door and disappeared.
Gideon