The Princess gave a little sigh of relief.

"Foolish child!" she said. "But where is she now, Mr. Andrew?"

"She is still at the island," Andrew answered. "It was impossible for her to leave, so I came here to tell you of her whereabouts."

"It was extremely thoughtful of you," the Princess said graciously.

"If Miss Le Mesurier was unable to leave the island, how was it that you came?" Major Forrest asked, looking at Andrew through his eyeglass as though he were some sort of natural curiosity.

"I swam over," Andrew answered. "It was a very short distance."

It was about this time that they all noticed the fact that Andrew was wearing clothes of an altogether different fashion to the fisherman's garb in which they had seen him previously. The Princess looked at him perplexed. Cecil felt instinctively that the event which he had most dreaded was about to happen.

"And you came up here purposely to relieve our minds, Mr. Andrew," the Princess said. "Really it is most kind of you. I wish that there were some way—"

She hesitated, a slight note of question in her tone, expressed also by her upraised eyebrows.

"I had a further reason for coming," Andrew said slowly. "I am very sorry indeed to seem inhospitable or discourteous, but there is a certain matter which must be cleared up, and at once. I refer to the disappearance of Lord Ronald."

There was an instant's dead silence. Then Forrest, with white face, leaned across the table.

"Who the devil are you?" he asked.

"I am Andrew de la Borne," Andrew answered, "the owner of these poor estates, which I am very well content to leave for the greater part of the time in my brother's care, only that he is young, and is liable to make mistakes. He has made one, sir, I fear, in offering you the hospitality of the Red Hall."

Forrest rose slowly to his feet. The Princess held out her hand as though to beg him not to speak. She turned towards Andrew.

"I do not understand, sir," she said, "why you have chosen to masquerade under another name, and why you come now to insult your brother's guests in such a manner. Is what he says true, Cecil?" she added, turning towards him. "Is this man your brother?"

"Yes!" Cecil answered sullenly. "He tells the truth. It is just like him to make such a thundering idiot of himself."

"I beg your pardon," Andrew answered. "It is not I, Cecil, who desire to come here and say these things to any guest of yours. It is you who are sheltering under this roof one man at least to whom you should never have offered your hospitality. The Duke of Westerham, who has been my guest for the last few days, told me all that one needs to know about you, sir, and your career."

Forrest asked no more questions. He turned to Cecil.

"Mr. De la Borne," he said, "I have understood that you were my host, and I appeal to you. Is this person indeed your elder brother?"

"Yes!" Cecil answered.

"You know what this means," Forrest continued, speaking to Cecil. "I cannot remain in this house any longer. I could only accept hospitality from those who have at least learned to comport themselves as gentlemen."

Andrew smiled.

"I will not grudge you, sir," he said, "any reasonable excuse for leaving this house as quickly as may be, but before you go, I insist upon knowing what has become of Lord Ronald."

Cecil turned towards his brother angrily.

"I am sick of hearing about Engleton!" he declared. "I tell you that he left here, Andrew, on Wednesday morning, and caught the 9-5 train to London, or at any rate to Peterboro'. Whether he went north, south, east, or west, is no concern of ours. We only know that he promised to come back and has not come."

"There is more to be learnt then," Andrew answered. "How did he get to Lynn Station that morning?"

"In the motor car," Cecil answered.

"Who drove it?" Andrew asked.

"Major Forrest," Cecil answered.

"It is a lie!" Andrew declared. "The car never went a hundred yards beyond the gates. I know that for a fact."

Again there was silence. The Princess intervened.

"Mr. Andrew," she began—"I beg your pardon, Mr. De la Borne—supposing Lord Ronald did wish to keep his departure and the manner of it a great secret, why should it trouble you? You don't suppose, I presume, that there has been a fight, or anything of that sort?"

"I only know," Andrew answered, "that the brother of one of my dearest friends has disappeared from this house, after spending several days in the company of a man of bad reputation. That is quite enough for me. I am determined to get to the bottom of the matter."

"It is a very little matter, after all," the Princess said calmly. "Perhaps—"

She hesitated, and looked at the two other men.

"Perhaps," she continued slowly, "it would be as well to tell you the truth."

"If you do not, madam," Andrew answered, "it is more than probable that I shall speedily elicit it."

Both Forrest and Cecil seemed stricken speechless, and before they could recover themselves the Princess had commenced her story, talking with easy and convincing fluency.

"Lord Ronald," she said, "did leave here at the time you and the Duke have been told, and Major Forrest did try to drive him in the motor to Lynn Station. When he found that that was impossible, that they could not get the engine to go, Lord Ronald left his luggage here and walked to Wells. That is the last we have heard of him. He asked that his luggage should be sent to his rooms in London, and we sent it off the next day. He left here on good terms with everybody, but he told us distinctly that the business on which he was summoned away was of a very unpleasant nature. I think that some one was trying to blackmail him. Now you can make what inquiries you like, but I am very certain of one thing, that anything you may discover is more likely to bring discredit upon Lord Ronald himself than anybody else."

"Madam," Andrew said, "your story, of course, I am bound to accept as the truth, but I must tell you frankly that I shall pass it on to the Duke, who will take up his inquiries from the point you name. If he finds that the facts do not correspond with what you have told me, I fear that the consequences will be disagreeable for all of you."

"Of what on earth do you suspect us?" Major Forrest asked sharply. "Do you think that we have made away with Engleton? Why should we? We may be the adventurers you delicately suggest, but at least we should have an object in our crimes. Engleton had not a ten-pound note of ready money with him. I know that for a fact, because I lent him some money to pay his chauffeur's wages when he sent him away."

"You are perhaps holding some of his IOU's?" Andrew asked.

"I certainly am," Forrest answered, "and the sooner I hear from him the better. If you are really the owner of this house, I shall leave to-morrow morning."

Andrew bowed coldly.

"That," he said, "would certainly seem to be your best course. On the contrary," he added, "I am not altogether sure that I am justified in letting you go."

The Princess frowned at him indignantly.

"You talk nonsense, my dear Mr. Andrew, or Mr. Andrew de la Borne," she said. "If you tried to retain Major Forrest on such a cock and bull pretext, you would be probably very soon sorry for it. Besides you have no power to do anything of the sort."

"Madam," Andrew answered, "I am a magistrate, and I could sign a warrant on the spot. I do not, however, feel justified in going to such lengths. I feel sure that if Major Forrest is wanted, we shall be able to find him."

"Of course you will," the Princess intervened calmly. "Men like Major Forrest do not run away just because some one chooses to make a ridiculous charge against them. If only I could get Jeanne, I would leave myself to-night."

"My dear Princess," Cecil said, "I hope that you do not mean it. My brother has said more than he means, I am sure."

"I have said less." Andrew replied. "I have the very best reasons for believing that Major Forrest has lied his way into whatever friendship he may have had with Lord Ronald and my brother."

Forrest moved toward the door.

"Mr. De la Borne," he said to Cecil, "you will forgive me if I decline to remain here to be insulted by your brother."

The Princess followed him from the room. Cecil and Andrew were alone.

"D—n you, Andrew!" the former said, turning upon him, whitefaced, and with a sort of petulant anger. "Why do you come here and spoil things like this?"

Andrew stood upon the hearthrug, and looked at his brother, black and forbidding.

"Cecil," he said, "my life has been spoilt by paying for your excesses. Ever since I came of age I have been hampered all the time by paying your debts and providing you with money. I even let you pose here as the master of the Red Hall because it pleased you. I have had enough of it. If you run up any more debts, you must pay them yourself. I am master here and I intend to remain so."

Cecil was suddenly pale.

"Do you mean," he asked, "that you intend to remain here now?"

Andrew hesitated.

"Your guests are leaving," he said. "Why not?"

"But they may not go until to-morrow or the next day," Cecil said. "I cannot turn them out."

Andrew stood for a moment looking thoughtfully at the door.

"They cannot stay more than a day," he said, "if Major Forrest is really their friend. In any case, I shall not return until they are gone."

Cecil's face cleared a little, but he was still perplexed.

"They had just promised," he said, "to stay another week."

"If you wish to entertain the Princess and Miss Le Mesurier," Andrew said, "and they are willing to stop after what has passed, I have nothing, of course, to say against it. But the man Forrest I will not have here. If ever cheat and coward were written in a man's face, your friend carries the marks in his."

"He has won nothing to speak of from me here," Cecil declared.

"You are probably too small game," Andrew answered. "How about Engleton? Did he lose?"

"I am not sure," Cecil answered. "Not very much, if anything."

The Princess came rustling back. She held her little spaniel up to her cheek, and she affected not to notice the somewhat strained attitude of the two men. She went at once to Andrew.

"Mr. De la Borne," she said, "I think that you have been very unjust and very rude to Major Forrest, who is an old friend of mine. I am sure that you have been misled, and I am sure that some day you will ask his pardon."

Andrew bowed slightly, and looked her straight in the face.

"Princess," he said, "may I ask how long you have known the gentleman who has just left us?"

"For a very great many years," she answered. "Why?"

"Are you sure of your own knowledge," Andrew asked, "that he is really a person of good repute and against whom there have been no scandalous reports?"

"I do not listen to gossip," the Princess answered. "Major Forrest goes everywhere in London, and I have seen nothing in his deportment at any time to induce me to withdraw my friendship."

"I fancy, then," Andrew said, "that some day you will find you have been a little deceived."

"What about Lord Ronald?" the Princess asked. "Perhaps, Mr. De la Borne, you think that we are all a little company of adventurers. This is such a likely spot for our operations, isn't it?"

"Lord Ronald," Andrew said, "is the brother of my old friend, and he is, of course, above suspicion, but Lord Ronald appears to have left you somewhat abruptly, I might almost say mysteriously."

"He was here for some time," the Princess said, "and he is coming back."

"In the meantime," Andrew continued, "he appears to have vanished from the face of the earth."

The Princess turned away carelessly.

"That," she said, "is scarcely our affair. I have not the slightest doubt but that he will turn up again."

"If it should turn out that I am mistaken," Andrew said stiffly, "I should be glad to ask your pardons, but from my present information I can only say I do not care to extend the hospitality of my house to Major Forrest, nor do I consider him a fit associate, madam, for you and your step-daughter."

"May I ask," the Princess inquired, "who Major Forrest's traducers have been?"

"My information," Andrew answered, "comes from the Duke of Westerham. I have every reason to believe that the case against him has been understated."

"The Duke," Cecil declared, "is a pig-headed old fool!"

Andrew shrugged his shoulders.

"I have always found him a man of remarkably keen judgment," he said.

"What are you going to do about Jeanne?" the Princess asked, changing the subject abruptly.

"I should suggest," Andrew answered, "that you have a maid pack a bag and prepare to go with me over to the island early in the morning. There is no chance to cross before then, as the tide would be high."

"But how nervous she will be there all alone!" the Princess exclaimed.

"My servant is there," Andrew answered, "and also an old woman who cooks for me. They will, I am sure, do everything they can to make her comfortable. I shall go myself and bring her back here as soon as it is daylight."

"We are giving you a great deal of trouble, I am afraid, Mr. De la Borne," the Princess said stiffly. "To-morrow, as soon as my maid can pack, we will return to London."

Andrew bowed as he turned to leave the room.

"I trust," he said, "that you will not let my presence interfere with your plans. I shall remain on the island myself to-morrow, after I have brought your daughter back."



CHAPTER XX

Jeanne awoke the next morning to find herself between lavender scented sheets in a small iron bedstead, with a soft sea-wind blowing in through the half-open window. Her maid was ready to wait upon her, and her bath was of salt water fresh from the sea. She descended to find Andrew at work in the garden, the sun already high in the heavens, and the sea as blue and placid as though the storm of the night before were a thing long past and forgotten.

"I am never going away," she declared, as they sat at breakfast. "I take your rooms, Monsieur Andrew. I will import as many chaperons as you please, but I will not leave this island."

"I am afraid," he answered smiling, "that there are other people who would have something to say about that. Your stepmother is already anxious. I have promised that you shall be back at the Hall by ten o'clock."

The gaiety suddenly faded from her face. Her lips, which had been curved in laughter, quivered.

"You mean that?" she faltered.

"Most assuredly," he answered. "I have no place for lodgers here. As a matter of fact, if you knew the truth, you would admit that your staying here is quite impossible."

"Well," she said, "I should like to know the truth. Suppose you tell it me."

"I must confess, then," Andrew answered, "that I am somewhat of a fraud. Berners was my friend, not my lodger, and I am Andrew de la Borne, Cecil's elder brother."

She looked at him for several moments steadily.

"I think that you might have told me," was all she said.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Why?" he asked, a little brusquely. "I am not of your world, or your stepmother's. When Cecil told me that he had invited some of his fashionable friends down here to stay, I begged him to leave me out of it. I chose to retire here, and I preferred not to see any of you. Mine are country ways, Miss Le Mesurier. I am at heart what I pretended to be, fisherman, countryman, yokel, call me what you will. The other side of life, Cecil's side, doesn't appeal to me a bit. I felt that it would be more comfortable for you people and for me, if I kept out of the way."

"You class me with them," she remarked quietly, "a little ruthlessly. I think you forget that as yet I have not chosen my way in life."

"That is true," he answered, "but how can you help but choose what every one of those who call themselves your friends regards as inevitable. You must dance in many ballrooms, and make your bow before the great ones of the earth. It is a part of the penalty that you must pay for your name and riches. All that I can wish you is that you lose as little of yourself as possible in the days that lie before you."

"I thank you," she answered quietly. "You will let me know when you are ready to take me back."

"Have I offended you?" he asked, as they rose from the table. "I am clumsy, I know, and the words do not come readily to my mouth. But after all, you must understand."

"Yes," she said sadly, "I do understand."

They went down to the beach and he helped her into the boat. Her maid sat by her side, and he rowed them across with a few powerful strokes.

"Storm and sunshine," he remarked, "follow one another here as swiftly as in any corner of the world. Yesterday we had wind and thunder and rain. To-day, look! The sky is cloudless, the birds are singing everywhere upon the marshes, the waves can do no more than ripple in upon the sands. Will you walk across the marshes, Miss Jeanne, or will you come to the village and wait while I send for a carriage?"

"We will walk," she answered. "It may be for the last time."

The maid fell behind. Andrew and his companion, who seemed smaller and slimmer than ever by his side, started on their tortuous way, here and there turning to the right and to the left to follow the course of some tidal stream, or avoid the swampy places. The faint odour of wild lavender was mingled with the brackish scent of the sea. The ground was soft and spongy beneath their feet, and a breeze as soft as a caress blew in their faces. Up before them always, gaunt and bare, surrounded by its belts of weather-stricken trees, stood the Red Hall. Andrew looked toward it gloomily.

"Do you wonder," he asked, "that a man is sometimes depressed who is born the heir to a house like that, and to fortunes very similar?"

"Are you poor?" she asked him. "I thought perhaps you were, as your brother tried to make love to me."

He frowned impatiently at her words.

"For Heaven's sake, child," he said, "don't be so cynical! Don't fancy that every kind word that is spoken to you is spoken for your wealth. There are sycophants enough in the world, Heaven knows, but there are men there as well. Give a few the credit of being honest. Try and remember that you are—"

He looked at her and away again toward the sea.

"That you are," he repeated, "young enough and attractive enough to win kind words for your own sake."

"Then," she whispered, leaning towards him, "I do not think that I am very fortunate."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because," she answered, "one person who might say kind things to me, and whom my money would never influence a little bit in the world, does not say them."

"Are you sure," he asked, "that you believe that there is any one in the world who would be content to take you without a penny?"

She shook her head.

"Not that," she said sadly. "I am not what you call conceited enough for that, but I would like to believe that I might have a kind word or two on my own account."

She tried hard to see his face, but he kept it steadfastly turned away. She sighed. Only a few yards behind the maid was walking.

"Mr. Andrew," she said, "it was you whom I meant. Won't you say something nice to me for my own sake?"

They were nearing the Hall now, and it seemed natural enough that he should hold her hand for a minute in his.

"I will tell you," he said quietly, "that your coming has been a pleasure, and your going will be a pain, and I will tell you that you have left an empty place that no one else can fill. You have made what our people here call the witch music upon the marshes for me, so that I shall never walk here again as long as I live without hearing it and thinking of you."

"Is that all?" she whispered.

He pretended not to hear her.

"I am nearly double your age," he said, "and I have lived an idle, perhaps a worthless, life. I have done no harm. My talents, if I have any, have certainly been buried. If I had met you out in the world, your world, well, I might have taught myself to forget—"

He broke off abruptly in his sentence. Cecil stood before them, suddenly emerged from the hand-gate leading into the Hall gardens. "At last!" he exclaimed, taking Jeanne by the hands. "The Princess is distracted. We have all been distracted. How could you make us so unhappy?"

She drew her hands away coldly.

"I fancy that my stepmother," she said, "will have survived my absence. I was caught in a storm. I expect that your brother has already told you about it."

He looked from one to the other.

"So you have told her, Andrew," he said simply.

Andrew nodded. The three walked up toward the house in somewhat constrained silence. She was trying her hardest to make Andrew look at her, and he was trying his hardest to resist. The Princess came out to them. The morning was warm, and she was wearing a white wrapper. Her toilette was not wholly completed, but she was sufficiently picturesque.

"My dear Jeanne," she cried, "you have nearly sent us mad with anxiety. How could you wander off like that!"

Jeanne stood a little apart. She avoided the Princess' hands. She stood upon the soft turf with her hands clasped, her cheeks very pale, her eyes bright with some inward excitement.

"Do you wish me to answer that question?" she said.

The Princess stared.

"What do you mean, my child?" she exclaimed.

"You ask me," Jeanne said, "why I went wandering off into the marshes. I will tell you. It is because I am unhappy. It is because I do not like the life into which you have brought me, nor the people with whom we live. I do not like late hours, supper parties and dinner parties, dances where half the people are bourgeois, and where all the men make stupid love to me. I do not like the shops, the vulgar shop people, fashionable clothes, and fashionable promenading. I am tired of it already. If I am rich, why may I not buy the right to live as I choose?"

The Princess rarely allowed herself to show surprise. At this moment, however, she was completely overcome.

"What is it you want, then, child?" she demanded.

"I should like," Jeanne answered, "to buy Mr. De la Borne's house upon the island, and live there, with just a couple of maids, and my books. I should like some friends, of course, but I should like to find them for myself, amongst the country people, people whom I could trust and believe in, not people whose clothes and manners and speech are all hammered out into a type, and whose real self is so deeply buried that you cannot tell whether they are honest or rogues. That is what I should like, stepmother, and if you wish to earn my gratitude, that is how you will let me live."

The Princess stared at the child as though she were a lunatic.

"Jeanne," she exclaimed weakly, "what has become of you?"

"Nothing," Jeanne answered, "only you asked me a question, and I felt an irresistible desire to answer you truthfully. It would have come sooner or later."

Andrew turned slowly toward the girl, who stood looking at her stepmother with flushed cheeks and quivering lips.

"Miss Le Mesurier," he said, "on one condition I will sell you the island, but on only one."

"And that is?" she asked.

The Princess recovered herself just in time, and sailed in between them.

"Mr. De la Borne," she said, "my daughter is too young for such conversations. For two years she is under my complete guidance. She must obey me just as though she were ten years older and married, and I her husband. The law has given me absolute control over her. You understand that yourself, don't you, Jeanne?"

"Yes," Jeanne answered quietly, "I understand."

"Go indoors, please," the Princess said. "I have something to say to Mr. De la Borne."

"And I, too," Jeanne said. "Let me stay and say it. I will not be five minutes."

The Princess pointed toward the door.

"I will not have it," she said coldly. "Cecil, take my daughter indoors. I insist upon it."

She turned away unwillingly. The Princess took Andrew by the arm and led him to a more distant seat.

"Now, if you please, my dear Mr. Andrew," she said, "will you tell me what it is that you have done to my foolish little girl?"



CHAPTER XXI

The Princess arranged her skirts so that they drooped gracefully, and turned upon her companion with one of those slow mysterious smiles, which many people described but none could imitate.

"Mr. De la Borne," she said, "I can talk to you as I could not talk to your brother, because you are an older and a wiser man. You may not have seen much of the world, but you are at any rate not a young idiot like Cecil. Will you listen to me, please?"

"It seems to me," Andrew answered drily, "that I am already doing so."

"I am not going to ask you," she continued, "whether you are in love with my little girl or not, because the whole thing is too ridiculous. I have no doubt that she has some sort of a fancy for you. It is evident that she has. I want you to remember that she is fresh from school, that as yet she has not entered life, and that a few months ago she did not know a man from a gate-post."

"An admirable simile," Andrew murmured.

"What I want you to understand is," the Princess continued, "that as yet she cannot possibly be in a position to make up her mind as to her future. She has seen nothing of the world, and what she has seen has been the least favourable side. She has a perfectly enormous fortune, so ridiculously tied up that although I am never out of debt and always borrowing money, I cannot touch a penny of it, not even with her help. Very soon she will be of age, and the amount of her fortune will be known. I can assure you that it will be a surprise to every one."

Andrew bowed his head indifferently.

"Very possibly," he answered, "and yet, madam, if your daughter has the wisdom to see that the matter of her wealth is after all but a trifle amongst the conditions which make for happiness, why should you deny her the benefits of that wisdom?"

"My dear friend," she continued earnestly, "for this reason—because Jeanne to-day is too young to choose for herself. She has not got over that sickly sentimental age, when a girl makes a hero of anything unusual in the shape of a man, and finds a sort of unwholesome satisfaction in making sacrifices for his sake. It may be that Jeanne may, after all, look to what you call the simple life for happiness. Well, if she does that after a year or so, well and good. But she shall not do so with my consent, without indeed my downright opposition, until she has had an opportunity of testing both sides, of weighing the matter thoroughly from every point of view. Do you not agree with me, Mr. De la Borne?"

"You speak reasonably, madam," he assented.

"Jeanne," she continued, "has perhaps charmed you a little. She is, after all, just now a child of nature. She is something of an artist, too. Beautiful places and sights and sounds appeal to her.

"She is ready, with her imperfect experience, to believe that there is nothing greater or better worth cultivating in life. But I want you to consider the effects of heredity. Jeanne comes from restless, brilliant people. Her mother was a leader of society, a pleasure-loving, clever, unscrupulous woman. Her father was a financier and a diplomat, many-sided, versatile, but with as complex a disposition as any man I ever met. Jeanne will ripen as the years go on; something of her mother, something of her father will appear. It is my place, knowing these things, to see that she does not make a fatal mistake. All that I say to you, Mr. De la Borne, is to let her go, to give her her chance, to let her see with both eyes before she does anything irremediable. I think that I may almost appeal to you, as a reasonable man and a gentleman, to help me in this."

Andrew de la Borne looked out through the wizened branches of his stunted trees, to the white-flecked sea rolling in below. The Princess was right. He knew that she was right. Those other thoughts were little short of madness. Jeanne was no coquette at heart, but she was a child. She had great responsibilities. She was turned into the world with a heavy burden upon her shoulders. It was not he or any man who could help her. She must fight her own battle, win or lose her own happiness. A few years' time might see her the wife of a great statesman or a great soldier, proud and happy to feel herself the means by which the man she loved might climb one step higher upon the great ladder of fame. How like a child's dream these few days upon the marshes, talking to one who was no more than a looker-on at the great things of life, must seem! He could imagine her thinking of them with a shiver as she remembered her escape. The Princess was right, she was very right indeed. He rose to his feet.

"Madam," he said, "I have not pretended to misunderstand you. I think that you have spoken wisely. Your stepdaughter must solve for herself the great riddle. It is not for any one of us to handicap her in her choice while she is yet a child."

"You are going, Mr. De la Borne?" she asked.

He pointed to a brown-sailed fishing-boat passing slowly down from the village toward the sea.

"That is one of my boats," he said. "I shall signal to her from the island to call for me. I need a change, and she is going out into the North Sea for five weeks' fishing."

The Princess held out her hand, and Andrew took it in his.

"You are a man," she said. "I wish there were more of your sort in the world where I live."

The Princess stood for a moment on the edge of the lawn, watching Andrew's tall figure as he strode across the marsh toward the village. Never once did he look back or hesitate on his swift, vigorous way. Then she sighed a little and turned away toward the house. After all, this was a man, although he was so far removed from the type she knew and understood.

Cecil was walking restlessly up and down the hall when she entered. He drew her eagerly into the library.

"Look here," he said, "Forrest declares that he is going. He is upstairs now packing his things."

"Your brother," the Princess answered, "scarcely left him much alternative."

"That's all very well," Cecil answered, "but if he goes I go. I am not going to be left here alone."

The Princess looked at him, and the colour came into his cheeks. It is never well for a man when he sees such a look upon a woman's face.

"It isn't that I'm afraid," Cecil declared. "I can stand any ordinary danger, but I am not going to be left shut up here alone, with the whole responsibility upon me. I couldn't do it. It wouldn't be fair to ask me."

"There is no fresh news, I suppose?" the Princess asked.

"None," Cecil answered gloomily. "If only we could see our way to the end of it, I shouldn't mind."

The Princess was thoughtful for a few moments.

"Well," she said, "I don't know, after all, if Forrest need go just yet. Your brother has made up his mind to go fishing for several weeks. I think that he is going to start to-day."

"Do you mean it?" Cecil exclaimed, incredulously.

The Princess nodded.

"He has been philandering with Jeanne," she said, "and his magnificent conscience is taking him out into the North Sea."

Cecil's features relaxed. After all, though he played at maturity, he was little more than a boy.

"Fancy old Andrew!" he exclaimed. "Gone on a child like Miss Jeanne, too! Well, anyhow, that makes it all right about Forrest staying, doesn't it?"

"He shall stop," the Princess answered slowly. "Jeanne and I will stay, too, until Monday. Perhaps by that time—"

"By that time," Cecil repeated, "something may have happened."



BOOK II

CHAPTER I

His Grace the Duke of Westerham stepped forward from the hearthrug, in the middle of which he had been standing, and held out both his hands. His lips were parted in a smile, and there was a twinkle in his eyes.

"My dear Andrew," he exclaimed, "it is delightful to see you. You seem to bring the salt of the North Sea into our frowsy city."

Andrew grasped his friend's hands.

"I have been fishing with some of my men for three weeks," he said, "off the Dogger Bank. The salt does cling to one, you know, and I suppose I am as black as a nigger."

The Duke sighed a little.

"My dear Andrew," he said, "you make one wonder whether it is worth while to count for anything at all in the world. You represent the triumph of physical fitness. You could break me, or a dozen like me, in your hands. You know what the faddists of the moment say? They declare that brains and genius have had their day—that the greatest man in the world nowadays is the strongest."

Andrew smiled as he settled down in the armchair which his friend had wheeled towards him.

"You do not believe in your own doctrines," he remarked. "You would not part with a tenth part of your brains for all my muscle."

The Duke paused to think.

"It is not only the muscle," he said. "It is this appearance of splendid physical perfection. You have but to show yourself in a London drawing-room, and you will establish a cult. Do you want to be worshipped, friend Andrew—to wear a laurel crown, and have beautiful ladies kneeling at your feet?"

"Chuck it!" Andrew remarked good humouredly. "I didn't come here to be chaffed. I came here on a serious mission."

The Duke nodded.

"It must indeed have been serious," he said, "for you to have had your hair cut and your beard trimmed, and to have attired yourself in the garments of civilization. You are the last man whom I should have expected to have seen in a coat which might have been cut by Poole, if it wasn't, and wearing patent boots."

"Jolly uncomfortable they are," Andrew remarked, looking at them. "However, I didn't want to be turned away from your doors, and I still have a few friends in town whom I daren't disgrace. Honestly, Berners, I came up to ask you something."

The Duke was sympathetic but silent.

"Well?" he remarked encouragingly.

"The fact is," Andrew continued, "I wonder whether you could help me to get something to do. We have decided to let the Red Hall, Cecil and I. The rents have gone down to nothing, and altogether things are pretty bad with us. I don't know that I'm good for anything. I don't see, to tell you the truth, exactly what place there is in the world that I could fill. Nevertheless, I want to do something. I love the villager's life, but after all there are other things to be considered. I don't want to become quite a clod."

The Duke produced a cigar box, passed it to Andrew, and deliberately lighted a cigar himself.

"Friend Andrew," he said, "you have set me a puzzle. You have set me a good many since I used to run errands for you at Eton, but I think that this is the toughest."

Andrew nodded.

"You'll think your way through it, if any one can," he remarked. "I don't expect anything, of course, that would enable me to afford cigars like this, but I'd be glad to find some work to do, and I'd be glad to be paid something for it."

The Duke was silent for a moment. He looked down at his cigar and then suddenly up again.

"Has that young idiot of a brother of yours been making a fool of himself?" he asked.

"Cecil is never altogether out of trouble," Andrew answered drily. "He seems to have taken bridge up with rather unfortunate results, and there were some other debts which had to be paid, but we needn't talk about those. The point is that we're jolly well hard up for a year or two. He's got to work, and so have I. If it wasn't for looking after him, I should go to Canada to-morrow."

"D——d young idiot!" the Duke muttered. "He's spent his own money and yours too, I suppose. Never mind, the money's gone."

"It isn't only the money," Andrew interrupted. "The fact is, I'm not altogether satisfied, as I told you before, with living just for sport. I'm not a prejudiced person. I know that there are greater things in the world, and I don't want to lose sight of them altogether. We De la Bornes have contributed poets and soldiers and sailors and statesmen to the history of our country, for many generations. I don't want to go down to posterity as altogether a drone. Of course, I'm too late for anything really worth doing. I know that just as well as you can tell me. At the same time I want to do something, and I would rather not go abroad, at any rate to stay. Can you suggest anything to me? I know it's jolly difficult, but you were always one of those sort of fellows who seem to see round the corner."

"Do you want a permanent job?" the Duke asked. "Or would a temporary one fit you up for a time?"

"A temporary one would be all right, if it was in my line," Andrew answered.

"We've got to send three delegates to a convention to be held at The Hague in a fortnight's time, for the revision of the International Fishing laws," the Duke remarked. "Could you take that on?"

"I should think so," Andrew answered. "I've been out with the men from our part of the world since I was a child, and I know pretty well all that there is to be known on our side about it. What is the convention about?"

"There are at least a dozen points to be considered," the Duke answered. "I'll send you the papers to any address you like, to-morrow. They're at my office now in Downing Street. Look 'em through, and see whether you think you could take it on. I have two men already appointed, but they are both lawyers, and I wanted some one who knew more about the practical side of it."

"I should think," Andrew remarked, "that this is my job down to the ground. What's the fee?"

"The fee's all right," the Duke answered. "You won't grumble about that, I promise you. You'll get a lump sum, and so much a day, but the whole thing, of course, will be over in a fortnight. What to do with you after that I can't for the moment think."

"We may hit upon something," Andrew said cheerfully. "What are you doing for lunch? Will you come round to the 'Travellers' with me? It's the only London club I've kept going, but I dare say we can get something fit to eat there."

"I'm jolly sure of it," the Duke answered, "but while you're in London you're going to do your lunching with me. We'll go to the Athenaeum and show these sickly-looking scholars and bishops what a man should look like. It's almost time for luncheon, isn't it?"

"Past," Andrew answered. "It was half-past twelve when I got here."

"Then we will leave at once," the Duke declared. "I have nothing to do this morning, fortunately. You don't care about driving, I know. We'll walk. It isn't half a mile."

They turned into the street together.

"By the by," the Duke asked, "what has become of your brother's friends? I mean the little party that we broke into so unceremoniously."

"The Princess and Miss Le Mesurier are, I believe, in London," Andrew answered. "I was very surprised to hear this morning that Forrest was still down at the Red Hall with Cecil. By the by, Ronald has turned up again, of course?"

The Duke hesitated for so long that Andrew turned towards him, and noticed for the first time the anxious lines in his face.

"Since the day he left the Red Hall," the Duke said, "Ronald has neither been seen nor heard from. I forgot that you had been outside civilization for nearly a month. Although I have tried hard, I have not been able to keep the affair altogether out of the papers."

Andrew was thunderstruck.

"Good God!" he exclaimed. "Why, Berners, this is one of the strangest things I ever heard of. What are you doing about it?"

"I am employing detectives," the Duke answered. "I do not see what else I could do. They have been down to the Red Hall. In fact I believe one of them is still in the vicinity. Your brother's story as to his departure seems to be quite in order, although no one at the railway station is able to remember his travelling by that train. They seem to remember the car, however, which is practically the same thing, and several people saw Major Forrest bringing it back early in the morning."

"Did any one," Andrew asked slowly, "see Lord Ronald in the car on his way to the station?"

"Not a soul," the Duke answered.

Andrew was honestly perplexed. Jeanne's statement that she had seen Forrest leaving the Red Hall with the car empty except for himself, he had never regarded seriously. Even now he could only conclude that she had been mistaken.

"Have any large cheques been presented against your brother's account?" he asked.

The Duke shook his head.

"Not one," he answered.

"Have the detectives any clue at all?"

"Not the ghost of one," the Duke answered. "Ronald had a few harmless little entanglements, but absolutely nothing that could have proved of any anxiety to him. He had several engagements during the last ten days which I know that he meant to keep. Something must have happened to him, God knows when or where! But here we are at the club. Andrew, I see that you have no umbrella, so I need not repeat the old joke about the bishops."

"What a selfish fellow I am!" Andrew remarked, as they seated themselves at a small table in the luncheon room. "Here have I been bothering you about my affairs, and all the time you have had this thing on your mind. Berners, I want you to tell me something."

"Go ahead," the Duke answered.

"Have you any idea in your head that Ronald has come to any harm at the Red Hall?"

The Duke shook his head.

"No!" he answered decidedly. "Frankly, if he had been there with Forrest alone, that would have been my first idea, but with your brother there, and the Princess, it is impossible to suspect anything, even if one knew what to suspect. The only possible clue as to his disappearance which is connected in any way with the Red Hall is that I understand he was paying attentions to Miss Le Mesurier, which she was disinclined to accept."

Andrew nodded.

"I think," he said, "that is probable."

"On the other hand," the Duke continued, "Ronald isn't in the least the sort of man to make away with himself or hide, because a girl, whom he could not have known very well, refused to marry him."

"Have you seen anything of the Princess in town?" Andrew asked, a little irrelevantly.

"I met her with her stepdaughter at Hereford House last night," the Duke answered. "The Princess was looking as brilliant as ever, but the little girl was pale and bored. She had a dozen men around her, and not a smile for one of them. Dull little thing, I should think."

Andrew said nothing. He was looking out of the window upon Pall Mall, but his eyes saw a little sandy hillock with blades of sprouting grass. Behind, the lavender-streaked marsh; in front, the yellow sands and the rippling sea. The sun seemed to warm his cheeks, the salt wind blew in his face. Westerham wondered for a moment what his friend saw in the grey flagged street to bring that faint reminiscent smile to his lips.

A messenger from the hall outside came in, and respectfully addressed the Duke.

"Your Grace is wanted upon the telephone," he announced.

The Duke excused himself. He was absent only for a few minutes, and when he returned and took his place he leaned over towards Andrew.

"My message was from the detective," he said. "He wants to see me. In fact, he is coming round here directly."



CHAPTER II

Cecil came face to face with his brother in the room where refreshments were being dispensed by solemn-looking footmen and trim parlour-maids. He stared at him for a moment in surprise.

"What on earth are you doing here, Andrew?" he asked.

"Exactly what I was wondering myself," Andrew answered, setting down his empty glass. "I met Bellamy Smith this afternoon in Bond Street, and he asked me to dine, without saying anything about this sort of show afterwards. By the by, Cecil," he added, "what are you doing in town? I thought you said that you were not coming up until the late autumn."

"No more I am, for any length of time," Cecil answered. "I am up for the day, back to-morrow. There were one or two things I wanted, and it was easier to come up and see about them than to write."

"Is Forrest still with you?" Andrew asked.

Cecil hesitated, and his brother had an unpleasant conviction that for a moment he was uncertain whether to tell the truth or no.

"Yes!" Cecil answered, "he is still there. I know you don't like him, Andrew, but he really isn't a bad sort, and he's quite a sportsman."

"Does he play cards with you?" Andrew asked.

"Never even suggested it," Cecil declared eagerly. "Fact is, we're out shooting all day, duck shooting, or fishing, or motoring, and we go to bed soon after dinner."

"You can't come to much harm at that," Andrew admitted. "By the by, do you know that Engleton has never turned up?"

"I have heard so," Cecil admitted. "I am not so surprised."

"Why not?" Andrew asked.

Cecil raised his eyebrows in a superior manner.

"Well," he said, "I know he was very sick about his brother looking too closely into his concerns. He has a little affair on just now that he wants to keep to himself, and I think that that is the reason he went off so quietly."

"His brother is very upset about it," Andrew remarked.

"Oh! the Duke was always a heavy old stick," Cecil answered. "I see you've been doing your duty to-night," he added, making a determined effort to change the conversation.

Andrew nodded.

"Do I look so hot?" he asked. "I am not used to these close rooms, or dancing either. Unfortunately they seem short of men, and Mrs. Bellamy Smith had me set."

Cecil grinned.

"That's the worst of dining before a dance," he remarked. "You're pretty well cornered before the crowd comes. Upon my word, old chap," he added, looking his brother up and down with an air of kindly patronage, "you don't turn out half badly. Country tailor still, eh?"

"Mind your own business, you young jackanapes," Andrew answered. "Do you think that no one can wear town clothes except yourself?"

Cecil laughed. After all, considering everything, Andrew was a good-natured fellow.

"By the by," he said, "do you know who is here this evening?"

Andrew demolished another sandwich.

"Every one, I should think," he answered. "I never saw such a crowd in my life."

"The Princess and Jeanne are here," Cecil said. "I don't suppose we shall either of us get near them. People are getting to know about Jeanne's little dot, and they are fairly mobbed everywhere."

Andrew stood for a moment quite still. His first emotion was one of dismay, and Cecil, noticing it, laughed at him.

"You can go ahead with your little flirtation," he remarked. "I had quite forgotten that. You needn't consider me. I haven't a chance with Miss Jeanne. She's too cranky a young person for me. I like something with a little more go in it."

Cecil drifted away, and Andrew glanced at his card. There were two dances for which he was still engaged, and he made his way slowly back to the ballroom. There was a slight block at the entrance, and he had to stand aside to let several couples pass out. One of the last of these was Jeanne, on the arm of young Bellamy Smith. Andrew stood quite still looking at her. He saw her start for a moment as she recognized him, and her eyes swept him over with a half incredulous, half startled expression. She drew a little breath. And then Andrew saw her suddenly and instinctively stiffen. She looked him in the face and bowed very slightly, without the vestige of a smile.

"How do you do, Mr. De la Borne?" she said as she passed on, without taking the slightest notice of the hand, which, forgetting where he was, he had half extended towards her.

Andrew went on into the ballroom, found his partner, and danced with her. As soon as he could he made his adieux and hurried off to the cloakroom. His coat was already upon his arm when Cecil discovered him.

"What are you bolting off for, old man?" he asked.

"I've had enough," Andrew answered. "I can't stand the atmosphere, and I hate dancing, as you know. See you to-morrow, Cecil. I want to have a talk with you. I am going away for a few weeks."

"Right oh!" Cecil answered. "But you can't go just yet. Mademoiselle Le Mesurier sent me for you. She wants to speak to you at once."

Andrew hesitated.

"Do you mean this, Cecil?" he asked.

"Of course I do," Cecil answered. "I haven't been rushing about looking into every corner of the place for nothing. Come along. I'll take you to where she is."

Andrew handed back his coat and hat to the attendant, and followed Cecil into the ballroom. In a passage leading to the billiard-room, where several chairs had been arranged for sitting out, Jeanne was ensconced, with two men leaning over her. She waved them away when she saw who it was coming. Without a smile, or the vestige of one, she motioned to Andrew to take the vacant seat by her side.

"I have executed your commission, Miss Le Mesurier," Cecil said, bowing before her. "I will claim my reward when we meet again."

He sauntered away, leaving them alone. Jeanne turned at once towards her companion.

"I am sorry," she said, "if my sending for you was in any way an annoyance. I understand, of course, you have made it quite clear to me, that our little friendship, or whatever you may choose to call it, is at an end. But I do insist upon knowing what it was that you and my stepmother were discussing for nearly half an hour in the gardens of the Red Hall. The truth, mind. You and I should owe one another that."

"We talked of you," he answered. "What other subject can you possibly imagine your stepmother and I could have in common?"

"That is a good start," she answered. "Now tell me the rest."

"I am not sure," he answered, "that I feel inclined to do that."

She leaned forward and looked at him. Unwillingly he turned his head to meet her gaze.

"You must tell me, please," she said. "I insist upon knowing."

"Your stepmother," he said, "was perfectly reasonable and very candid. She reminded me that you were a great heiress, and that as yet you had seen nothing of the world. I do not know why she thought it necessary to point this out to me, except that perhaps she thought that in some mad moment I might have conceived the idea that you—"

"That I?" she repeated softly, as he hesitated.

He set his teeth hard and frowned.

"You know what I mean," he said coldly. "Your stepmother is a clever woman, and a woman of the world. She takes into account all contingencies, never mind how improbable they might be. She was afraid that I might think things were possible between us which after all must always remain outside serious consideration. She wanted to warn me. That was all. It was kindness, but I am sure that it was unnecessary."

"You are not very lucid," she murmured. "It is because I am a great heiress, then, that you go off fishing for three weeks without saying good-bye; that you leave our next meeting to happen by chance in the last place I should have expected to see you? What do you think of me, Mr. Andrew? Do you imagine that I am of my stepmother's world, or ever could be? Have the hours we have spent together taught you nothing different?"

"You are a child," he answered evasively. "You do not know as yet to what world you will belong. It is as your stepmother said to me. With your fortune you may marry into one of the great families of Europe. You might almost take a part in the world's history. It is not for such as myself to dream of interfering with a destiny such as yours may be."

"For that reason," she remarked, leaning a little towards him, "you went fishing in a dirty little boat with those common sailors for three weeks. For that reason you bow to me when you meet me as though I were an acquaintance whom you barely remembered. For that reason, I suppose, you were hurrying away when your brother found you."

"It was the inevitable thing to do," he answered. "You may think to-day one thing, but it is for others who are older and wiser than you to remember that you are only a child, and that you have not realized yet the place you fill in the world. If it pleases you to know it, let me tell you that I am very glad indeed that you came to Salthouse. You have made me think more seriously. You have made me understand that after all the passing life is short, that idle days and physical pleasures do not make up the life which is worthiest. I am going to try other things. For the inspiration which bids me seek them, I have to thank you."

She touched his great brown hand with the delicate tips of her fingers.

"Dear Mr. Andrew," she said, "you are very big and strong and obstinate. You will have your own way however I may plead. Go, then, and strike your great blows upon the anvil of life. You say that I am passing the threshold, that as yet I am ignorant. Very well, I will make my way in with the throng. I will look about me, and see what this thing, life, is, and how much more it may mean to me because I chance to be the possessor of many ill-earned millions. Before very long we will meet again and compare notes, only I warn you, Mr. Andrew, that if any change comes, it comes to you. I am one of the outsiders who has looked into life, and who knows very well what is there even from across the borders."

He rose at once. To stay there was worse torture than to go.

"So it shall be," he said. "We will each take our draught of experience, and we will meet again and speak of the flavour of it. Only remember that whatever may be your lot, hold fast to those simple things which we have spoken of together, and the darkest days of all can never come."

She gave him her hand, and flashed a look at him which he was not likely to forget.

"So!" she said simply. "I shall remember."



CHAPTER III

The Princess was enjoying a few minutes of well-earned repose. She had lunched with Jeanne at Ranelagh, where they had been the guests of a lady who certainly had the right to call herself one of the leaders of Society. The newspapers and the Princess' confidences to a few of her friends had done all that was really necessary. Jeanne was accepted, and the Princess passed in her wake through those innermost portals which at one time had come perilously near being closed upon her. She was lying on a sofa in a white negligee gown. Jeanne had just brought in a pile of letters, mostly invitations. The Princess glanced them through, and smiled as she tossed them on one side.

"How these people amuse one!" she exclaimed. "Eighteen months ago I was in London alone, and not a soul came near me. To-day, because I am the guardian of a young lady whom the world believes to be a great heiress, people tumble over one another with their invitations and their courtesies."

Jeanne looked up.

"Why do you say 'believes to be?'" she asked quickly. "I am a great heiress, am I not?"

The Princess smiled, a slow, enigmatic smile, which might have meant anything, but which to Jeanne meant nothing at all.

"My dear child," she said, "of course you are. The papers have said so, Society has believed them. If I were to go out and declare right and left that you had nothing but a beggarly twenty thousand pounds or so, I should not find a soul to believe me. Every one would believe that I was trying to scare them off, to keep you for myself, or some one of my own choice. Really it is a very odd world!"

Jeanne was looking a little pensive. Her stepmother sometimes completely puzzled her.

"Who are the trustees of my money?" she asked, a little abruptly.

The Princess raised her eyebrows.

"Bless the child!" she exclaimed. "What do you know about trustees?"

"When I am of age," Jeanne said calmly, "which will happen sometime or other, I suppose, it will interest me to know exactly how much money I have and how it is invested."

The Princess looked a little startled.

"My dear Jeanne," she exclaimed, "pray don't talk like that until after you are married. Your money is being very well looked after. What I should like you to understand is this. You are going to meet to-night at dinner the man whom I intend you to marry."

Jeanne raised her eyebrows.

"I had some idea," she murmured, "of choosing a husband for myself."

"Impossible!" the Princess declared. "You have had no experience, and you are far too important a person to be allowed to think of such a thing. To-night at dinner you will meet the Count de Brensault. He is a Belgian of excellent family, quite rich, and very much attracted by you. I consider him entirely suitable, and I have advised him to speak to you seriously."

"Thank you," Jeanne said, "but I don't like Belgians, and I do not mean to marry one."

The Princess laughed, a little unpleasantly.

"My dear child," she said, "you may make a fuss about it, but eventually you will have to marry whom I say. You must remember that you are French, not English, and that I am your guardian. If you want to choose for yourself, you will have to wait three or four years before the law allows you to do so."

"Then I will wait three or four years," Jeanne answered quietly. "I have no idea of marrying the Count de Brensault."

The Princess raised herself a little on her couch.

"Child," she said, "you would try any one's patience. Only a month or so ago you told me that you were quite indifferent as to whom you might marry. You were content to allow me to select some one suitable."

"A few months," Jeanne answered, "are sometimes a very long time. My views have changed since then."

"You mean," the Princess said, "that you have met some one whom you wish to marry?"

"Perhaps so," Jeanne answered. "At any rate I will not marry the Count de Brensault."

The Princess' face had darkened.

"I do not wish to quarrel with you, Jeanne," she said, "but I think that you will. Whom else is it that you are thinking of? Is it our island fisherman who has taken your fancy?"

"Does that matter?" Jeanne answered calmly. "Is it not sufficient if I say that I will not marry the Count de Brensault."

"No, it is not quite sufficient," the Princess remarked coldly. "You will either marry the man whom I have chosen, or give me some definite and clear reason for your refusal."

"One very definite and clear reason," Jeanne remarked, "is that I do not like the Count de Brensault. I think that he is a noisy, forward, and offensive young man."

"His income is nearly fifty thousand a year," the Princess remarked, "so he must be forgiven a few eccentricities of manner."

"His income," Jeanne said, "scarcely matters, does it? If my money is ever to do anything for me, it should at least enable me to choose a husband for myself."

"That's where you girls always make such absurd mistakes," the Princess remarked. "You get an idea or a liking into your mind, and you hold on to it like wax. You forget that the times may change, new people may come, the old order of things may pass altogether away. Suppose, for instance, you were to lose your money?"

"I should not be sorry," Jeanne answered calmly. "I should at least be sure that I was not any longer an article of merchandise. I could lead my own life, and marry whom I pleased."

The Princess laughed scornfully.

"Men do not take to themselves penniless brides nowadays," she remarked.

"Some men—" Jeanne began.

The Princess interrupted her.

"Bah!" she said. "You are thinking of your island fisherman again. I see by the papers that he has gone away. He is very wise. He may be a very excellent person, but the whole world could not hold a less suitable husband for you."

Jeanne smiled.

"Well," she said, "we shall see. I certainly do not think that he will ever ask me to marry him. He is one of those whom my gold does not seem to attract."

"He is clumsy," the Princess remarked. "A word of encouragement would have brought him to your feet."

"If I had thought so," Jeanne remarked, "I would have spoken it."

The Princess looked across at her stepdaughter searchingly.

"Tell me the truth, Jeanne," she said. "Have you been idiot enough to really care for this man?"

"That," Jeanne answered, "is a subject which I cannot discuss with any one, not even you."

"It is all very well," the Princess answered, "but whatever happens, I must see that you do not make an idiot of yourself. It is very important indeed, for more reasons than you know of."

Jeanne looked up.

"Such as—?" she asked.

The Princess hesitated. There were two evils before her. It was not possible to escape from both. She found herself weighing the chances of each of them, their nearness to disaster.

"Well," she said, "great fortunes even like yours are not above the chances of the money-markets. Your fortune, or a great part of it, might go. What would happen to you then? You would be a pauper."

Jeanne smiled.

"I can see nothing terrifying in that," she answered, "but at the same time I do not think that a fortune such as mine is a very fluctuating affair."

"You are right, of course," the Princess said. "You will be one of the richest young women in the country. There is nothing to prevent it. It is a good thing that you have me to look after you."

Jeanne leaned a little forward in her chair, and looked steadfastly at her stepmother.

"I suppose," she said, "that you are right. You know the world, at any rate, and you are clever. But often you puzzle me. Why at first did you want me to marry Major Forrest?"

The Princess' face seemed suddenly to harden.

"I never wished you to," she said coldly. "However, we will not talk about that. For certain reasons I think that it would be well for you to be married before you actually come of age. That is why I have invited the Count de Brensault here to-night."

Jeanne's dark eyes were fixed curiously upon the Princess.

"Sometimes," she said, "I do not altogether understand you. Why should there be all this nervous haste about my marriage? Do you know that it would trouble me a great deal more, only that I have absolutely made up my mind that nothing will induce me to marry any one whom I do not really care for."

The Princess raised her head, and for a moment the woman and the girl looked at one another. It was almost a duel—the Princess' intense, almost threatening regard, and Jeanne's set face and steadfast eyes.

"My father left me all this money," Jeanne said, "that I might be happy, not miserable. I am quite determined that I will not ruin my life before it has commenced. I do not wish to marry at all for several years. I think that you have brought me into what you call Society a good deal too soon. I would rather study for a little time, and try and learn what the best things are that one may get out of life. I am afraid, from your point of view, that I am going to be a failure. I do not care particularly about dances, or the people we have met at them. I think that in another few weeks I shall be as bored as the most fashionable person in London."

A servant knocked at the door announcing Major Forrest. Jeanne rose to her feet and passed out by another door. The Princess made no attempt to stop her.



CHAPTER IV

The Princess looked up with ill-concealed eagerness as Forrest entered.

"Well," she asked, "have you any news?"

Forrest shook his head.

"None," he answered. "I am up for the day only. Cecil will not let me stay any longer. He was here himself the day before yesterday. We take it by turns to come away."

"And there is nothing to tell me?" the Princess asked. "No change of any sort?"

"None," Forrest answered. "It is no good attempting to persuade ourselves that there is any."

"What are you up for, then?" she asked.

He laughed hardly.

"I am like a diver," he answered, "who has to come to the surface every now and then for fresh air. Life down at Salthouse is very nearly the acme of stagnation. Our only excitement day by day is the danger—and the hope."

"Is Cecil getting braver?" the Princess asked.

"I think that he is, a little," Forrest answered.

The Princess nodded.

"We met him at the Bellamy Smiths'," she said. "It was quite a reunion. Andrew was there, and the Duke."

Forrest's face darkened.

"Meddling fool," he muttered. "Do you know that there are two detectives now in Salthouse? They come and go and ask all manner of questions. One of them pretends that he believes Engleton was drowned, and walks always on the beach and hires boatmen to explore the creeks. The other sits in the inn and bribes the servants with drinks to talk. But don't let's talk about this any longer. How is Jeanne?"

"We are going," the Princess said quietly, "to have trouble with that child."

"Why?" Forrest asked.

"She is developing a conscience," the Princess remarked. "Where she got it from, Heaven knows. It wasn't from her father. I can answer for that."

"Anything else?" Forrest asked.

"It is a curious thing," the Princess replied, "but ever since those few days down at that tumbledown old place of Cecil de la Borne's, she seems to have developed in a remarkable manner. I don't know how much nonsense she talked with that fisherman of hers, but some of it, at any rate, seems to have stuck. I am sure," she added, with a little sigh, "that we are going to have trouble."

Forrest smiled grimly.

"So far as I'm concerned," he remarked, "the trouble has arrived. I've a good mind to chuck it altogether."

The Princess looked up. Worn though her face was, she possessed one feature, her eyes, which still entitled her to be called a beautiful woman. She looked at Forrest steadily, and he felt himself growing uncomfortable before the contempt of her steady regard.

"I wonder how it is," she said pensively, "that all men are more or less cowards. You shield yourselves by speaking of an attack of nerves. It is nothing more nor less than cowardice."

"I believe you are right," Forrest assented. "I'm not the man I was."

"You are not," the Princess agreed. "It is well for you that you have had me to look after you, or you would have gone to pieces altogether. You talk of giving up cards and retiring to the Continent. My dear man, what do you propose to live on?"

He did not answer. He had bullied this woman for a good many years. Now he felt that the tables were being turned upon him.

"What has become of the De la Borne money?" she asked. "I never thought that you would get it, but he paid up every cent, didn't he?"

Forrest nodded.

"He did," he admitted, "or rather his brother did for him. I lost four hundred at Goodwood, and there were some of my creditors I simply had to give a little to, or they would have pulled me up altogether. You talk about nerves, Ena, but, hang it all, it's enough to give anyone the hum to lead the sort of life I've had to lead for the last few years. I'm nothing more nor less than a common adventurer."

"Whatever you are," the Princess answered steadily, "you are too old to change your life or the manner of it. One can start again afresh on the other side of forty, but at fifty the thing is hopeless. Fortunately you have me."

"You!" he repeated bitterly. "You mean that I can dip into your purse for pocket-money when you happen to have any. I have done too much of it. You forget that there is one way into a new world, at any rate."

The Princess smiled.

"My dear Nigel," she said, "it is a way which you will never take. Don't think I mean to be unkind when I say that you have not the courage. However, we will not talk about that. I sent for you to tell you that De Brensault is really in earnest about Jeanne. He is dining here to-night. I will get some other people and we will have bridge. De Brensault is conceited, and a bad player, and what is most important of all, he can afford to lose."

Forrest began to look a little less gloomy.

"You were fortunate," he remarked, "to get hold of De Brensault. There are not many of his sort about. I am afraid, though, that he will not make much of an impression upon Jeanne."

The Princess' face hardened.

"If Jeanne is going to be obstinate," she said, "she must suffer for it. De Brensault is just the man I have been looking for. He wants a young wife, and although he is rich, he is greedy. He is the sort of person I can talk to. In fact I have already given him a hint."

Forrest nodded understandingly.

"But, Ena," he said, "if he really does shell out, won't you be sailing rather close to the wind?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I am not afraid," she said. "I know De Brensault and his sort. If he feels that he has been duped, he will keep it to himself. He is too vain a man to allow the world to know it. Poor Jeanne! I am afraid, I am very much afraid that he will take it out of her."

"I do not quite see," Forrest said reflectively, "how you are going to make Jeanne marry any one, especially in this country."

"Jeanne is French, not English," the Princess remarked, "and she is not of age. A mother has considerable authority legally, as I dare say you are aware. We may not be able to manage it in England, but I think I can guarantee that if De Brensault doesn't disappoint us, the wedding will take place."

Forrest helped himself to a cigarette from an open box by his side.

"I think," he said, "that if it comes off we ought to go to the States for a year or so. They don't know us so well there, and those people are the easiest duped of any in the world."

The Princess nodded.

"I have thought of that," she remarked. "There are only one or two little things against it. However, we will see. You had better go now. I have some callers coming and must make myself respectable."

She gave him her hands and he raised them to his lips. Her eyes followed him as he turned away and left the room. For a few moments she was thoughtful. Then she shrugged her shoulders.

"Well," she said, "all things must come to an end, I suppose."

She rang the bell and sent for Jeanne. It was ten minutes, however, before she appeared.

"What have you been doing?" the Princess asked with a frown.

"Finishing some letters," Jeanne answered calmly. "Did you want me particularly?"

"To whom were you writing?" the Princess demanded.

"To Monsieur Laplanche for one person," Jeanne answered calmly.

The Princess raised her eyebrows.

"And what had you," she asked, "to say to Monsieur Laplanche?"

"I have written to ask him a few particulars concerning my fortune," Jeanne answered.

"Such as?" the Princess inquired steadily.

"I want to know," Jeanne said, "at what age it becomes my own, and how much it amounts to. It seems to me that I have a right to know these things, and as you will not tell me, I have written to Monsieur Laplanche."

The Princess held out her hand.

"Give me the letter," she said.

Jeanne made no motion to obey.

"Do you object to my writing?" she asked.

"I object," the Princess said, "to your writing anybody on any subject without my permission, and so far as regards the information you have asked for from Monsieur Laplanche, I will tell you all that you want to know."

"I prefer," Jeanne said steadily, "to hear it from Monsieur Laplanche himself. There are times when you say things which I do not understand. I have quite made up my mind that I will have things made plain to me by my trustee."

The Princess was outwardly calm, but her eyes were like steel.

"You are a foolish child," she said. "I am your guardian. You have nothing whatever to do with your trustees. They exist to help me, not you. Everything that you wish to know you must learn from me. It is not until you are of age that any measure of control passes from me. Give me that letter."

Jeanne hesitated for a moment. Then she turned toward the door.

"No!" she said. "I am going to post it."

The Princess rose from her chair, and crossing the room locked the door.

"Jeanne," she said, "come here."

The girl hesitated. In the end she obeyed. The Princess reached out her hand and struck her on the cheek.

"Give me that letter," she commanded.

Jeanne shrank back. The suddenness of the blow, its indignity, and these new relations which it seemed designed to indicate, bewildered her. She stood passive while the Princess took the letter from her fingers and tore it into pieces. Then she unlocked the door.

"Go to your room, Jeanne," she ordered.

Jeanne heard the sound of people ascending the stairs, and this time she did not hesitate. The Princess drew a little breath and looked at the fragments of the letter in the grate. It was victory of a sort, but she realized very well that the ultimate issue was more doubtful than ever. In her room Jeanne would have time for reflection. If she chose she might easily decide upon the one step which would be irretrievable.



CHAPTER V

The Count de Brensault was a small man, with a large pale face. There were puffy little bags under his eyes, from which the colour had departed. His hair, though skilfully arranged, was very thin at the top, and his figure had the lumpiness of the man who has never known any sort of athletic training. He looked a dozen years older than his age, which was in reality thirty-five, and for the last ten years he had been a constant though cautious devotee of every form of dissipation. Jeanne, who sat by his side at dinner-time, found herself looking at him more than once in a sort of fascinated wonder. Was it really possible that any one could believe her capable of marrying such a creature! There were eight people at dinner, in none of whom she was in the least interested. The Count de Brensault talked a good deal, and very loudly. He spoke of his horses and his dogs and his motor cars, but he omitted to say that he had ceased to ride his horses, and that he never drove his motor car. Jeanne listened to him in quiet contempt, and the Princess fidgetted in her chair. The man ought to know that this was not the way to impress a child fresh from boarding-school!

"You seem," Jeanne remarked, after listening to him almost in silence for a long time, "to give most of your time to sports. Do you play polo?"

He shook his head.

"I am too heavy," he said, "and the game, it is a little dangerous."

"Do you hunt?" she asked.

"No!" he admitted. "In Belgium we do not hunt."

"Do you race with your motor cars?"

"I entered one," he answered, "for the Prix des Ardennes. It was the third. My driver, he was not very clever."

"You did not drive it yourself, then?" she asked.

He laughed in a superior manner.

"I do not wish," he said, "to have a broken neck. There are so many things in life which I still find very pleasant."

He smiled at her in a knowing manner, and Jeanne looked away to hide her disgust.

"Your interest in sport," she remarked, "seems to be a sort of second-hand one, does it not?"

"I do not know that," he answered. "I do not know quite what you mean. At Ostend last year I won the great sweepstakes."

"For shooting pigeons?" she asked.

"So!" he admitted, with content.

She smiled.

"I see that I must beg your pardon," she said. "Have you ever done any big game shooting?"

He shook his head.

"I do not like to travel very much," he answered. "I do not like the cooking, and I think that my tastes are what you would call very civilized."

The Princess intervened. She felt that it was necessary at any cost to do so.

"The Count," she told Jeanne, "has just been elected a member of the Four-in-Hand Club here. If we are very nice to him he will take us out in his coach."

"As soon," De Brensault interposed hastily, "as I have found another team not quite so what you call spirited. My black horses are very beautiful, but I do not like to drive them. They pull very hard, and they always try to run away."

The Princess sighed. The man, after all, was really a little hopeless. She saw clearly that it was useless to try and impress Jeanne. The affair must take its course. Afterwards in the drawing-room the Count came and sat by Jeanne's side.

"Always," he declared, "in England it is bridge. One dines with one's friends, and one would like to talk for a little time, and it is bridge. It must be very dull for you little girls who are not old enough to play. There is no one left to talk to you."

Jeanne smiled.

"Perhaps," she said, "I am an exception. There are very few people whom I care to have talk to me."

She looked him in the eyes, but he was unfortunately a very spoilt young man, and he only stroked the waxed tip of a scanty moustache.

"I am very glad to hear you say so, mademoiselle," he said. "That makes it the more pleasant that your excellent mother gives me one quarter of an hour's respite from bridge that we may have a little conversation. Have you ever been in my country, Miss Le Mesurier?"

"I have only travelled through it," Jeanne answered; "but I am afraid that you did not understand what I meant just now. I said that there were very few people with whom I cared to talk. You are not one of those few, Monsieur le Comte."

He looked at her with a half-open mouth. His eyes were suddenly like beads.

"I do not understand," he said.

"I am afraid," Jeanne answered, with a sigh, "that you are very unintelligent. What I meant to say was that I do not like to sit here and talk with you. It wearies me, because you do not say anything that interests me, and I should very much rather read my book."

The Count de Brensault was nonplussed. He looked at Jeanne, and he looked vaguely across the room at the Princess, as though wondering whether he ought to appeal to her.

"Have I offended you?" he asked. "Perhaps I have said something that you do not like. I am sorry."

"No, it is not that at all," Jeanne answered sweetly. "It is simply that I do not like you. You must not mind if I tell you the truth. You see I have only just come from boarding-school, and there we were always taught to be quite truthful."

De Brensault stared at her again. This was the most extraordinary young woman whom he had ever met in his life. Had not the Princess only an hour ago told him that although he might find her a little difficult at first, she was nevertheless prepared to receive his advances. He had imagined himself dazzling her a little with his title and possessions, gracefully throwing the handkerchief at her feet, and giving her that slight share in his life and affection which his somewhat continental ideas of domesticity suggested. Had she really meant to be rude to him, or was she nervous? He looked at her once more, still with that unintelligent stare. Jeanne was perfectly composed, with her pale cheeks and large serious eyes. She was obviously speaking the truth. Then as he looked the expression in his eyes changed. She was gradually becoming desirable, not only on account of her youth and dowry—there were other things. He felt a sudden desire to kiss those very shapely, somewhat full lips, which had just told him so calmly that their owner disliked him. Already he was telling himself in his mind that some day, when she was his altogether, for a plaything or what he chose to make of her, he would remind her of this evening.

"I am sorry," he said, "that you do not like me, but that is because you are not used to men. Presently you will know me better, and then I am sure it will be different. As for you," he continued, looking at her in a manner which he felt should certainly awaken some different feeling in her inexperienced heart, "I admire you very much indeed. I have seen you only once or twice, but I have thought of you much. Some day I hope that we shall be very much better friends."

He leaned a little toward her, and Jeanne calmly removed herself a little further away. She turned her head now to look at him, as she sat upright upon the sofa, very slim and graceful in her white gown.

"I do not think so," she said. "I do not care about being friendly with people whom I dislike, and I am beginning to dislike you very much indeed because you will not go away when I ask you."

He rose to his feet a little offended.

"Very well," he said, "I will go and talk to your stepmother, who wants me to play bridge, but very soon I shall come back, and before long I think that I am going to make you like me very much."

He crossed the room, and Jeanne's eyes followed his awkward gait with a sudden flash of quiet amusement. She watched him talk to her stepmother, and she saw the Princess' face darken. As a matter of fact De Brensault felt that he had some just cause for complaint.

"Dear Princess," he said, "you did not tell me that she was so very farouche, so very shy indeed. I speak to her quite kindly, and she tells me that she does not like me, and that she wished me to go away."

The Princess looked across the room towards Jeanne, who was calmly reading, and apparently oblivious of everything that was passing.

"My dear Count," she said, tapping his hand with her fan, "she is very, very serious. She would like to have been a nun, but of course we would not hear of it. I think that she was a little afraid of you. You looked at her very boldly, you know, and she is not used to the glances of men. At her age, perhaps—you understand?"

The Count was not quite sure that he did understand. He had a most unpleasant recollection of the firmness and decision with which Jeanne had announced her views with regard to him, but he looked towards her again and the look was fatal. Jeanne was certainly a most desirable young person, quite apart from her dowry.

"It may be as you say, Princess," he said. "I must leave her to you for a little time. You must talk to her. She is quite pretty," he added with an involuntary note of condescension in his tone. "I am very pleased with her. In fact I am quite attracted."

"You will remember," the Princess said, dropping her voice a little, "that before anything definite is said, you and I must have a little conversation."

De Brensault twirled his moustache. He looked up at the Princess as though trying to fathom the meaning of her words.

"Certainly," he answered slowly. "I have not forgotten what you said. Of course, her dot is very large, is it not?"

"It is very large indeed," the Princess answered, "and there are a great many young men who would be very grateful to me indeed if I were willing even to listen to them."

De Brensault nodded.

"Very well," he said. "We will have that little talk whenever you like."

The Princess nodded.

"I suppose," she said, "we must play bridge now. They are waiting for us."

De Brensault looked behind to where Jeanne was still sitting reading. Her head was resting upon a sofa pillow, deep orange coloured, against which the purity of her complexion, the delicate lines of her eyebrows, the shapeliness of her exquisite mouth, were all more than ever manifest. She read with interest, and without turning her head away from the pages of the book which she held in long, slender fingers. De Brensault sighed as he turned away.