LITMIR.BIZ

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      “This expression of your sentiments,” he remarked at last, “is interesting so far as it goes. I am, however, a practical person, and my connection with you is of a practical order. You don’t propose, I presume, to promenade the streets with a cat-o-nine-tails?”

      “Your curiosity,” Wingrave remarked, “is reasonable. Tomorrow I may gratify some portion of it after my interview with Lady Ruth. In the meantime, I might remark that to the observant person who has wits and money, the opportunities for doing evil present themselves, I think, with reasonable frequency. I do not propose, however, to leave things altogether to chance.”

      “A definite scheme of ill-doing,” Aynesworth ventured to suggest, “would be more satisfactory?”

      “Exactly,” he admitted.

      He called for the bill, and his eyes wandered once more around the room as the waiter counted out the change. The band were playing the “Valse Amoureuse”; the air was grown heavy with the odor of tobacco and the mingled perfumes of flowers and scents. A refrain of soft laughter followed the music. An after-dinner air pervaded the place. Wingrave’s lip curled.

      “My lack of kinship with my fellows,” he remarked, “is exceedingly well defined just now. I agree with the one philosopher who declared that ‘eating and drinking are functions which are better performed in private.’ ”

      The two men went on to a theater. The play was a society trifle—a thing of the moment. Wingrave listened gravely, without a smile or any particular sign of interest. At the end of the second act, he turned towards his companion.

      “The lady in the box opposite,” he remarked, “desires to attract your attention.”

      Aynesworth looked up and recognized Lady Ruth. She was fanning herself languidly, but her eyes were fixed upon the two men. She leaned a little forward, and her gesture was unmistakable.

      Aynesworth rose to his feet a little doubtfully.

      “You had better go,” Wingrave said. “Present my compliments and excuses. I feel that a meeting now would amount to an anti-climax.”

      Aynesworth made his way upstairs. Lady Ruth was alone, and he noticed that she had withdrawn to a chair where she was invisible to the house. Even Aynesworth himself could not see her face clearly at first, for she had chosen the darkest corner of the box. He gathered an impression of a gleaming white neck and bosom rising and falling rather more quickly than was natural, eyes which shone softly through the gloom, and the perfume of white roses, a great cluster of which lay upon the box ledge. Her voice was scarcely raised above a whisper.

      “That is—Sir Wingrave with you?”

      “Yes!” Aynesworth answered. “It was he who saw you first!”

      She seemed to catch her breath. Her voice was still tremulous.

      “He is changed,” she said. “I should not have recognized him.”

      “They were the best ten years of his life,” Aynesworth answered. “Think of how and in what surroundings he has been compelled to live. No wonder that he has had the humanity hammered out of him.”

      She shivered a little.

      “Is he always like this?” she asked. “I have watched him. He never smiles. He looks as hard as fate itself.”

      “I have known him only a few hours,” Aynesworth reminded her.

      “I dare not come tomorrow,” she whispered; “I am afraid of him.”

      “Do you wish me to tell him so?” he asked.

      “I don’t know,” she answered. “You are very unfeeling, Mr. Aynesworth.”

      “I hope not,” he answered, and looked away towards the orchestra. He did not wish to meet her eyes.

      “You are!” she murmured. “I have no one to whom I dare speak—of this. I dare not mention his name to my husband. It was my evidence which convicted him, and I can see, I know, that he is vindictive. And he has those letters! Oh! If I could only get them back?”

      Her voice trembled with an appeal whispered but passionate. It was wonderful how musical and yet how softly spoken her words were. They were like live things, and the few feet of darkened space through which they had passed seemed charged with magnetic influence.

      “Mr. Aynesworth!”

      He turned and faced her.

      “Can’t you help me?”

      “I cannot, Lady Ruth.”

      The electric bell rang softly from outside, and the orchestra commenced to play. Lady Ruth rose and looked at herself in the mirror. Then she turned and smiled at her visitor. The pallor of her face was no longer unnatural. She was a wonderful woman.

      “I shall come tomorrow,” she said. “Shall I see you?”

      “That,” he answered, “depends upon Sir Wingrave.”

      She made a little grimace as she dismissed him. Wingrave did not speak to his companion for some time after he had resumed his seat. Then he inclined his head towards him.

      “Have you come to terms with her ladyship?” he asked drily.

      “Not yet!” Aynesworth answered.

      “You can name your own price,” he continued. “She will pay! Don’t be afraid of making her bid up. She has a good deal at stake!”

      Aynesworth made no reply. He was thinking how easy it would be to hate this man!

“HAST THOU FOUND ME, O MINE ENEMY?”

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      Aynesworth was waiting in the hall on the following afternoon when Lady Ruth arrived. He had half expected that she would drive up to the side door in a hansom, would wear a thick veil, and adopt the other appurtenances of a clandestine meeting. But Lady Ruth was much too clever a woman for anything of the sort. She descended at the great front entrance from her own electric coupe, and swept into the hotel followed by her maid. She stopped to speak to the manager of the hotel, who knew her from her visits to the world-famous restaurant, and she asked at once for Sir Wingrave Seton. Then she saw Aynesworth, and crossed the hall with outstretched hand.

      “How nice of you to be here,” she murmured. “Can you take me to Sir Wingrave at once? I have such a busy afternoon that I was afraid at the last moment that I should be unable to come!”

      Aynesworth led her towards the lift.

      “Sir Wingrave is in his sitting room,” he remarked. “It is only on the first floor.”

      She directed her maid where to wait, and followed him. On the way down the corridor, he stole a glance at her. She was a little pale, and he could see that she had nerved herself to this interview with a great effort. As he knocked at the door, her great eyes were raised for a moment to his, and they were like the eyes of a frightened child.

      “I am afraid!” she murmured.

      There was no time for more. They were in the room, and Wingrave had risen to meet them. Lady Ruth did not hesitate for a moment. She crossed the room towards him with outstretched hands. Aynesworth, who was standing a little on one side, watched their meeting with intense, though covert interest. She had pushed back her veil, her head was a little upraised in a mute gesture of appeal.

      She was pale to the lips, but her eyes were soft with hidden tears. Wingrave stood stonily silent, like a figure of fate. His hands remained by his sides. Her welcome found no response from him. She came to a standstill, and, swaying a little, stretched out her hand and steadied herself by grasping the back of a chair.

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