CHAPTER VIII

When she got home that night she found Gordon had arrived before her. He was thoughtful, unusually subdued; most remarkable of all, was to be seen, for he invariably went to bed as soon as he reached home after a dinner or theatre, and never by any chance was he in a conversational mood at such hours.

“Good time?” he asked.

“Very. I met the cream of the Colonial Office. It was thin but genuine cream. Were you very late, and was she very annoyed?”

Such a query, ordinarily, would be ignored.

“Five minutes or so; the lady was naturally----”

“Peeved?” she suggested. “And it was a lady, after all? Gordon, let me see her?”

He smiled.

“She wouldn’t interest you, Diana. She is rather an intellectual.”

Diana was not offended.

“The only thing I approve about the Bolsheviks is that they killed off the _intelligentsia_ first,” she said without heat. “I suppose they got tired of seeing their plays and hearing about their spiritual insides. What do you talk about--Bimetallism or Free Will?”

He humoured her, being in a somewhat sympathetic mood. The strain of holding friendship to lecture-hall level was beginning to tell.

“Books and people,” he said lightly. “And you?”

She threw her cloak over the back of a chair, pulled a stool to the fire and sat down, warming her knees. Gordon, the soul of delicacy, strolled out of the line of vision.

“We talked about tradesmen and the superiority of Australian beef and the difficulty of finding servants and Mrs. Carter-Corrillo’s fearful indiscretion--she went to France with the third secretary of the Montenegrin Embassy. She was only there three days, but, as Lady Pennefort said, there are twenty-four hours in every day. Some women are fools--and most men. This young man’s career is ruined, even though he swears that their mutual interest in the gravel deposits of Abbeville was the explanation of the visit. They are both keen on geology.”

“And why shouldn’t that be the true explanation?” demanded Gordon stoutly, his heart warming to the geological third secretary. “Why should not men and women have mutual scientific interests?”

“We’ll hear what the judge says,” she answered complacently. “Mr. Carter-Corrillo is suing for a divorce.”

“On what grounds--incompatibility of interest in strata?” sneered Gordon.

“Don’t be silly. Conventions are the by-laws of society. It is presumed that, if you break a by-law, you are capable of breaking the law.”

He stared, amazed at her cool inconsistency.

“Here are you, living, unchaperoned, in the house of a bachelor----”

“Cousins are different,” she said promptly. “Nobody suggests that the third secretary is Mrs. Carter-Corrillo’s cousin. That would make a difference. Besides, everybody knows how much you dislike me.”

“I don’t dislike you,” after a moment’s thought; “but if you think I do, why do you stay?”

“I have a mission,” she said, with a finality of tone that brought the subject out of discussion.

Gordon broke the news of his impending departure after breakfast the next morning.

“I am thinking of running up to Scotland to have a shot at the birds,” he said. He felt rather like a liar.

“What have they been doing?” she asked, her grey-blue eyes wide.

“Nothing. One shoots them at this season of the year. You have game laws in Australia, I suppose?”

“I don’t know. I have shot wallaby and dingo and rabbits and things, but never birds. To Scotland? That’s an awful long way. Gordon, I shall be worried about you. There was a railway accident in the newspapers this morning. You’ll send me a wire?”

“From every station,” he said sarcastically, and was ashamed of himself when she thanked him so warmly.

“I’m glad--that is my eccentricity, a horrid fear that people I like are in railway accidents. Of course, I could always wire to the stationmaster to enquire about you, or to your hotel.”

Slowly it dawned upon Gordon Selsbury that in an unguarded and fatally foolish moment he had enormously complicated a situation already far from simple. To escape, to offer excuses, even to laugh off her anxiety, simulated or real, was impossible. A solution came to him and was instantly rejected. It came again because it was, in all the circumstances, the only solution. But it was one that could only be applied at the cost of his self-respect. Almost he cursed Heloise or whoever was the fool who had suggested this mad excursion.

Trenter was laying out his master’s clothes for dinner when Gordon strolled into his dressing-room.

“Um ... don’t go, Trenter. When did you have your holiday?”

“First week in April, sir.”

Gordon considered.

“Do you know Scotland?”

“Yes, sir; I’ve been with several house parties for the September shooting.”

“Good. The fact is, Trenter, I’m going away on a--a peculiar mission. It is a secret even from my most intimate friends. There are reasons, very excellent reasons with which I need not trouble you, and which you certainly would not understand, why I should go secretly to one place whilst I am supposed to be at another.”

Trenter aimed wildly, but scored on the target at the first shot.

“A lady, sir?” he ventured respectfully, meaning no harm--offering, in fact, a tribute to the known chivalry of the Selsburys.

“No!”

There was reason enough for the large and angry blush that darkened Gordon’s face.

“No, of course not. Business. Nothing at all to do with a lady.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Trenter, and was.

“We won’t discuss my mission. What I want to say is this. Miss Ford, who is rather of a nervous disposition, has asked me to send her wires at intervals of the journey....”

“And you want me to go to Scotland and send them,” said Trenter brilliantly. Gordon had never respected his servant’s intelligence so much as he did at that moment.

“Exactly. It will save me a lot of worry. And,” he added mysteriously, “if the wires fall into other hands, they will help deceive a Certain Person!”

Trenter nodded wisely. He couldn’t guess who the Certain Person was: even Gordon did not know. But lying grew easier with practice--he had grown reckless.

“Not a word of this in the servants’ hall,” warned Gordon.

The servitor smiled. Gordon had not seen him smile before. It was a strange sight.

“No, sir; I shall tell them that my aunt in Bristol is ill (which she is) and that you’ve given me leave. How long do you want me to be away, sir?”

“A week,” said Gordon.

Mr. Trenter went down to the servants’ hall importantly.

“The old man’s given me a week’s holiday to see my aunt. I’m leaving to-morrow.”

Eleanor was constitutionally suspicious.

“Bit sudden, isn’t it? He’s going away to-morrow too. You men are devils! Us women never know what you’re up to.”

Trenter smiled cryptically. It added to his self-confidence to be suspected of devilish deeds.

“Noos verrong,” he said, and added the information: “French.”

“Is Miss Diana going?” asked the cook.

“With me or him?” demanded Trenter insolently. “She’s not going with _him_! And do I blame him? No! She’s no lady, that’s my firm opinion.”

“Then keep it to yourself!” said Eleanor, shrill of voice. “I don’t want you to say anything about Miss Diana!”

“You women stick together.” Trenter could not but admire the trait.

“And you men stick at nothing.” Eleanor’s sincerity gave sanction to inconsequence. “She’s too good for him. I suppose you’re both off on some gallivanting business? So far as I am concerned you’re welcome! You’ve been an experience, and every girl ought to have experience--up to a point. Your wife can have you.”

“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you forty million times that I’m not married!” hissed Trenter. “I had to be married because he wanted a married man for a butler, and if I’d said I was single I should have lost the job. That temper of yours, my girl, is going to be your ruin.”

“Well, don’t talk disp--whatever the word is--about Miss Diana,” she sulked.

“I don’t trouble my head about her, because I don’t think there’s anybody in the world like you, Eleanor,” he urged.

She admitted later that there was much to be said for his point of view.