CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE VARIOUS MOODS OF A GENTLEMAN OF FASHION.

Mr. Townsend was shaving himself. Advancing his face an inch or two nearer his shaving-glass, with his fingers he smoothed his chin.

"Very awkward," he said. "Very!"

The allusion could scarcely have been to the process in which he was engaged. Everything had gone with smoothness. Not even a scratch had marred the perfect peace.

Mr. Townsend concluded that his chin was as clean shaven as it possibly could be. He put his razor down. He took up a cigarette. He lighted it.

"Exceedingly awkward!"

As he murmured the iteration, seating himself in an armchair, he selected an open letter from among a heap of others which lay on a little table at his side. The letter he had selected was unmistakably a feminine production. It was written in a large, bold, running hand, on paper which was as stiff as cardboard.

"MY DEAREST REGGIE,--You must come and see me! At once! I shall expect you this morning!

"_Whatever you have done, it it quite impossible that I shall let you go--you are mine!_

"You understand that I am waiting for you, and that you are to come to me as soon as you possibly can.

"You are to tell the bearer when I shall see you!

"YOUR DORA."

That was what the letter said. The italics and the notes of exclamation were the lady's own. As he puffed his cigarette Mr. Townsend read the letter carefully through and smiled. Removing his cigarette, he pressed the letter to his lips. Then, carefully folding the letter between his fingers, he laid it down.

"As I said I would go, I shall have to go--it's uncommonly awkward. Had she been wise, she would have taken what I wrote as the final word, and left it so."

Rising, he continued his toilet, humming to himself, now and then, snatches of a popular comic song. Going to the fireplace, he began pushing about, with the toe of his shoes, the pieces of burning coal.

"It's odd how I love her--very! After my experience. And this time, as the man says in the play, it is love. Well, she has called the stakes. It is for me to win. If I don't, I can but lose."

He returned to the table on which the letters were. He picked up another, also unmistakably the production of a feminine hand. It contained but a line or two. It was without prefix or signature. And this time the writing was small and fine and clear:--

"I have heard nothing from you. The eight-and-forty hours will be up this afternoon at five. After that time I shall feel it my duty to do my utmost at once to save the life of an innocent man. I shall be at home to you till five."

Mr. Townsend read this epistle also with a smile, but he did not press it to his lips when read. Instead, he commented on it with a curious sort of humour.

"You pretty dear! You are the dangerous sort that always smiles. I have heard and read a good deal about women being cleverer than men, but till I met you I never met my match."

Tearing the letter into pieces, he dropped the fragments among the burning coals. As he adjusted his necktie before a looking-glass he indulged himself with further snatches of that comic song. Having completed his toilet, he went into the adjoining room. In response to his ring breakfast was brought in. And, with every appearance of the satisfaction of the man whose conscience is perfectly at ease, Mr. Townsend sat down to the discussion of his morning meal.

As he was finishing, a manservant opened the door.

"Lord Archibald Beaupré, sir, wishes to see you."

"Show him in here."

Presently there entered a tall, thin, and rather weedy-looking young man. His scanty hair was of that colourless fairness which is almost peculiar to a certain type of Scotchman. He would not have been bad-looking, in spite of his being slightly freckled, if it had not been for three things: first, he had obviously at least his share of the pride for which his countrymen are proverbial; second, he was obviously more than sufficiently weak; and third, he was equally obviously bad tempered.

On this occasion he did not seem to be by any means in the most agreeable frame of mind. Taking no sort of notice of Mr. Townsend's nodded greeting, he marched straight to an easy-chair, and, sitting down on it, he rested his hands on the handle of his stick, and his chin on his hands. He looked straight in front of him with about as sour a visage as he could well have worn. Mr. Townsend continued his breakfast as if there was nothing at all peculiar in his visitor's demeanour, and as he ate he smiled.

After a while he leaned back on his chair.

"Well, Archie, any news?"

"News be damned!"

Mr. Townsend still smiled.

"By all means if you wish it. It is the same to me."

"You know very well what I have come for."

"I take it that you have come to bestow on me for a short period the charm of your society." The visitor scowled. His host but smiled the more. "Have anything to eat?"

"I'll have something to drink."

"You'll find all the ingredients on the sideboard. Help yourself, dear boy."

The visitor helped himself. As he stood at the sideboard pouring the liquor out into a glass his host sat watching him with amusement which was wholly unconcealed. The contrast between the two men was striking. It would have forced itself on to the attention of the most casual spectator. The one weak, irritable almost to the point of peevishness; the other strong, unruffled, self-contained. The one with, in his whole bearing, that suggestion of self-assertion which is often but the child of shyness, but which none the less repels; the other with that easy, graceful, seemingly unconscious, personal magnetism which, in spite of oneself, attracts. One could understand how the one might be forgiven till seventy times seven, while the other would be condemned, without benefit of clergy, for his first offence.

Lord Archibald Beaupré returned to the easy-chair, armed with a tumbler of whisky and soda. He took a considerable drink. And then he spoke--morosely.

"It's the meeting of that cursed club to-night."

Mr. Townsend had watched his every movement, particularly seeming to note the quantity he had drunk--and still he smiled.

"So it is."

The other burst into a torrent of words.

"I wish I had never heard of it! I wish I had never had anything to do with it! I wish I had never had anything to do with any one of you! I wish----"

His emotions proved too much for him; he prematurely stopped.

"Wish it out." Mr. Townsend was lighting a cigarette. "And when you've wished it out, what then?"

"Damn you. You do nothing else but jibe and jeer at me."

"My dear Archie, your manners are not good."

"Curse my manners!"

"By all means, if you wish it. Only I am inclined to think there won't be very much to curse."

Lord Archibald ground out an oath between his teeth, and he groaned. Mr. Townsend went on; he was enjoying his cigarette.

"By the way, have you done anything for the Honour of the Club?"

His visitor half rose from his seat, then sank back into it again.

"No! You know I haven't! Don't talk of it! No!"

"I have no desire to talk of it. It is scarcely a question of talk. It is rather a question of do."

His hearer covered his face with his hands and shuddered. There was something in his host's eyes, as he smilingly regarded him, which suggested possibilities--and also limitations--of a distinctly curious sort. He kept his glance fixed on his companion, and, as he spoke again, he expelled through his nostrils the smoke of his cigarette.

"On the whole, perhaps, your policy of postponement may turn out fortunately for both of us. You will remember that under certain circumstances I reserved the right to nominate a candidate--a candidate, that is, for your attention. The circumstances which I thought might arise have arisen."

"Townsend!"

"Archie!"

Lord Archibald removed his hands from his face. The two men looked at each other--the one face ghastly, haggard, frightened; the other easy, careless, smiling.

"Do you mean it?"

Lord Archibald's voice was husky. Mr. Townsend flicked the ash from his cigarette.

"I am in the habit, in matters of moment, of meaning what I say, although that may not be the case with you."

The airily-suggested insinuation stung. The other burst into a sudden blaze of passion.

"What do you mean by that?"

The host met his visitor's furious gaze with a smile which seemed to convey a fulness of meaning which was sufficient to subdue the other's wrath.

"What did you mean by asking me if I meant what I said? Didn't you know?"

Lord Archibald turned his face away. Taking up the tumbler of soda and whisky he drained it of its contents. Getting up from his chair, he went to the sideboard to replenish. While he was in the act of doing so, and his back towards his host, he asked a question.

"Who is it?"

"A woman."

Lord Archibald spun round like a teetotum, a decanter in one hand, a tumbler in the other.

"A woman? Reggie? You--you don't mean Miss Jardine?"

Mr. Townsend's lips curled. In some subtle way his countenance was transfigured. The ease and the carelessness vanished. He became all bitterness and gall.

"Beaupré, I am inclined to think that you are the most consummate ass of my acquaintance. Why will you perpetually harp upon a single string? You are so utterly inept that the wonder is I have borne with you so long. Might I ask you not eternally to play the fool?"

Lord Archibald put down the decanter and the glass. The muscles of his face quivered as if he was about to be afflicted by an attack of St. Vitus' Dance.

"If anybody but you had spoken to me like that, at the very least he should never speak to me again."

The only effect which his visitor's fury had on Mr. Townsend was to make him still more scornful.

"Don't gas to me, my good fellow. Reserve that sort of thing for some other of your acquaintance. I regret that you should have rendered it necessary for me to remind you that you are under a considerable obligation to me, and I regret still more that you should have compelled me to ask if it is your intention to fulfil that obligation. I believe that even Scotchmen do occasionally fulfil their obligations."

His listener's face was a sickly yellow. Rage had made him calm.

"Mr. Townsend, be so good as to tell me who this woman is."

Thus requested, Mr. Townsend, scribbling something on a scrap of paper, tossed the scrap of paper across the table to his guest.

"There is her name and her address. I took you with me once to call on her. Probably you remember the occasion and the lady. Your business with her must be transacted before five o'clock this afternoon. If you are a quarter of an hour after that time you may as well postpone the fulfilment of your obligation to a future day. For my purpose you will be too late."

The other scanned what was written on the scrap of paper. He folded the paper up; he placed it in his waistcoat-pocket.

"You shall have the literal letter of your bond. Afterwards, Mr. Townsend, I will deal with you."

Without another word Lord Archibald Beaupré left the room.

Left to himself, Mr. Townsend threw the end of his cigarette into the fire. Thrusting his hands into his trouser-pockets, stretching out his legs in front of him, he stared at the flame and he smiled--not pleasantly.

"What a fool the fellow is! I have had about as much of him as I can stand. Indeed, I have had more. I hope they'll hang him. It will be a happy despatch. Or perhaps, after he has done the deed, he will turn, as a relief, to suicide. It's just the sort of thing he would do."

Something tickled him. He laughed.

"What a game of touch and go I'm playing."

He stood up.

"To think that he should have supposed that I meant Dora. My Dora!"

A panel photograph was on the mantelboard. It was the portrait of a young girl. Mr. Townsend apostrophised it as if it had been a living thing.

"My darling! If you had only come into my life before, how different it might all have been! If fortune had but let you come my way, evil should not have been my good. There is the making of a man in me, somewhere, that I swear. If I could but get out of it all and shake myself free and begin again, I'd quickly prove it."

Taking the photograph into his hand, he kissed it. It was strange how tender his voice had suddenly become.

"My love! What thing is this which I have been consorting with all this time, and supposing it was love? That's not love. Bah! I have learnt my lesson rather late in the day, but I have learnt it, sweet. You have taught me what is love."

He put the portrait back. He sat down again. But he still looked at the face which was on the mantelboard.

"The place in which I am is such a tight one. You had been wiser, dear, had you believed me when I wrote that I was not fit for you, and so straightway have let me go. Again I'll endeavour to persuade you. But if you'll not be persuaded I will win you, and I will hold you, and I will keep you if I can, though to do so I have to plunge deeper in the mire. It may be, indeed, that that way atonement lies. Who knows?"