CHAPTER III.

AT THE "ROYAL GEORGE."

On the sixth day after the arrival of Captain Ducie at St. Helier, the Weymouth boat brought over two passengers who had attracted more attention from their fellow-travellers than any other two people on board.

The elder of the two was a white-haired venerable-looking gentleman who wore gold-rimmed spectacles and was richly dressed in furs. A cap made out of the skin of some wild animal, with the tail hanging down behind, fitted his head like a helmet, and gave him quite an un-English appearance.

His companion was a very beautiful young woman of three or four-and-twenty, richly, but quietly attired: evidently his daughter.

When, on the arrival of the boat, the luggage was fished out of the hold, several adventurous spirits pressed forward to read the label on the young lady's boxes. This was what rewarded their curiosity:--

MISS VAN LOAL, Passenger to Jersey.

"Drive to the 'Royal George,'" said the old gentleman as he and his daughter stepped into a fly on the pier, and several of the curious who had taken him for a foreigner were surprised to find that he spoke English like one to the manner born. But had any inhabitant of Tydsbury chanced to be on the pier that evening, he would have recognised in the foreign-looking gentleman and his superb daughter, two townsfolk of his own,--to wit, Mr. Solomon Madgin and his daughter Mirpah. With what object they had come so far from home, and under an assumed name, we shall presently learn.

Captain Ducie, cigar in mouth, was lounging at the door of the "Royal George" when the fly drove up in which Mr. and Miss Van Loal were seated. Mirpah's beauty took his eye. He removed his cigar, stepped back a pace or two, and gazed. Mirpah's eyes met his. She had a presentiment that she saw before her the Captain Ducie of whom she had read so much in her brother's Reports from Bon Repos, and in whose possession the Great Mogul Diamond was said to be. Mirpah's eyes fell, a faint tinge of colour came into her cheek, and she and her father passed forward into the hotel.

"By Jove!" was Captain Ducie's sole comment aloud. Then he pulled his hat farther over his brows, resumed his cigar, and lounged off towards the pier.

This scene had been witnessed by a pale-faced, spectacled young man from a window of Button's Hotel on the other side of the way. As soon as Ducie had disappeared round the corner, this young man left his place of espionage, came out into the street, and crossed over to the "Royal George." Here he asked for and was conducted to the sitting-room of Mr. Van Loal, but he sent the waiter back and opened the door of the room himself.

"My dear James!" "My dear brother!" were the exclamations that greeted his entrance.

"Hush! not quite so loud, if you please," said cautious James with a warning finger in the air. Then, having carefully closed the door, he shook his father warmly by the hand, and turned to embrace his sister. Whereupon a long conversation ensued among the three which need not be detailed here.

Instead of dining in his own room as he had hitherto done, Captain Ducie made his appearance at the table d'hôte this evening. He went down early, and there, just as if it had been pre-arranged that they should meet, he found Mr. Van Loal and his daughter.

The evenings were growing rather chilly, and a small fire had been lighted. Mr. Van Loal, now stripped of his furs and appearing in ordinary evening dress, with the most expansive of shirt-fronts and the stiffest of white neckcloths, had got as near the fire as he well could, and was warming his thin white hands over the flickering blaze.

Mirpah, with one elbow resting on the chimney-piece, was standing near him, looking, Ducie thought, even more beautiful in her black filmy evening dress than she had looked in her travelling costume. One thing Ducie could not help noticing--that on the hands both of father and daughter there glittered several very magnificent rings. Other jewellery they wore none.

As Captain Ducie advanced up the room, Miss Van Loal crossed over to the other side to look at some stuffed birds. Accidentally or purposely she dropped her handkerchief. It had scarcely touched the ground before Captain Ducie had recovered it. With a smile and a bow he gave it back to its owner.

The ice had been broken, and presently Mr. Van Loal and the captain were conversing easily and confidentially about the island, its scenery, its history, and its climate. Mirpah glided back to her father's side. She did not join in the conversation, but once or twice Ducie caught her eyes fixed on his face with an expression in them that was flattering to his vanity.

When dinner was announced he did not fail to secure for himself the chair next to that of Mirpah. There was something about this dark-eyed beauty that took his fancy amazingly. His powers of fascination were in danger of growing rusty from disuse. He was glad that an opportunity had arisen which would allow him to prove, were it only for his own satisfaction, that his old prowess with the sex had not quite deserted him.

Here was no fashionable young lady, the butterfly of a hundred drawing-rooms, to subdue; but something far more unconventional: a woman altogether unused to so-called fashionable life, as his critical glance had told him in a moment; but still an undoubted lady, and the possessor of a pair of the most unfathomable eyes that his own had ever gazed into. Therefore he sat down to the siege he had proposed to himself with an alacrity that was infinitely refreshing to him after his long severance from the delights of female society.

Later on, Captain Ducie proposed a stroll along the pier. Mr. Van Loal and his daughter at once assented.

The night was warm and a full moon was sailing through the sky. Faint strains of music came wafted from afar, and mingled with the plash of the incoming tide. Could anyone have questioned Captain Ducie on the point, he would have declared that his "spooning" days had come to an end twenty years before, and he would have believed his own statement. Men in love he was in the habit of regarding with good-natured cynicism as though they were in a state of temporary insanity superinduced by their own folly, and were not to be held accountable like ordinary mortals. But to-night, what with the moonlight, the music, the rhythmic beat of the waves on the sands; and the propinquity of Mirpah Van Loal, Captain Ducie felt the first delicious symptoms of a fever to which his blood had been a stranger for years.

After he had parted for the night from Van Loal and his charming daughter, and was in the solitude of his own bedroom, he laughed aloud to think how very like a greenhorn who had fallen in love for the first time he had felt that evening. He recognised the feeling, and was contemptuous of himself even while revelling in the unaccustomed sweetness. It was a sweetness that waited on his dreams all the night long, and when he opened his eyes next morning he felt as though Time's finger had moved back the figures on the dial of his life, and that he was not only a boy in years again, but also--and that would have been the greater miracle of the two--once more a boy at heart.

But he was a middle-aged cynic again the moment he put his foot out of bed. There is no disenchanter like the clear cold light of morning. It was not that he deemed Mirpah one whit less beautiful than she had seemed in his eyes the previous night. He was savage with himself for allowing any woman, however fascinating she might be, to touch his cold heart with the flame of a torch that for him had long been quenched in the waters of Lethe.

Nevertheless, by the time he had discussed his breakfast, he was by no means sorry to remember that he had an engagement at eleven o'clock to drive Mr. Van Loal and his daughter to Grève-de-Lecq. It would really be a pleasant mode of spending the lazy autumn day, and he would take very good care that Mademoiselle Van Loal's witching eyes did not cast a spell round him for the second time.

Forewarned is forearmed, and, after all his experience of the sex, it would be a pitiful tale indeed if he allowed himself to be entangled by any young lady, however charming she might be, of whom, as in the present case, he knew next to nothing.

Having made this declaration to himself, he looked at his watch to see how near the time was to eleven.

"Curious name, Van Loal," he muttered. "Is it Dutch? or Belgian? or what is it? It smacks of the Low Countries. The man who bears such a name ought never to drink anything weaker than Schiedam. In the present case, however, both the old boy and his daughter must be English, whatever their ancestors may have been: they speak without the slightest foreign accent. Mademoiselle talks about the old fellow having just retired from business. What business was he, I wonder? There is something cosmopolitan about him that makes it difficult to guess in hat particular line he has made his money. A few indirect questions may perhaps elicit the required information: not that it matters to me in anyway--not in the least."

The day was a pleasant one. Captain Ducie drove Mr. Van Loal and, his daughter to some of the prettiest spots in the island. They had an al fresco luncheon in a sheltered corner of a lovely bay. After the meal was over, Mr. Van Loal wandered away to botanize by himself. Captain Ducie and Mirpah were left to entertain each other.

Said the latter: "It is quite amusing to see papa so enthusiastic after rare ferns and mosses. It is a pursuit so totally opposed to the previous occupations of his life that on this lovely island, and amid such quiet scenes, I can almost imagine that he would gradually grow young again, as people in fairy tales are sometimes said to do, and that in this botanising freak we have the first indication of the change."

"We cannot quite afford to have him changed into a young prince," said Ducie, "or else what would become of you? You would have to diminish into babyhood, and however pleasant a state that may be, I for one cannot wish you otherwise than as you are."

"You must have graduated with honours in the art of paying compliments, Captain Ducie. Long study and the practice of many years have been needed to make you such an adept. I congratulate you on the result."

Captain Ducie laughed. "A very fair hit," he said, "but in the present case totally undeserved. Had I been a young fellow of eighteen I should have blushed and fidgetted, and have thought you excessively cruel. But being an old fellow of forty or more, I can enjoy your retort while being myself the butt at which your shaft is aimed. It speaks well for the purity of Mr. Van Loal's conscience that in the intervals of a busy life, and one which has doubtless its own peculiar cares and anxieties, he can yet enjoy so refined an amusement as that of fern hunting."

"That remark ought to elicit some information from her as to the old boy's métier," added Ducie under his breath. "Is he a retired grocer? or a sleeping partner in some old-established bank?"

"Papa's life has indeed been a busy one," answered Mirpah, "but for the future, I hope that he will have ample opportunity to indulge in whatever mode of passing his time may suit his fancy best. With the real business of life, that is, with the money-making part of it, I trust that he has done for ever. What his occupation was you would never guess, Captain Ducie. Come, now, I will wager you half-a-dozen pairs of gloves that out of the same number of guesses you do not succeed in naming papa's business--and it was a business, and in no way connected with any of the learned professions."

"Done!" exclaimed Ducie eagerly, holding out his hand to clench the bet. The tips of Miss Van Loal's fingers rested for an instant in his palm, and Ducie felt that he could well afford to lose.

He was silent for a minute or two, pretending to think. In the end, his six guesses stood as follows: He guessed that Mr. Van Loal had been either a banker, or a stock-broker, or a brewer, or a drysalter, or an architect, or some sort of a contractor.

"Lost!" cried Mirpah in high glee, when the sixth guess was proclaimed. "Papa was none of the things you have named. You, have not gone far enough a-field in your guesses: you have not sufficiently exercised your inventive faculties. No, Captain Ducie, my father was neither a banker, nor anything else that you have specified. _He was a Diamond Merchant_."

Mirpah allowed these last words to slide from between her lips as quietly as though she were making the most commonplace statement in the world; but their effect upon Captain Ducie was apparently to paralyse his faculties for a few moments. All the colour left his face; his eyes, full of trouble and suspicion, sought those of Mirpah, anxious to read there whether or no she had any knowledge of his great secret--whether the stab she had given him was an intentional or an accidental one. Involuntarily his hand sought the folds of his waistcoat. He breathed again. His treasure was still there. In the dark luminous eyes of the beautiful girl before him he read no hint of any crafty secret, of any sinister design. It was nothing more, then, than a strange coincidence. He had been fooled by his own fears. Had this Van Loal and his daughter by some mysterious means become acquainted with his secret, and had they come to Jersey with any ulterior designs against himself, the fact that Van Loal had been a diamond merchant would have been something to conceal as undoubtedly provocative of suspicion. The very fact of such a statement having been made was his surest guarantee that he had nothing sinister to guard against. He had frightened himself with a shadow. The magnificent diamond rings worn by the old man and his daughter were at once accounted for.

"I am afraid that you regret having made such a reckless wager," said Mirpah, with an arch look at the captain. "But, indeed, you ought to pay your forfeit, were it only for having guessed that poor papa had been a drysalter--whatever that may be. I suppose it has something to do with the curing of herrings or hams. A drysalter!" and Mirpah's clear laugh rang out across the sands.

"I own the wager fairly lost," said Ducie, as he prepared to light a cigar, "and will cheerfully pay the forfeit. Had I guessed for a week it would still have been lost. I hardly knew that there were such people as professional diamond merchants in this country."

"They form a small corporation, it is true, but by no means an unimportant one in their own estimation. The professed jewellers, the men who keep the magnificent shops, would be but poorly off without the diamond-dealers to fall back upon. We--the Van Loals--have been members of the guild for three centuries--not in England, but in Amsterdam, where our name is a name of honour. Papa was born there, but he came to England when he was a young man and married an English girl, and from that time he has lived in the country of his adoption. He has promised that next spring we shall visit Amsterdam together: then, for the first time, I shall see the land where my ancestors lived and died."

Mr. Van Loal came up at this juncture, and the semi-confidential talk between Mirpah and Captain Ducie came to an end.

At the table d'hôte that evening Ducie sat between father and daughter. He exerted himself to the utmost to make an agreeable impression on both of them. After dinner the two men had a smoke and a stroll on the pier. They were both men of the world, and had a score of topics in common on which they could talk fluently and well. Ducie's easy languid far niente style of looking at everything that did not impinge on his own personality formed a piquant contrast to the shrewd calculating matter-of-fact way of looking at the same subjects which distinguished the soi-disant Van Loal. They kept each other company till a late hour.

When Ducie got to his own room he bolted the door and lighted a last cigar. He wanted to meditate quietly for half an hour. No man could be more clear-sighted than he was as regarded his own faults and follies in all cases where his conscience was not brought into question. To-night, he at once acknowledged to himself that he was more deeply in love with Mirpah Van Loal than he had thought ever to be with any woman again. He had sneered at himself, before setting out in the morning, for his infatuation of the previous night, but now the second night had come, and he was twice as much infatuated as before. He did not sneer at himself to-night, but he set himself critically to consider why he had fallen in love, and whither this new disturbing influence in his life was likely to lead him.

But the why and the wherefore of the cases that have to be adjudicated before the tribunal of Love can seldom be argued coolly by either of the parties chiefly concerned. Their statements are sure to be ex-parte ones, their arguments to be coloured by personal feeling, while the philtre that is working in their blood obscures their logic and clouds their brains. In stating the case before himself, the first question Ducie asked was: "What is the particular charm about Miss Van Loal that has induced me to make such a fool of myself at my time of life?"

"Well," he answered himself, leisurely puffing, with hands buried deep in pockets--"that there is a peculiar charm about Miss Van Loal is a fact which I, for one, cannot dispute. She does not belong to the monde, and never will belong to it, for which I like her none the worse. She is fresh and unconventional, and much better educated than most ladies of fashion. There is no mawkish sentimentality about her. She is not a boarding-school miss, but a woman, intelligent and full of clear, calm, good sense. Good-tempered too, unless I am greatly mistaken, and that goes for much with a man of my years. Lastly, she is very nice-looking; beautiful would not be too strong a word to apply in her case, and her beauty is of a kind one does not see every day. She is in good style, too, and with a little training would hold her own anywhere.

"As to whither this new passion is leading me?--If at the end of another week I like Miss Van Loal as well as I like her now, I shall make her an offer of marriage. It is by no means certain that she will accept me, but should she do so I suppose my people will say that I have made a low marriage, and will cut me accordingly. Well, I should rather enjoy being cut under such circumstances. There's not one of the whole tribe that would give me another sovereign to save me from starving. Thanks to one little fact, I shall never again have occasion to ask them for a sovereign. Why, then, should I not marry Miss Van Loal? I have an idea that I could be happier with her as my wife than I have ever been before. I should no longer feel the sting of poverty. I could afford to live a life of thorough respectability, and I would never look on a card again. There are some lovely nooks on the continent, and--but, bah! why pursue the dream any farther? That it will prove to be anything more than a dream I dare scarcely hope."

He rose and flung away the end of his cigar, and began to prepare for bed. "By what singular fatality does it happen that Mr. Van Loal, a dealer in diamonds, has been brought en rapport with me who hold in my possession one of the finest diamonds in the world? In any case, I have made his acquaintance most opportunely. Through his assistance I may be enabled to find a purchaser for my gem."