CHAPTER XIX
HERRIARD STANDS ALONE
ONCE outside the house, the tension at which Herriard’s nerves had been strung during that surprising interview relaxed, and a whirl of troubling, anxious thoughts crowded to his mind. He seemed suddenly plunged from light into darkness; just as he seemed to be making harbour to be carried back upon an angry sea. He felt he was in no condition then to see Alexia; she would surely detect from his manner that something was wrong, and, unhappily, he was debarred from all explanation of his trouble. The lateness of the hour afforded him some excuse for not presenting himself; perhaps on the morrow his mind would be clearer and he more master of himself. As it was, just then he felt he must think, resolve and resolve again the problem, presented so threateningly, of Gastineau’s persecution of Alexia, coupled with his recovery.
How did he, Geoffrey Herriard, stand in the matter? What part was he to play? What was his course, for Alexia’s sake, to be? At present his position was clear. He stood between Gastineau and the object of his desire. At which of them would that subtle, resolute, relentless spirit strike first; at him or her? That could with no certainty be forecasted; Gastineau’s mind did not move in men’s common grooves of thought and action. He knew that well enough, and that the essence of his quondam tutor’s aggressive tactics was surprise. To know when to hit and where to hit had been his rule; he was wont to strike quickly and from the least expected side. It seemed pretty certain, so far as anything could be foreseen, that he would strike at Alexia. Altogether, the problem seemed so complex that Herriard was convinced that its ultimate solution must lie in its own developments. He was dealing with an abnormal character, and all he could do was to keep warily on his guard. Whichever way he looked at the situation his position was hateful; but it was one from which, for Alexia’s sake, he could not flinch.
So, after a perturbed pacing of one of the Park’s outer walks, he turned his steps towards his rooms in Mount Street. Abandoning the riddle of the future, his thoughts rested on the past. Now he understood why on two chance occasions Gastineau had been denied to him. He had been at the moment probably undergoing secret treatment at the hands of Dr. Hallamar. And the thousand pounds of which Gastineau had suddenly found himself in need: that sum was surely to make up the great surgeon’s fee. Now it was plain why Gastineau had himself insisted on writing what had purported to be a note of invitation to Dr. Hallamar to see him, and had sent it off without giving Herriard a sight of it. In effect it must have been an injunction to the Doctor not to divulge even to his patient’s friend that the cure was already effected. Yes; one after another, little incidents occurred to Herriard, who, having now the key of the puzzle, fitted them in convincingly. And so the night passed.
Next day he snatched an hour between the rising of the Courts and a consultation to go to Green Street.
“And I expected you every hour yesterday,” Alexia said reproachfully.
“You had my note?” he replied. “Had I known I was to be kept all day it should have been sent earlier. But I expected, as you did, that every hour would bring me here.”
“Were you really so busy?” she asked, still unsatisfied. “From early morning, till late at night?”
“Really, on my honour, dearest; busy and worried.”
“Ah, worried?” she repeated almost wistfully. “Does a man ever have worries that can be shared?”
He shook his head with a smile. “Business worries. How can a woman share them? Yet every day must bring them if a man is conscientious in his work.”
“Ah, yes; I understand.” She laid her hand caressingly on his arm. “I shall always be proud of you and of your work, Geoffrey. I can guess how you must have worried for me.”
“Naturally.”
“Ah, but that is over,” she said brightly.
“I hope so,” he replied, forcing his tone to match hers. “Both my worries about you.”
“Both?”
“That I might lose your case, and that you might refuse me.”
There was a beam of love-light in her eyes as she replied, “One of your worries would have been superfluous if I could have refused you, Geoffrey. Don’t look mystified. Should I have been worth worrying about if I were incapable of appreciating all you are and all you have done for me?”
The unconscious irony of the words seemed to stab him. “So little compared with what I should have done,” he murmured; “so far from what I should be.”
Alexia laughed protestingly. “My dear Geoffrey, you are abnormally, unreasonably modest. That the world does not take you at your own valuation is lucky for you, and the world.”
“Yes,” he said, “it is lucky, at least for me. Perhaps if you took me at my own valuation you would not look at me.”
“Geoffrey!” she protested. There is a point beyond which the self-abasement of the man she loves begins to jar on a woman.
“Alexia,” he continued, clasping her hands in his, “you do love me?”
“Yes, Geoffrey,” she answered frankly, as her deep grey eyes looked into his. “You know I love you.”
“But you hardly know me,” he went on. “At least only as the world knows me, from the show-side. If, when we are married and you know me almost as I know myself, if then you find I am not all you thought me, if you find that what you call my modesty was not all affectation, that I stand lower in your estimation than I once did, will you love me then?”
“I will love you always, Geoffrey,” she answered simply. “Do you think a woman is ever very wrong in her estimation of a man?”
“Where love and, perhaps, gratitude are concerned to blind her.”
Alexia laughed. “Sometimes, where the woman is a fool. I don’t think I am a fool, dear, or that you are unworthy of all I believe you to be.”
Ah, that miserable secret that lay between them. Could he, dared he, tell her that all through the brilliant career for which she admired him he had been but the mouthpiece of a cleverer brain, and that man, of all others, Paul Gastineau? Yet if the confession were to come at all it should in honour be made forthwith. Every hour he delayed it added lie to lie. Yesterday he had thought the truth of the matter need never be spoken, to-day he felt that the disclosure must sooner or later be forced upon him. And if it was so surely to come, Alexia must at any cost learn the truth from his lips, not from another’s, least of all Gastineau’s. Yet he recognized that their secret was Gastineau’s weapon to crush Alexia’s love for him. How long would it be before he made his existence, his presence known to the woman of his desire; how long before he dealt that telling blow? He ought to forestall him; here, to his hand, was the opportunity. Yet, could he take it? It meant, he told himself, breaking his oath to Gastineau; it would mean trouble and fear to Alexia, it might mean his own discomfiture and ruin. No. At that moment with his arms round Alexia, with her sweet eyes speaking love to his, with her kisses on his lips, he could not give even a hint that should mar the delight of the present. The future seemed dark enough: the light of his love should burn till its extinction was forced upon him.
He looked at Alexia, the prize he had won, radiant in the beauty that was for him, and which was the index of a glorious soul. The thought of Gastineau’s insinuation against this adorable woman filled him with an access of disgust. What lie could ever lurk beneath the light of those clear grey eyes, which looked into his with a gaze which shamed the good fortune he had seized under the shadow of falsehood. Is not the charm of a woman of honour compared with the Circean fascination of an adventuress as sunlight to darkness? The spell of Alexia’s beauty was upon Herriard; and not of her beauty only, but of the innate nobility which differentiated her in his eyes from every other woman. He clasped her to him with passionate kisses, and in his heart vowed, that, cost what it might, the whole world should not take this prize from him; not the forces of right; no, nor the legions of evil, whose well-chosen representative in this case seemed to be Paul Gastineau.
“I will not have you disparage yourself to me, dear,” Alexia said presently. They were standing lover-like, with hands clasped; the time of parting had come, for it was near the hour of Herriard’s appointment in chambers. “You must not,” she continued, with her love radiating through the playful reproof. “It reflects on my taste, when you run yourself down.”
“Then I will not,” he replied, abandoning himself to the moment’s rapture. “Henceforth I will be what you would have me.” And he vowed inwardly that he would never for a scruple risk the loss of this jewel; would never be fool enough to ring the doubtful coins he was giving for it that they might sound false.
In a few minutes he was, still in the exaltation of this wondrous love that he had found, speeding away to a common-place, sordid consultation in a company case. What contrasts the world holds, he thought; and suddenly found himself heartily in agreement with Gastineau’s late indictment of their profession. It was difficult to bring his mind down from that seventh heaven to the mundane level of advising a knot of greedy money-grubbers how to avoid a certain disgorgement of undue profits which threatened them. For the time hating and despising a profession which made him, the, nominally honourable, adviser of dishonest men, he kept himself rigidly from all show of sympathy with the sharp practitioners who sat before him; and held, without a suggestion of helpfulness to the dry questions of law which were involved. And when the smart solicitor had carried off his dissatisfied clients, arguing with glib tenacity the chances of law versus equity, he threw himself back in his chair with a sigh of unutterable relief that the air of the room was purer, and that he could indulge the delight of his new-found happiness.
Then a troublesome thought arose to check the delight of his reverie, his immediate interview with Gastineau, the time for which was almost come. He remembered how Gastineau had practically ordered him to attend that evening. It was galling; behind the distastefulness was, perhaps, a touch of apprehension. And indeed a brave man may be excused fear of the methods of an unscrupulous opponent. It is fighting in the dark, and courage may well fail where it can avail nothing. Still, with all his reluctance to meet Gastineau under their altered relationship, Herriard was glad to think that the projected interview might also show him where he stood: he might, though it was unlikely, get an inkling of Gastineau’s plans, and whether he intended to resume his pursuit of Alexia. That he was feverishly anxious to know, since on it depended the question whether or not he was to be involved in a terribly unequal struggle with a man of abnormal cunning and determination. Yes; if it were to come, it was as well that it should come at once; suspense was unbearable.
Herriard rose and prepared to go out. He would dine at a restaurant near at hand, then start off for Mayfair and get the business over. As he opened the door of his chambers a man stood outside who raised his hat and addressed him by name.