The Profiteers Part 19

"Yes, I am strong enough," he agreed, "but is she?"

"Why do you doubt her?" Sarah demanded. "What has she in her present life to lose, compared with what she gains from you--what she wants more than anything else in the world--love?"

He made no answer. The girl's words had thrilled him. Then the door swung open and Jimmy appeared, very pink and white, very immaculate, and looking rather more helpless than usual.

"I say, Sarah," he exclaimed, "it's no use! There's a most infernal block down in the courtyard. Chap wanted me to push the taxi out into the street. It's cost me all the loose change I've got to stop his sending for a policeman. We'll have to do a scoot."

Sarah sighed as her host arranged her cloak around her.

"Sorry we couldn't have stayed a little longer," she said. "Mr. Wingate was just getting most interesting."

"You'll have a drink before you go, Wilshaw?" Wingate insisted.

"Say when."

The young man accepted the whisky and soda and promptly disposed of it.

"Thanks, old chap! Frightfully sorry to rush away like this, but that fellow downstairs means business."

"Good night, Mr. Wingate," Sarah said, holding out her hand, "and thanks ever so much for the evening. You don't think I'm a forward little minx, do you?"

"I think you're a sensible little dear," he a.s.sured her, "far too good for Jimmy."

"Sorry I accepted your hospitality, if that's how you're feeling," Jimmy grunted. "By the by, you haven't a few cigarettes, have you, for me to smoke while Sarah tries to get me safely home?"

Wingate held out the box.

"Fill your case," he invited; "your pockets, too, if you like. Don't forget, both of you, luncheon at one-thirty to-morrow in the restaurant.

Good night!"

He stood with the door open, watching them go down the corridor. Then he came slowly back into his room. Once more the telephone bell began to ring. He picked up the receiver. The indifference of his opening monosyllable vanished in a second. Something amazing crept into his face.

"Who?--Lady Dredlinton?" he exclaimed.

"But where are you?--Downstairs?--Yes--Yes--Why, of course.--Here?--You mean that you are coming here, up to my room?--I don't quite understand.--Yes, of course.--One moment, please. Come up by the east lift unless you want to meet Sarah Baldwin and Wilshaw. They have this moment left me. The hall porter will show you."

Wingate laid down the receiver, glanced for a moment at the clock, hurried to the door, pushed back and secured the latch. Then he came back into the room and stood listening.

In the end she came quite suddenly. The door had opened and closed before he heard even the swish of her skirts. She stood there looking at him a little appealingly. She was dressed in dark travelling clothes and she carried a heavy dressing case in her hand. He sprang forward and took it from her.

"My dear friend," she exclaimed, with an attempt at levity, "don't look so tragic! There is a very simple explanation of this extraordinary visit, as you will soon find."

"It needs no explanation," he declared.

"Oh, yes, it does, of course," she continued. "I simply want you to intercede with the authorities here, so that I do not have to go and stand at that terrible counter. There is a continental train just in, and the place is crowded."

"You wish to stay here for the night?"

"Mayn't I? I have always heard that it was such a charming hotel, and I must stay somewhere."

"There is some trouble?" he asked slowly.

"There is always trouble," she replied, with a shrug of the shoulders.

"To-night seems to me as though it may be the climax. You won't be horrified if I sit down and smoke one of your cigarettes? And may I remind you that your att.i.tude is not entirely hospitable?"

Wingate had recovered from his first stupor. His eyes were very bright, he was filled with the sense of wonderful happenings.

"Oh, I'll be as hospitable as you like," he a.s.sured her. "You shan't have any cause to reproach me so far as that is concerned. This easy-chair, please. It is by far the most comfortable one. And now some cus.h.i.+ons," he added, slipping them behind her. "The cigarettes are here, and I have some excellent hock. Just half a gla.s.s? Good! Miss Baldwin has been praising my sandwiches. You'll have one, won't you?"

She sighed with content, almost with happiness. The strained look had gone from her face. She took off her hat and he laid it upon the table.

"You are very good, very kind indeed," she murmured. "And yet not so kind as I would like to be."

He came and stood by her side. She was eating one of the sandwiches and had already tasted the wine. Somehow, he knew quite well that she had had no dinner.

"I want you to understand," he began, "that you are free to tell me what has happened to-night or not--just as you please. Don't feel obliged to explain, I'll be quite frank, I am a curious person as regards you. I want to know--everything. I should like to know how it was that you were unable to come to dinner or join us at the theatre to-night. I should like to know what has brought you out of your house to an hotel at midnight--but don't tell me unless you want to."

"I do want to," she a.s.sured him. "I want to tell you everything. I think--somehow I almost feel that you have the right to know."

"Cultivate that feeling," he begged her. "I like it."

She smiled, a wan little smile that pa.s.sed very soon. Her face grew sad again. She was thinking.

"I dare say you can guess," she began presently, "something of what my daily life is like when my husband is in town. It is little less than torture, especially since he became mixed up with Mr. Phipps, that horrible person Martin, and their friends."

"Abominable!" Wingate muttered.

"He is all the while trying to induce me to receive their women friends,"

she continued. "I need not tell you that I have refused, as I always should refuse."

"Naturally!"

"To-night, however," she went on, "he has surpa.s.sed himself. First of all he telephoned to say that he was bringing home friends for dinner, and if I had any other engagement he requested me to cancel it. As you know, I did so. Notwithstanding his message, he did not arrive at the house until eleven o'clock, barely an hour ago."

"And kept you waiting all that time?"

"That is nothing. Let me explain something before I conclude. Before the war I had an Austrian maid, a woman whom I turned out of the house, and whom my husband at that time did not dare to ask me to reinstate. He had not then spent quite the whole of my fortune. Besides an undoubted intrigue with my husband, I heard afterwards that she only escaped imprisonment as a spy by leaving the country hurriedly just before war was declared. Tonight, my husband, having kept me waiting three hours while he dined with her in Soho, brought her back to the house, announcing that he had engaged her as his secretary."

"d.a.m.n the fellow!" Wingate muttered.

"Naturally," she continued, "I declined to sleep under the same roof. The woman remained--and here am I."

"You are here," he repeated. "Thank G.o.d for that!"

"It was perhaps imprudent of me," she sighed, "to choose this hotel, but I had a curious feeling of weakness. I felt that I must see some one to whom I could tell what had happened--some friend--before I slept. Perhaps my nerves are going. So I came to you. Did I do wrong?"

"The wrong would be if ever you left me," he declared pa.s.sionately.

She patted his hand. "Dear friend!"