December Love Part 75

"My father is dead," she added.

As she spoke she looked up at him, and she saw a sharp quiver distort his lips for an instant.

"Did you know him?" she exclaimed, standing still.

"I? Indeed no! Why should you suppose so?"

"I thought--I don't know!"

He was now looking so calm, so earnestly sympathetic, that she almost believed that her eyes had played her a trick and that his face had not changed at her news.

"I'm not normal to-day," she thought.

"I am deeply grieved, deeply. Please accept from me my most full sympathy."

"Thank you. I scarcely ever saw my father, but naturally this news has upset me. He died in the Bahamas."

"How very sad! So far away!"

"Yes."

They were still standing together, and he was holding his umbrella over her head and gazing down at her earnestly, when Craven turned the corner of the road and came up to them. Miss Van Tuyn flushed. Although she had asked Craven to come, she felt startled when she saw him, and her confusion of mind increased. She did not feel competent to deal with the situation which she had deliberately brought about. Craven had come upon them too suddenly. She had somehow not expected him just at that moment, when she and Arabian were standing still. Before she was able to recover her normal self-possession, Craven had taken off his hat to her and gone rapidly past them. She had just time to see the grim line of his lips and the hard, searching glance he sent to her companion. Arabian, she noticed, looked after him, and she saw that, while he looked, his large eyes lost all their melting gentleness. They had a cruel, almost menacing expression in them, and they were horribly intelligent at that moment.

"What does this man not know?" she thought.

He might have little, or no, ordinary learning, but she was positive that he had an almost appallingly intimate knowledge of many chapters in the dark books of life.

"Shall we--?" said Arabian.

And they walked on slowly together.

"May I make a suggestion, Miss Van Tuyn," he said gently.

"What is it?"

"My little flat is close by, in Rose Tree Gardens. It is not quite arranged, but tea will be ready. Let me please offer you a cup of tea and a cigarette. There is a taxi!"

He made a signal with his left hand.

"We will keep it at the door, so that you may at once leave when you feel refreshed. You have had this bad shock. You need a moment to recover."

The cab stopped beside them.

"No, I must really go home," she said, with an attempt at determination.

"Of course! But please let me have the privilege. You have told me first of all of your grief. This is real friends.h.i.+p. Let me then be also friendly, and help you to recover yourself."

"But really I must--"

"Four, Rose Tree Gardens! You know them?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good!"

The taxi glided away from the kerb.

And Miss Van Tuyn made no further protest. She had a strange feeling just then that her will had abandoned her. f.a.n.n.y Cronin's message must have had an imperious effect upon her. Yet she still felt no real sorrow at her father's death. She seemed to be enveloped in something which made mental activity difficult, indeed almost impossible.

When the cab stopped, she said:

"I can only stay five minutes."

"Certainly! Dear Mademoiselle Cronin will expect you. Please wait for the lady!"

Miss Van Tuyn was vaguely glad to hear him say that to the chauffeur.

She got out and looked upwards. She saw a big block of flats towering up in front of her.

"On the other side they face the river Thames," said Arabian. "All my windows except three look out that way. We will go up in the elevator."

They pa.s.sed through a handsome hall and stepped into the lift, which carried them up to the fourth floor of the building. Arabian put a latch-key into a polished mahogany door with a big letter M in bra.s.s nailed to it.

"Please!" he said, standing back for Miss Van Tuyn to pa.s.s in.

But she hesitated. She saw a pretty little hall, a bunch of roses in a vase on a Chippendale table, two or three closed doors. She was aware of a very faint and pleasant odour, like the odour of flowers not roses, and guessed that someone had been burning some perfume in the flat.

There was certainly nothing repellent in this temporary home of Arabian.

Yet she felt with a painful strength that she had better go away without entering it. While she paused, but before she had said anything, she heard a quiet step, and a thin man of about thirty with a very dark narrow face and light, grey eyes appeared.

"Please bring tea for two at once," said Arabian in Spanish.

"Yes, sir, in a moment," said the man, also in Spanish.

Miss Van Tuyn stepped in, and the door was gently shut behind her by Arabian's manservant.

Arabian opened the second door on the left of the hall.

"This is my little salon," he said. "May I--"

"No, thank you. I'll keep on my coat. I must go home in a minute. I shall have a good deal to do. Really I oughtn't to be here at all. If anyone--after such news--"

She looked at Arabian. She had just had news of the death of her father, and she had come out to tea with this man. Was she crazy?

"I don't know why I came!" she said bluntly, angrily almost.

"Do please sit down," he said, pus.h.i.+ng forward a large arm-chair. "If these curtains were not drawn we could see the river Thames from here.

It is a fine view."