Anna the Adventuress Part 15

"It is such a very respectable boarding-house," she said. "I feel quite sure that Mrs. White would not approve of callers."

"I have a clue, at any rate," he remarked, smiling. "I must try the Directory."

"I wish you good luck," she answered. "There are a good many Whites in London."

"May I put you in a hansom?" he asked, lifting his stick.

"For Heaven's sake, no," she answered quickly. "Do you want to ruin me? I shall walk back."

"I may come a little way, then?" he begged.

"If you think it worth while," she answered doubtfully.

Apparently he thought it very much worth while. Restraining with an effort his intense curiosity, he talked of general subjects only, trying his best to entertain her. He succeeded so well that they were almost in Montague Street before Anna stopped short.

"Heavens!" she exclaimed. "I have brought you very nearly to my door.

Go back at once, please."

He held out his hand obediently.

"I'll go," he said, "but I warn you that I shall find you out."

For a moment she was grave.

"Well," she said. "I may be leaving where I am in a few days, so very likely you will be no better off."

He looked at her intently.

"Miss Pellissier," he said, "I don't understand this change in you.

Every word you utter puzzles me. I have an idea that you are in some sort of trouble. Won't you let me--can't I be of any a.s.sistance?"

He was obviously in earnest. His tone was kind and sympathetic.

"You are very good," she said. "Indeed I shall not forget your offer.

But just now there is nothing which you or anybody can do. Good-bye."

He was dismissed, and he understood it. Anna crossed the street, and letting herself in at No. 13 with a latchkey went humming lightly up to her room. She was in excellent spirits, and it was not until she had taken off her hat, and was considering the question of dinner or no dinner, that she remembered that another day had pa.s.sed, and she was not a whit nearer being able to pay her to-morrow's bill.

_Chapter XI_

THE PUZZLEMENT OF NIGEL ENNISON

Nigel Ennison walked towards his club the most puzzled man in London.

There could not, he decided, possibly be two girls so much alike.

Besides, she had admitted her ident.i.ty. And yet--he thought of the supper party where he had met Annabel Pellissier, the stories about her, his own few minutes' whispered love-making! He was a self-contained young man, but his cheeks grew hot at the thought of the things which it had seemed quite natural to say to her then, but which he knew very well would have been instantly resented by the girl whom he had just left. He went over her features one by one in his mind. They were the same. He could not doubt it. There was the same airy grace of movement, the same deep brown hair and alabaster skin.

He found himself thinking up all the psychology which he had ever read. Was this the result of some strange experiment? It was the person of Annabel Pellissier--the soul of a very different order of being.

He spent the remainder of the afternoon looking for a friend whom he found at last in the billiard room of one of the smaller clubs to which he belonged. After the usual laconic greetings, he drew him on one side.

"Fred," he said, "do you remember taking me to dinner at the 'Amba.s.sador's,' one evening last September, to meet a girl who was singing there? Hamilton and Drummond and his lot were with us."

"Of course," his friend answered. "_La belle_ 'Alcide,' wasn't it?

Annabel Pellissier was her real name. Jolly nice girl, too."

Ennison nodded.

"I thought I saw her in town to-day," he said. "Do you happen to know whether she is supposed to be here?"

"Very likely indeed," Captain Fred Meddoes answered, lighting a cigarette. "I heard that she had chucked her show at the French places and gone in for a reform all round. Sister's got married to that bounder Ferringhall."

Ennison took an easy chair.

"What a little brick!" he murmured. "She must have character. It's no half reform either. What do you know about her, Fred? I am interested."

Meddoes turned round from the table on which he was practising shots and shrugged his shoulders.

"Not much," he answered, "and yet about all there is to be known, I fancy. There were two sisters, you know. Old Jersey and Hamps.h.i.+re family, the Pellissiers, and a capital stock, too, I believe."

"Any one could see that the girls were ladies," Ennison murmured.

"No doubt about that," Meddoes continued. "The father was in the army, and got a half-pay job at St. Heliers. Died short, I suppose, and the girls had to s.h.i.+ft for themselves. One went in for painting, kept straight and married old Ferringhall a week or so ago--the Lord help her. The other kicked over the traces a bit, made rather a hit with her singing at some of those French places, and went the pace in a mild, ladylike sort of way. Cheveney was looking after her, I think, then. If she's over, he probably knows all about it."

Ennison looked steadily at the cigarette which he was tapping on his forefinger.

"So Cheveney was her friend, you think, eh?" he remarked.

"No doubt about that, I fancy," Meddoes answered lightly. "He ran some Austrian fellow off. She was quite the rage, in a small way, you know.

Strange, demure-looking young woman, with wonderful complexion and eyes, and a style about her, too. Care for a hundred up?"

Ennison shook his head.

"Can't stop, thanks," he answered. "See you to-night, I suppose?"

He sauntered off.

"I'm d.a.m.ned if I'll believe it," he muttered to himself savagely.

But for the next few days he avoided Cheveney like the plague.

The same night he met Meddoes and Drummond together, the latter over from Paris on a week's leave from the Emba.s.sy.

"Odd thing," Meddoes remarked, "we were just talking about the Pellissier girl. Drummond was telling me about the way old Ferringhall rounded upon them all at the club."