A Duel Part 24

"It will mean a good deal; but it will mean everything I'd rather it didn't mean if the success is owing to her."

"But it will be your play. In one sense its success will always be dependent upon others. Really, Harry, I don't follow you.

What is your objection to Mrs. Lamb? She's never done you any harm."

"No, she hasn't done me any harm--as yet."

"As yet! Do you think she means to? Considering that she proposes to produce your play, and bids fair to make a great success of it, it doesn't look as if she did."

"Meg--you'll laugh at me--I'm afraid of her."

"Afraid of her?--of Mrs. Lamb!--Harry!"

"I've never been comfortable in her presence since the first moment I've met her. When she's there I have the sort of feeling which I imagine a nervous person might have in the neighbourhood of a dangerous lunatic. I don't know when or how she will break out, but I feel that sometime, somehow, she will, and that then I shall have to struggle with her for my life."

"Harry! are you in earnest?"

He laughed oddly.

"Meg, upon my word, I can't tell you. She hypnotises me, that woman--she hypnotises me. Her influence is on me even after I have left her."

"She must be a curious person. I should like to meet her."

"Meet her?"

He shuddered, involuntarily. "Rather than that you should meet her I'd---- If I can prevent it you shall not meet her."

"Why not? I know plenty of people who have met her, and who seem to think her a distinctly agreeable person--hospitable, good company, amusing, kindhearted, generous to a degree. Tell me, Harry, has she ever behaved to you in any way as she ought not to have done?"

"She has not, in one jot or t.i.ttle."

"To your knowledge has she ever done, or even said, anything wrong?"

"No. Still, I would rather she did not produce my play, especially if she is to act Lady Glover."

"Will she produce it if she doesn't?"

"I doubt it."

"There is something at the back of your mind which you're keeping to yourself. When I think of all that the success of 'The Gordian Knot' would mean to us, of how you've looked forward to its production, of how we've talked and talked of it, your present att.i.tude is incomprehensible. It doesn't follow that because Mrs. Lamb produces your play--and even acts in it!--that you need therefore make of her a bosom friend if you'd rather not. I don't suppose it's only generosity which impels her; I daresay she has an axe of her own to grind."

"You may be sure of it."

"Then so have you. I don't see how it matters if it's A, B, or C who grinds it, so long as it's ground--properly ground; and you seem sure that it will be that."

"I have little doubt of it."

"Then tell me, Harry, what is the real, downright reason why you don't wish Mrs. Lamb to produce your play, and act in it?"

"Because, Meg, I'm afraid of her."

"Afraid of her!--of a woman!--who you yourself admit has never done you anything but good! Harry, you're beyond my comprehension."

Before he could answer there was a knock at the door. A servant entered with a card on a tray.

"A gentleman wishes to see you, miss."

She looked at the card.

"'David Twelves, M.D., Edin.'. It can't be Dr. Twelves of Pitmuir?"

A voice came from the door.

"It's that same man."

CHAPTER XVII

AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR

In appearance the doctor had altered but little since we saw him last. He was the same little wizened old man, with the slight stoop, and the sunken eyes which looked out so keenly from under the thick, overhanging thatch of his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows. When she heard his voice, and saw him, Margaret, running to him--before Harry, before the servant--put her arms about his neck (she could easily do it, since he was the shorter), and, after looking at him fixedly, as if to make sure that he was still the same man, kissed him on the lips.

"Dr. Twelves, to think of your coming to see me after all these years!"

"And whose fault is it that I haven't come before? whose fault I'd like to know?"

"It certainly isn't mine."

"Not yours? when I hadn't a notion where to look for you, and you took care that I hadn't? It's only by the grace of G.o.d I've chanced upon you now. I was looking in a bit of a magazine, at an ill.u.s.tration which seemed to me to be pretty fair, when I saw your name in the corner--Margaret Wallace--in your own handwriting. I can tell you I jumped--there, in the railway carriage--so that I daresay my fellow-pa.s.sengers thought that I'd a sudden gouty twinge or, maybe, rheumatism, for none can say that I look like a gouty subject. I went straight to the office where the magazine is published, and I asked them to tell me where you might be found. I believe they thought I'd designs upon your life, or, at least, upon your purse. I had to tell them such a yarn before they'd tell me. Then I took care to follow the girl up the stairs, so that, if you meant to deny yourself, you shouldn't have a chance."

"Deny myself?--to you?--doctor! what a notion!--as if I should!"

By now the servant had retired; Miss Wallace, who still retained a hand upon her visitor's shoulder, had brought him into the room. "Harry, this is Dr. Twelves, of whom you have so often heard me speak. Doctor, this is Mr. Talfourd, whose wife I hope one day to be."

"I trust, young gentleman, that your deserts are equal to your good fortune, and that you're properly conscious how great that is. I've known this la.s.sie since the time she seemed all hair and legs, for those were the parts of her you noticed most, and there hasn't been a day on which I haven't wanted her to be my wife."

"Now, doctor, that's contrary to the fact; you know you told me more than once that Providence had marked you out to be a bachelor."

"And wasn't that self-evident, since you wouldn't have me? Now, Margaret Wallace, what have you been doing?"

"Doing? I was talking to Harry when you came in."

"I'll be bound that it's plenty of talking to Harry that you do, and will do--particularly later on, when you're Mrs. Harry."

"Doctor!"

"What I mean was, have you made your fortune? or are you drawing pictures for your daily bread?"