The Tempting of Tavernake Part 41

"Leonard," she begged, "I know that Elizabeth is very beautiful and very fascinating, and I don't wonder that you like to go and see her, but I want to ask you to promise me one thing."

He felt as though he were suddenly turned into stone. It was not possible--it could not be possible that she had guessed his secret!

"Well?" he demanded.

"Don't let her introduce you to her friends; don't spend too much time there," she continued. "Elizabeth is my sister and I don't--really I don't want to say anything that doesn't sound kind, but her friends are not fit people for you to know, and Elizabeth--well she hasn't very much heart."

He was silent for several moments.

"How did you know I liked going to see your sister?" he asked, abruptly.

She smiled.

"My dear Leonard," she said, "you are not very clever at hiding your feelings. When you came to see me the other day, do you imagine I believed for a single moment that you asked me to marry you simply because you cared? I think, Leonard, that it was because you were afraid, you were afraid of something coming into your life so big, so terrifying, that you were ready to clutch at the easiest chance of safety."

"Beatrice, this is absurd!" he exclaimed.

She shook her head.

"No, it isn't that," she declared. "Do you know, my dear Leonard, what there was about you from the very first which attracted me?"

"No," he answered.

"It was your honesty," she continued. "You remember that night upon the roof at Blenheim House? You were going to tell a lie for me, and I know how you hated it. You love the truth, you are truthful naturally; I would rely upon you wherever I was. I know that you would keep your word, I know that you would be honest. A woman loves to feel that about a man--she loves it--and I don't want you to be brought near the people who sneer at honesty and all good things. I don't want you to hear their point of view. You may be simple and commonplace in some respects; I want you to stay just as you are. Do you understand?"

"I understand," Tavernake replied gravely.

A call boy shouted her name down the stone pa.s.sage. She patted him on the shoulder and turned away.

"Run along now and get the money," she said. "Come and see me when it's all over."

Tavernake left her with a long breath of relief and made his way towards the Strand. At the corner of Wellington Street he came face to face with Pritchard. They stopped at once. There seemed to be something embarra.s.sing about this meeting. Pritchard patted him familiarly on the shoulder.

"How goes it, old man?" he asked.

"I am all right," Tavernake answered, somewhat awkwardly. "How are you?"

"I guess I'd be the better for a drink," Pritchard declared. "Come along. Pretty well done up the other night, weren't we? We'll step into the American Bar here and try a gin fizz."

They found themselves presently perched upon two high stools in a deserted corner of the bar to which Pritchard had led the way. Tavernake sipped his drink tentatively.

"I should like," he said, "to ask you a question or two about Wednesday night."

Pritchard nodded.

"Go right ahead," he invited.

"You seem to take the whole affair as a sort of joke," Tavernake remarked.

"Well, isn't that what it was?" the detective asked, smiling.

Tavernake shrugged his shoulders.

"There didn't seem to me to be much joke about it!" he exclaimed.

Pritchard laughed gayly.

"You are not used to Americans, my young friend," he said. "Over on this side you are all so fearfully literal. You are not seriously supposing that they meant to dose me with that stuff the other night, eh?"

"I never thought that there was any doubt about it at all," Tavernake declared deliberately.

Pritchard stroked his moustache meditatively.

"Well," he remarked, "you are certainly green, and yet I don't know why you shouldn't be. Americans are always up to games of that sort. I am not saying that they didn't mean to give me a scare, if they could, or that they wouldn't have been glad to get a few words of information out of me, or a paper or two that I keep pretty safely locked up. It would have been a better joke on me then. But as for the rest, as for really trying to make me take that stuff, of course, that was all bunk.u.m."

Tavernake sat quite still in his chair for several minutes.

"Will you take another gin fizz, Mr. Pritchard?" he asked.

"Why not?"

Tavernake gave the order. He sat on his stool whistling softly to himself.

"Then I suppose," he said at last, "I must have looked a pretty sort of an a.s.s coming through the wall like a madman."

Pritchard shook his head.

"You looked just about what you were," he answered, "a d----d good sort.

I'm not playing up to you that it was all pretense. You can never trust that gang. The blackguard outside was in earnest, anyway. After all, you know, they wouldn't miss me if I were to drop quietly out. There 's no one else they 're quite so much afraid of. There 's no one else knows quite as much about them."

"Well, we'll let it go at that," Tavernake declared. "You know so much of all these people, though, that I rather wish you 'd tell me something I want very much to know."

"It's by telling nothing," the detective replied quickly, "that I know as much as I do. Just one c.o.c.ktail, eh?"

Tavernake shook his head.

"I drank my first c.o.c.ktail last night," he remarked. "I had supper with the professor and his daughter."

"Not Elizabeth?" Pritchard asked swiftly.

Tavernake shook his head.

"With Miss Beatrice," he answered.

Pritchard set down his gla.s.s.

"Say, Tavernake," he inquired, "you are friendly with that young lady, Miss Beatrice, aren't you?"