Farewell Nikola Part 8

"And you were brave enough to look?"

"Does it require so much bravery, do you think? Believe me, there are things which require more."

"What do you mean?"

"Ah! I cannot tell you now," he answered, shaking his head. "Some day you will know."

Then there was a silence for a few seconds, during which we both stood looking down at the moonlit water below. At last, having consulted my watch and seeing how late it was, I told him that it was time for me to bid him good-night.

"I am very grateful to you for coming, Hatteras," he said. "It has cheered me up. It does me good to see you. Through you I get a whiff of that other life of which you spoke a while back. I want to make you like me, and I fancy I am succeeding."

Then we left the room together, and went down the stairs to the courtyard below. Side by side we stood upon the steps waiting for a gondola to put in an appearance. It was some time before one came in sight, but when it did so I hailed it, and then shook Nikola by the hand and bade him good-night.

"Good-night," he answered. "Pray remember me kindly to Lady Hatteras and to--Miss Trevor."

The little pause before Miss Trevor's name caused me to look at him in some surprise. He noticed it and spoke at once.

"You may think it strange of me to say so," he said, "but I cannot help feeling interested in that young lady. Impossible though it may seem, I have a well-founded conviction that in some way her star is destined to cross mine, and before very long. I have only seen her twice in my life in the flesh; but many years ago her presence on the earth was revealed to me, and I was warned that some day we should meet. What that meeting will mean to me it is impossible to say, but in its own good time Fate will doubtless tell me. And now, once more, good-night."

"Good-night," I answered mechanically, for I was too much surprised by his words to think what I was saying. Then I entered the gondola and bade the man take me back to my hotel.

"Surely Nikola has taken leave of his senses," I said to myself as I was rowed along. "Gertrude Trevor was the very last person in the world that I should have expected Nikola to make such a statement about."

At this point, however, I remembered how curiously she had been affected by their first meeting, and my mind began to be troubled concerning her.

"Let us hope and pray that Nikola doesn't take it into his head to imagine himself in love with her," I continued to myself. "If he were to do so I scarcely know what the consequences would be."

Then, with a touch of the absurd, I wondered what her father, the eminently respected dean, would say to having Nikola for a son-in-law.

By the time I had reached this point in my reverie the gondola had drawn up at the steps of the hotel.

My wife and Miss Trevor had gone to bed, but Glenbarth was sitting up for me.

"Well, you have paid him a long visit, in all conscience," he said a little reproachfully. Then he added, with what was intended to be a touch of sarcasm, "I hope you have spent a pleasant evening?"

"I am not quite so certain about that," I replied.

"Indeed. Then what have you discovered?"

"One thing of importance," I answered; "that Nikola grows more and more inscrutable every day."

CHAPTER V

The more I thought upon my strange visit to the Palace Revecce that evening, the more puzzled I was by it. It had so many sides, and each so complex, that I scarcely knew which presented the most curious feature.

What Nikola's real reason had been for inviting me to call upon him, and why he should have told me the story, which I felt quite certain was that of his own life, was more than I could understand. Moreover, why, having told it me, he should have so suddenly requested me to think no more about it, only added to my bewilderment. The incident of the two men, and the extraordinary conjuring trick, for conjuring trick it certainly was in the real meaning of the word, he had shown us, did not help to elucidate matters. If the truth must be told it rather added to the mystery than detracted from it. To sum it all up, I found, when I endeavoured to fit the pieces of the puzzle together, remembering also his strange remark concerning Miss Trevor, that I was as far from coming to any conclusion as I had been at the beginning.

"You can have no idea how nervous I have been on your account to-night,"

said my wife, when I reached her room. "After dinner the Duke gave us a description of Doctor Nikola's room, and told us its history. When I thought of your being there alone with him, I must confess I felt almost inclined to send a message to you imploring you to come home."

"That would have been a great mistake, my dear," I answered. "You would have offended Nikola, and we don't want to do that. I am sorry the Duke told you that terrible story. He should not have frightened you with it.

What did Gertrude Trevor think of it?"

"She did not say anything about it," my wife replied. "But I could see that she was as frightened as I was. I am quite sure you would not get either of us to go there, however pressing Doctor Nikola's invitation might be. Now tell me what he wanted to see you about."

"He felt lonely and wanted some society," I answered, having resolved that on no account would I tell her all the truth concerning my visit to the Palace Revecce. "He also wanted me to witness something connected with a scheme he has originated for enabling people to get out of the country un.o.bserved by the police. Before I left he gave me a good example of the power he possessed."

I then described to her the arrival of the two men and the lesson Nikola had read to the Police Agent. The portion dealing with the conjuring trick I omitted. No good could have accrued from frightening her, and I knew that the sort of description I should be able to give of it would not be sufficiently impressive to enable her to see it in the light I desired. In any other way it would have struck her as ridiculous.

"The man grows more and more extraordinary every day," she said. "And not the least extraordinary thing about him is the way he affects other people. For my own part I must confess that, while I fear him, I like him; the Duke is frankly afraid of him; you are interested and repelled in turn; while Gertrude, I fancy, regards him as a sort of supernatural being, who may turn one into a horse or a dog at a moment's notice, while Senor Galaghetti, with whom I had a short conversation to-day concerning him, was so enthusiastic in his praises that for once words failed him. He had never met any one so wonderful, he declared. He would lay down his life for him. It would appear that, on one occasion, when Nikola was staying at the hotel, he cured Galaghetti's eldest child of diphtheria. The child was at the last gasp and the doctors had given her up, when Nikola made his appearance upon the scene. What he did, or how he did it, Galaghetti did not tell me, but it must have been something decidedly irregular, for the other doctors were aghast and left the house in a body. The child, however, rallied from that moment, and, as Galaghetti proudly informed me, 'is now de artiste of great repute upon de pianoforte in Paris.' I have never heard of her, but it would appear that Galaghetti not only attributes her life, but also her musical success, to the fact that Nikola was staying in the hotel at the time when the child was taken ill. The Duke was with me when Galaghetti told me this, and, when he heard it, he turned away with an exclamation that sounded very like 'humbug!' I do hope that Doctor Nikola and the Duke won't quarrel?"

As she put this in the form of a question, I felt inclined to reply with the expression the Duke had used. I did not do so, however, but contented myself with a.s.suring her that she need have no fears upon that score. A surprise, however, was in store for me.

"What have they to quarrel about?" I asked. "They have nothing in common."

"That only proves how blind you are to what goes on around you," my wife replied. "Have you not noticed that they _both admire Gertrude Trevor_?"

Falling so pat upon my own thoughts, this gave me food for serious reflection.

"How do you know that Nikola admires her?" I asked, a little sharply, I fear, for when one has uncomfortable suspicions one is not always best pleased to find that another shares them. A double suspicion might be described as almost amounting to a certainty.

"I am confident of it," she replied. "Did you not notice his manner towards her on the night of our excursion? It was most marked."

"My dear girl," I said irritably, "if you are going to begin this sort of thing, you don't know where you will find yourself in the end. Nikola has been a wanderer all his life. He has met people of every nationality, of every rank and description. It is scarcely probable, charming though I am prepared to admit she is, that he would be attracted by our friend. Besides, I had it from his own lips this morning that he will never marry."

"You may be just as certain as you please," she answered. "Nevertheless, I adhere to my opinion."

Knowing what was in my own mind, and feeling that if the argument continued I might let something slip that I should regret, I withdrew from the field, and, having questioned her concerning certain news she had received from England that day, bade her good-night.

Next morning we paid a visit to the Palace of the Doges, and spent a pleasant and instructive couple of hours in the various rooms. Whatever _Nikola's_ feelings may have been, there was by this time not the least doubt that the Duke admired Miss Trevor. Though the lad had known her for so short a time he was already head over ears in love. I think Gertrude was aware of the fact, and I feel sure that she liked him, but whether the time was not yet ripe, or her feminine instinct warned her to play her fish for a while before attempting to land him, I cannot say; at any rate she more than once availed herself of an opportunity and moved away from him to take her place at my side. As you may suppose, Glenbarth was not rendered any the happier by these manoeuvres; indeed, by the time we left the Palace, he was as miserable a human being as could have been found in all Venice. Before lunch, however, she relented a little towards him, and when we sat down to the meal in question our friend had in some measure recovered his former spirits.

Not so my wife, however; though I did not guess it, I was in for a wigging.

"How could you treat the poor fellow so badly?" she said indignantly, when we were alone together afterwards. "If you are not very careful you'll spoil everything."

"Spoil what?" I inquired, as if I did not understand to what she alluded. "You have lately developed a habit of speaking in riddles."

"Fiddle-de-dee!" she answered scornfully, "you know very well to what I allude. I think your conduct at the Palace this morning was disgraceful.

You, a married man and a father, to try and spoil the pleasure of that poor young man."

"But she began it," I answered in self-defence. "Did you not see that she preferred my company to his?"

"Of course that was only make-believe," my wife replied. "You are as well aware of that as I am."

"I know nothing of the kind," I returned. "If the girl does not know her own mind, then it is safer that she should pretend, as she did to-day."

"She was not pretending. You know that Gertrude Trevor is as honest as the day."