Dangerous Ground Part 14

"I _shall_; I am sure of it. It's an admirable feature of our best society. If we are heiresses, we are surrounded with lovers who are fascinated by our bank account. If we are poor, we are all in search of a bank account; and many of us have to do some sharp angling."

"My sister-in-law angled very successfully."

"So she did, if you _will_ put it so. And she did not land her last chance; she might have married as wealthy a man as Mr. Warburton, or as handsome a man as his _brother_. But then," with a provoking little gesture of disdain, "Leslie and I never did admire handsome men."

There was just a shade of annoyance in the voice that answered her:

"Pray go on, Miss French; doubtless yourself and Mrs. Warburton have other tastes in common."

"So we have," retorted the girl, rising and standing directly before him, "but I won't favor you with a list of them. You don't like Leslie, and I do; but let me tell you, Mr. Alan Warburton, if the day ever comes when you know Leslie Warburton _as I know her_, you will go down into the dust, ashamed that you have so misjudged, so wronged, so slandered one who is as high as the stars above you. And now I am going to join the dancers; you can come--or stay."

The last words were flung at him over her shoulder, and before he could rise to follow, she had vanished in the throng that was surging to and fro without the alcove.

He starts forward as if about to pursue her, and then sinks back upon the couch.

"I won't be a greater fool than nature made me," he mutters in scornful self-contempt. "If I go, she'll flirt outrageously under my very nose; if I stay--she'll flirt all the same, of course. Ah! if a man would have a foretaste of purgatory let him live under the same roof with the woman he loves and the woman he hates!"

A shadow comes between his vision and the gleam of light from without, and, lifting his eyes, he encounters two steady orbs gazing out from behind a yellow mask.

"Ah!" He half rises again, then sinks back and motions the mask to the seat beside him.

"I recognize your costume," he says, as the British officer seats himself. "How long since you came?"

"Only a few moments. I have been waiting for your interview with the lady to end."

"Ah!" with an air of abstraction; then, recalling himself: "Do you know the nature of the work required of you?"

Under his mask, Van Vernet's face flamed and he bit his lip with vexation. This man in black and scarlet, this aristocrat, addressed him, not as one man to another, but loftily as a king to a subject. But there was no sign of annoyance in his voice as he replied:

"Um--I suppose so. Delicate bit of a shadowing, I was told; no particulars given."

"There need be no particulars. I will point you out the person to be shadowed. I want you to see her, and be yourself unseen. You are simply to discover,--find out where she goes, who she sees, what she does.

Don't disturb yourself about motives; I only want the _facts_."

"Ah!" thought Van Vernet; "it's a _she_, then." Aloud, he said: "You have not given the lady's name?"

"You would find it out, of course?"

"Of course; necessarily."

"The lady is my--is Mrs. Warburton, the mistress of the house."

"Ah!" thought the detective; "the old Turk wants me to shadow his wife!"

By a very natural blunder he had fancied himself in communication with Archibald, instead of Alan, Warburton.

"Have you any suspicions? Can you give me any hint upon which to act?"

he asked.

"I might say this much," ventured Alan, after a moment's hesitation: "The lady has made, I believe, a mercenary marriage and she is hiding something from her husband and friends."

"I see," said Vernet. And then, laughing inwardly, he thought: "A case of jealousy!"

In a few words Alan Warburton described to Vernet the "Sunlight,"

costume worn by Leslie, and then they separated, Vernet going, not in search of "Sunlight," but of the G.o.ddess of Liberty.

What he found was this:

In the almost deserted music room stood the G.o.ddess of Liberty, gazing down into the face of a woman in the robes of Sunlight, and both of them engaged in earnest conversation.

He watched them until he saw the G.o.ddess lift the hand of Sunlight with a gesture of graceful reverence, bow over it, and turn away. Then he went back to the place where he had left his patron. He found the object of his quest still seated in the alcove, alone and absorbed in thought.

"I beg your pardon for intruding upon your solitude," began the detective hastily, at the same time seating himself close beside Alan; "but there is a _lady_ here whose conduct is, to say the least, mysterious. As a detective, it becomes my duty to look after her a little, to see that she does not leave this house _until I can follow her_."

"Well?" with marked indifference in his tone.

"If she could be detained," went on Vernet, "by--say, by keeping some one constantly beside her, so that she cannot leave the house without being observed--"

Alan Warburton threw back his head.

"Pardon me," he said, "but I object to thus persecuting a lady, and a guest."

"But if I tell you that this _lady_ is a man in silken petticoats?"

"What!"

"And that he seems on very free and friendly terms with _your wife_."

"With my wi--"

Alan Warburton stopped short and looked sharply at the eyes gazing out from behind the yellow mask.

Did this detective think himself conversing with Archibald? If so--well, what then? He shrank from anything like familiarity with this man before him. Why not leave the mistake as it stood? There could be no harm in it, and he, Alan, would thus be free from future annoyance.

"I will not remove my mask," thought Alan. "He is not likely to see Archibald, and no harm can come of it. In fact it will be better so. It would seem more natural for him to be investigating his wife's secrets than for _me_."

So the mistake was not corrected--the mistake that was almost providential for Alan Warburton, but that proved a very false move in the game that Van Vernet was about to play.

There was but one flaw in the plan of the proposed incognito.

Alan's voice was a peculiarly mellow tenor, and Van Vernet never forgot a voice once heard.

"Did you say that this disguised person knows--Mrs. Warburton?"

"I did."

"Who is the fellow, and what disguise does he wear?"