LOVE AND CURIOSITY

When the thin-faced Greek waiter brought Darville his café complet next morning, a telegram lay upon the tray.

He roused himself quickly, opened it with interest, and then a smile of contentment overspread his round face.

After eating his roll and swallowing the excellent black coffee, he lit a cigarette, and then leisurely shaved and dressed. Twice he glanced at the telegram, which to the ordinary eye was a commercial message regarding a cargo of currants on their way to London from the island of Zante. But it conveyed much to the popular novelist. So much, indeed, that, as he brushed his hair, he chuckled to himself and muttered:

“I wonder what the next move will be? Whatever it is, it will be checkmated!”

Presently he passed into his private sitting-room, and, seating himself at the small writing-table, took up his pen and resumed work upon his new novel which, in perhaps a year’s time, would be published simultaneously in England, America, France, and the Colonies.

When the gong for déjeuner sounded he rose, wearily stretched himself, brushed his hair, and then descended to the big salle à manger.

As he entered, he saw that the Caborns’ table in the window was empty. He seated himself there and awaited Joan. The meal commenced, but she remained absent, much to his surprise. Did she dare to face him? Perhaps not, if her suspicions had been aroused. Yet he had been very circumspect. How could his actions cause her any alarm?

Suddenly, when the meal was nearly over, and, indeed, some of the visitors had already risen and left, she came in, bustling, smiling, and apologetic.

“My dear Mr. Darville!” she cried. “Do forgive me! I see you haven’t waited. That is good. I’ve been for a long walk in the country, and it has taken me more time to get back than I anticipated.”

“My dear Joan,” he said; for he was now sufficiently intimate to call her by her Christian name. “I thought that perhaps you were lunching elsewhere so I commenced. Pray forgive me.”

“Of course. It’s all my fault,” she declared, seating herself and drawing off her gloves. She looked very handsome in her cool, white gown and neat, black hat.

While she ate her meal she chatted vivaciously, for she was always full of wit and high spirits. Darville knew that only by making pretence of loving her could he worm from her the great secret which she held.

So he invited her up to his pleasant sitting-room, where she threw herself into a big lounge-chair, and, tossing her hat aside, took a cigarette from his case and allowed him to light it for her.

When the coffee and liqueurs had been brought and the waiter had retired again, he crossed the room in silence, and, with his eyes fixed upon hers in pretended affection, he took her white hand in his and, bending gallantly, kissed it.

“Mr. Darville,” she said, drawing it away instantly. “Please don’t. Please remember we are only friends. Do let us remain as such.”

“But, Joan!” he cried, taking her hand again, and bending over her. “Can’t you see—haven’t you seen? How—how you have fascinated me—how you are all in all to me—how fondly I love you—how——?”

“Love!” she cried, interrupting coldly. “I have no love to give you, Seton—nothing to give you in return. So let us drop the subject. Do, I beg of you!”

“But I can’t—I really can’t!” he declared imploringly, his face pale and earnest as he still held her hand, and before she became aware of it his lips had met hers and had imprinted a kiss upon them.

“You do this in my husband’s absence!” she exclaimed angrily, never dreaming that he was making hollow pretence. “It is too cruel of you! How can I hold you in esteem when you make love to me like this? I am sadly disillusioned, I tell you frankly, Seton. I believed you to be a dear friend, a good pal to me, and a good friend to my husband.”

In a second Seton Darville’s face changed. His eyes grew smaller, and there was a hardness about his mouth.

“And why should I be a good friend to your husband, Joan?” he asked in a low, confidential voice, his face bent to hers. “Why should I study him when I happen to know with what infernal brutality he behaves to you, and how damnably he treats you when you are alone? All Greeks treat their women without consideration and without respect. Why should I extend the hand of friendship to such a fellow?”

“He is, after all, my husband,” was her simple reply in a quiet, trembling voice as low as his own. The tone of her reply revealed the truth to him.

He feigned regret as he slowly released her hand. But, still looking straight into her face, he whispered:

“Joan! I can only repeat that I love you!”

She rose resolutely from her chair, taking up her hat preparatory to leaving the room.

The novelist gripped her wrist and took the hat from her fingers. Upon his face was a look of deep resolution.

“I love you, Joan. I am devoted to you, and you must hear me.”

“I refuse!” she cried. “Let me go to my room. This is wrong of you—very wrong.”

“No. Listen to me—listen to reason, Joan.”

“I’ll hear nothing. I’ve heard enough!” she protested. “I had no idea that you entertained one single spark of affection for me. I only regarded you as a chance-met friend. And, after all, you are only that. I only think of you as one so famous!”

“My fame is of no account to me. It is simply luck; the same as any other good or bad fortune,” he replied, with an inexpressibly sad look. “I only tell you that I love you.”

Once more she looked straight into his deep eyes, as gradually again she withdrew her hand. He felt it trembling within his grasp, and knew that, though she possessed a calm exterior, she was, nevertheless, stirred by wild emotion. Her dark, luminous eyes shone, and he realized that a great struggle was taking place within her.

“Can you love me, Joan?” he whispered.

She shook her head mournfully.

“Seton,” she said in a strained voice, her eyes still upon him as she stood before him. “You are asking impossibilities. I cannot—I—I dare not allow myself to love you!”

“Why—why?” he demanded, even though his love-making was only pretended.

“Because—because there are reasons—strong reasons. Your love is debarred from me. Remember, I am married!”

“I know. But what does that matter?” asked the popular novelist. “Surely I am not the first man who has loved the wife of another?”

“No. But—well—I can’t love you. That’s all,” she replied blankly.

“Why? Tell me the reason.”

“It is a strong one—a very strong one.”

“Of what nature?”

“Well—if you knew the truth, Seton,” she answered, her voice low and trembling. “If you knew the bitter truth, you would never allow yourself to declare your love for me”; and tears welled in her bright eyes as she spoke.

“What truth? I don’t understand. You speak in enigmas, dear.”

“I know. But it is my secret—a secret which I am forced to hide, even from you, Seton!” was her slow, pathetic response.

For a few seconds he remained silent. He was sorely puzzled. To what secret did she refer? He had more than a suspicion—a suspicion which it was his intention to confirm by his pretence of affection.

“Are you speaking of—well, of your past?” he asked hesitatingly in a sympathetic voice. “If so, what does that matter to me? I have no wish to pry into it.”

“No,” she answered promptly. “It concerns the present. But please do not let us discuss it. I——”

“But, Joan! I love you!” exclaimed the round-faced man, whose books were so popular the world over. “Cannot we leave this secret of yours out of the question?”

“Alas! we cannot. I repeat that if you knew the truth you would—you’d hate me!”

“Hate you!” he echoed. “How could I?”

“Because you would do so. Of that I am convinced,” was her slow answer in a pained voice scarce above a whisper.

“You are really most mysterious, Joan,” he declared, placing his hand tenderly upon her shoulder. “Cannot you be a little more explicit?”

“Unfortunately, no, Seton!” she said after a slight pause, her voice tremulous and tears again showing in her eyes. “Please forgive me, but I beg of you not to discuss it further. It is too tragic, too terrible. You are my friend, but not my lover. Let us still remain the good friends that we are,” she implored.

He pleaded with her for half an hour, holding her hand and more than once kissing her upon the lips. But all to no avail. She refused to satisfy him as to the secret reason why she refused to allow him to pay her further attention, saying:

“No. Let us still be friends, just as we were last year at Wengen, when you were so attentive to Edris Temperley.”

Mention of Edris caused him to reflect. Those days amid the Alpine snows came back to him vividly, and that night, when they met again at dinner, he showed her the same studied courtesy as before. He invited her to his room to smoke and take coffee, but she preferred the lounge, and later they went for a stroll together by the calm, moonlit sea.

As they chatted, he once more was surprised at her wide knowledge of Europe. Like himself, she had been in many towns and cities of Russia, from the Volga to the Neva and from the Baltic to the Caspian. Her knowledge of Egypt and Tunisia was equal to his own, while she described towns in Bosnia, Serbia, and Bulgaria in a manner which showed him plainly that she had been in them, just as he had been.

When they parted in the lounge of the hotel at eleven o’clock, Darville went along to the bar where two Frenchmen he knew were drinking, so he joined them, chatting in his excellent French and discussing the French attitude towards England.

“There will be another war with Germany very soon,” declared one of the Frenchmen, a man named Girand, who was Deputy for the Rhone. “Everything points to it—the Monarchists have the upper hand again. Read the French newspapers, and listen to what the President of the Council is always saying. The warning has been sounded by the Allied Commission of Control. They tell us emphatically that Germany is making munitions, arms, aeroplanes, and most terrible poison-gases in frantic haste.”

“When do you think war will break out?” asked Seton Darville, with a somewhat disinterested air.

“Within one year,” replied the Deputy. “That is quite obvious. The Minister told me so only a week ago. But, of course, the Government are hiding the truth from the public.”

“He’s an alarmist,” declared the second Frenchman. “Germany will not be ready by then.”

Darville listened eagerly to the discussion, but made no comment. He found it all intensely interesting. Probably, had they but known who their listener really was, they would have promptly become dumb.

As it was, the argument grew heated, and from it the novelist learnt much of interest, for names were bandied about, and of them he took careful note. Then, on ascending to his room, he sat down and wrote far into the night. In the document he penned he mentioned certain of those names which the Deputy and his friend had inadvertently disclosed.

Next day he resumed his Platonic friendship with Joan. They spent the morning motoring together over those delightful roads lined by aloes, oranges, and olives, with the tangles of giant geraniums and the profusion of carnations, leaving the sapphire sea behind and driving inland across the gorgeous island. Indeed, for the next week the pair were inseparable, a fact remarked by many visitors to the hotel who knew that Joan’s husband was absent on business.

One night Seton Darville acted strangely, though no one saw him.

He wrote till nearly two o’clock in the morning, when, placing his neat manuscript aside, he rose, and, taking a bunch of curious-looking keys—skeleton keys they really were—and an electric torch, he stepped out upon the thick carpet of the corridor and, without his evening slippers, he stole along to Joan’s sitting-room in the opposite wing of the hotel.

He had no difficulty in finding the room, having been there many times before. The door was locked on the inside, but a small portion of the barrel of the key protruded. He placed his hand in the pocket of his dinner-jacket and brought out what appeared to be a small steel vice. This he swiftly adjusted to the protruding end of the key and tightened it. Then, holding it fast, he slowly turned the key, and the door yielded. Next moment he switched on his torch and stepped into the small sitting-room of the private suite. The door communicating with Mrs. Caborn’s bedroom was happily closed. He breathed more freely when he realized it, for it would have been dangerous to have remained there had it been open. So emboldened, he switched on the light, which revealed a very snug little apartment, with a center table upon which stood a great vase filled with sweet-smelling mimosa. In the corner by the window, which gave a view of the sea and sparkling lights, stood a small writing-table. That interested him at once. With the aid of one of his skeleton keys he swiftly opened all the drawers, and at once began to unearth a quantity of letters which they contained.

In the center drawer was a small steel dispatch-box with a well-worn cover of dark-green canvas. This he had considerable difficulty in opening, for the lock was a patent one. At last he slowly opened the lid, which creaked slightly, causing him to hold his breath. Inside were several letters written to Joan to an address c/o Mr. Peke O’Brien, in Longridge Road, Earl’s Court. Swiftly he read the letters, which were of a highly amorous nature and written about four months before, from a man who signed himself “Your Othmar.” One was dated from Biarritz, and others from Paris, Brussels, and other places on the Continent, which showed that the writer was constantly traveling, and further it was apparent that from time to time he sent her sums of money as presents, evidently unknown to her husband.

For nearly half an hour he went through the correspondence, then, having satisfied his curiosity, he, without making a sound, relocked the box, replaced it in the drawer, locked up the table, and after locking the door as he found it, crept noiselessly back to his room.