_ PART I CHAPTER V. THE FIRST ENCOUNTER
It was a week after the Hunt Ball that Anne Carfax, sitting alone at tea in her drawing-room before a blazing fire, was surprised by the sudden opening of the door, and the announcement of old Dimsdale the butler, "Mr. Nap Errol to see your ladyship!"
She rose to meet him, her surprise in her face, and he, entering with that light, half-stealthy tread of his, responded to it before his hand touched hers.
"I know my presence is unexpected, and my welcome precarious, but as none of my friends have been able to give me any news of you, I determined to chance my reception and come myself to inquire for your welfare."
"You are very good," said Anne, but she spoke with a certain stateliness notwithstanding. There was no pleasure in her eyes.
Nap, however, was sublimely self-assured. "I am beginning to think I must be," he said, "since you say so. For I know you to be strictly truthful."
Anne made no response. She did not even smile.
"I am in luck to find you alone," proceeded Nap, surveying her with bold dark eyes that were nothing daunted by her lack of cordiality.
"My husband will be in soon," she answered quietly.
"I shall be delighted to make his acquaintance," said Nap imperturbably. "Has he been hunting?"
"Yes." Anne's tone was distant. She seemed to be unaware of the fact that her visitor was still on his feet.
But Nap knew no embarrassment. He stood on the hearth with his back to the fire. "You ought to hunt," he said. "Why don't you?"
"I do--occasionally," Anne said.
"What's the good of that? You ought to regularly. There's nothing like it. Say, Lady Carfax, why don't you?" He smiled upon her disarmingly. "Are you wondering if I take one lump or two? I take neither, and no milk, please."
Against her will she faintly smiled.
"I thought that was it," said Nap. "Why didn't you ask me? Are these scones in the fender? May I offer you one?"
He dropped upon his knees to pick up the dish, and in that attitude humbly proffered it to her.
She found it impossible to remain ungracious. She could only seat herself at the tea-table and abandon the attempt.
"Sit down and help yourself," she said.
He pulled a large hassock to him and sat facing her. "Now we can be sociable," he said. "Really, you know, you ought to hunt more often. I have never seen you in the field once. What on earth do you do with yourself?"
"Many things," said Anne.
"What things?" he persisted.
"I help my husband to the best of my ability with the estate and try to keep an eye on the poorest tenants. And then I practise the piano a good deal. I haven't time for much besides."
"I say, do you play?" said Nap, keenly interested. "I do myself, a little, not the piano--the violin. Lucas likes it, or I suppose I should have given it up long ago. But I generally have to manage without an accompaniment. There is no one can accompany at our place. It's a bit thin, you know, playing by yourself."
Anne's face reflected his interest. "Tell me more about it," she said. "What sort of music do you care for?"
"Oh, anything, from Christmas carols to sonatas. I never play to please myself, and Lucas has very varied tastes."
"He is your elder brother?" questioned Anne.
"Yes, and one of the best." Nap spoke with unwonted feeling. "He is hopelessly crippled, poor chap, and suffers infernally. I often wonder why he puts up with it. I should have shot myself long ago, had I been in his place."
"Perhaps he is a good man," Anne said.
He shot her a keen glance. "What do you mean by a good man?"
"I mean a man who does his duty without shirking."
"Is that your ideal?" he said, "There are plenty of men that do that, and yet their lives are anything but blameless."
"Quite possibly," she agreed. "But if a man does his duty, he has not lived in vain. It can be no man's duty to destroy himself."
"And how would you define 'duty'?" said Nap.
She let her eyes meet his for a moment. "I can only define it for myself," she said.
"Will you do so for my benefit?" he asked.
A faint colour rose to her face. She looked past him into the fire. There was a deep sadness about her lips as she made reply.
"I have not been given much to do. I have to content myself with 'the work that's nearest.'"
Nap was watching her closely. "And if I did the same," he questioned in a drawl that was unmistakably supercilious, "should I be a good man?"
"I don't know what your capabilities are," she said.
"I have vast capabilities for evil," he told her, with a cynical twist of his thin-lipped mouth.
She met his look again. "I am sorry," she said.
"Are you really? But why? Doesn't the devil attract you? Honestly now!" He leaned forward, staring straight at her, challenging her. "I tell you frankly," he said, "I am not what you would call a good man. But--the truth, mind!--would you like me any better if I were?"
She smiled a little. There was undoubted fascination in the upturned face with its fiery eyes and savage jaw. Perhaps the lips were cruel, but they were not coarse. They were keenly sensitive.
She did not answer him immediately, and during the pause his eyes never flinched from hers. They were alive, glowing with insistence.
"Yes," she said at length. "Quite honestly, I do prefer good men."
"That wasn't exactly what I asked," said Nap, thrusting out his chin.
"I think you are capable of drawing your own conclusions," she answered gently.
His look fell away from her. He began to munch scone with a contemplative air.
Anne gave him some tea, and he set it on the hearthrug between his feet. The silence became lengthy. She was conscious of something in the atmosphere that made her vaguely uneasy. Was it a cat he resembled, crouching there in front of her? No, there was nothing domestic about him though she had a feeling that he could purr when he was pleased. Yes, there was undoubtedly something feline about him, a supple grace, a noiselessness, a guile, that made her aware of the necessity for caution in her dealings with him. This was a man of many subtleties--she knew it instinctively--a man of tigerish temperament, harmless as a kitten in sunshine, merciless as a fiend in storm. Yes, he was certainly like a tiger, forcible even in repose. She had never before encountered so dominant a personality. It affected her strangely, half-attracting, half-repelling, arousing in her a sense of antagonism that yet was not aversion.
"I wish you would say all that out loud," said Nap. "You have such interesting thoughts, it is really selfish of you not to express them."
"Surely not," she said, "if you know what they are."
He gave her an odd look as he lifted his tea-cup.
"The Queen's jester is a privileged person," he said. "When the door of her pleasaunce is closed to him he climbs up and looks over the wall."
"Not always a discreet proceeding, I fear," Anne remarked.
"Discretion, Lady Carfax, is but another term for decrepitude. I have detected no symptoms of the disease at present." He drained his tea with an arrogant gesture and handed the cup for more. "Which is the exact reason why I have no intention of remaining on the top of the wall," he said. "I will have a stronger dose this time, please."
An unsteady hand began to fumble at the door, and Anne glanced up with a start. The blood rose to her face. "I think it is my husband," she said, in a low voice.
Nap did not turn his head or answer. He sat motionless, still staring at her, till the door began to open. Then, with a sudden, lithe movement, he rose and kicked the hassock to one side.
A big man in riding-dress tramped heavily into the room, and stopped in the centre, peering before him under scowling brows. Not the kindest of critics could have called Sir Giles Carfax handsome, though every feature in his face was well formed. The blotchy complexion of the man and his eyes of glaring malice marred him all too completely. He looked about fifty, to judge by his iron-grey hair and moustache, but he might have been less. He had immensely powerful shoulders that stooped a little.
He continued to stand in the middle of the room and glare at the visitor till Anne quietly bridged the gulf.
"This is Mr. Nap Errol, Giles. Mr. Errol--my husband."
She made the introduction without a tremor, but she kept her eyes downcast as if she did not wish to see them meet. Perhaps she divined that a gleam of supercilious humour flickered in Nap's eyes as he made easy response.
"I have been waiting for the pleasure of meeting you," he drawled. "I dropped in on the chance, and Lady Carfax assured me you wouldn't be long."
Sir Giles scowled more heavily than before. He shot a malignant glance at his wife.
"Who in thunder made her so clever?" he growled. "And what did you want to see me for? Have I ever met you before?"
His voice was thick, the words somewhat difficult to distinguish.
Nap's smile was unmistakably sardonic. "Many times," he said. "You nearly rode over me on the last occasion. Doubtless the episode has escaped your memory, but it made a more lasting impression upon mine."
Sir Giles glared offensively, as if he deemed himself insulted. "I remember," he said. "Your animal came down with you. You pushed in front of me. But it was your own fault. You Americans never observe the rules of sport. I'm always glad to see you come a cropper."
"I am sure of it," said Nap politely. "It must gratify you immensely."
Sir Giles uttered a brief, snarling laugh, and advanced abruptly to the hearth. He towered above the slim American, but the latter did not appear to shirk comparison with him. With his hands in his pockets he nonchalantly opposed his insolence to the other man's half-tipsy tyranny.
And Anne Carfax sat silent behind the tea-table and endured the encounter with a mask-like patience that betrayed no faintest hint of what she carried in her heart.
"Well, what do you want to see me for?" Sir Giles demanded, with a ferocious kick at the coals.
Nap was quite ready with his answer. "I am really here on my brother's behalf. There is a scheme afoot, as no doubt you know, for the building of a Town Hall. My brother considers that the lord of the Manor"--he bowed with thinly-veiled irony--"should have first say in the matter. But I am at liberty to assure you that should you be in favour of the scheme he is ready to offer you his hearty support."
Sir Giles heard him out with lowering brows. It did not improve his temper to see Anne's eyes flash sudden interrogation at Nap's serenely smiling countenance, though he did not suspect the meaning of her glance.
"I am not in favour of the scheme," he said shortly, as Nap ended.
Nap slightly raised his brows. "No? I understood otherwise."
The blood mounted to Sir Giles's forehead. "Either you were misinformed or your intelligence is at fault," he said, with that in his voice that was so nearly an open insult that, for a second, even Nap looked dangerous.
Then quite quietly, without raising her eyes, Anne intervened. "I think you ought to explain to Mr. Errol, Giles, that you have only recently changed your mind."
Sir Giles rounded on her malignantly. "What the devil has that to do with it, or with you, for that matter? Do you think I don't know my own mind? Do you think--"
"I know exactly what Lady Carfax thinks," cut in Nap, moving deliberately so that he stood directly between Sir Giles and the tea-table. His back was turned to Anne, and he kept it so. "And in the main, I agree with her, though my sentiments are a little stronger than hers. I'll tell you exactly what they are some day. I think you would be interested, or at least not bored. But with regard to this Town Hall suggestion, what's wrong with it, anyway? Couldn't you come over and talk it out with my brother? He isn't well enough just now to come to you."
The coolness of this speech took effect. Sir Giles glared for a few moments till the speaker's steady regard became too much for him. Then, with a lurching movement, he turned away.
"No, I won't visit your brother! Why the deuce should I? Do you think I belong to the rag, tag, and bobtail, that'll mix with the very scum of society so long as there's money about? Do you think I'd lower myself to associate with fellows like you?"
"I guess you'd find it difficult," drawled Nap.
He still stood with his back to the tea-table. He seemed to have forgotten the woman who sat so rigid behind him. His fingers drummed a careless tattoo upon the table-edge. He was unquestionably master of the situation, and that without much apparent effort.
And Sir Giles knew it, knew himself to be worsted, and that in his wife's presence. He glanced at her through eyes narrowed to evil slits. Her very impassivity goaded him. It seemed in some fashion to express contempt. With violence he strode to the bell and pealed it vigorously.
On the instant Nap turned. "So long, Lady Carfax!"
She looked up at him. Her lips said nothing, but for that instant her eyes entreated, and his eyes made swift response.
He was smiling with baffling good humour as he turned round to Sir Giles.
"Good-bye, sir! Delighted to have met you. I'll give your message to my brother. It'll amuse him."
He departed without a backward glance as the servant opened the door, elaborately deaf to Sir Giles's half-strangled reply that he might go to the devil and take his brother with him.
He left dead silence in the room behind him, but the moment that the clang of the front door told of his final exit the storm burst.
Sir Giles, livid, stammering with rage, strode up and down and cursed the departed visitor in lurid language, cursed the errand that had brought him, and rated his wife for admitting him.
"I will not know these impertinent, opulent Americans!" was the burden of his maledictions. "As for that damned, insolent bounder, I will never have him in the house again. Understand that! I know him. I've heard Shirley talk of him. The man's a blackguard. And if I ever catch him alone in your company after this, I'll thrash him--do you hear?--I'll thrash him! So now you know what to expect!"
It was at this point that Anne rose, passed quietly, with the bearing of a queen, down the long room, and without a single word or glance went out and closed the door very softly behind her. _