_ PART III CHAPTER IV. "MINE OWN FAMILIAR FRIEND"
Sitting in his writing-room with Bertrand that night Mordaunt imparted the news that concerned him so nearly.
The young Frenchman listened in almost unbroken silence, betraying neither surprise nor even a very great measure of interest. He sat and smoked, with eyes downcast, sometimes fidgeting a little with the fingers of one hand on the arm of his chair, but otherwise displaying no sign of agitation.
Only at the end of the narration did he glance up, and that was but momentarily, when Mordaunt said, "It transpires that this Rodolphe had an old score to pay off. You were enemies?"
Bertrand removed his cigarette to reply, "That is true."
"You once fought a duel with him?" Mordaunt proceeded.
Bertrand's eyelids quivered, but he did not raise them. He merely answered, "Yes."
"That fact will probably figure in the evidence," Mordaunt said. "The cause of the duel is at present unknown."
"It is--immaterial," Bertrand said, in a very low voice. He paused a moment, then said, "And you, you will be at the trial to report?"
"Yes. I am going. Chris will go with me."
"Ah!" The exclamation seemed involuntary. Bertrand's hand suddenly clenched hard upon the chair-arm. "You will take her--to Valpre?" he questioned.
"Probably not to the place itself," Mordaunt made answer. "I think she is not very anxious to go there. It has associations that she would rather not renew. We shall stay somewhere within easy reach of Valpre. Perhaps you can tell me of a suitable resting-place not too far away. You know that part of the world."
"I know it well," Bertrand said, and fell silent, as though pondering the matter. At the end of a lengthy pause he spoke, abruptly, with just a tinge of nervousness. "But why do you take her if she does not desire to go?"
Mordaunt raised his brows a little.
"You will pardon me," Bertrand added quickly, "but it occurs to me that possibly she may prefer to remain at home. And if that were the case you would not, I hope, consider my presence here as an obstacle, for"--again he flashed a swift look across--"it is not my intention to remain."
"What are your intentions?" Mordaunt asked.
Bertrand shrugged his shoulders. "I do not know yet. Circumstances will decide. But it is certain that I can trespass no more upon your kindness. I have already accepted too much from you--more than I can ever hope to repay. Moreover"--he paused--"I do not wish to inconvenience you, and since I cannot accompany you to France--" he paused again, and finally decided to say no more.
"Chris will go with me in any case," said Mordaunt quietly. "We have already arranged that. You would cause no inconvenience to anyone by staying here. In fact, it would be to my advantage."
"To your advantage!" Bertrand echoed the words sharply, as if in some fashion they hurt him; and then, "But no," he said with decision. "It has never been to your advantage to employ me. You have done it from the kindness of your heart, but it would have been better for you if you had entrusted your affairs to a man more capable. And for that reason I am going to ask you to find another secretary as soon as possible, one who will perform his duties faithfully and merit his pay."
"Is that the only reason?" Mordaunt asked unexpectedly.
There fell a sudden silence. Bertrand, with bent head, appeared to be closely examining the leather on which his fingers still drummed an uneasy tattoo. At last, "It is the only reason which I have to give you," he said, his voice very low.
"It is not a very sound one," Mordaunt remarked.
Again that quick shrug of the shoulders, and silence. Several moments passed. Then with an abrupt movement Bertrand rose, laid aside his cigarette, which had gone out, and seated himself at the writing-table.
A pile of letters lay upon it that had arrived by the evening post. He began to turn them over, and presently took up a paper-cutter and deftly slit them open one by one.
Mordaunt sat and smoked as one lost in thought. Finally, after a long silence, he looked up and spoke.
"Why this sudden hurry to dissolve partnership, Bertrand?" he asked, with his kindly smile. "Is it this Rodolphe affair that has unsettled you? Because surely it would be wiser to wait and see what is going to happen before you take any decided step of this sort."
"Ah! It is not that!" Bertrand spoke with a vehemence that sounded almost passionate. "It is nothing to me--this affair. It interests me--not that!" He snapped his fingers contemptuously. "No, no! The time for that is past. What is honour, or dishonour, to me now--me who have been down to the lowest abyss and who have learned the true value of what the world calls great? Once--I admit it--I was young; I suffered. Now I am old, and--I laugh!"
Yet there was a note that was more suggestive of heartbreak than of mirth in his voice. He applied himself feverishly to extracting a letter from an envelope, while Mordaunt sat and gravely watched him.
Suddenly, but very quietly, Mordaunt rose, strolled across, and took the fluttering paper out of his hands. "Bertrand!" he said.
The Frenchman looked up sharply, almost as if he would resent the action, but something in the steady eyes that met his own altered the course of his emotions. He leaned back in his chair with the gesture of a man confronting the inevitable.
Mordaunt sat down on the edge of the writing-table, face to face with him. "Tell me why you want to leave me," he said.
There was determination in his attitude, determination in the very coolness of his speech. It was quite obvious that he meant to have an answer.
Bertrand contemplated him with a faint, rueful smile. "But what shall I say?" he protested. "You English are so persistent. You will not be content with the simple truth. You demand always--something more."
"There you are mistaken," Mordaunt made grave reply. "It is the simple truth that I want--nothing more."
"_Ciel_!" Bertrand jumped in his chair as if he had been stabbed in the back. "You insult me!"
Mordaunt's hand came out to him instantly and reassuringly. "My dear fellow, I never insult anyone. It is not my way."
"But you do not believe me!" Bertrand protested. "And that is an insult--that."
"I believe you absolutely." Very quietly Mordaunt made answer. The hand he would not take was laid with great kindness on his shoulder. "I happen to know you too well to do otherwise. Why, man," he began to smile a little, "if all the world turned false, I should still believe in you."
"_Tiens_!" The word was almost a cry. Bertrand shook the friendly hand from his shoulder as if it had been some evil thing, and almost with the same movement pushed his chair back sharply out of reach. "You should not say these things to me!" he stammered forth incoherently. "I do not deserve them. I am not--I am not what you imagine. You do not know me. I do not know myself. I--I--" He broke off in agitation and sprang impetuously to his feet.
With a gesture half-hopeless, half-appealing, he turned and walked to the window, as if he could no longer bear to meet the level, grey eyes that watched him with so kindly a confidence.
There fell a silence in the room while Mordaunt, still sitting on the writing-table, deliberately finished his cigarette. That done, he spoke.
"Don't you think you had better tell me what is the matter?"
Bertrand jerked his shoulders convulsively; it was the only response he made.
Mordaunt waited a few moments more. Then, "Very well," he said, without change of tone or countenance. "We will dismiss the subject. If you really mean to leave me, I will accept your resignation in the morning, but not to-night. If--as I hope--you have thought better of it by then and decide to remain, nothing further need be said. Will that satisfy you?"
Bertrand wheeled abruptly, and stood facing him, the length of the room intervening. His mouth worked as if he were trying to speak, but he said nothing whatever.
Mordaunt turned without further words to the letter in his hand, and studied it in silence. After a pause Bertrand came slowly back to the writing-table. He had mastered his agitation, but he looked unutterably tired.
Mordaunt moved to one side at his approach. "Sit down!" he said, without raising his eyes.
Bertrand sat down, and began to turn his attention to sorting the letters he had opened. Mordaunt stood motionless, reading with bent brows.
Suddenly he spoke. "There is something here I can't understand."
Bertrand glanced up. "Can I assist?"
"I don't know. Read that!" Mordaunt laid the letter before him. "I can't account for it. I think it must be a mistake."
Bertrand took the letter and read it. It was an intimation from the bank that in consequence of the bearer cheque for five hundred pounds presented and cashed the week before, Mordaunt's account was overdrawn.
"What cheque can it be?" Mordaunt said. "Have you any idea?"
Bertrand shook his head. "But no! It is perhaps some charity--a gift that you have forgotten?"
"My good fellow, I may be careless, but I'm not so damned careless as that." Mordaunt pulled out a bunch of keys with the words. "Let me have a look at my cheque-book. You know where it is."
Yes, Bertrand knew. He was as cognizant of the whereabouts of Mordaunt's possessions as if they had been his own, and he had as free an access to them. Such was the confidence reposed in him.
He took the keys, selected the right one, stooped to fit it into the lock. And then suddenly something happened. A violent tremor went through him. He clutched at the table-edge, and the keys clattered to the ground.
"Hullo!" Mordaunt said.
Bertrand was staring downwards with eyes that saw not. At the sound of Mordaunt's voice he started, and began to grope on the floor for the keys as if stricken blind.
"There they are, man, by your feet." Mordaunt stooped and recovered them himself. "What's the matter? Aren't you well?"
Bertrand lifted a ghastly face. "I am quite well," he said. "But--but surely the bank would not cash a cheque so large without reference to you!"
Mordaunt looked at him a moment. "I have been in the habit of drawing large sums," he said. "But I usually write a note to the bank to accompany a cheque of this sort."
He turned to the drawer and unlocked it. His cheque-book lay in its accustomed place within. He took it out and commenced a careful examination of the counterfoils of cheques already drawn.
Bertrand sat quite motionless, with bowed head. He seemed to be numbly waiting for something.
Mordaunt was very deliberate in his search. He came to the end of the counterfoils only, but went quietly on through the sheaf of blank cheques that remained, gravely scrutinizing each.
Minutes passed. Bertrand was sunk in his chair as one bent beneath some overpowering weight, the pile of letters untouched before him.
Suddenly Mordaunt paused, became tense for an instant, then slowly relaxed. His eyes travelled from the open cheque-book to the man in the chair. He contemplated him silently.
After the lapse of several seconds, he laid the open book upon the table before him. "A cheque has been abstracted here," he said.
His voice was perfectly quiet. He made the statement as if there were nothing extraordinary in it, as if he felt assured that there must be some perfectly simple explanation to account for it, as if, in fact, he scarcely recognized the existence of any mystery.
But Bertrand uttered not a word. He was as one turned to stone. His eyes became fixed upon the cheque in front of him, but his stare was wide and vacant. He seemed to be thinking of something else.
There fell a dead silence in the room, a stillness in which the quiet ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece became maddeningly obtrusive. For seconds that dragged out interminably neither of the two men stirred. It was as if they were mutely listening to that eternal ticking, as one listens to the tramp of a watchman in the dead of night.
Then, at last, with a movement curiously impulsive, Trevor Mordaunt freed himself from the spell. He laid his hand once more upon his secretary's shoulder.
"Bertrand!" he said, and in his voice interrogation, incredulity, even entreaty, were oddly mingled. "You!"
The Frenchman shivered, and came out of his lethargy. He threw a single glance upwards, then suddenly bowed his head on his hands. But still he spoke no word.
Mordaunt's hand fell from him. He stood a moment, then turned and walked away. "So that was the reason!" he said.
He came to a stand a few feet away from the bent figure at the writing-table, took out his cigarette-case, and deliberately lighted a cigarette. His face as he did it was grimly composed, but there were lines in it that very few had ever seen there. His eyes were keen and cold as steel. They held neither anger nor contempt, only a tinge of humour inexpressibly bitter.
Finally, through a cloud of smoke, he spoke again. "Have you nothing to say?"
Bertrand stirred, but he did not lift his head. "Nothing," he muttered, almost inarticulately.
"Then"--very evenly came the words--"that ends the case. I have nothing to say, either. You can go as soon as you wish."
He spoke with the utmost distinctness. His head was tilted back, and his eyes, still with that icy glint of amusement in them, watched the smoke ascending from his cigarette.
There was a brief pause. Then Bertrand stumbled stiffly to his feet. He seemed to move with difficulty. He turned heavily towards the Englishman.
"Monsieur," he said with ceremony, "you have--I believe--the right to prosecute me."
Mordaunt did not even look at him. "I believe I have," he said.
"_Alors--_" the Frenchman paused.
"I shall not exercise it," Mordaunt said curtly.
"You are too generous," Bertrand answered.
He spoke without emotion, yet there was something in his tone--something remotely suggestive of irony--that brought Mordaunt's eyes down to him. He looked at him hard and straight.
But Bertrand did not meet the look. With a mournful gesture he turned away. "I shall never cease to regret," he said, "the unhappy fate that sent me into your life. I blame myself bitterly--bitterly. I should have drawn back at the commencement, but I had not the strength. Only monsieur, believe this"--his voice suddenly trembled--"it was never my intention to rob you. Moreover, that which I have taken--I will restore."
He spoke very earnestly, with a baffling touch of dignity that seemed in some fashion to place him out of reach of contempt.
Mordaunt heard him without impatience, and replied without scorn. "What you have taken can never be restored. The utmost you can do is to let me forget, as soon as possible, that I ever imagined you to be--what you are not."
The simplicity of the words effected in an instant that which neither taunt nor sneer could ever have accomplished. It pierced straight to Bertrand's heart. He turned back impulsively, with outstretched hands.
"But, my friend--my friend--" he cried brokenly.
Mordaunt checked him on the instant with a single imperious gesture of dismissal, so final that it could not be ignored.
The words died on Bertrand's lips. He wheeled sharply, as if at a word of command, and went to the door.
But as he opened it, Mordaunt spoke. "I will see you again in the morning."
"Is it necessary?" Bertrand said.
"I desire it." Mordaunt spoke with authority.
Bertrand turned and made him a brief, punctilious bow. "That is enough," he said, and left the room martially, his head in the air. _