_ CHAPTER XIX
"Rather hot for this time of day," volunteered Lord Monckton, sliding into the Morris chair at the side of Thomas' desk and dangling his legs over the arm.
"Yes, it is," agreed Thomas, folding a sheet of paper and placing the little ivory elephant paper-weight upon it.
"Rippin' doubles this morning. You ought to go into the game. Do you a lot of good."
"I didn't know you played."
"Don't. Watch."
Thomas' gaze was level and steady.
Lord Monckton laughed easily and sought his monocle. He fumbled about the front of his coat and shirt. "By jove! Lost my glass; wonder I can see anything."
Outside, on the veranda, the two men could see the cluster of women of which Kitty was the most animated flower. Voices carried easily.
"Ah--what do you think of these--ah--Americans?" asked Lord Monckton, as one compatriot to another, leaning toward the desk.
"I think them very kindly, very generous people; at least, those I have met. Have you not found them so?"
"Quite so. I am enjoying myself immensely." Lord Monckton swung about in the chair, his back to the veranda.
Thomas loosened his negligee linen-collar.
"Ah, really!" drifted into the room. Lord Monckton sleepily eying Thomas, only heard the voice; he did not see, as Thomas did, the action and gesture which accompanied the phrase. Kitty had put something into her eye, squinted, and twisted an imaginary something a few inches below her dimpled chin. It was a hoydenish trick, but Kitty had enacted it for Lord Monckton's benefit. The women shouted with laughter. Lord Monckton turned in time to see them troop into the gardens. He turned again to Thomas, to find a grin upon that gentleman's face.
[Illustration: It was a hoydenish trick.]
"Miss Killigrew is rather an unusual young person," was his comment.
"Uncommon," replied Thomas, scrutinizing the point of his pen.
"For my part, I prefer 'em clinging." Lord Monckton rose.
"Rotter!" breathed Thomas. He rearranged his papers, crackling them suggestively.
"Picnic this afternoon; going along?" asked Lord Monckton, pausing by the portieres.
"Really, I am not a guest here; I am only private secretary to Mrs. Killigrew. If they treat me as a human being it is because they believe that charity should not play in grooves."
"Ah! We are all open to a little charity."
"That's true enough. Good morning."
"Beggar!" murmured Lord Monckton as he let the portieres fall behind him.
"Blighter!" muttered Thomas, staring malevolently at the empty doorway. He would be glad when Mr. and Mrs. Crawford and the artist came down. Forbes was a chap you could get along with anywhere, under any conditions.
Some time later Kitty came in. She crossed immediately to the desk. As Thomas looked up, she smiled at him. It was the first smile of the kind he had witnessed, coming in his direction, since before that blunder on the tennis-courts.
"I found Lord Monckton's monocle, Mr. Webb. Will you be so kind as to give it to him?"
"Yes, Miss Killigrew." Absently he raised the monocle and squinted through it. "Why, it's plain glass!" he exclaimed.
"So it is," replied Kitty, with a crooked smile. "And I dare say so are most of the monocles we see. A silly affectation, don't you think so?"
He was instantly up in arms. The monocle was a British institution, and he would as soon have denied the divine right of kings as question an Englishman's right to wear what he pleased in his eye.
"It was originally designed for a man whose left eye was weaker than the right. Besides, we don't notice them over there."
"I have often wondered what the wearers do when their noses itch."
"Doubtless they scratch them."
Kitty's laughter bubbled. It subsided instantly. Her hand reached out, then dropped. She had almost said: "Thomas, what have you done with my sapphires?" Urgent as the impulse was, she crushed it back. For deep in her heart she wanted to believe in Thomas; wanted to believe that it was only a mad wager such as Englishmen propose, accept and see to the end. There was not the slightest doubt in her mind that Thomas and Lord Monckton were the two men who had stood on the curb that foggy night in London. One had taken the necklace and the other had wagered he would carry it six months in America before returning it to its owner. The Nana Sahib's ruby she attributed to a real thief, who had known Crawford in former days and, conscience-stricken, had returned it.
Great Britain was an empire of wagerers she knew; they wagered for and against every conceivable thing which had its dependence on chance.
That first night on board the Celtic, when Thomas came to her cabin in the dark, she had recognized his voice. In the light the activity of the eye had dulled the keenness of the ear; but in the dark the ear had found the chord. For days she had been subconsciously waiting to hear one or the other of those voices; and Thomas' had come with a shock. The words "Aeneid" and "Enid" had so little variation in sound between them that Kitty had found her second man in Lord Monckton. Sooner or later she would trap them.
"Would you like to go to the picnic this afternoon?"--with a spirit which was wholly kind.
"Very much indeed; but I can't"--indicating the stack of papers on his desk.
"Oh," listlessly.
"I am very poor, Miss Killigrew, and perhaps I am ambitious."
Her lips parted expectantly.
"Your father has promised to give me a chance on his coffee plantations in Brazil this autumn, and I wish to show him that I know how to grind. Plug, isn't that the American for it?" He smiled across the desk. "I wish to prove to you all that I am grateful. Your father, who knows something of men, says there is one hidden away in me somewhere, if only I'll take the trouble to dig it out. I should like to be with you and your guests all the time. I like play, and I have been very lonely all my life." He fingered the papers irresolutely. "My place is here, not with your guests; there's the width of the poles between us. I ought not to know anything about the pleasures of idleness till the day comes when I can afford to."
"Perhaps you are right," she admitted. What an agreeable voice he had! Perhaps neither of them was a rogue; only a wild pair of Englishmen embarked on a dangerous frolic. "Don't forget to give Lord Monckton his monocle."
"I shan't."
Kitty departed, smiling. Her thought was: he had kissed her and hadn't wanted to! (Ah, but he had; and not till long hours after did he realize that there had been as much Thomas as Machiavelli in that futile inspiration!)
Report 47, on the difference between the shipments to Europe and America. Very dry, very dull; what with the glorious sunshine outside and the chance to play, Report 47 was damnable. A bird-like peck at the inkwell, and the pen began to scratch-scratch-scratch. He was twenty-four; by the time he was thirty he ought to . . .
"Beg pardon, sir!"
Lord Monckton's valet stood before the desk. Thomas did not like this man, with his soundless approaches, his thin nervous fingers, his brilliant roving eyes. Where had he been picked up? A perfect servant, yes; but it seemed to Thomas that the man was always expecting some one to come up behind him. Those quick cat-like glances over his shoulder were not reassuring. Dark, swarthy; and yet that odd white scar in the scalp above his ear. That ought to have been dark, logically.
"What is it?"
"Lord Monckton has dropped his glass somewhere, sir, and he sent me to inquire, sir."
"Oh, here it is. And tell your master to be very careful of it. Some one might step on it."
"Thank you, sir." The valet departed as noiselessly as he had entered.
"Really," mused Thomas, "there's a rum chap. I don't like him around. He gives me the what-d'-y'-call-it."
They needed an extra man at the table that night, so Thomas came down. He found himself between two jolly young women, opposite Kitty who divided her time between Lord Monckton and a young millionaire who, rumor bruited it, was very attentive to Killigrew's daughter. Still, Thomas enjoyed himself. Nobody seemed to mind that he was only a clerk in the house. The simpleton did not realize that he was a personage to these people; an English private secretary, quite a social stroke on the part of the Killigrews.
He gathered odd bits of news of what was going on among the summer colonists. The lady next to Killigrew, a Mrs. Wilberforce, had had a strange adventure the night before. She and her maid had been mysteriously overpowered by some strange fume, and later discovered that her pearls were gone. She had notified the town police. This brought the conversation around to the maharajah's emeralds. Hadn't he and his attendants been overcome in the same manner? Thomas thought of the sapphires. Since nobody knew he had them, he stood in no danger. But there was Kitty's great fire-opal, glowing like a coal on her breast, seeming to breathe as she breathed. It was almost as large as a crown-piece.
During lulls Thomas dreamed. He was going to give himself until thirty to make his fortune; and he was going to make it down there in the wilds of South America. But invariably the sleepy mocking eyes of Lord Monckton brought him back to earth, jarringly.
Once, Kitty caught Thomas gazing malevolently at Lord Monckton. No love lost between them, evidently. It was the ancient story: to wager, to borrow, to lend, to lose a friend.
Long after midnight Kitty awoke. She awoke hungry. So she put on her slippers and peignoir and stole down-stairs. The grills on each side of the entrance to the main hall were open; that is, the casement windows were thrown back. She heard voices and naturally paused to learn whose they were. She would have known them anywhere in the world.
"Tut, tut, Tommy; don't be a bally ass and lose your temper."
"Temper? Lose my temper? I'm not losing it, but I'm jolly well tired of this rotten business."
"It was you who suggested the wager; I only accepted it."
"I know it."
"And once booked, no Englishman will welch, if he isn't a cad."
"I'm not thinking of welching. But I don't see what you get out of it."
"Sport. And a good hand at bridge."
"Remarkably good."
"I say, you don't mean to insinuate . . ."
"I'm not insinuating. I'm just damnably tired. Why the devil did you take up that monocle business? You never wore one; and Miss Killigrew found out this morning that it was an ordinary glass."
"She did?" Lord Monckton chuckled.
"And she laughed over it, too."
"Keen of her. But, what the devil! Stick a monocle in your eye, and you don't need any letters of introduction. Lucky idea, your telephoning me that you were here. What a frolic, all around!"
So that was why her coup had fallen flat? thought Kitty.
"I'll tell you this much," said Thomas. (Kitty heard him tap his pipe against the veranda railing.) "Play fair or, by the lord, I'll smash you! I'm going to stick to my end of the bargain, and see that you walk straight with yours."
"I see what's worrying you. Clear your mind. I would not marry the richest, handsomest woman in all the world, Thomas. There's a dead heart inside of me."
"There's another thing. I'd get rid of that valet."
"Why?"--quickly.
"He's too bally soft on his feet to my liking. I don't like him."
"Neither do I, Thomas!" murmured Kitty, forgetting all about her hunger. Not a word about her sapphires, though. Did she see but the surface of things? Was there something deeper?
She stole back up-stairs. As she reached the upper landing, some one brushed past her, swiftly, noiselessly. With the rush of air which followed the prowler's wake came a peculiar sickish odor. She waited for a while. But there was no sound in all the great house. _