Stolen Idols

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  CHAPTER IV

  Sir Bertram, very lithe and debonair in his grey flannels and Panamahat, issued from his front door, whistled to dogs who seemed to come tohim from all directions, and, humming snatches of music from an almostforgotten Italian opera, stepped down from the terrace and strolledacross the park, keeping as far as possible in the shade of the greatoak trees. Arrived at the boundary he vaulted over the stile, exchangedgreetings right and left as he passed down the village street, and,turning along the lane to the right, pushed open the gate of the LittleHouse and knocked at the door with his ash stick. At a word of command,the dogs settled down to watch wistfully for the end of their vigil, andSir Bertram, admitted by an elderly and ungracious-looking domestic,entered the little hall, where he laid his hat and stick upon an oakchest, and afterwards passed into the long, low room, the door of whichthe maid had opened. A woman lying upon a couch held out both her hands;long, beautiful hands, ringless and almost transparently white. Heraised them to his lips and drew a chair to her side.

  "You grow more beautiful every day, Angele," was his greeting.

  The faintest tinge of colour stole into her ivory pale cheeks, and hereyes filled with a very affectionate light. There was not a single greythread in her carefully arranged golden-brown hair, yet it was obviousthat she was no longer a young woman.

  "And you," she murmured, "I listen here sometimes for your footsteps,and I look down the lane, and I can never tell whether it is you orGregory who comes. You are a wonderful person, especially consideringthe life you lead," she added, with a little grimace.

  "My dear," he said, "we are all the victims of predestination. It issuch a comfortable doctrine that I have embraced it permanently. I am aBallaston and Gregory will be one after me."

  "So far as that is concerned, Henry also is a Ballaston," she remindedhim.

  "Henry," he pointed out, "is not an elder son. It is the elder sons whoinherit the full measure of the virtues and vices of our family. Henry,I admit, is a freak, God bless him!"

  "So you had my relatives to dine last night," she remarked. "Tell mewhat you think of my niece."

  "The most amazingly attractive young person whom I have ever met in mylife," he replied, with what was for him enthusiasm. "As a rule I findextreme youth overpowering--a mixture of shyness and precocity, youknow."

  "She is certainly beautiful," Madame murmured. "Presently I shall getused to her and like to have her near me. Just now I find youth a littledepressing. Gregory has altered."

  "It is disappointment," his father sighed. "He had a stirring adventure,though. I suppose he has told you all about it."

  Madame nodded.

  "After all," she said, "he brought one of the Images home."

  "And a lot of good to us it is," Sir Bertram remarked ruefully. "Thereis only one man who could help us, Angele."

  "Ralph?"

  He nodded silently.

  "A most impossible person," Madame sighed. "His feet are on the earth,his head in the clouds and his heart in China. I am afraid, as a matterof fact, that he utterly disapproved of Gregory's enterprise."

  "Dog-in-the-mangerish, I call it," Sir Bertram grumbled. "You can't saythat jewels collected by the priests of a temple, which have been hiddenfor practically a hundred years, belong now to any one in particular. Iam afraid I still have sufficient of the Francis Drake outlook to claimthat they belong to whoever has the courage and the wit to find them."

  "The buccaneering spirit," she observed, with a faint smile ofamusement. "You always had it, my dear Bertram. Nothing, I am sure,except the most rigid sense of honour, has kept you from robbing yourfriends."

  "I shall probably have to end my days doing that," he sighed, "in someContinental Spa or other. Another year will see us through atBallaston."

  She took his hand and held it.

  "We won't believe that," she said softly. "Something must happen."

  "I don't exactly see what."

  "You ought to have married," she declared. "When I think of the youngwomen--heaps of them with any amount of money--who were in love withyou! You ought to have married again."

  "I had the best reason in the world, dear Angele, for remaining single,"he replied. "We won't speak of that."

  She turned her head towards the window and her beautiful eyes were for amoment a little less clear. The window looked out on to a very pleasantstrip of garden, almost of the cottage variety, crowded with flowers andwith a long, narrow pergola still hung with roses. Inside, the roomitself, with its grey walls and hangings, its few French etchings, thecabinet of choice china, seemed to possess also some measure of thedistinction of its owner.

  "Bring me my mirror and vanity case from the table, please, Bertram,"she begged. "Smoke, if you will. You will find your own make ofcigarettes there."

  He did her bidding, his head almost touching the ceiling of the low roomwhen he rose to his feet. Madame busied herself with a very exquisitelittle gold case, peering at herself meanwhile in the mirror.

  "I have an idea," Sir Bertram remarked, as he lit a cigarette, "thatyour brother dislikes me."

  "Why?"

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  "I suppose he has every reason to, Angele, from a brother's point ofview, and most other people's, too."

  "If any other person said that to me," she rejoined quietly, "I shouldbe very angry with them indeed. You have given me all that I have hadworth having in life--more than I ever dared to hope for. You give menow what keeps me alive."

  He took her fingers in his and held them. They were interrupted by theentrance of a maid who brought a little tea table to her mistress' side;a very dainty affair, with a Queen Anne silver teapot and two Sevrescups, thin bread and butter, cream and lemon.

  "Miss Besant still going on all right?" he enquired, as soon as theywere alone again.

  "She is good after her fashion," Madame acknowledged. "She is adiscontented creature with queer humours, and the usual moodiness of theunmarried girl of thirty. God knows I'm trying enough! One can't blameher if she gets jumpy sometimes. She does her best."

  "And Sir James," he enquired; "has he been down this week?"

  "He comes again on Monday," she answered. "I am keeping upeverything--massage, baths and diet. As a matter of fact, I think I'mgetting fat. Anna and Miss Besant were quite out of breath when theycarried me to my room last night. What do you think?"

  She threw on one side the beautiful lace wrap which had covered her, andher eyes looked towards him with faint, provocative enquiry. He passedhis hand along her arms, and gently over her body. She had the figure ofa thin but graceful child of fourteen, except that her feet and ankleswere more beautiful.

  "I see no change in you," he assured her, "during all these years.Illness seems to have kept you young. Do you know that you are stillvery beautiful, Angele?"

  Again the faint flush, the gleam of softening happiness in her face.

  "You mustn't turn my head, please," she begged.

  "Then I must leave off talking," he replied, "for you are fast turningmine. Shall I read to you?"

  "De Musset, please. The little volume of later poems. I kept them foryou."

  He read for half an hour, sympathetically and well. When he laid downthe volume her eyes thanked him.

  "You are missing Ascot," she remarked, as he made preparations fordeparture.

  He nodded. "Between ourselves," he confided, "I owe my bookmaker just alittle beyond the limit of the amount with which I care to allow him tocredit me. I haven't a horse running, as you know, or in training. Itseems to me I shall have to get through the summer on golf and tennis. Iam going to try and keep the hounds, although of course it will be thelast season."

  "Poor dear!" she murmured. "And poor idiot too! You know I have money,Bertram--a great deal more than I need. I don't spend half of it, andRalph says there is more to come to me. Why mayn't I help?"

  He bent down and kissed her tenderly.

  "My dear," he said, "i
f ever the day comes when I can call myself yourhusband, I may accept your bounty. Until then--well, we won't talk ofsuch matters."

  A delicate little wrinkle of dissatisfaction furrowed her brows. Sheshook her head at him.

  "You are terribly obstinate," she sighed. "You will come on Thursday?"

  "Without fail," he promised.

  The dogs rose up from all sides as he passed out. He lingered for amoment to talk to the rather sulky but not unpleasant-looking girl, whowas cutting some roses in the strip of front garden.

  "Madame looks well," he observed. "I hope that you are still contentwith the neighbourhood, Miss Besant?"

  "I like it very much," she assured him.

  "If the doctor decides to permit Madame's visit to the Hall next week,"he added, "we shall have, I hope, the pleasure of seeing you there."

  She thanked him a little stiffly. Sir Bertram whistled to his dogs,gazed for a moment at the high red brick wall opposite, which encircledthe domain of the Great House, and, with a little bow of farewell,turned towards the village.