The World's Great Snare

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  Bryan had a troubled night after his visit to the Hilarity Theatre, and in the morning he was disturbed and restless. He rose at the usual time, and ordered his horses for the Park; but when they came round, be sent them back again. After all, he felt more like walking. So he set out—but not towards the Park. In less than half an hour he found himself in Portland Place. He stopped short on the pavement close to the “Langham Hotel,” and frowned. Why on earth had he come here? Why did he want to see her again? Then he looked down towards Weymouth Street, and thought of those lonely days she had told him of. A flash of sudden recollection showed him that little scene in the desert, when she had stood beside him with the smoking revolver clenched in her fingers, the saviour of his life; and again he saw himself, sick almost to death in her lodgings at San Francisco, and this woman, pale with privations and suffering, tending him and winning him back to life with dauntless and never-failing devotion. She had done these things for him, and he—because she was an actress, and he was going to marry a great lady -he was leaving her friendless and unhappy in this lone, vast city. A flush of shame dyed his cheeks. He hesitated no longer, but walked quickly on, and rang the bell at number thirty-nine.

  Myra was sitting at the table, writing, with some books before her. Her look of surprise changed suddenly into one of delight as he entered, and she welcomed him with beaming face.

  “How good of you to come so soon!” she cried, holding out both her hands, and looking up at him with sparkling eyes. “Do you know, I was feeling real lonesome this morning.”

  He glanced at the books upon the table.

  “Studying?” he asked lightly.

  “I was reading French,” she answered, pushing them away. “I’m dreadfully ignorant! Never mind that now! I’m so glad to see you—and, Bryan, is that how the men dress in London? You look fine!”

  Bryan put his silk hat on the table, and laughed. He was wearing the regulation frock-coat and gray trousers, and a gardenia in his button-hole. In his hand he was carrying a great bunch of Neapolitan violets, pale and fragrant, which he had bought at a florist’s on the way. He held them out to her, and she accepted them, with a little cry of delight.

  “All the men dress alike, here!” he remarked. “Don’t you ever go out?”

  She shook her head.

  “Not very often! Somehow I feel so lonely here by myself, and the girls at the theatre are very nice, but I don’t seem to get on with them. You see, I started with being just a chorus girl, and I don’t think they liked my advancing quite so quickly.”

  “Would you like to go for a drive?” Bryan asked rashly. “Better than anything in the world! Do you really mean it?”

  It was too late for hesitation. He got up and took his hat. “I’ll call for you in three-quarters of an hour!” he said, looking at his watch. “Be ready!”

  She took his hands and shook them gaily. “Dear old boy!” she exclaimed. “Kiss me, Bryan!”

  He could do nothing else. Then he hurried away, took a hansom at the corner, and rattled back to his chambers. In a few minutes after the three-quarters of an hour he was back in Weymouth Street, and Myra, looking the perfection of dainty good looks, was waiting for him, quietly dressed in a black astrachan jacket and hat.

  She went up to the horses with a little cry of admiration, and patted their satin coats. Then she looked up at Bryan with glowing cheeks.

  “How delightful!” she exclaimed. “What lovely horses!”

  “Come round here, and get up,” he said. “I can’t get down to help you, they’re a little fresh this morning. That’s right,” he added, as she jumped up like a cat, to the seat by his side. “Let them go, John. Steady, Lady Betty! Gently, now! Gently!”

  There was a little preliminary prancing, and they were off, rattling up Portland Place. It was a soft, spring morning, and the air was delightful. Regent Street, as usual, was crowded, and once or twice they were blocked. Myra chattered away gaily, and Bryan’s turn-out and horses being particularly smart, a good many people looked round at him.

  “Who was that lady who bowed to you so oddly?” Myra asked, as an elderly lady, passing quite close to them in an open landau, favoured them with a particularly deliberate stare from behind a pair of “pince-nez.”

  “It was Lady Warburton!” Bryan answered, frowning.

  He had received one or two rather curious salutations, and for the first time it dawned upon him that he was doing a thing likely, at any rate, to excite comment.

  “Do you remember driving me out in a buggy in the Central Park, San Francisco?” she asked, laughing. “The horse would run sideways, and you got so cross!”

  “Yes, I remember! Why, Myra, do you know Sir George Conyers?”

  The gentleman in question had almost stopped on the pavement as they passed, and after a nod to Bryan, had saluted Myra with marked empressement. She had returned his bow civilly but coldly.

  “Mr. Doyle introduced me to him at the theatre!” she answered quietly. “He was good enough to make violent love to me five minutes afterwards, and wanted me to go to a place called Richmond to dinner one Sunday!”

  “Of course you did not go?” Bryan exclaimed.

  She looked at him, and he was ashamed of the question. “No, I did not go!” she said. “I do not like men like Sir George Conyers, and I guess there must be an awful lot of them in London. In San Francisco a girl has pretty rough times, living alone; but if she’s firm, the men don’t worry her. In London it is very much harder.”

  He looked at her inquiringly.

  “That is one reason why I do not go out,” she continued. “Some of the men who have seen me at the theatre have been very rude to me when they have met me alone. Sir George actually dared to call, and send up his card!”

  “What did you do?” Bryan asked.

  “Oh, I returned it by the servant, and told her to say that he must have made a mistake. He actually offered the girl a sovereign to show him up! She closed the door in his face, I believe!”

  Bryan laughed softly. He knew Sir George Conyers, and disliked him. He knew, too, that the bare association of his name with any woman’s was sufficient to destroy her reputation.

  “Mr. Doyle should not have introduced him to you,” he said. “He is not a nice man for any woman to know.”

  “I thought not,” she answered. “I asked Mr. Doyle not to introduce me to any more people, and he has not.”

  Bryan turned and looked down at her. They were out of London now—almost in the country.

  “Myra, you have been wonderfully discreet!” he said.

  “It was because I was sure that I should see you again, Bryan!” she answered softly. “I was waiting for you!”

  There was a short silence. Bryan was busy with his horses. Presently he turned their heads homewards, and they were approaching Kensington again.

  “There is one place in London, Bryan, that I should like to see so much,” she remarked; “I wonder whether we go anywhere near it?”

  “What place is it?” he asked quickly.

  “The Park!”

  Bryan hesitated for a moment and then felt ashamed of himself. Had he been older and wiser in the world’s ways, he would have made some excuse, would have promised to take her another day—anything rather than drive down Hyde Park with Myra by his side. But he was only in his novitiate, and it seemed to him that his first impulse was mean. There was only one person whom he prayed that he might not meet, and that was Lady Helen.

  “We can go home right through the Park!” he declared. “I ought to have thought of it!”

  His hesitation had been only momentary, but she had noticed it.

  “Perhaps you would rather not drive there just now, and meet your friends—with me!” she suggested gravely. “I don’t mind, really!”

  Bryan was quite sure then that his first impulse had been the impulse of a cad. In a wilder land she had not hesitated to offer her life for his; and was he to shrink from showing himself by her side before a c
rowd of fashionable men and women? He was heartily ashamed of himself.

  “Silly girl!” he said, smiling down at her. “I suppose you think I ought to consider the amount of envy I shall excite. I shall do no such thing!”

  The remainder of the drive was an object lesson to Bryan, which he did not readily forget. The greetings he received—and for a new man he knew a great many people—varied curiously in proportion to the moral respectability of the saluter. There was no possibility of any one whom he knew failing to recognize him, for he sat up head and shoulders above most of the men driving themselves, a fine figure of a well-turned-out man. There were one or two women who, after a long stare at his companion, looked away from him altogether, but the majority bowed either coldly, or with a curious expression which puzzled Bryan. Mrs. Colvesson Stuart, who was the leader of a very fast set, nodded knowingly, and laughed in his face; the Hon. Mrs. Esmo Stuart, her cousin, on the other hand, half closed her eyes, and looked away from him with the air of a woman irretrievably shocked. The men were almost effusive in their greetings, although they, too, seemed to temper their cordiality with a spice of wonder. Myra was perfectly well known by sight; in her way her personality was as marked and distinguished as was Bryan’s. There was no possibility of any mistake. Mr. Bryan Bryan, the Californian millionaire, and protigi of Lord Wessemer, was driving Myra Mercier, from the “Hilarity.” The fact was patent, and to the beholders it had a meaning of its own.

  Bryan had driven slowly, out of a certain spirit of bravado but he was not sorry when they neared the exit. But the worst was not over. At Buckingham Gate a low barouche, with the well-known Wessemer liveries, turned into the Park. Then Bryan knew that what he had been praying might not happen, had come to pass.

  For once, in her life Lady Helen almost lost her air of serene and lofty composure. Her bow to Bryan was unmistakably haughty, and a bright spot of colour burned in her cheeks. Her eyes met his for one moment. Then she looked deliberately away, and the carriages passed one another.

  Myra looked up in Bryan’s face.

  “Who was that girl, Bryan?” she asked quietly. “You knew her, didn’t you? She looked at me as though—as though I were something dreadful.”

  “That was Lady Helen Wessemer!” he answered. “I don’t think she meant to look so!”

  She glanced up at him and understood. For his part, he was man enough to hide his feelings, and for the rest of the way he talked to her gaily. Innately, too, he felt a little rebellious. He did not feel that he had done anything to merit that look of scorn.

  He turned towards the Strand instead of westwards, and drove into the courtyard of the Savoy Restaurant. The groom sprang down to the horses’ heads.

  “Where are we?” Myra asked. “This is not Portland Place!”

  He got down and held out his hands to her.

  “We’re going to get something to eat,” he explained. “You don’t suppose I could let you go home without any luncheon, do you? John, you can take the horses home. This way, Myra!”

  “This is delightful!” she exclaimed, as they walked along the corridor. “Bryan, I’m dreadfully hungry—hungrier than I’ve ever been in London, I believe!”

  He laughed and ordered an extravagant luncheon. They had it served upon the balcony. The sun was almost hot, and even the Thames looked less black and dirty than usual. Myra leaned back in her chair with a little sigh of content.

  “I used to dream on the steamer, coming over, of some such times as this,” she said. “Of course, I know that they can never come now—not to last, I mean! I wonder—tell me about her, will you?” she asked abruptly.

  He lit a cigarette, and watched the sun glitter upon the Houses of Parliament.

  “There doesn’t seem to be much to tell you,” he answered slowly. “As yet, there is no—her. When there is—I hope that you will know her for yourself!”

  She sighed, and drew on her gloves. They had already sat for some time over their luncheon.

  “Perhaps—most likely, she will not want to know me!” she said. “Don’t let us talk about it, to-day! I have been so happy!”

  He put her in a hansom at the door, but he did not get in with her, although she moved her skirts for him, and looked up appealingly.

  “I shall either see you to-morrow, or write,” he said leaning over from the kerb. “Good-bye!”

  She smiled at him brightly, and the cab drove off. Bryan threw away his cigarette, and lit a cigar.

  “Now for Lady Helen!” he said to himself, grimly. “I’ll have it over!”

  IV. DEAD SEA FRUIT

  Table of Contents

  It was nearly four o’clock when Bryan turned out of Piccadilly, and rang the bell at Wessemer House. He inquired for Lady Helen.

  “I believe her ladyship is not at home, sir,” the porter answered. “I will find out.”

  He went away, and returned again in a minute.

  “Her ladyship will see you, sir,” he announced, with a respectful bow. “Will you walk this way?”

  Bryan followed a footman who had come up, into a small apartment at the side of the house, which was not generally used for receiving visitors. It was empty, but evidently Lady Helen had been there lately. A piano was open, with some songs lying about on the ottoman before it-, and a book, face downwards, was reposing upon a small round table by the fireside. A great bowl of flowers gave out a strong, sweet perfume, which Bryan instantly associated with her. He half closed his eyes, and in a moment he could have fancied himself back again in the amber drawing-room at Wessemer Court—alone with her on that first night, when he had come into her presence as Lord Wessemer’s guest, and on terms of more than ordinary civility. He felt a distinct thrill of pleasure at the recollection, at the thought of how he had steadily won his way into her favour, fighting her prejudices one by one, always—

  The thread of his meditations was broken. She had entered the room, and was advancing slowly towards him.

  “How do you do, Mr. Bryan?” she said gravely. “Lord Wessemer has just gone out.”

  “I did not come to see Lord Wessemer,” he answered. “I came to see you.”

  She swept past him, and stood on the other side of the tiger-skin hearthrug, looking at him inquiringly. She was wearing a plain, perfectly-fitting gray gown, which fell around her in straight, severe lines, accentuating the slimness of her figure. Her cheeks were a little paler than usual, and there was not even the suggestion of any colour about any part of her toilette. Never had she seemed to Bryan colder or more inaccessible.

  “I am sorry that I could not get to the Forresters’ last night,” he began. “I met an old friend.”

  “Yes? The—person with whom you were advertising yourself in the Park this morning, possibly?”

  Bryan frowned and kicked a footstool away from him. “Yes,” he admitted, “it was Myra Mercier.”

  “Pardon me—of the Hilarity Theatre, I believe?”

  “Yes, she is acting there.”

  “Ah!”

  Lady Helen took a handful of roses from the bowl by her side, and smelt them absently. Bryan felt that he had no particularly easy task before him.

  “I knew Myra Mercier in San Francisco,” he said slowly. “When I was ill there she was kind to me. I met her last night by accident. She is living alone in London, and of course I wish to be kind to her.”

  “Naturally!”

  Then Bryan suddenly determined upon a bold step. He dismissed the subject, and, suddenly moving forward, stood over her. She watched him, and suddenly felt a strange thrill. The old fire was in his eyes, and was ringing in his tone. The thrall of his society training had passed away. He was once more the man who had worked this curious change in her sensations, a change which as yet she had not admitted to herself—of which, indeed, she had been but dimly though sweetly conscious.

  “Lady Helen, it was not of any such trivial matter that came to talk to you this afternoon,” he said. “I have come to say that the six months you spoke o
f are almost up, and I am weary of waiting. What I am, you have made me. The desire for you is the better part of my life. I want a little word from you—you know what it is! I am not worthy of you—no one could be—yet I will try to be all that you wish. Will you not try and care for me just a little?”

  He was standing very close to her now, and, for the first time in her life under such circumstances, Lady Helen was not entirely mistress of herself. A faint pink colour was in her cheeks, and her eyes had drooped to the roses which she held in her hand. He dropped on one knee, and, taking her other hand, held it softly in his. She did not draw it away, and he raised it to his lips.

  “Lady Helen! Helen! Won’t you say that little word?” his deep bass voice was musical with the emotion of the moment, and Lady Helen felt her heart beating more sweetly than ever she had dreamed of. She lifted her dim eyes, and smiled at him.

  “Yes, if you will, Bryan! If you are quite sure that you want it very much!”

  * * * * *

  An hour later, as Bryan was leaving the house, a servant intercepted him. “His lordship would like a few words with you before you go, in the library, sir,” he said.

  Bryan followed him into the Earl’s sanctum. He was writing a letter, but put down his pen as Bryan entered.

  “Haven’t seen anything of you for a day or two, Bryan,” he remarked, directly the door was closed. “Been away?”