The House of Defence. Volume 2. Benson Edward Frederic
there. How clever of you to remember where we live! Will you take me to my boat? Let us walk round the garden first. It is charming to see you again.”
They strolled a few yards down the path between the two tall herbaceous borders, while she rapidly ran over in her mind what information she wanted from him. It was very quickly done.
“And you are staying here?” she asked. “How do you find Catherine? I am sure you walked together last night after dinner, and joined old memories onto the present.”
Lady Swindon was colossal in her impertinence. It struck Villars afresh after his long absence from England how very ill-bred a well-bred Englishwoman can be. But he was more than a match for her.
“Ah, my dear lady,” he said, “we found that the two needed no link. We neither of us have that faculty, which, no doubt, is often convenient, of forgetting old friends. As always, I adore her; as always, she receives my adoration from her infinite height. The Madonna still smiles on her worshipper. He asks no more.”
It was admirably done, for it told her nothing. She tried again.
“Indeed? I thought you had once asked more,” she said. “We all supposed so.”
“There is no limit to what people of brilliant and vivid imagination may not suppose,” said he.
She could not help smiling at her own defeat. His refusals to give direct answers were so very silken.
“And the truth always exceeds one’s imagination, does it not?” she said.
“It is usually different from it,” observed he.
This would not do. She tried something else.
“And Thurso?” she said. “How do you think he is?”
Villars looked at her in bland surprise.
“Very well, surely, is he not?” he said. “Why should you think otherwise?”
“Only something I heard about his calling at a chemist’s and racing home afterwards.”
“Indeed!” said Villars.
Lady Swindon was afraid there was no more to be got there, and he handed her into her launch.
“But I am so glad, so very glad you think he is well,” she said. “Do come and spend a Sunday with us some week. I will try to get Catherine to come and meet you.”
He murmured gratitude of the non-committal sort, and stood a little while looking after her launch, which sped like an arrow up-stream, raising a two-foot wave in its wake, and nearly upset half a dozen boats in its passage. Then he strolled back to the lawn again. He had not the faintest intention of staying with Lady Swindon, but, on the other hand, he did not at all desire to be on bad terms with her, for, little as he respected her, he had a profound respect for her supreme mischief-making capabilities. She had got hold of something about Thurso, too, and perhaps it was as well she had not seen him. In that case, his own bland assertion that he considered him very well would not have been of much use.
Lady Swindon’s departure had acted as a signal for a general move, and when Villars got back, Lady Thurso was just saying good-bye to the last of her guests. On the moment, the butler came out of the house and spoke to her.
“His lordship begs that you and Lady Maud will go to his room for a moment as soon as you are disengaged, my lady,” he said.
“Tell his lordship we will come immediately. Ah, Count Villars, we were going on the river, were we not? Could you wait a few minutes? Thurso wants to see me about something.”
Maud joined her, and they went together to Thurso’s sitting-room at the end of the house. He was sitting at his table in the window, and, with his usual courtesy, got up as they entered. On the table in front of him stood a bottle of dark blue glass. He had just finished unpacking this as they entered, and threw the corrugated paper in which it had been wrapped into the waste-paper basket.
“A cigarette, Catherine?” he said, offering her one. “I want a few minutes’ talk with you both.”
She took one, and he waited till she had lit it, and sat down.
“Maud tells me,” he said, “that you and she undid a package that arrived here this afternoon addressed to me, and threw it away. That is so, I believe?”
She did not answer – it seemed unnecessary – and he raised his voice a little.
“Will you kindly say whether that is so?” he said.
“Yes; quite right,” she said.
Again he raised his voice, that shook with suppressed rage.
“And do you make a habit of doing such things, both of you? Do you open my letters, other people’s letters?”
“Oh, Thurso, don’t be a fool!” said Maud quietly.
His face went very white.
“Maud, I am trying to be courteous,” he said, “under a good deal of provocation. You might make an effort to follow my example.”
“Is it courteous to ask Catherine and me whether we are in the habit of opening other people’s letters?” she asked.
“Your behaviour this afternoon seems to me to warrant my question,” he said.
“No, Thurso, it does not,” said his wife. “I think you know it, too.”
He looked first at the one, then at the other, and his hand moved as if instinctively towards the bottle on the table.
“I don’t want to make a scene with either of you,” he said, “and I don’t want to detain you. I wish to say, however, that I think you behaved quite outrageously. And I require you both to promise never again to act in such a way. You are absolutely unjustified in touching or interfering with my things in this way from whatever motive.”
He took up the bottle.
“You see how little good your interference has done in this instance,” he said, “and it will do as little in any other. You will merely oblige me to adopt methods as underhand as your own.”
“There was nothing underhand,” said Catherine. “We were going to tell you what we had done. Indeed, Maud did tell you.”
“I should have said that stealing was underhand,” said he very evilly, “though perhaps you think differently. As to your telling me, you knew it was inevitable that I should find out.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” said Maud quickly. “Even if you could never have found out otherwise, we should have told you.”
“Ah!” said he.
Maud looked at him in amazement. She had been told by Catherine this afternoon that there were two Mauds, and here indeed was a Thurso whom she would scarcely have known for her brother. His manner was quite quiet and courteous again now, but it seemed as if he was possessed. There was a world of sneering incredulity in that one word.
“You don’t believe what I say?” she asked.
He was silent; he smiled a little, and raised his eyebrows. There was no need for him to speak; he could not have shouted his meaning nearly so clearly.
“Then where is the use of our giving you any promise for the future, if you don’t believe what we say?” she asked.
“I ask for your promise, however,” he said.
“And if we don’t give it you?” said Catherine.
He looked at her closely, and she felt that he hated her at that moment.
“I shall merely have to find some other way of getting things delivered,” he said, “so that you shall not st – intercept them.”
There was silence.
“I ask for your promise,” he repeated.
Maud threw back her head.
“I promise,” she said. “It is no use refusing.”
“And I,” said