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Page 24
I had listened to the story entranced with the alluring teller of
it; wondering as I now wondered, on the road to the village, how
anything pretending to be man could think of money when she was
before his eye.
What could he buy with money that equaled her! And yet this
curious jackal had seen in her only the key to a strong-box.
There was behind it, in explanation, shadowed out, the glamor of
an empire that Senor Barras would set up with the millions in his
country of revolutions, and the enthusiasms of a foolish mother.
And yet the jackal and this wreckage had not touched her. There
was no stain, no crumpled leaf. She was a fresh wonder, even
after this, out of a chrysalis. It was this amazing newness,
this virginity of blossom from which one could not escape.
The word in my reflection brought me up. How had she escaped
from Barras?
I had more than once in my reflections pivoted on the word.
The great hotel was very nearly deserted when I entered.
There was the glow of a cigar where some one smoked, at the end
of the long porch. Within, there was only a sleepy clerk.
Madame Barras had not arrived . . . he was quite sure; she had
gone out to dinner somewhere and had not come in!
I was profoundly concerned. But I took a moment to reflect
before deciding what to do.
I stepped outside and there, coming up from the shadow of the
porch, I met Sir Henry Marquis.
It was chance at its extreme of favor. If I had been given the
selection, in all the world, I should have asked for Sir Henry
Marquis at that decisive moment.
The relief I felt made my words extravagant.
"Marquis!" I cried. "You here!"
"Ah, Winthrop," he said, in his drawling Oxford voice, "what have
you done with Madame Barras; I was waiting for her?"
I told him, in a word, how she had set out from my house - my
concern - the walk down here and this result. I did not ask him
at the moment how he happened to be here, or with a knowledge of
our guest. I thought that Marquis was in Canada. But one does
not, with success, inquire of a C.I.D. official even in his own
country. One met him in the most unexpected places, unconcerned,
and one would have said at leisure.
But he was concerned to-night. What I told brought him up. He
stood for a moment silent. Then he said, softly, in order drat
the clerk behind us might not overhear.
"Don't speak of it. I will get a light and go with you!"
He returned in a moment and we went out. He asked me about the
road, was there only one way down; and I told him precisely.
There was only the one road into the village and no way to miss
it unless one turned into the public road at the point where it
entered our private one along the mountain.
He pitched at once upon this point and we hurried back.
We had hardly a further word on the way. I was decidedly uneasy
about Madame Barras by now, and Marquis' concern was hardly less
evident. He raced along in his immense stride, and I had all I
could manage to keep up.
It may seem strange that I should have brought such a man as Sir
Henry Marquis into the search of this adventure with so little
explanation of my guest or the affair. But, one must remember,
Marquis was an old acquaintance frequently seen about in the
world. To thus, on the spot so to speak, draft into my service
the first gentleman I found, was precisely what any one would
have done. It was probable, after all, that there had been some
reason why the cut-under had taken the other road, and Madame
Barras was quite all right.
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