VII.
AT NIGHT.
With a curious sense of excitement I crossed the room. I opened the door—and there stood Eileen. She had taken off her hat, and without it looked even more beautiful, for what hat could rival her masses of dark hair so artfully arranged and yet with a rippling wave all through them that utterly defied restraint?
"May I come in for a little?" she said.
She asked in such a friendly smiling way, so modest and yet so unafraid, that even the greatest Don Juan could not have mistaken her honest intention.
"I shall be more than charmed to have your company," I said.
"I'm afraid we soon forget the conventionalities in our service," she said simply. "Tiel has gone out, and I was getting very tired of my own company."
"Imagine how tired I have got of mine!" I cried.
She gave a little understanding nod.
"It must be dreadfully dull for you," she agreed with great sincerity—and she added, as she seated herself in my wicker chair, "I have another excuse for calling on you, and that is, that the more clearly we all three understand what we are doing, the better. Don't you think so?"
"Decidedly! In fact I only wish we all thought the same."
She looked at me inquiringly, and yet as though she comprehended quite well.
"You mean——?"
"Well, to be quite frank, I mean Tiel. He is very clever, and he knows his work. Mein Gott, we can teach him nothing! And perhaps he trusts you implicitly and is quite candid. But he certainly tells me no more than he can help."
"He tells nobody more than he can help," she said. "You are no worse treated than any one else he works with. But it is a little annoying sometimes."
"For instance, do you know what he is doing to-night?" I asked.
There was no mistaking the criticism in the little shrug with which she replied—
"I half suspect he is walking about in the dark by himself just to make me think he is busy on some mysterious affair!"
"Do you actually mean that?" I exclaimed.
"No, no," she said hastily, "not really quite that! But he sometimes tempts one to say these things."
"Have you worked with him often before?"
"Enough to know his little peculiarities." She smiled suddenly. "Oh, he is a very wonderful man, is my dear brother!"
Again I was delighted (I confess it shamelessly!) to hear that unmistakable note of criticism.
"'Wonderful' may have several meanings," I suggested.
"It has in his case," she said frankly. "He really is extraordinarily clever."
She added nothing more, but the implication was very clear that the other meanings were not quite so flattering. I felt already that this strange little household was divided into two camps, and that Eileen and I were together in one.
"But we have talked enough about Herr Tiel!" she exclaimed in a different voice. "Because we really can get no further. It is like discussing what is inside a locked box! We can trust his judgment in this business; I think you will agree to that."
"Oh yes," I said, "I have seen enough to respect his abilities very thoroughly."
"Then," said she, "let us talk of something more amusing."
"Yourself," I said frankly, though perhaps a little too boldly, for she did not respond immediately. I felt that I had better proceed more diplomatically.
"I was wondering whether you were a pure German," I added.
"My feelings towards Germany are as strong as yours, Mr Belke," she answered. "Indeed I don't think any one can be more loyal to their country than I am, but I am not purely German by blood. My mother was Irish, hence my name—Eileen."
"Then that is your real name?" I cried, between surprise and delight.
"Yes, that is the one genuine thing about me," she smiled.
"But if you are half English——"
"Irish," she corrected.
"Ah!" I cried. "I see—of course! I was going to ask whether your sympathies were not at all divided. But Irish is very different. Then you hate the English with a double hatred?"
"With one or two exceptions—friends I have made—I abhor the whole race I am fighting against quite as much as you could possibly wish me to! Indeed, I wish it were fighting and not merely plotting!"
There was an earnestness and intensity in her voice and a kindling of her eye as she said this that thrilled and inspired me like a trumpet.
"We shall defeat them—never fear!" I cried. "We shall trample on the pride of England. It will be hard to do, but I have no doubt as to the result; have you?"
"None," she said, quietly but with absolute confidence.
Then that quick smile of hers, a little grave but very charming, broke over her face.
"But let us get away for a little from war," she said. "You aren't smoking. Please do, if you wish to."
I lit a cigarette, and offered one to her, but she said she did not smoke. And I liked her all the better. We talked more lightly for a while, or perhaps I should rather say less earnestly, for our situation did not lend itself to frivolity. It did lend itself however to romance,—we two sitting on either side of the peat fire, with a shaded lamp and the friendly flames throwing odd lights and shadows through the low, primitive room with its sloping attic-like walls and its scanty furniture; and the wind all the while tempestuously booming in the chimney and scouring land and sea. And neither on land nor sea was there a single friend; surrounded by enemies who would have given a heavy price to have learned who sat in that room, we talked of many things.
At last, all too soon, she rose and wished me good-night. A demon of perversity seized me.
"I shall escort you down to Mr Tiel, and the devil take his precautions!" I exclaimed.
"Oh no," she protested. "After all he is in command."
She really seemed quite concerned at my intention, but I can be very obstinate when I choose.
"Tuts!" I said. "It is sheer rubbish to pretend that there is any risk at this time of night. Probably he is still out, and anyhow he will not have visitors at this hour."
She looked at me very hard and quickly as if to see if I were possible to argue with, and then she gave a little laugh and merely said—
"You are terribly wilful, Mr Belke!"
And she ran downstairs very quickly, as though to run away from me. I followed fast, but she was some paces ahead of me as we went down the dark passage to the front of the house. And then suddenly I heard guarded voices, and stopped dead.
There was a bend in the passage just before it reached the hall, and Eileen had passed this while I had not, and so I could see nothing ahead. Then I heard the voice of Tiel say—
"Well?"
It was a simple word of little significance, but the voice in which it was said filled me with a very unpleasant sensation. The man spoke in such a familiar, confidential way that I suddenly felt I could have shot him cheerfully. For the instant I forgot the problem of the other voice I had heard.
"Mr Belke is with me! He insisted," she cried.
At this I knew that the unknown voice could not belong to an enemy, and I advanced again. As I passed the bend in the passage I was just in time to see Tiel closing the front door behind a man in a long dark coat with a gleam of brass buttons, and to hear him say,
"Good-night, Ashington."
Eileen passed into the parlour with a smiling glance for me to follow, and Tiel came in after us. I was not in the most pleasant temper. In fact, for some reason I was in a very black humour.
"I thought you had gone out," I said to him at once.
"I did go out."
"But now I understand that the worthy Captain Ashington has been visiting you here!"
"Both these remarkable events have occurred," said Tiel drily.
When I recalled how long Eileen had been up in my room, I realised that this was quite possible, but this did not, for some reason, soothe me.
"Why did he come?" I asked.
"The fleet is going out on Friday."
"Aha!" I exclaimed, forgetting my annoyance for the moment.
"So that is settled at last," said Tiel with a satisfied smile.
He happened to turn his smile on Eileen also, and my annoyance returned.
"You dismissed our dear friend Ashington very quickly when you heard me coming," I remarked in no very amiable tone.
Tiel looked at me gravely.
"Belke," he said, "you might quite well have done serious mischief by showing your dislike for Ashington so palpably the other day. Even a man of that sort has feelings. I have soothed them, I am glad to say, but he was not very anxious to meet you again."
"So much the better!" said I. "Traitors are not the usual company a German officer keeps."
"Many of us have to mix with strange company nowadays, Mr Belke," said Eileen.
Her sparkling eye and her grave smile disarmed me instantly. I felt suddenly conscious I was not playing a very judicious part, or showing myself perhaps to great advantage. So I bade them both good-night and returned to my room.
But it was not to go to bed. For two mortal hours I paced my floor, and thought and thought, but not about any problem of the war. I kept hearing Tiel's "Well," spoken in that hatefully intimate way, and then remembering that those two were alone—all night!—in the front part of the house, far out of sound or reach of me. I did not doubt Eileen for an instant, but that calm, cool, cosmopolitan adventurer, who could knock an unsuspecting clergyman on the head and throw him over a cliff, and then tell the story with a smile,—what was he not capable of?
Again and again I asked myself why it concerned me. This was a girl I had only known for hours. But her smile was the last thing I saw before I fell asleep at length about three o'clock in the morning.