II
"Miss Brandt?"
The solemn-faced man-servant eyed him suspiciously as a stranger. He looked, to Graeme, like a superannuated official of the Court of Chancery.
"Miss Brandt is not at home, sir."
"Mrs. Pixley?"
"Mrs. Pixley is not at home, sir."
Was he right or wrong, he wondered, in thinking he detected a gleam of satisfied anticipation, of gratified understanding, in the solemn one's otherwise rigid eye—as of one who had been told to expect this and was lugubriously contented that it had duly come to pass?
However, there was nothing more to be done there at the moment. The polite conventions, to say nothing of the law, forbade him the pleasure of hurling the outcast of Chancery into the kennel and forcing his way in. Instead, he hailed a hansom and drove straight to Lincoln's Inn, boldly demanded audience of Mr. Pixley on pressing private business, and presently found himself in the presence.
Mr. Pixley stood on the hearthrug with his back to the fire, and handled his gold pince-nez defensively.
Here also Graeme had an intuition that he was expected, which was somewhat odd, you know, unless his letters had been handed to Mr. Pixley for perusal, which did not seem likely.
Mr. Pixley bowed formally and he responded—the salute before the click of the foils.
Mr. Pixley stood expectant, but by no means inviting of confidences such as his visitor was about to tender him. Rather he seemed fully armed for the defence, especially in the matter of the heavy gold pince-nez, which he held threateningly, after the manner of the headsman of old towards the victim on whom he was about to operate.
"I have taken the liberty of calling, Mr. Pixley," said Graeme,—and Mr. Pixley's manner in subtle fashion conveyed his full recognition of the fact that liberty it undoubtedly was, and that he had no smallest shadow of a right to be there,—"to inquire after Miss Brandt."
"Miss Brandt?" said Mr. Pixley vaguely, as though the name were new and strange to him. Or perhaps it was an endeavour on his part to express the impassable gulf which lay between his visitor and his ward, and the profound amazement he felt at any attempt on his visitor's part to abridge it. He also made a little involuntary preliminary cut at him with the pince-nez, as much as to say, "If this my weapon were of a size commensurate with my wishes and your colossal impudence, your head would lie upon the ground, young man."
"I have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Brandt at Lady Elspeth Gordon's and elsewhere. I think I may claim that we were on terms of friendship. Lady Elspeth has been called from home very suddenly to the bedside of her niece, Lady Assynt, and I have written twice to Miss Brandt and have had no reply. It struck me that she might be ill and I have called to inquire."
This was all lame enough no doubt, and so he felt it, but it was only in the nature of preliminary feinting. They were not yet at grips.
"Ah!" with ponderous deliberation, "you have called to inquire if Miss Brandt is ill. I have pleasure in informing you that she is not."
"I am glad to hear that, at all events. Might I ask if you are aware of any reason why she should not have received my letters—or replied to them?"
"Two questions," said Mr. Pixley, cutting them in slices with his pince-nez, as though they were to be charged up to his visitor at so much per pound. "There is no reason whatever why Miss Brandt should not have received your letters. There may be the best possible reasons why she should not reply to them."
"So far as I have been able to form an opinion of Miss Brandt it is quite unlike her not to have, at all events, acknowledged them."
"Ah! Your opportunities have probably been limited, Mr.—er—"—with a glance at the card—"Graeme, and you may possibly be—from your calling upon me I judge you undoubtedly are—ignorant of the facts of the case," and the gold pince-nez hammered that into the stolid young man's head.
"Perhaps you would be so good as to enlighten me."
"It would perhaps be as well to do so. To be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Graeme, my ward had the very best of reasons for handing your letters to me and not replying to them herself."
"Really! I would esteem it a favour, Mr. Pixley, if you would enlighten me further."
"Certainly!" with an airy wave of the pince-nez. "I intend to do so. The simple fact of my ward's engagement to my son, and that they are looking forward to the celebration of their marriage in something less than three months, will probably suffice to explain Miss Brandt's disinclination to enter into correspondence with a comparative stranger,"—and the pince-nez shredded Graeme's hopes into little pieces and scattered them about the floor.
"Miss Brandt is engaged to your son?" he jerked, feeling not a little foolish, and decidedly downhearted.
"As I have informed you. It is a union to which we have been looking hopefully forward for some time past—a most excellent conjunction of hearts and fortunes. My ward possesses some means, as you are doubtless aware,"—with an insolent thrust of the pince-nez at the would-be suitor's honour,—"and my son is also well provided for in that respect."
"Then—I am afraid my visit is something in the nature of an intrusion." Mr. Pixley bowed his fullest acquiescence in this very proper estimate of his position, and the pince-nez intimated that the way out lay just behind him and that the sooner he took advantage of it the better.
"I can only say, by way of apology," added Graeme, "that I was wholly unaware of what you have just told me. I will wish you good-day, Mr. Pixley."
Mr. Pixley and the pince-nez wafted him towards the door, and the lumpy cobbles of the courtyard outside seemed to him, for the moment, absolutely typical of life.
He went back home numbed and sore at heart. It was hard to believe this of Margaret Brandt.
And yet—he said to himself—it was wholly he who was to blame. He had deceived himself. He had wished to believe what he had so earnestly desired should be. Possibly he had closed his eyes to facts and indications which might have enlightened him if he had been on the look-out for them. Possibly—well, there!—he had played the fool unconsciously, and he was not the first. It only remained for him now to play the man.
He felt sore, and bruised, and run down, and for the moment somewhat at odds with life. He would get away from it all to some remote corner, to rest for a time and recover tone, and then to work. For work, after all, is the mighty healer and tonic, and when it is to one's taste there are few wounds it cannot salve.