CHAPTER XIII
THE INTERVIEW
Premonition is an odd thing enough and no distant relative of that sister art of prophecy which the ancients so justly esteemed. Evelyn knew no reason whatever why her father should be offended by the presence of Count Odin at the Manor, but none the less premonition warned her that the meeting would not be unattended by consequences of some import. In this fear she had quitted the Count's room directly Dr. Philips warned her that the Earl's carriage was in the courtyard; and going out to the head of that short flight of stairs by which you reach the banqueting hall, she waited there in no little expectation, afraid she knew not of what, and yet quite sure that she had good reason to be afraid. Down below, in the great hall itself, she heard a sound of voices—for the Doctor had already begun his tale—and she tried to catch the sense of it, listening particularly for any mention of Count Odin's name, which must, she believed, be the key to this strange riddle of her adventure. When her father approached her, smiling and not ill-pleased, she was quite sure that the Count's name had not been mentioned; nor was her surmise in any way incorrect.
The Earl came up the stairs with the air of a man who is glad to get home again and has heard a good jest upon the very threshold of his house. He wore a dark tweed suit and his bronzed face, if slightly drawn by the fatigues of travel, wore, none the less, that benevolent air of content which invariably attended the assurance that all was well at Melbourne Hall. Stooping to kiss Evelyn, he told her in a word that he was aware of the adventure and found it amusing enough.
"Yes, the Doctor has told me," he began; "a man and a horse and a flying machine! My dear girl, you must be careful. What will the county say if we go on like this—the second spill in a couple of months. Why, I'll have to endow an hospital for your victims! Evelyn, my dear——"
She interrupted him almost hotly.
"Doctor Philips should write books," she said quickly. "We had nothing whatever to do with it. The horse bolted from Moretown and raced up behind us. I turned into a field and saved the car. What nonsense to say that it was our fault! Ask the Count's friend how it happened. He has been to London, but he will return to-morrow. He can tell you all about it, father. I was too frightened at the time to know exactly what did happen."
The Earl, still believing that the Doctor's incoherent jargon must have some truth in it, paused, nevertheless, at the word "Count."
"Is the man a foreigner?" he asked quickly.
"He will tell you for himself," she replied evasively. "We have given him the Chaplain's Room. Please go there and ask him how it was. Dr. Philips has been romancing as usual."
The Doctor came up to them while they spoke and looked foolish enough at overhearing her words. He certainly was a poor hand at a narrative, and his incoherent account of the tragedy had left the Earl with no other idea than that of Evelyn's recklessness and the consequences which had attended it.
"It's just like me," he exclaimed meekly, "always putting my foot in it somewhere. And a great big flat foot too, my dear. What did I tell him now? I said you were returning from Derby and the horse bolted and your car ran into a field. That's it, wasn't it now? Dear me, how very foolish!"
Evelyn did not hear him. They had strolled together down the corridor and witnessed the Earl enter the sick man's room, and now a sharp sound of voices almost in anger came up to them. On his part, Dr. Philips remained convinced that the Count had come into Derbyshire to see Evelyn and that the Earl had some knowledge of the circumstances. Evelyn's abstracted manner seemed to bear him out in this ridiculous idea. Pale and silent and agitated, she waited for the result of that momentous interview. What had the two men to say to each other? How much she would have given to be able to answer that question!
"Your father knows something of the Count, I think?" the Doctor ventured at a hazard while they waited.
She answered that she was unaware of the circumstance.
"I have only seen this man twice in my life," she exclaimed with growing impatience. "If you are writing his biography, Doctor, I really am worse than useless."
He looked at her amazed. "This man." Surely there was nothing romantic about that.
"Writing his biography. My dear Lady Evelyn, what an idea! I quite thought he was an old friend of yours. But everyone we know is an old friend of ours nowadays," he said somewhat solemnly, as though grieved that his anticipations should thus be disappointed. "I know absolutely nothing of the Count," he went on, "except that he is a Roumanian, a country, I believe, in the south-east of Europe, with Bukharest for its capital. I remember that from my schooldays. The Roumanians shoot the Bulgarians on half-holidays, and the Bulgarians burn the Roumanians alive after they have been to church on Sundays. Evidently a country to which one should send their relatives—the elderly ones who have made their wills satisfactorily."
Evelyn was too kind to embarrass him by the declaration that her mother had been a daughter of the country he esteemed so lightly. His readiness to apologize upon every occasion was typical of a kindly man who believed that all the world was ready to find fault with him. His livelihood depended upon his recognition of the fact that illness itself is sometimes little better than a vanity—and that when an obstinate man tells you that he is an invalid, his pride is hurt if you tell him that he is not.
"My father spent many years in Roumania when he was a young man," Evelyn said, in answer to the Doctor's tirade. "Those are years he does not often speak of. I can't tell you why, Doctor, but he dislikes anyone even to remind him that he was once an attaché at Bukharest. Perhaps he will not welcome Count Odin here. I imagine it may be so."
"I'm quite certain of it," said the Doctor with a dry smile. "People who are glad to see each other do not talk like that—of course we must not listen," he added, drawing her away toward the Long Gallery; "we are not supposed to be present at all."
A sound of voices raised almost as though in anger warned him that this was no common affair. Every doctor is curious, and Dr. Philips had no merits above the common in this respect. He knew that he would narrate the whole circumstance to the Vicar later on in the evening, and that two wise heads would be shaken together over this amazing discovery. For the moment he watched Evelyn narrowly and, perceiving her agitation, found himself asking how much of her story was true. Had she, indeed, met this intruder but once in London; and was she in ignorance of the Earl's past, so far as Roumania had written it? He doubted the possibility—it seemed to him prudent, however, not to remain longer at the Hall.
"I shall run over in the morning," he said blandly; "you can tell me anything I ought to know then. There is nothing much the matter with the man, and a bump may have knocked some good sense into his head. Don't allow him to worry the Earl—I don't want another patient in the house, and your father has not looked very well lately. Send for me again if you have any trouble, and I'll be back as soon as the messenger."
He would much have liked to stop, but that, he realized, was out of the question. Here was some private page from the life-story of a man whose actions had ever mystified both his friends and neighbors. An old woman in his love of a scandal, Dr. Philips had the Earl's displeasure to set in the other pan of the social balance; and that was something not to be lightly weighed. Taking leave of Evelyn at the western door of the Long Gallery, he left her with many protestations of his interest, and the repeated assurance that his morning visit should be an early one.
"I'll look in first thing," he exclaimed; "don't let that man worry the Earl, my dear. There's a hang-dog look about him I never liked. Keep your eyes on him—and take my advice, the advice of an old friend—get rid of him."
Anxious as she was, she could not but smile at this volteface. An hour ago, believing that Count Odin had come to Melbourne because he was her lover, the Doctor was ready to declare him a very Adonis, a prodigy of charm and valor and all the graces. Now he had become "that man," a term human nature is ready enough to apply to strangers. Evelyn, left alone in the gallery, fell to wondering which was the truer estimate. Why, she asked, had she any interest in this stranger at all? Did the appeal he made to her speak to Etta Romney or to Evelyn, my lord of Melbourne's daughter? Was there not a subtle idea that this man could speak for the glamour and the stir of that world she craved for and was denied. Even at this early stage, she did not believe that the influence was for good, though she forbore to name it as utterly evil. Agitation, indeed, and a curiosity more potent than any she had ever submitted to, now dominated her to the exclusion of all other thoughts. Why did her father delay? Of what sometime forgotten day of the dead years were the two men now speaking in a tone which declared their anger? She could not even hazard an answer. The gong for dressing sounded and still the Earl did not leave the Count's room. Dinner was served—he did not appear at the table. Greatly distressed and afraid, Evelyn waited until nine o'clock, when a message came down to tell her that he had gone to his room and would dine alone.
"I must go up, Griggs," she said firmly; "my father cannot be well."
"My lady," he said, "the Earl was firm on that. He will see no one, not even you to-night."
The intimation astounded her, and yet had been expected. Destiny spoke to her plainly since the day the Count had come to Melbourne Hall. For what else had it been but Destiny which brought her face to face with this man in London, sent her almost into his arms and revealed her name to him! But for that chance encounter, her secret might have remained her own to the end. She did not fear her secret now, but a great mystery, the story of her father's life (she knew not what it might be), told abroad to the world, to his shame and her own. Not in vain had she lived these years of a close intimacy with one who could not so much as bear the word "youth" mentioned in his presence. There had been a past in the Earl's life, of that she was convinced—and this man, she said, had come to the Manor to accuse him. It remained for her to take up arms against him—she, my Lady Evelyn, the recluse, the captive of a selfish idea.
And that was in her mind already—the personal issue between herself and the Count. She would not shrink from it, although she realized its perils.
"Not Evelyn, but Etta," she said, "yes, yes, and that is Destiny also. And now the world is all before me and I am alone."
Alone! Truly so, for my Lady Evelyn knew not one in all the world to whom she might speak in that hour of awakening.