"You're not glad to see me. No use pretending. I know, and—here's the reason!" She darted forward and seized from the desk, close to my open journal, the greatest treasure I had in the world—Maida Odell's picture.
Roger had given it to me, knowing how I felt towards Maida. It was a miniature painted on ivory, and almost—though of course not quite—did Maida justice, as no photograph could do. I kept it in a gold, jewelled frame with doors like the doors of a shrine which could shut the angel face out of sight. Usually the doors of the frame were not only shut but locked. When I sat at the desk, however, and expected no visitors, I opened and put it where each time I glanced up from my writing I could look straight into Maida's eyes. Lady Allendale, however, had come as a bolt from the blue, and for once I neglected to shut the shrine.
If I had been angry before, I was doubly angry now; but I said not a word. Gently I took the frame, closed, and placed it in a drawer of the desk.
"Did you say you thought of spending a few days on Long Island?" I asked, when I could control my voice.
"I've engaged a suite at this hotel," Lady Allendale answered sharply. "My maid's putting my things in order now. I do think, Jack, you're being horrid to me, and if it weren't too late to change without making gossip I should give up the rooms and go somewhere else."
I didn't want a scene, so I reminded myself how sweet she had been when Don had brought her as a bride to India, and I had always been welcome at their bungalow. I soothed her as well as I could; refused to talk personalities, and when she decided that her visit to my sitting-room had better end, I took her to the door. At that moment a face almost as familiar as hers appeared at a door opposite—the face of Irene Allendale's French maid who had come with her to India four years ago. This woman (Pauline, I remembered hearing her called) was receiving big trunks with White Star labels on them; and I realised not only that the lady's new quarters were close to mine, but that she was provided for a long stay in them!
When she had gone, and the door of her sitting-room had been shut by Pauline (whose personality I disliked) I picked up Don's photograph, and sat down to look at it, reviewing old times.
Poor Don! Whatever his failings might have been, fate had been hard on him!
He was among the smartest officers my regiment ever had, one of the most popular—despite his hot temper—and the best looking. Everyone said when Irene Grey came to India to be married, chaperoned on the voyage by a dragon of a maid, that she and Donald were the handsomest couple ever seen. The trouble was—for trouble began at once—that Irene was too pretty. She was a flirt too; and her success as the beauty went to her head. She ought to have understood Don well enough to know that he was stupidly jealous. Perhaps she did know, and thought it "fun." But the fun soon turned to fighting. They quarrelled openly. She would do nothing that Don wanted her to do. In black rage, he told her to live her own life, and he would live his. Both were miserable, for she had loved him and he—had adored her. She flirted more than ever, and Don tried to forget his wretchedness by drinking too much and playing too high. So passed several years. I left the regiment and India, and took up flying. Then came the outbreak of war. Don was ordered to England. Irene sailed on the same ship, though by that time they were scarcely civil to each other. Don used influence and got ordered to America to buy horses for the army, he being a polo man and a judge of horseflesh.
I was in France then, but running over to England on leave, Irene sent for me to tell the astounding news that Don had taken with him all her jewellery. She had money of her own—not a great fortune; but her jewels, left her by a rich aunt, were magnificent and even famous. This scene between Irene and me, when she accused Don and I defended him, lingered in my memory as one of the most disagreeable of my life: and the maid Pauline was associated with it in my mind, as Irene had called her, to describe certain suspicious circumstances. Later I couldn't help admitting to myself, if not to Irene, that Don's disappearance on reaching New York, before he had begun to carry out his mission, did look queer. Search was made by the police of New York in vain, until a body past recognition, but wearing a watch and identification papers belonging to Captain Sir Donald Allendale, was found in the East River. I induced Irene to give Don the benefit of the doubt, not to blacken his memory by connecting him with the loss of her jewels; and she seemed to think that yielding to my persuasions was a proof of friendship for me.