He arrived after Daddy had gone to his club, to collect some correspondence. The maid came and told me there was a strange man in the hall who said Dr. Merville had sent for him; so I went down to see him.
He made the queerest impression on me. You will be amused, but not flattered, when I confess that the moment I saw him, I thought of you! I had a sort of warm impulse toward him. I felt as though I were meeting you, as I wanted you to be. That sounds feeble, and lame, but employing my limited vocabulary to the best of my poor ability, I am striving to reduce my mad impression to words. How mad it was, you'll understand. For, Ronnie, he was a stoutish man of middle age—no more like you than I am like Mr. Steppe! Yet when I saw this shabbily dressed person (the knees of his trousers shone and the laces of his untidy boots were dragging) I just gasped. He sat squarely on one of the hall chairs, a big, rough hand on each knee, and he was staring in an absent-minded way at the wall. He didn't even see me when I stood almost opposite to him. But his head, Ronnie! It was the head of a conqueror; one of those heroes of antiquity. You see their busts in the museums and wonder who they are. A broad, eagle face, strangely dark, and on top a shock of gray-white hair brushed back into a mane. He had the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen in a man, and when they turned in my direction, and he got up from his chair, not awkwardly as I expected, but with the ease of an Augustus, there was within them so much loving-kindness that I felt I could have cried.
And please, Ronnie, do not tell me that I am neurotic and over-tired. I was just mad—nothing worse than that. I'm mad still, for I cannot get him out of my mind. His name is Ambrose Sault, and he is associated with daddy and Mr. Steppe, though I think that he is really attached to that horrid Greek person to whom daddy introduced me—Moropulos. What sort of work he does for Moropulos I have not discovered. There is always a great deal of mystery about Mr. Moropulos and Mr. Steppe's business schemes. Sometimes I am very uncomfortable—which is a very mild way of describing my feelings—about daddy—and things.
Ronnie, you have some kind of business dealings with father, what is it all about? I should so like to discover. It is to do with companies and corporations, isn't it? I know Mr. Steppe is a great financier, but I don't quite know how financiers work. I suppose I ought not to be curious, but it worries me—no, bothers is a better word—sometimes.
Come and see me soon, Ronnie. I promise you I won't—you know. I've never forgiven myself for hurting you so. It was such a horrid story—I blame myself for listening, and hate myself for telling you. But the girl's brother was so earnest, and so terribly upset, and the girl herself was so wickedly circumstantial. You have forgiven me? It was my first experience of blackmailers and I ought to have known you better and liked you better than to believe that you would be such a brute—and she was such a common girl, too—"
She stopped writing and looked round. "Come in."
The maid was straightening her face as she entered. "That gentleman, miss, Mr. Sault, has called."
Beryl tapped her lips with the feathered penholder. "Did you tell him that the doctor was out?"
"Yes, miss. He asked if you were in. I told him I'd go and see." Something about the visitor had amused the girl, for the corners of her lips twitched.
"Why are you laughing, Dean?" Beryl's manner was unusually cold and her grave eyes reproving. For no reason that she could assign, she felt called upon to defend this man, against the ridicule which she perceived in the maid's attitude.