"I am glad you snubbed her," Forsyth exclaimed. "She has been made a good deal of in certain circles during the last month or two, and presumes a lot on the strength of it."
"Did I snub her?" said the Duke carelessly. "I am sure I didn't mean to, for she deserves better things of me. You'd hardly believe it, Alec, but that little episode has jerked me into deciding a crucial point—no less than whether to be a man or a cur. At the same time it has put me quite outside the pale as a resident under the same roof as my cousin. On second thoughts, I will not go in at all, but I shall be obliged if you will see her and convey the message I gave you—that Beaumanoir House is at her disposal till she can quite conveniently leave it."
"But what are you going to do yourself?" said Forsyth in sheer bewilderment.
"First I shall go to Bond Street, to gladden the hearts of some of my old creditors; then by an evening train to Prior's Tarrant," was the reply. "And, Alec," proceeded the Duke earnestly, "if you can get leave from the Foreign Office, pending retirement, and join me there as soon as possible, you will place me under a very deep obligation."
[CHAPTER V—Ziegler Begins to Move]
On the following Sunday morning the Duke of Beaumanoir stood at one of the windows of the long library at Prior's Tarrant, idly beating a tattoo on the glass. The June sunshine flooded the bosky leafage of the glorious expanse of park, and nearer still the parterres of the old Dutch garden were gay with summer bloom; but the beauties of the landscape were lost upon the watcher at the window.
Nearly four and twenty hours had elapsed since he had failed to keep his appointment with Mr. Ziegler, and he was wondering how and when that autocrat of high-grade crime would signalize his displeasure at the mutiny. That sooner or later an edict would issue against him from the invalid chair in the first-floor suite he had not the slightest doubt. He knew that he had to deal with men playing a great game for a great stake in deadly earnest.
The Dukes of Beaumanoir had never been famous for their virtues, any more than they had been cowards, and it was rather a dawning sense of responsibility than fear, either for his reputation or his person, that filled him with apprehension. If "anything happened" to him, such a lot would happen to so many other people. For instance, it had only occurred to him since he came down to the country that if Ziegler killed him his death would mean ruin to Alec Forsyth, who had thrown up a sure position to serve him. The next heir was an elderly cousin with a large family to provide for, and he would certainly not retain Forsyth in his employment.
Then, again, Beaumanoir reflected with a sigh, his new and sweet friendship with Leonie Sherman—a friendship to which no blot on his escutcheon need now put limits—would be rudely snapped. The King of Terrors would take away what his saved honor had restored, and perhaps it was the bitterest drop in his cup to feel that he might be giving his life to lose what in another sense he would have given his life to win. To ask Leonie to link her fate to his, with that dark shadow hanging over him, was out of the question.
Once he had taken up his pen to denounce Ziegler to the police authorities anonymously, but he had despondingly laid it down again. That crafty practitioner had doubtless safeguarded himself against such an obvious course by being prepared with an unimpeachable record which it would be impossible to shake unless he came forward and avowed complicity. There, again, dishonor waited for him, and he had already made his choice that a short shrift was preferable to that.