He reached the house, knocked, and asked briefly for Mrs. Roden. The landlady, whose sentiments towards her lodgers had developed rapidly in consequence of the enquiries which Falconer had felt it his duty to make, received his words with a sniff expressive of contempt; and then informed him, with a stare of insolent curiosity, that “she” was “hupstairs,” and led the way thither; evidently urged to that act of civility solely by a hope of finding out something. She was a coarse, vulgar-looking woman, with small red eyes, which glittered expectantly as she flung the door open and announced, in a loud and denunciatory voice, “’Ere’s a gentleman!”
But if she had hoped for startling revelations she was disappointed. Dennis Falconer advanced into the room with stern composure; the figure in the window turned quickly but quietly to meet him; and Mrs. Jackson was obliged to shut the door upon the two.
Clemence was looking very pale. The vague shadow which had fallen upon her as she journeyed up to London two days before had deepened into a wistful, questioning sadness. She had not seen Julian since she parted from him at Victoria Station. On the previous day she had received a note from him which told her that “work” kept him from her for that day, but that he would come as soon as he was able. There was nothing to distress or alarm her in the fact itself; more than once before a similar disappointment had come to her; and even though the second day brought her no letter, the blank merely meant, as she assured herself hour by hour, that she would see him before the day was done. But strive against it as she might, and did, she had spent the past twenty-four hours weighed down by a sense of trouble utterly undefined; utterly, as it seemed to her, without reason. She had borne her burden with mute patience, reproaching herself as for ingratitude and an inordinate desire for active happiness, and struggling bravely to conquer it; but neither arguing about it nor denying it, as a less simple and straightforward nature would have done. And now the appearance of Falconer seemed suddenly to focus and define her vague distress. The sudden conviction that Julian was ill, and that this gentleman had come from him to tell her so, held her still and silent in a pang of cruel realisation and anticipation.
The light, as she moved, had fallen full upon her face, and as he saw it a certain shock passed through Dennis Falconer. He had seen her figure, and even her face in the distance more than once, but he had never before seen it with any distinctness, and for the first instant the simplicity and purity of its beauty, with the expression deepened by the strange shadow through which the past two days had led her, clashed almost painfully with that idea of “the girl” which had grown, during his conversation with Mrs. Romayne, into a kind of fact for him. The next moment, however, he had reconciled appearances and realities, as he conceived them, with the grim reflection that there is no vice so vicious as that which wears an innocent face; and in doing so had quenched what might have been perception beneath a weight of narrow truism.
No greeting of any kind passed between them. All Clemence’s faculties were absorbed in her dread. Falconer was busied with the process of reconciliation. The strange little silence was broken eventually by Falconer, and he spoke with the unbending sternness and distance which that process and its conclusion had naturally accentuated.
“I am here as the representative of Julian Roden’s nearest relative and guardian,” he said. It had been arranged between himself and Mrs. Romayne, on the suggestion of the latter, that “the girl,” if she did not already know it, should be kept in ignorance of Julian’s real name.
The statement was slightly over-coloured, since Julian was of age, and his mother was no longer his guardian in any legal sense; but to stern moralists of Falconer’s type, to whom the pretty little falsenesses of life are wholly to be condemned, a slight misstatement in such a case is frequently permissible. The brief, uncompromising words had seemed to him to set the key of the interview beyond mistake. He was consequently slightly taken aback by their effect.
Every trace of colour died out of Clemence’s face, and two great dilated eyes gazed at him for an instant in dumb agony before she whispered:
“He’s not—dead?”
Falconer made a slight, almost contemptuous, negative gesture. He had no intention of being imposed upon by theatrical arts, and as Clemence, her self-control shattered by the sudden relief, turned instinctively away, and pressed her face down on the arm with which she had caught at the curtain for support, he went on with immoveable sternness: