Gabrielle could hear the church bells ringing in Hampstead, but the theme of their chime was less to her than the letter which Eva Achon had written to her from Paris—a girlish, gossiping letter, full of inconsequential chatter about absurd people, and ending ever upon the tonic chord of the masculine scale. Eva's Odyssey had been full of event, but she had returned to Paris as a maiden Helen, torn by imagination only from the phantom bridegroom of her dreams. Incidentally, and as though it had to do with a fair in a remote country, she spoke of the great strike and of the man whose name was upon every tongue.
"My father thinks very highly of Mr. John Faber," she wrote. "He would very much like to work with him. I wrote to Rupert Trevelle about it, but he seems too busy to remember me now. It was so like an American to spend all that money on charity and leave the people to think he was a scoundrel. The truth came out from Mr. Morris, who made what he called a 'great story' and sent it to America. I am sending you the cutting from the New York Herald—it has also been in the English Times, I think. All the English people here are gone mad to know Mr. Faber now—they say he is one of the cleverest men in the world, and one of the kindest. All the same, my father says his brains are better than his money, and when you come to think of it, I suppose that must always be the case. Even he, rich as he is, could do little for that poor artist, Louis de Paleologue, and now there comes the news from Montey that Claudine's fiancé has been terribly hurt at the aviation meeting there, and is hardly expected to live. So you see, dearest Gabrielle, his money seems to bring ill-luck to everyone; but when he works, there is no one like him. If only he would help father, how much he could do for the world! But, I suppose, he is going back to America, and we shall see him no more.
"And that reminds me. Isn't it provoking how many people we never see any more! I have had a delicious flirtation here with a fair man whose name I don't know. We passed each other on the stairs of the hotel nearly every morning, and one day I dropped my bag, and he picked it up and spoke to me. I was frightened to ask anyone who he was, and I never saw him in the salle à manger, but he used to pass me on the stairs—oh, quite six or seven times a day after that; and we had such a jolly time. Then, suddenly, he went away, never said a word to me or wrote any letter. I shall never see him any more—mais tout bien ou rien, if it were always to be on the stairs, I am glad that he is gone."
II
A tinkling gong called Gabrielle to lunch, and she found her father alone in the dining-room. A mutual question as to Maryska's whereabouts revealed the fact that she had not been seen since breakfast and that none of the servants had news of her. Once or twice before, when Harry Lassett had been cajoled into some wild excursion, Maryska had spent most of the day out of doors; but both Silvester and his daughter seemed to think that this was not such an occasion, and they were troubled accordingly.
"I really fear that it is time that Mr. Faber took charge of her," Silvester said, as he sat down wearily. "She is very self-willed, and we have no hold over her. Would Harry be responsible for this, do you think?"
"How can he be? Is he not at Brighton? I hardly think that even he would keep the child out without a word to us."
Silvester looked at her shrewdly. That "even he" suggested a train of thought which had been forced upon him more than once latterly.
"Do you think it is wise for Harry to take her out at all, Gabrielle?" he asked. "We treat her as a child, but is she one really? I hope our confidence is not misplaced. We should incur a very grave responsibility if it were."
Gabrielle did not like Maryska, and was hardly one to conceal her prejudices.