I watched. The young man’s attitude was certainly threatening.
“I don’t intend now that you’ll get off lightly. You’ll have to pay me not a fiver but fifty pounds to-night. So go back to the hotel and bring me out a cheque. I’ll wait at the Wish Tower. But mind it isn’t a dud one. If it is, then, by gad! I’ll tell them right away. And won’t the fur fly then, eh?”
He spoke in a refined voice, though his appearance was that of a loafer.
His companion was evidently in fear. She tried to argue, to cajole, and to appear defiant, but all was useless. He only laughed triumphantly at her as they walked along the deserted promenade in the direction of the hotel.
Suddenly they halted. I held back at once. They conversed in lower tones—intense words that I could not catch. But it seemed to me that the frail little woman who was so often my companion was cowed and terrified. Why? What did she fear?
She left him, while he drew back into the shadow. I waited also in the shadow for nearly ten minutes, then I passed on, ascended some steps and reëntered the hotel. In the lounge I sank into a seat in a hidden corner and lit a cigarette. Presently I heard the swish of a woman’s skirt behind me, and rising, peered out. It was Lady Lydbrook on her way out. She was carrying the cheque to the mysterious stranger!
Alone in my room that night I threw myself into a chair and pondered deeply. I had learned that Lady Lydbrook was under the influence of that ill-dressed man who spoke so well, and whom I at first took to be an undergraduate or perhaps a hospital student.
It was a point to report to Rayne. Somehow I felt a rising antagonism towards the young man who had successfully extracted fifty pounds from my dainty little companion who was so passionately fond of jewels and who frequently wore some exquisite rings and pendants. What hold could the fellow have upon her?
Next morning she appeared bright and radiant at breakfast—which, of course, she took with her rather retiring friend Elsie Wallis—and I smiled across at her. She was, after all, a bright up-to-date little married woman possessed of great wealth and influence, her whole life being devoted to self-enjoyment at the expense of her elderly and despised husband. She was a typical girl of society who had married an old man for his money and afterwards sought younger male society. We have them to-day in hundreds on every side.
After breakfast we went together along the sea-front where the band was playing. The weather was glorious and Eastbourne looked at its best.