The Red Rat's Daughter, Guy Boothby [most read book in the world TXT] 📗

again." Then, taking his friend's arm, he continued his walk, saying, "What you want, Jimmy, my boy, is a proper appreciation of art. There is nothing like it in the world, take my word for it. Nothing! Nothing at all!"

"You've said that before," retorted his friend, "and you said it with sufficient emphasis to amuse the whole street. If you're going to give me an exposition of art in Regent Street on a foggy afternoon in March, I tell you flatly I'm going home. I am not a millionaire, and my character won't stand the strain. What's the matter with you, Browne? You're as jolly as a sandboy now, and, for the life of me, I don't see how a chap can be happy in a fog like this and still retain his reason."

"Fog, my boy," continued Browne, still displaying the greatest good humour. "I give you my word, there's nothing like a fog in the world. I adore it! I revel in it! Talk about your south of France and sunshine--what is it to London and a fog? A fog did me a very good turn once, and now I'm hanged if another isn't going to do it again. You're a dear little chap, Jimmy, and I wouldn't wish for a better companion. But there's no use shutting your eyes to one fact, and that is you're not sympathetic. You want educating, and when I've a week or two to spare I'll do it. Now I'm going to leave you to think out what I've said. I've just remembered a most important engagement. Let me find a decent hansom and I'll be off."

"I thought you said just now this was not the weather for driving in hansoms? I thought you said you had nothing to do, and that you were going to employ yourself entertaining me? John Grantham Browne, I tell you what it is, you're going in that hansom to a lunatic asylum."

"Better than that, my boy," said Browne, with a laugh, as the cab drew up at the pavement and he sprang in. "Far better than that." Then, looking up through the trap in the roof at the driver, he added solemnly: "Cabby, drive me to 43, German Park Road, as fast as your horse can go."

"But, hold on," said Foote, holding up his umbrella to detain him. "Before you do go, what about to-morrow? What train shall we catch? And have you sent the wire to your skipper to have the yacht in readiness?"

"Bother to-morrow," answered Browne. "There is no to-morrow, there are no trains, there is no skipper, and most certainly there is no yacht. I've forgotten them and everything else. Drive on, cabby. Bye-bye, Jimmy."

The cab disappeared in the fog, leaving Mr. Foote standing before the portico of the Criterion looking after it.

"My friend Browne is either mad or in love," said that astonished individual as the vehicle disappeared in the traffic. "I don't know which to think. He's quite unnerved me. I think I'll go in here and try a glass of dry sherry just to pull myself together. What an idiot I was not to find out who painted that picture! But that's just like me; I never think of things until too late."

When he had finished his sherry he lit a cigarette, and presently found himself making his way towards his rooms in Jermyn Street. As he walked he shook his head solemnly. "I don't like the look of things at all," he said. "I said a lunatic asylum just now; I should have mentioned a worse place--'St. George's, Hanover Square.' One thing, however, is quite certain. If I know anything of signs, Algiers will not have the pleasure of entertaining me."


CHAPTER IV


While Foote was cogitating in this way, Browne's cab was rolling along westward. He passed Apsley House and the Park, and dodged his way in and out of the traffic through Kensington Gore and the High Street. By the time they reached the turning into the Melbury Road he was in the highest state of good humour, not only with himself but the world in general.

When, however, they had passed the cab-stand, and had turned into the narrow street which was his destination, all his confidence vanished, and he became as nervous as a weak-minded school-girl. At last the cabman stopped and addressed his fare.

"The fog's so precious thick hereabouts, sir," he said, "that I'm blest if I can see the houses, much less the numbers. Forty-three may be here, or it may be down at the other end. If you like I'll get down and look."

"You needn't do that," said Browne. "I'll find it for myself."

It may have been his nervousness that induced him to do such a thing--on that point I cannot speak with authority--but it is quite certain that when he did get down he handed the driver half-a-sovereign. With the characteristic honesty of the London cabman, the man informed him of the fact, at the same time remarking that he could not give him change.

"Never mind the change," said Browne; adding, with fine cynicism, "Put it into the first charity-box you come across."

The man laughed, and with a hearty "Thank ye, sir; good-night," turned his horse and disappeared.

"Now for No. 43," said Browne.

But though he appeared to be so confident of finding it, it soon transpired that the house was more difficult to discover than he imagined. He wandered up one pavement and down the other in search of it. When he did come across it, it proved to be a picturesque little building standing back from the street, and boasted a small garden in front. The door was placed at the side. He approached it and rang the bell. A moment later he found himself standing face to face with the girl he had rescued on the Gieranger Fjord seven months before. It may possibly have been due to the fact that when she had last seen him he had been dressed after the fashion of the average well-to-do tourist, and that now he wore a top-hat and a great coat; it is quite certain, however, that for the moment she did not recognise him.

"I am afraid you do not know me," said Browne, with a humility that was by no means usual with him. But before he had finished speaking she had uttered a little exclamation of astonishment, and, as the young man afterwards flattered himself, of pleasure.

"Mr. Browne!" she cried. "I beg your pardon, indeed, for not recognising you. You must think me very rude; but I had no idea of seeing you here."

"I only learnt your address an hour ago," the young man replied. "I could not resist the opportunity of calling on you."

"But I am so unknown in London," she answered. "How could you possibly have heard of me! I thought myself so insignificant that my presence in this great city would not be known to any one."

"You are too modest," said Browne, with a solemnity that would not have discredited a State secret. Then he made haste to add, "I cannot tell you how often I have thought of that terrible afternoon."

"As you may suppose, I have never forgotten it," she answered. "It is scarcely likely I should."

There was a little pause; then she added, "But I don't know why I should keep you standing out here like this. Will you not come in?"

Browne was only too glad to do so. He accordingly followed her into the large and luxuriously furnished studio.

"Won't you sit down?" she said, pointing to a chair by the fire. "It is so cold and foggy outside that perhaps you would like a cup of tea."

Tea was a beverage in which Browne never indulged, and yet, on this occasion, so little was he responsible for his actions that he acquiesced without a second thought.

"How do you prefer it?" she asked. "Will you have it made in the English or the Russian way? Here is a teapot, and here a samovar; here is milk, and here a slice of lemon. Which do you prefer?"

Scarcely knowing which he chose, Browne answered that he would take it _a la Russe_. She thereupon set to work, and the young man, as he watched her bending over the table, thought he had never in his life before seen so beautiful and so desirable a woman. And yet, had a female critic been present, it is quite possible--nay, it is almost probable that more than one hole might have been picked in her appearance. Her skirt--in order to show my knowledge of the technicalities of woman's attire--was of plain merino, and she also wore a painting blouse that, like Joseph's coat, was of many colours. To go further, a detractor would probably have observed that her hair might have been better arranged. Browne, however, thought her perfection in every respect, and drank his tea in a whirl of enchantment. He found an inexplicable fascination in the mere swish of her skirts as she moved about the room, and a pleasure that he had never known before in the movement of her slender hands above the tray. And when, their tea finished, she brought him a case of cigarettes, and bade him smoke if he cared to, it might very well have been said that that studio contained the happiest man in England. Outside, they could hear the steady patter of the rain, and the rattle of traffic reached them from the High Street; but inside there was a silence of a Norwegian fjord, and the memory of one hour that never could be effaced from their recollections as long as they both should live. Under the influence of the tea, and with the assistance of the cigarette, which she insisted he should smoke, Browne gradually recovered his presence of mind. One thing, however, puzzled him. He remembered what the shopman had told him, and for this reason he could not understand how she came to be the possessor of so comfortable a studio. This, however, was soon explained. The girl informed him that after his departure from Merok (though I feel sure she was not aware that he was the owner of the magnificent vessel she had seen in the harbour) she had been unable to move for upwards of a week. After that she and her companion, Madame Bernstein, had left for Christiania, travelling thence to Copenhagen, and afterwards to Berlin. In the latter city she had met an English woman, also an artist. They had struck up a friendship, with the result that the lady in question, having made up her mind to winter in Venice, had offered her the free use of her London studio for that time, if she cared to cross the Channel and take possession of it.

"Accordingly, in the daytime, I paint here," said the girl; "but Madame Bernstein and I have our lodgings in the Warwick Road. I hope you did not think this was my studio; I should not like to sail under false colours."

Browne felt that he would have liked to give her the finest studio that ever artist