'Really?' asked Clarice, looking straight at him with grave eyes. She seemed to be seriously deliberating the truth of his remark. Mallinson's laughter stopped short. 'There's my aunt beckoning to you,' she said.

Later in the evening she relented towards him, salving her disappointment with the flattery of his jealousy. She did not, however, relinquish on that account her intention to make Stephen Drake's acquaintance. She merely postponed it, trusting that the tides of accident would drift them together, as indeed they did, though after a longer delay than she had antic.i.p.ated.

The occasion of their meeting was provided by the visit of a French actress to one of the London theatres. Drake and Conway edged into their stalls just before the curtain rose on a performance of _Frou-Frou_.

During the first act the theatre gradually filled, and when the lights were turned up at its close only one box was empty. It was upon the first tier next to the stage. A few minutes after the second act had begun Conway nudged Drake and nodded towards the box.

'You asked what Miss Le Mesurier was like. There's your answer.'

Drake glanced in that direction. He saw a girl in a dress of pink silk, standing in the front of the box, with her hands upon the ledge and leaning her head a little forwards beyond it. The glare striking up from the stage beneath her gave a burnish of copper to her hair and a warm light to her face. She seemed of a fragile figure and with features regular and delicate. Drake received a notion of unimpressive prettiness and turned his attention to the stage. When the lights were raised again in the auditorium, he noticed that Fielding was in the box talking to a gentleman with white hair, and that Mallinson was seated by the side of Miss Le Mesurier. The latter couple were gazing about the house and apparently discussing the audience,--at all events conversing with considerable animation. Drake commented upon their manner and drew the conventional inference.

'Oh dear, no!' answered Conway energetically. 'Of course Mallinson's aim is apparent enough, poor fellow.' A touch of scorn in the voice, which rang false, negatived the pity of the phrase. 'But I don't suppose for an instant that she has realised it. She would be the last to do so. No, she has a fad in her head about authors just for the moment.'

'Oh!' said Drake, turning with some interest to his companion. 'Does that account for _A Man of Influence_?'

'Yes,' replied Conway reluctantly, 'I fancy it does.'

'I wondered what set him to writing.'

'He was at the Bar when he met her. I believe she persuaded him to write the book and give up the Law.'

'She is undertaking a pretty heavy responsibility.'

Conway looked at his friend and laughed.

'I'm afraid you won't find that she takes that view, nor indeed do I see why she should. Mallinson was doing no good--well, not much anyway--at the Bar. He has scored by following her advice. So if she ever had any responsibility, which I don't admit, for there was no compulsion on him to obey, his luck has already wiped it out.'

'I suppose the white-haired man's her father,' said Drake.

'Yes. There's another sister, but she's at school in Brussels.'

'How did you come across them?'

'Mallinson and I met them one summer when we were taking a holiday at Sark.'

Drake caught the eye of a man who was pa.s.sing the end of his row of stalls towards the saloon, and was beckoned out.

'I will join you after the interval,' he said, turning to Conway, and he saw that his companion was bowing to Miss Le Mesurier.

Miss Le Mesurier in her box noticed Drake's movement, and she asked Mallinson, 'Who is that speaking to Mr. Conway?'

Mallinson put up his gla.s.ses and looked. Clarice read recognition in a lift of eyebrows, and guessed from his hesitation to answer who it was that he recognised.

'Well, who is it?'

'Where?' asked Mallinson, a.s.suming an air of perplexity.

'Where you were looking,' said she quietly.

'It's Stephen Drake,' interposed Fielding, and 'Hulloa!' he added in a voice of surprise as he observed the man whom Drake joined.

'Drake! Stephen Drake!' exclaimed Mr. Le Mesurier, leaning forward hurriedly. 'Point him out to me, Fielding.'

The latter obeyed, and Mr. Le Mesurier watched Drake until he disappeared through the doorway, with what seemed to Mallinson a singular intentness.

The father's manner waked him to a suspicion that he might possibly have mistaken the daughter's motive in seeking Drake's acquaintance. Was it merely a whim, a fancy, strengthened to the point of activity by the sight of his name in print? Or was it something more? Was there some personal connection between Drake and the Le Mesuriers of which the former was in some way ignorant? He was still pondering the question when Clarice spoke to him.

'So that was the bourgeois, was it?' she said, bending forwards and almost whispering the words. Mallinson flushed.

'Was it?' he asked. 'I can't see. I am rather short-sighted.'

'I begin to think you are.'

The sentence was spoken with an ironic sympathy which deepened the flush upon Mallinson's cheek. A knock at the door offered him escape; he rose and admitted Conway. Conway was received with politeness by Mr. Le Mesurier, with cordiality by his daughter.

'I have Drake with me,' said Conway. 'I came to ask permission, since you invited him to Beaufort Gardens, to introduce him after the next act.'

Mr. Le Mesurier started up in his chair.

'Did you ask him to the house?' he asked Clarice abruptly.

'I asked Mr. Mallinson to bring him,' she replied; and then, with all the appearance of a penitent anxiety, 'Why? Oughtn't I to have done so?'

she asked.

Mr. Le Mesurier cast a suspicious glance at his daughter.

'I am so sorry,' she said; 'I didn't know that--'

'Oh well,' interrupted Mr. Le Mesurier hurriedly, 'there's no reason that I know of why you shouldn't have asked him, except that it's surely a trifle unusual, isn't it? You don't know him from Adam.'

'But I a.s.sure you, Mr. Le Mesurier,' interposed Conway, 'there's nothing to be said against Drake.'

'Of course!' replied Mr. Le Mesurier, with a testy laugh at the other's warmth. 'We know the length of your enthusiasms, my dear Conway. But I'll grant all you like about Drake. I only say that my daughter isn't even acquainted with the fellow.'

'It is just that drawback which Mr. Conway proposes to remove,' said Clarice demurely. 'Of course,' she went on, 'I should never have thought of inviting him if Mr. Mallinson had not spoken of him so often as his friend.' She directed her sweetest smile to Mallinson. 'You did, didn't you? Yes! Mr. Drake had been away from England for so long that I thought it would be only kind to ask you to bring him. But if I had known that papa had any objection, I should naturally never have done it. I am very sorry. Perhaps I am not careful enough.' She ended her speech in a tone of self-reproach, which had its effect; for her father was roused by it to expostulate.

'My dear,' he said, 'I never hinted that I had an objection to him. You are always twisting people's words and imputing wrong meanings to them.'

Mallinson fancied that he detected a note of something more than mere remonstrance in Mr. Le Mesurier's voice, a consciousness of some thought in his daughter's mind which he would not openly acknowledge her to possess. The perception quickened Mallinson's conjecture into a positive conviction. There was evidently some fact about Drake, some incident perhaps in his life which brought him into relations with the Le Mesuriers,--relations ignored by Drake, but known by Mr. Le Mesurier and suspected by Clarice. Was this fact to Drake's advantage or discredit?

The father's manner indicated rather the latter; but Mallinson put that aside. It was more than overbalanced by the daughter's--he sought for a word and chanced on 'forwardness.' His irritation against her prompted him to hug it, to stamp it on his thoughts of her with a jeer of 'I have found you out.' On the other hand, all his knowledge of her cried out against the word. He looked into the girl's face to resolve his doubts upon the point and found that she was watching him with some perplexity.

A question to Conway explained the reason why she was puzzled.

'How did you know that I asked Mr. Drake to Beaufort Gardens?' she asked.

'I was present when Mallinson asked him to go.'

'Mr. Mallinson asked him!' she exclaimed, dropping her fan in her surprise. 'Why, I thought--' She saw the confusion in Mallinson's face and checked herself suddenly with a little laugh of pure enjoyment. Her companion's jealousy was more heroical than she had given him credit for; it had induced him to lie.

To cover his discomfiture Mallinson dived for the fan.