The Moving Finger Part 4

"You are one of those uncomfortable people," she declared, "who loathe what they call the obvious, and adore riddles. You would commit any sort of mental gymnastic rather than answer a plain question in a straightforward manner."

"It is perfectly true," he admitted. "You have such insight, my dear Mary."

"I am to take it, then," she continued, "that you know absolutely nothing about your protege? You know nothing, for instance, about his family, or his means?"

"Absolutely nothing," he admitted. "He has an uncommon name, but I believe that I gathered from him once that his parentage was not particularly exalted."

"At least," she said, with a little sigh, "he is quite presentable. I call him, in fact, remarkably good-looking, and his manners leave nothing to be desired. He has lived abroad, I should think."

"He may have lived anywhere," Rochester admitted.

"Well, I'll have him next me at dinner," she declared. "I daresay I shall find out all about him pretty soon. Come, Henry, I am quite sure that everyone is down. You and I play host and hostess so seldom that we have forgotten our manners."

They descended to the drawing-room, and Lady Mary murmured her apologies. Everyone, however, seemed too absorbed to hear them. They were listening to Saton, who was standing, the centre of a little group, telling stories.

"It was in Buenos Ayres," Rochester heard him conclude, amidst a ripple of laughter. "I can a.s.sure you that I saw the incident with my own eyes."

Lois Champneyes--an heiress, pretty, and Rochester's ward--came floating across the room to them. She wore a plain muslin gown, of simpler cut than was usually seen at Lady Mary's house-parties, and her complexion showed no signs whatever of town life. Her hair--it was bright chestnut color, merging in places to golden--was twisted simply in one large coil on the top of her head. She wore no jewelry, and she had very much the appearance of a child just escaped from the schoolroom.

"Mary," she exclaimed, drawing her hostess on one side, "you must send me in with Mr. Saton! He is perfectly charming, and isn't it a lovely name? Do tell me who he is, and whether I may fall in love with him."

Lady Mary nodded.

"My dear child," she said, "I shall do nothing of the sort. You are not nearly old enough to take care of yourself, and we know nothing about this young man at all. Besides, I want him for myself."

"You are the most selfish hostess I ever stayed with," Lois declared, turning away with a little pout. "Never mind! I'll make him talk to me after dinner."

"Is your friend in the diplomatic service?" Lord Penarvon asked Rochester. "He is a most amusing fellow."

"Not at present, at any rate," Rochester answered. "I really forget what he used to do when I met him first. As a matter of fact, I have seen very little of him lately."

A servant announced dinner, and they all trooped across the hall a little informally. It was only a small party, and Lady Mary was a hostess whose ideas were distinctly modern. Conversation at first was nearly altogether general. Saton, without in any way a.s.serting himself, bore at least his part in it. He spoke modestly enough, and yet everything he said seemed to tell. From the first, the dinner was a success.

Rochester found himself listening with a curiosity for which he could not wholly account, to this young man, seated only a few feet away. His presence was so decidedly piquant. It appealed immensely to his sense of humor. Saton's appearance was in every respect irreproachable. His tie was perfectly tied, his collar of the latest shape. His general appearance was that of an exceedingly smart young man about town. The only sign of eccentricity which he displayed was an un.o.btrusive eyegla.s.s, suspended from his neck by a narrow black ribbon, and which he had only used to study the menu.

Rochester looked at him across the white tablecloth, with its glittering load of silver and gla.s.s, its perfumed banks of pink blossoms, and told himself that one at least of his somewhat eccentric experiments had borne strange fruit. He thought of that night upon the hillside, the boy's pa.s.sionate words, his almost wild desire to realize, to turn into actual life, the fantasies which were then only the creation of his fancy. How far had he realized them, he wondered?

What did this alteration in his exterior denote? From a few casual and half-forgotten inquiries, Rochester knew that he was the son, or rather the orphan of working-people in the neighboring town. There was nothing in his blood to make him in any way the social equal of these men and women amongst whom he now sat with such perfect self-possession. Rochester found himself watching for some traces of inferior breeding, some lapse of speech, some signs of an innate lack of refinement. The absence of any of these things puzzled him. Saton was a.s.sured, without being over-confident. He spoke of himself only seldom. It was marvelous how often he seemed to avoid the use of the first person. He seemed, too, modestly unconscious of the fact that his conversation was in any way more interesting than the speech of those by whom he was surrounded.

"You seem to have lived," his hostess said to him once, "in so many countries, Mr. Saton. Are you really only as old as you look?"

"How can I answer that," he asked, smiling, "except by telling you that I am twenty-five."

"You must have commenced to live in your perambulator," she declared.

"I have lived nowhere," he answered. "I have visited many places, and travelled through many lands, but life with me has been a search."

"A search?" she murmured, dropping her voice a little, and intimating by the slight movement of her head towards him, that their conversation was to become a tete-a-tete. "Well," she continued, "I suppose that life is that with all of us, only you see with us poor frivolous people, a search means nearly always the same thing--a search for amus.e.m.e.nt or distraction, whichever you choose to call it."

Saton shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"Different things amuse different people," he remarked. "My search, I will admit, was of a different order."

"It is finished?" she asked.

"It will never be finished," he answered. "The man who finds what he seeks," he added, raising his dark eyes to hers, "as a rule has fixed his ambitions too low."

"Speaking of ambitions, Mr. Saton," Lord Penarvon asked across the table, "are you interested in politics?"

"Not in the least," Saton answered frankly. "There seem to me to be so many other things in life better worth doing than making fugitive laws for a dissatisfied country."

"Tell me," his hostess asked, "what do you yourself consider the things better worth doing?"

Saton hesitated. For the first time, he seemed scarcely at his ease.

He glanced across at Rochester, and down at his plate.

"The sciences," he answered, quietly. "There are many torches lit which need strong hands to carry them forward."

Lois leaned across the table. As yet she had scarcely spoken, but she had listened intently to his every word.

"Which of the sciences, Mr. Saton?" she asked, a little breathlessly.

He smiled at her, and hesitated a moment before answering.

"There are so many," he said, "which are equally fascinating, but I think that it is always the least known which is the most attractive.

When I spoke, I was really thinking of one which many people would scarcely reckon amongst the orthodox list. I mean occultism."

There was a little murmur of interest. Saton himself, however, deliberately turned the conversation. He reverted to a diplomatic incident which had come to his notice when in Brazil, and asked Lord Penarvon's opinion concerning it.

"By the bye," the latter asked, as their conversation drew toward a close, "how long did you say that you had been in England, Mr. Saton?"

"A very short time," Saton answered, with a faint smile. "I have been something of a wanderer for years."

"And you came from?" Rochester asked, leaning a little forward.

Saton smiled as his eyes met his host's. He hesitated perceptibly.

"I came from the land where the impossible sometimes happens," he answered, lightly, "the land where one dreams in the evening, and is never sure when one wakes in the morning that one's dreams have not become solid things."

Lady Mary sighed.

"Can one get a Cook's ticket?" she asked.

"Can one get there by motor-car, or even flying-machine?" Lois demanded. "I would risk my bones to find my way there."

Saton laughed.

"Unfortunately," he said, "there is a different path for every one of us, and there are no signposts."

Lady Mary sighed as she rose to her feet. She nodded a friendly little farewell to her interesting neighbor.