The Zeppelin's Passenger Part 25

"I don't altogether see the necessity," Philippa protested.

"I do, and I'll tell you why," Helen answered. "I don't think Mr.

Lessingham is at all the type of man to which you are accustomed. I think that he is in deadly earnest about you. I think that he was in deadly earnest from the first. You don't really care for him, do you, dear?"

"Very much, and yet not, perhaps, quite in the way you are thinking of,"

was the quiet reply.

"Then please send him away," Helen begged.

"My dear, how can I?" Philippa objected. "He has done us an immense service, and he can't disobey his orders."

"You don't want him to go away, then?"

Philippa was silent for several moments. "No," she admitted, "I don't think that I do."

"You don't care for Henry any more?"

"Just as much as ever," was the somewhat bitter reply. "That's what I resent so much. I should like Henry to believe that he had killed every spark of love in me."

Helen moved across and sat on the arm of her friend's chair. She felt that she was going to be very daring.

"Have you any idea at the back of your mind, dear," she asked "of making use of Mr. Lessingham to punish Henry?"

Philippa moved a little uneasily.

"How hatefully downright you are!" she murmured. "I don't know."

"Because," Helen continued, "if you have any such idea in your mind, I think it is most unfair to Mr. Lessingham. You know perfectly well that anything else between you and him would be impossible."

"And why?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Helen exclaimed vigorously. "Mr. Lessingham may have all the most delightful qualities in the world, but he has attached himself to a country which no English man or woman will be able to think of without shuddering, for many years to come. You can't dream of cutting yourself adrift from your friends and your home and your country! It's too unnatural! I'm not even arguing with you, Philippa.

You couldn't do it! I'm wholly concerned with Mr. Lessingham. I cannot forget what we owe him. I think it would be hatefully cruel of you to spoil his life."

Philippa's flashes of seriousness were only momentary. She made a little grimace. She was once more her natural, irresponsible self.

"You underrate my charm, Helen," she declared. "I really believe that I could make his life instead of spoiling it."

"And you would pay the price?"

Philippa, slim and elflike in the firelight, rose from her chair. There was a momentary cruelty in her face.

"I sometimes think," she said calmly, "that I would pay any price in the world to make Henry understand how I feel. There, now run along, dear.

You're full of good intentions, and don't think it horrid of me, but nothing that you could say would make any difference."

"You wouldn't do anything rash?" Helen pleaded.

"Well, if I run away with Mr. Lessingham, I certainly can't promise that I'll send cards out first. Whatever I do, impulse will probably decide."

"Impulse!"

"Why not? I trust mine. Can't you?" Philippa added, with a little shrug of the shoulders.

"Sometimes," Helen sighed, "they are such wild horses, you know. They lead one to such terrible places."

"And sometimes," Philippa replied, "they find their way into the heaven where our soberer thoughts could never take us. Good night, dear!"

CHAPTER XVI

Mr. William Hayter, in the solitude of his chambers at the Milan Court, was a very altered personage. He extended no welcoming salutation to his midnight visitor but simply motioned him to a chair.

"Well," he began, "is your task finished that you are in London?"

"My task," Lessingham replied, "might just as well never have been entered upon. The man you sent me to watch is nothing but an ordinary sport-loving Englishman."

"Really! You have lived as his neighbour for nearly a month, and that is your impression of him?"

"It is," Lessingham a.s.sented. "He has been away sea-fis.h.i.+ng, half the time, but I have searched his house thoroughly."

"Searched his papers, eh?"

"Every one I could find, and hated the job. There are a good many charts of the coast, but they are all for the use of the fishermen."

"Wonderful!" Hayter scoffed. "My young friend, you may yet find distinction in some other walk of life. Our secret service, I fancy, will very soon be able to dispense with your energies."

"And I with your secret service," Lessingham agreed heartily. "I dare say there may be some branches of it in which existence is tolerable.

That, however, does not apply to the task upon which I have been engaged."

"You have been completely duped," Hayter told him calmly, "and the information you have sent us is valueless. Sir Henry Cranston, instead of being the type of man whom you have described, is one of the greatest experts upon coast defense and mine-laying, in the English Admiralty."

Lessingham laughed shortly.

"That," he declared, "is perfectly absurd."

"It is," Hayter repeated, with emphasis, "the precise truth. Sir Henry Cranton's fis.h.i.+ng excursions are myths. He is simply transferred from his fis.h.i.+ng boat on to one of a little fleet of so-called mine sweepers, from which he conducts his operations. Nearly every one of the most important towns on the east coast are protected by minefields of his design."

Lessingham was dumbfounded. His companion's manner was singularly convincing.

"But how could Sir Henry or any one else keep this a secret?" he protested. "Even his wife is scarcely on speaking terms with him because she believes him to be an idler, and the whole neighbourhood gossips over his slackness."

"The whole neighbourhood is easily fooled," Hayter retorted. "There are one or two who know, however."

"There are one or two," Lessingham observed grimly, "who are beginning to suspect me."

"That is a pity," Hayter admitted, "because it will be necessary for you to return to Dreymarsh at once."