The Under-Secretary

“Very well, sir,” replied the old fellow in the antique dress suit and narrow tie. He half turned to walk out, but hesitated and fidgeted; then, a moment later, he turned back and stood before his master.

“Well, Parsons, anything more?” Chisholm asked. He was used to the old fellow’s confidences and eccentricities, for more than once since he had come down from college his ancient retainer had given him words of sound advice, his half-century of service allowing him such licence as very few servants possessed.

“There’s one little matter I wanted to speak to you about, Master Dudley. I’m an old man, and a pretty blunt ’un at times, that you know.”

“Yes,” laughed Dudley. “You can make very caustic remarks sometimes, Parsons. Well, who’s been offending you now?”

“No one, sir,” he answered gravely. “It’s about something that concerns yourself, Master Dudley.”

His master glanced up at him quickly, not without some surprise, saying:

“Well, fire away, Parsons. Out with it. What have I done wrong this time?”

“That woman was here this afternoon!” he blurted out.

“What woman?” inquired his master, looking at him seriously.

“Her ladyship.”

“Well, and what of that? She called at my invitation. I’m sorry I was not in.”

“And I’m very glad I had the satisfaction of sending that woman away,” declared the ancient retainer bluntly.

“Why, Parsons? Surely it’s hardly the proper thing to speak of a lady as ‘that woman’?”

“Master. Dudley,” said the old man, “you’ll forgive me for speaking plain, won’t you? It would, I know, be called presumption in other houses for a servant to speak like this to his master, but you are thirty-three now, and for those thirty-three years I’ve advised you, just as I would my own son.”

“I know, Parsons, I know. My father trusted you implicitly, just as I have done. Speak quite plainly. I’m never offended by your criticisms.”

“Well, sir, that woman may have a title, but she’s not at all a desirable acquaintance for you, a rising man.”

Chisholm smiled. Claudia Nevill was a smart woman, moving in the best set in London; something of a lion-hunter, it was true, but a really good sort, nevertheless.

“She dresses too well to suit your old-fashioned tastes, eh? In your days women wore curls and crinolines.”

“No, Master Dudley. It isn’t her dress, sir. I don’t like the woman.”

“Why?”

“Because – well, you’ll permit me to speak quite frankly, sir – because to my mind it’s dangerous for a young man like you to be so much in the company of an attractive young person. And, besides, she’s playing some deep game, depend upon it.”

Dudley’s dark brows contracted for a moment at the old man’s words. It was quite true that he was very often in Claudia Nevill’s society, because he found her both charming and amusing. But the suggestion of her playing some game caused him to prick up his ears in quick interest. Parsons was a shrewd old fellow, that he knew.

“And what kind of double game is Lady Richard playing?” he asked in a rather hard voice.

“Well, sir, you’ll remember that she called here just after luncheon the day before yesterday, and had an elderly lady with her. You had gone down to the Foreign Office; but I expected you back every moment, so they waited. When they were together in the drawing-room with the door closed I heard that woman explain to her companion that you were the most eligible man in London. They had spoken of your income, of Wroxeter, of his lordship’s failing health, and all the rest of it, when that woman made a suggestion to her companion – namely, that you might be induced to marry some woman they called Muriel.”

“Muriel? And who in the name of fortune is Muriel?”

“I don’t know, sir. That, however, was the name that was mentioned.”

“Who was the lady who accompanied her ladyship? Had you ever seen her before?”

“No, sir, never. She didn’t give a card. She was elderly, dressed in deep mourning. They waited best part of an hour for you, then drove away in her ladyship’s brougham.”

“I wonder who she could have been,” remarked Dudley Chisholm reflectively. “I haven’t the honour of knowing any lady named Muriel, and, what’s more, I have no desire to make her acquaintance. But how was it, Parsons, that if the door was closed, you overheard this very edifying conversation?”

“I listened at the keyhole, sir. Old men have long ears, you know.”

His master laughed.

“Slow at the telephone, quick at the keyhole, eh, Parsons?” he said. “Well, somehow, you don’t like her ladyship. Why is it?”

“I’ve already told you, Master Dudley. First, because you are too much with her. There’s no woman more dangerous to men like yourself than a wealthy young person of her attractions; secondly, because she has some extraordinary design upon you on behalf of this mysterious Muriel – whoever she is.”

What the old man had said was certainly puzzling. What possible object could Claudia have, he wondered, in bringing there a strange woman and suggesting to her that he should marry a third person? He would put the question point-blank to her to-morrow. Claudia Nevill and he were old friends – very old friends. Years ago, long before she had married his friend Dick Nevill, a noble lord who sat for Huntingdon, they had been close acquaintances, and now, Nevill having died two years after the marriage, leaving Claudia sole mistress of the huge estate, together with that princely house in Albert Gate, he had naturally become her confidant and adviser.

She was now only twenty-six, one of the smartest women in London, and one of the prettiest. After a brief period of mourning, she had again thrown herself into all the dissipations of the following season, and was seen everywhere. She had been so often in the company of Dudley Chisholm that their close friendship had for months past been remarked.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary had, of course, heard the gossip, and laughed at it. He naturally admired her, and once, long before her marriage, he thought he was in love with her; but after a rigid self-examination he came to the conclusion that he had not been really desperately in love with any woman in his life, and promised himself not to commit any such folly now. Therefore, he laughed heartily at his old servant’s ominous but well-meant warning.

“I’m not the sort of man to marry, Parsons,” he said. “Truth to tell, I’m too much of an old fogey for women to care for me. And as for this unknown Muriel, well, I don’t think you need have much fear that I shall commit any matrimonial indiscretion with her. I expect her ladyship was only joking, and you took her words seriously.”

“No, she wasn’t joking,” declared the old man in all seriousness. “You mark my words, Master Dudley, that woman is not your friend.”

Again Chisholm laughed airily, and sipped his whiskey, while the old man, satisfied with his parting shot, went out, giving a grunt of dissatisfaction as he closed the door noiselessly behind him.

“Poor old Parsons! He thinks I’m going to the devil! Well, I wonder what’s in the wind?” observed Dudley aloud to himself when he was again alone. “I’ve noticed a curious change in Claudia’s manner of late. What can be her object in bringing about my marriage, except that perhaps my alliance with one or other of the insipid young ladies who are so often passed before me for inspection, might stifle the ugly scandal that seems to have arisen about us. She’s a clever woman – the cleverest woman in London, but horribly indiscreet. I wonder whether that’s really the truth. But marriage! Au grand jamais!” and he raised his glass again and took a deep draught.

“No,” he went on, “Claudia is never so charming as when she has some little intrigue or other on hand; but I must really get at the bottom of this, and find out the belle inconnue. Parsons is no fool, but the old boy is a Methodist, and hates everything in petticoats,” and he laughed lightly to himself as he recollected the old fellow’s sage, and perhaps justifiable, reprimands in his wilder college days. “I know I’ve been a fool – an absolute, idiotic fool with Claudia – and she’s been equally foolish. People have talked, but without any foundation for their impertinent gossip, and now she, of course, finds herself in a hole. Dick Nevill was the best of good fellows, but she never loved him. Her marriage was merely one of her caprices de coeur. I don’t think she could really love anybody for longer than a week. Yes, Parsons is right. He always is. I’ve been an ass – a downright ass!” he added with sudden emphasis. “I must go and see her to-morrow, and end all this confounded folly.”

From the table he took up the letter he had received on his return home, and about which he had questioned his servant. Again he read it through, stroking his dark moustache thoughtfully, and knitting his brows.

“Writing is woman’s métier. I wonder what she wants to see me about so particularly,” he went on, still speaking to himself. “I wired to her saying, ‘The House is sitting late,’ so she surely couldn’t be expecting me. But it’s rather unusual for her to send out urgent notes at midnight. No, la belle capricieuse has no discretion – she never will have.”

And although the great marble clock on the mantelshelf chimed four, he sat with his dark and serious eyes fixed upon the embers, reviewing the chapters of his past.

He saw the folly of his dalliance at the side of Claudia Nevill en plein jour. He put to himself the question whether or not he really loved her, and somehow could not bring himself to return a distinct negative. She was graceful, charming and handsome, the centre of the smartest set in London, a grande dame whose aid had been useful to him in more ways than one. As he sat there in the silence of the night, he recollected those pleasant hours spent with her at Albert Gate, where they so often dined together, and where she would afterwards sing to him those old Italian love-songs in her sweet contralto, beaming upon him with her coquettish smile, half languid, half moquer; those drives together in the park, and those long walks they had taken when, accompanied by her mother, she had visited him at Wroxeter Castle. Yes, all were pleasant memories, yet he felt that between him and her love was an impossibility. As this was the case, the less they saw of one another in the future, even en bon camarade, the better for them both.

This was not a pleasant decision, for Dudley Chisholm made few friends, and was nothing of a ladies’ man. He looked upon life around him as contes pour rire. His friends were mostly bachelors like himself, and in all the wide range of his acquaintances he had scarcely any women associates, and, except Claudia, not a single one in whom he could confide. Women courted him everywhere, of course. It was not to be supposed that a popular, good-looking man of his wealth and fame was not actively angled for in various directions; but to all attempted flirtations he gave a polite negative. Hence it was that these disappointed women revenged themselves by starting the ill-natured gossip about his relations with Claudia Nevill, the smart little widow, who was still young, who gave such lavish entertainments, who moved in the most select set in London, and at whose side he was so frequently to be seen.

The old baron, his father, who lived the life of a recluse up at Dunkeld, had written to him upon the subject only a few weeks before, and to-night even his own servant had frankly expressed his opinion of her. Dieu le veut.

Dudley Chisholm sighed. He was an honest man, and these thoughts troubled him greatly. He feared for her reputation more than for his own. As he was a man, what did it matter? It did not occur to him how much it flattered that voluptuous rêveuse to possess as her cavalier the man of the hour, the man about whom half England was at that moment talking. All he felt was that they had both been indiscreet – horribly indiscreet.

Yes; to-morrow he must end it all. The tongue of scandal must be silenced at once and for ever.

He had risen to stir the fire when the stillness was suddenly broken by the sharp ring of the telephone-bell outside the room. A moment later Parsons announced that some one desired to speak with him. As it was no uncommon occurrence for him to be rung up in the middle of the night by the Foreign Office officials, he walked up to the instrument and inquired who was there.