The Silent Barrier

“Don’t you think it would be a good notion to brighten it up a bit – put in something lively, and more in keeping with the name?”

“I have no opening for new matter, if that is what you mean,” and the editor stiffened again.

“But you have the say-so as to the contents, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes. The selection rests with me.”

“Good. I’m sort of interested in a young lady, Miss Helen Wynton by name. She lives in Warburton Gardens, and does work for you occasionally. Now, I propose to send her on a month’s trip to Switzerland, where she will represent ‘The Firefly.’ You must get her to turn out a couple of pages of readable stuff each week, which you will have illustrated by a smart artist at a cost of say, twenty pounds an article for drawings and blocks. I pay all expenses, she gets the trip, and you secure some good copy for nothing. Is it a deal?”

The editor sat down suddenly and combed his whiskers with nervous fingers. He was a weak man, and a too liberal beer diet was not good for him.

“Are you in earnest, Mr. Spencer?” he queried in a bewildered way.

“Dead in earnest. You write the necessary letter to Miss Wynton while I am here, and I hand you the first twenty in notes. You are to tell her to call Monday noon at any bank you may select, and she will be given her tickets and a hundred pounds. When I am certain that she has started I undertake to pay you a further sum of sixty pounds. I make only two conditions. You must guarantee to star her work, as it should help her some, and my identity must not be disclosed to her under any circumstances. In a word, she must regard herself as the accredited correspondent of ‘The Firefly.’ If she appears to be a trifle rattled by your generosity in the matter of terms, you must try and look as if you did that sort of thing occasionally and would like to do it often.”

The editor pushed his chair away from the table. He seemed to require more air. “Again I must ask you if you actually mean what you say?” he gasped.

Spencer opened a pocketbook and counted four five-pound notes out of a goodly bundle. “It is all here in neat copperplate,” he said, placing the notes on the table. “Maybe you haven’t caught on to the root idea of the proposition,” he continued, seeing that the other man was staring at him blankly. “I want Miss Wynton to have a real good time. I also want to lift her up a few rungs of the journalistic ladder. But she is sensitive, and would resent patronage; so I must not figure in the affair at all. I have no other motive at the back of my head. I’m putting up two hundred pounds out of sheer philanthropy. Will you help?”

“There are points about this amazing proposal that require elucidation,” said the editor slowly. “Travel articles might possibly come within the scope of ‘The Firefly’; but I am aware that Miss Wynton is what might be termed an exceedingly attractive young lady. For instance, you wouldn’t be philanthropic on my account.”

“You never can tell. It all depends how your case appealed to me. But if you are hinting that I intend to use my scheme for the purpose of winning Miss Wynton’s favorable regard, I must say that she strikes me as the kind of girl who would think she had been swindled if she learned the truth. In any event, I may never see her again, and it is certainly not my design to follow her to Switzerland. I don’t kick at your questions. You’re old enough to be her father, and mine, for that matter. Go ahead. This is Saturday afternoon, you know, and there’s no business stirring.”

Spencer had to cover the ground a second time before everything was made clear. At last the fateful letter was written. He promised to call on Monday and learn how the project fared. Then he relieved the cabman’s anxiety, as the alley possessed a second exit, and was driven to the Wellington Theater, where he secured a stall for that night’s performance of the Chinese musical comedy in which Miss Millicent Jaques played the part of a British Admiral’s daughter.

While Spencer was watching Helen’s hostess cutting capers in a Mandarin’s palace, Helen herself was reading, over and over again, a most wonderful letter that had fallen from her sky. It had all the appearance of any ordinary missive. The King’s face on a penny stamp, or so much of it as was left uninjured by a postal smudge, looked familiar enough, and both envelop and paper resembled those which had brought her other communications from “The Firefly.” But the text was magic, rank necromancy. No wizard who ever dealt in black letter treatises could have devised a more convincing proof of his occult powers than this straightforward offer made by the editor of “The Firefly.” Four articles of five thousand words each, – tickets and 100 pounds awaiting her at a bank, – go to the Maloja-Kulm Hotel; leave London at the earliest possible date; please send photographs and suggestions for black-and-white illustrations of mountaineering and society! What could it possibly mean?

At the third reading Helen began to convince herself that this rare stroke of luck was really hers. The concluding paragraph shed light on “The Firefly’s” extraordinary outburst.

“As this commission heralds a new departure for the paper, I have to ask you to be good enough not to make known the object of your journey. In fact, it will be as well if you do not state your whereabouts to any persons other than your near relatives. Of course, all need for secrecy ceases with the appearance of your first article; but by that time you will practically be on your way home again. I am anxious to impress on you the importance of this instruction.”

Helen found herein the germ of understanding. “The Firefly” meant to boom itself on its Swiss correspondence; but even that darksome piece of journalistic enterprise did not explain the princely munificence of the hundred pounds. At last, when she calmed down sufficiently to be capable of connected thought, she saw that “mountaineering” implied the hire of guides, and that “society” meant frocks. Of course it was intended that she should spend the whole of the money, and thus give “The Firefly” a fair return for its outlay. And a rapid calculation revealed the dazzling fact that after setting aside the fabulous sum of two pounds a day for expenses she still had forty pounds left wherewith to replenish her scanty stock of dresses.

Believing that at any instant the letter might dissolve into a curt request to keep her scientific jottings strictly within the limits of a column, Helen sat with it lying open on her lap, and searched the pages of a tattered guidebook for particulars of the Upper Engadine. She had read every line before; but the words now seemed to live. St. Moritz, Pontresina, Sils-Maria, Silvaplana, – they ceased to be mere names, – they became actualities. The Julier Pass, the Septimer, the Forno Glacier, the Diavolezza Route, and the rest of the stately panorama of snow capped peaks, blue lakes, and narrow valleys, – valleys which began with picturesque chalets, dun colored cattle, and herb laden pastures, and ended in the yawning mouths of ice rivers whence issued the milky white streams that dashed through the lower gorges, – they passed before her eyes as she read till she was dazzled by their glories.

What a day dream to one who dwelt in smoky London year in and year out! What an experience to look forward to! What memories to treasure! Nor was she blind to the effect of the undertaking on her future. Though “The Firefly” was not an important paper, though its editor was of a half-forgotten day and generation, she would now have good work to show when asked what she had done. She was not enamored of beetles. Even the classifying of them was monotonous, and she had striven bravely to push her way through the throng of would-be writers that besieged the doors of every popular periodical in London. It was a heartbreaking struggle. The same post that gave her this epoch marking letter had brought back two stories with the stereotyped expression of editorial regret.

“Now,” thought Helen, when her glance fell on the bulky envelops, “my name will at least become known. And editors very much resemble the public they cater for. If a writer achieves success, they all want him. I have often marveled how any author got his first chance. Now I know. It comes this way, like a flash of lightning from a summer sky.”

It was only fit and proper that she should magnify her first real commission. No veteran soldier ever donned a field marshal’s uniform with the same zest that he displayed when his subaltern’s outfit came from the tailor. So Helen glowed with that serious enthusiasm which is the soul of genius, for without it life becomes flat and gray, and she passed many anxious, half-doubting hours until a courteous bank official handed her a packet at the appointed time on Monday, and gave her a receipt to sign, and asked her how she would take her hundred pounds – did she want it all in notes or some in gold?

She was so unnerved by this sudden confirmation of her good fortune that she stammered confusedly, “I – really – don’t know.”

“Well, it would be rather heavy in gold,” came the smiling comment. “This money, I understand, is paid to you for some journalistic enterprise that will take you abroad. May I suggest that you should carry, say, thirty pounds in notes and ten in gold, and allow me to give you the balance in the form of circular notes, which are payable only under your signature?”

“Yes,” said Helen, rosy red at her own awkwardness, “that will be very nice.”

The official pushed across the counter some banknotes and sovereigns, and summoned a commissionaire to usher her into the waiting room till he had prepared the circular notes. The respite was a blessing. It gave Helen time to recover her self possession. She opened the packet and found therein coupons for the journey to and from St. Moritz, together with a letter from the sleeping car company, from which she gathered that a berth on the Engadine Express was provisionally reserved in her name for the following Thursday, but any change to a later date must be made forthwith, as the holiday pressure was beginning. It was advisable too, she was reminded, that she should secure her return berth before leaving London.

Each moment the reality of the tour became more patent. She might feel herself bewitched; but pounds sterling and railway tickets were tangible things, and not to be explained away by any fantasy. By the time her additional wealth was ready she was better fitted to guard it. She hurried away quite unconscious of the admiring eyes that were raised from dockets and ledgers behind the grille. She made for the court in which “The Firefly” had its abode. The squalor of the passage, the poverty stricken aspect of the stairs, – items which had prepared her on other occasions for the starvation rate of pay offered for her work, – now passed unheeded. This affectation of scanty means was humorous. Obviously, some millionaire had secured what the newspapers called “a controlling interest” in “The Firefly.”

She sought Mackenzie, the editor, and he received her with a manifest reluctance to waste his precious time over details that was almost as convincing as the money and vouchers she carried.

“Yes, Thursday will suit admirably,” he said in reply to her breathless questions. “You will reach Maloja on Friday evening, and if you post the first article that day week it will arrive in good time for the next number. As for the style and tone, I leave those considerations entirely to you. So long as the matter is bright and readable, that is all I want. I put my requirements clearly in my letter. Follow that, and you cannot make any mistake.”

Helen little realized how precise were the instructions given two hours earlier to the editor, the bank clerk, and the sleeping car company. Mackenzie’s curt acceptance of her mission brought a wondering cry to her lips.

“I am naturally overjoyed at my selection for this work,” she said. “May I ask how you came to think of me?”

“Oh, it is hard to say how these things are determined,” he answered. “We liked your crisp way of putting dull facts, I suppose, and thought that a young lady’s impressions of life in an Anglo-Swiss summer community would be fresher and more attractive than a man’s. That is all. I hope you will enjoy your experiences.”

“But, please, I want to thank you – ”

“Not a word! Business is business, you know. If a thing is worth doing, it must be done well. Good-by!”

He flattered himself that he could spend another man’s money with as lordly an air as the youngest journalist on Fleet-st. The difficulty was to find the man with the money, and Mackenzie had given much thought during the Sabbath to the potentialities that lay behind Spencer’s whim. He was sure the incident would not close with the publication of Miss Wynton’s articles. Judiciously handled, her unknown benefactor might prove equally beneficial to “The Firefly.”

So Helen tripped out into Fleet-st., and turned her pretty face westward, and looked so eager and happy that it is not surprising if many a man eyed her as she passed, and many a woman sighed to think that another woman could find life in this dreary city such a joyous thing.

A sharp walk through the Strand and across Trafalgar Square did a good deal toward restoring the poise of her wits. For safety, she had pinned the envelop containing her paper money and tickets inside her blouse. The mere presence of the solid little parcel reminded her at every movement that she was truly bound for the wonderful Engadine, and, now that the notion was becoming familiar, she was the more astonished that the choice of “The Firefly” had fallen on her. It was all very well for Mr. Mackenzie to say that the paper would be brightened by a woman’s views on life in the high Alps. The poor worn man looked as if such a holiday would have done him a world of good. But the certain fact remained that there was no room for error. It was she, Helen Wynton, and none other, for whom the gods had contrived this miracle. If it had been possible, she would have crossed busy Cockspur-st. with a hop, skip, and a jump in order to gain the sleeping car company’s premises.

She knew the place well. Many a time had she looked at the attractive posters in the windows, – those gorgeous fly sheets that told of winter in summer among the mountains of Switzerland and the Tyrol, and of summer in winter along the sunlit shores of the Côte d’Azur. She almost laughed aloud at the thought that possessed her as she waited for a moment on the curb to allow a press of traffic to pass.

“If my luck holds till Christmas, I may be sent to Monte Carlo,” she said to herself. “And why not? It’s the first step that counts, and ‘The Firefly,’ once fairly embarked on a career of wild extravagance, may keep it up.”

Under the pressure of that further inspiration she refused to wait any longer, but dodged an omnibus, a motor car, and some hansoms, and pushed open the swing doors of the Bureau de la Campagnie des Wagons-Lits. She did not notice that the automobile stopped very quickly a few yards higher up the street. The occupant, Mark Bower, alighted, looked at her through the window to make sure he was not mistaken, and followed her into the building. He addressed some question to an attendant, and heard Helen say:

“Yes, please. Thursday will suit admirably. I am going straight through to St. Moritz. I shall call on Wednesday and let you know what day I wish to return.”

If Bower had intended to speak to her, he seemed to change his mind rather promptly. Helen’s back was turned. She was watching a clerk writing out a voucher for her berth in the sleeping car, and the office was full of other prospective travelers discussing times and routes with the officials. Bower thanked his informant for information which he could have supplied in ampler detail himself. Then he went out, and looked again at Helen from the doorway; but she was wholly unaware of his presence.

Thus it came about, quite simply and naturally, that Mark Bower met Miss Helen Wynton on the platform of Victoria Station on Thursday morning, and learned that, like himself, she was a passenger by the Engadine Express. He took her presence as a matter of course, hoped she would allow him to secure her a comfortable chair on the steamer, told her that the weather report was excellent, and remarked that they might expect a pleasant crossing in the new turbine steamer.

Then, having ascertained that she had a corner seat, and that her luggage was registered through to St. Moritz (Helen having arrived at the station a good hour before the train was due to start), he bowed himself away, being far too skilled a stalker of such shy game to thrust his company on her at that stage.

His attitude was very polite and friendly, and Helen was almost grateful to the chance which had brought him there. She was feeling just a trifle lonely in the midst of the gay and chattering throng that crowded the station. The presence of one who was not wholly a stranger, of a friend’s friend, of a man whose name was familiar, made the journey look less dreamlike. She was glad he had not sought to travel in her carriage. That was tactful, and indeed his courtesy and pleasant words during her first brief meeting with him in the Embankment Hotel had conveyed the same favorable impression.

So when the hour hand of the big clock overhanging the center of the platform pointed to eleven, the long train glided quietly away with its load of pleasure-seekers, and neither Helen nor her new acquaintance could possibly know that their meeting had been witnessed, with a blank amazement that was rapidly transmuted into sheer annoyance, by a young American engineer named Charles K. Spencer.

CHAPTER III

WHEREIN TWO PEOPLE BECOME BETTER ACQUAINTED

Mackenzie, of course, was aware that Miss Wynton would leave London by the eleven o’clock train on Thursday, and Spencer saw no harm in witnessing her departure. He found a good deal of quiet fun in noting her animated expression and businesslike air. Her whole-souled enjoyment of novel surroundings was an asset for the outlay of his two hundred pounds, and he had fully and finally excused that piece of extravagance until he caught sight of Bower strolling along the platform with the easy confidence of one who knew exactly whom he would meet and how he would account for his unbidden presence.

Spencer at once suspected the man’s motives, not without fair cause. They were, he thought, as plain to him as they were hidden from the girl. Bower counterfeited the genuine surprise on Helen’s face with admirable skill; but, to the startled onlooker, peering beneath the actor’s mask, his stagy artifice was laid bare.

And Spencer was quite helpless, a condition that irritated him almost beyond control. He had absolutely no grounds for interference. He could only glower angrily and in silence at a meeting he could not prevent. Conjecture might run riot as to the causes which had given this sinister bend to an idyl, but perforce he must remain dumb.