The Tigress

"I've no appetite," she said. "I hunger only for facts – for the truth."

"Then you must prepare for it. It may be too strong for an empty stomach."

But this only alarmed her. "You know?" she cried hysterically. "You know something already?"

"Nothing," he answered – "nothing at all. Only – well, the fact is, I haven't dined, either. I came straight here from the station. Could you – "

"You poor boy!" she broke in. "Of course. Please touch the bell. There; behind you."

"Won't you come out with me?"

"No; I couldn't; besides, listen to the rain, and – and I'm not dressed, you see."

"You don't want me to go alone?"

"Oh, no, no, no," she protested. "I have so much to say – "

"Very well. I'll stop, and I'll eat; but on one condition. You must eat, too."

"I can't," she insisted. "I can't, really. I'd choke."

"Try it," he insisted, in turn. "If you choke I'll let you off."

There was consommé, and there were chops – done to a turn – and a cobwebbed bottle of Pommard. Of the wine Andrews forced her to sip the better part of a glass, and was rewarded by a faint show of color in her lips and cheeks.

It stimulated her appetite, too, and she managed to swallow a few spoonfuls of the soup and a little lean, red meat of a chop. After which he called her a brave girl and assured her that there was nothing he wouldn't do for her in return.

"I want you, the very first thing in the morning, to go to Regent's Park," she said. "I want you to go where the tigers are, and to ask questions of the guards. They can can tell you whether it is true that a gentleman has been there recently, acting strangely."

"I'll be there when the gates open," returned Gerald. "What else?"

"If you find it is true – which I hope to Heaven you don't – I want you to go to Lord Kneedrock's solicitor and learn what he knows about it. You may tell him you came from me, and that I desire some steps taken."

He looked at her questioningly. He couldn't understand her right to make such a demand, but he said nothing, except:

"Who is Lord Kneedrock's solicitor?"

"A combined mummy and sphinx," she answered. "His name is Widdicombe, and he has chambers in the Inner Temple. Your real task will be to get him to open his mouth. He's a living storehouse of secrets."

"Won't your name open it?"

"The name of his majesty wouldn't open it unless he felt it to be for his client's interest. I'm afraid you'll find him a very hard nut to crack, Gerald."

"If I fail, it won't be for lack of effort," he declared determinedly.

Then she smiled at him in the old way for the first time since he came.

"How are the sheep and the ewe lambs?" she asked, with a faint sign of mischief.

He smiled in return, pleased to note the change in her, even if it were but momentary.

"Safe in fold to-night, I hope," he answered, as a gust of wind blew the rain in vicious volleys against the panes.

"Tell me," she said presently. "How did Lord Kneedrock look the day you saw him at Bath?"

"Vexed," he answered. "Beastly angry, in fact."

"I'm sure he did. It was unkind of me not to see him, and to make an exception of you."

"That's altogether a matter of viewpoint. I think it was most kind."

"Of course you do. Men are all selfish animals."

"I think that is unkind," he said reprovingly. "I'm not selfish where your happiness is concerned. I'd go to the ends of the earth to serve you, Nina."

"With another man left behind?"

"Yes. Even with another man left behind."

"That's what Kneedrock did," she told him. "And – and I can never forget it."

"And he can never forgive it," Andrews added.

Then he went away, and Nina passed another sleepless night.

But he was back the next day by noon, to find her sitting in the same chair, with Tara lying at her feet, and the rain still beating its dismal tattoo on the window-panes. The room was in dusk.

She saw in his face that what she had feared, yet hoped against, he had brought her. She needed no word to confirm the dire thing told her by the duke. Poor Andrews seemed weighed down by the burden of his tidings. His expression was as grim and dour as the day.

"But do they know who he is?" It was her first question, and it relieved him of the bald announcement he had dreaded.

"They don't," he answered quickly, glad to get the first plunge over. "They haven't the faintest notion, apparently. I asked particularly."

"Poor Nibbetts," Nina sighed. "He doesn't look the typical nobleman. Yet when he was a young man there wasn't a smarter in all London."

"That South Sea life took it out of him, I suppose."

"And the butchering the Boers gave him."

"I wonder if his present fix can't be traced back to that?" suggested her friend, leaning down and patting the staghound's head. "There's such a thing as traumatic insanity, you know."

She seemed to seize on this alternative possibility with eagerness.

"He has never been the same since he came back," she said. "That is certain. He was quite, quite different before he went to South Africa."

Then a question occurred to her, and she asked: "Has he shown any violence?"

"Not at the gardens. But they had heard of an assault he made outside the gates."