The Silent Barrier

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.

From one point of view, it was lucky that Helen’s self appointed “godfather” was in a position not to misjudge her; from another, it would have been better for Spencer’s peace of mind were he left in ignorance of the trap that was apparently being laid for her. Perhaps Fate had planned this thing – having lately smiled on the American, she may have determined to plague him somewhat. At any rate, in that instant the whole trend of his purpose took a new turn. From a general belief that he would never again set eyes on one in whose fortunes he felt a transient interest, his intent swerved to a fixed resolve to protect her from Bower. It would have puzzled him to assign a motive for his dislike of the man. But the feeling was there, strong and active. It even gave him a certain satisfaction to remember that he was hostile to Bower before he had seen him.

Indeed, he nearly yielded to the momentary impulse that bade him hasten to the booking office and secure a ticket for St. Moritz forthwith. He dismissed the notion as quixotic and unnecessary. Bower’s attitude in not pressing his company on Miss Wynton at this initial stage of the journey revealed a subtlety that demanded equal restraint on Spencer’s part. Helen herself was so far from suspecting the truth that Bower would be compelled to keep up the pretense of a casual rencontre. Nevertheless, Spencer’s chivalric nature was stirred to the depths. The conversation overheard in the Embankment Hotel had given him a knowledge of the characteristics of two women that would have amazed both of them were they told of it. He was able to measure too the exact extent of Bower’s acquaintance with Helen, while he was confident that the relationship between Bower and Millicent Jaques had gone a great deal further than might be inferred from the actress’s curt statement that he was one whom she “wished to avoid.” These two extremes could be reconciled only by a most unfavorable estimate of Bower, and that the American conceded without argument.

Of course, there remained the possibility that Bower was really a traveler that day by idle chance; but Spencer blew aside this alternative with the first whiff of smoke from the cigar he lit mechanically as soon as the train left the station.

“No,” he said, in grim self communing, “the skunk found out somehow that she was going abroad, and planned to accompany her. I could see it in the smirk on his face as soon as he discovered her whereabouts on the platform. If he means to summer at Maloja, I guess my thousand dollars was expended to no good purpose, and the quicker I put up another thousand to pull things straight the happier I shall be. And let me tell you, mother, that if I get Helen through this business well and happy, I shall quit fooling round as godfather, or stage uncle, or any other sort of soft-hearted idiot. Meanwhile, Bower has jumped my claim.”

His glance happened to fall on an official with the legend “Ticket Inspector” on the collar of his coat. He remembered that this man, or some other closely resembling him, had visited the carriage in which Bower traveled.

“Say,” he cried, hailing him on the spur of the moment, “when does the next train leave for St. Moritz?”

“At two-twenty from Charing Cross, sir. But the Engadine Express is the best one. Did you miss it?”

“No. I just blew in here to see a friend off, and the trip kind of appealed to me. Did you notice a reserved compartment for a Mr. Mark Bower?”

“I know Mr. Bower very well, sir. He goes to Paris or Vienna twenty times a year.”

“To-day he is going to Switzerland.”

“So he is, to Zurich, I think. First single he had. But he’s sure to bring up in Vienna or Frankfort. I wish I knew half what he knows about foreign money business. I shouldn’t be punching tickets here very long. Thank you, sir. Charing Cross at two-twenty; but you may have difficulty about booking a berth in the sleeper. Just now everybody is crossing the Channel.”

“It looks like that,” said Spencer, who had obtained the information he wanted. Taking a cab, he drove to the sleeping car company’s office, where he asked for a map of the Swiss railways. Zurich, as Bower’s destination, puzzled him; but he did not falter in his purpose.

“The man is a rogue,” he thought, “or I have never seen one. Anyhow, a night in the train doesn’t cut any ice, and Switzerland can fill the bill for a week as well as London or Scotland.”

He was fortunate in the fact that some person wished to postpone a journey that day, and the accident assured him of comfortable quarters from Calais onward. Then he drove to a bank, and to “The Firefly” office. Mackenzie had just opened his second bottle of beer. By this time he regarded Spencer as an amiable lunatic. He greeted him now with as much glee as his dreary nature was capable of.

“Hello!” he said. “Been to see the last of the lady?”

“Not quite. I want to take back what I said about not going to Switzerland. I’m following this afternoon.”

“Great Scott! You’re sudden.”

“I’m built that way,” said Spencer dryly. “Here are the sixty pounds I promised you. Now I want you to do me a favor. Send a messenger to the Wellington Theater with a note for Miss Millicent Jaques, and ask her if she can oblige you with the present address of Miss Helen Wynton. Make a pretext of work. No matter if she writes to her friend and the inquiry leads to talk. You can put up a suitable fairy tale, I have no doubt.”

“Better still, let my assistant write. Then if necessary I can curse him for not minding his own business. But what’s in the wind?”

“I wish to find out whether or not Miss Jaques knows of this Swiss journey; that is all. If the reply reaches you by one o’clock send it to the Embankment Hotel. Otherwise, post it to me at the Kursaal, Maloja-Kulm; but not in an office envelop.”

“You’ll come back, Mr. Spencer?” said the editor plaintively, for he had visions of persuading the eccentric American to start a magazine of his own.

“Oh, yes. You’ll probably see me again within six days. I’ll look in and report progress. Good by.”

A messenger caught him as he was leaving the hotel. Mackenzie had not lost any time, and Miss Jaques happened to be at the theater.

“Sorry,” she wrote, in the artistic script that looks so well in face cream and soap advertisements, “I can’t for the life of me remember the number; but Miss Wynton lives somewhere in Warburton Gardens.” The signature, “Millicent Jaques,” was an elegant thing in itself, carefully thought out and never hurried in execution, no matter how pressed she might be for time. Spencer was on the point of scattering the note in little pieces along the Strand; but he checked himself.

“Guess I’ll keep this as a souvenir,” he said, and it found a place in his pocketbook.

Helen Wynton, having crossed the Channel many times during her childhood, was no novice amid the bustle and crush on the narrow pier at Dover. She had dispensed with all accessories for the journey, except the few articles that could be crammed into a handbag. Thus, being independent of porters, she was one of the first to reach the steamer’s gangway. As usual, all the most sheltered nooks on board were occupied. There seems to be a mysterious type of traveler who inhabits the cross-Channel vessels permanently. No matter how speedy may be the movements of a passenger by the boat-train, either at Dover or Calais, the best seats on the upper deck invariably reveal the presence of earlier arrivals by deposits of wraps and packages. This phenomenon was not strange to Helen. A more baffling circumstance was the altered shape of the ship. The familiar lines of the paddle steamer were gone, and Helen was wondering where she might best bestow herself and her tiny valise, when she heard Bower’s voice.

“I took the precaution to telegraph from London to one of the ship’s officers,” he said, and nodded toward a couple of waterproof rugs which guarded a recess behind the Captain’s cabin. “That is our corner, I expect. My friend will be here in a moment.”

Sure enough, a man in uniform approached and lifted his gold laced cap. “We have a rather crowded ship, Mr. Bower,” he said; “but you will be quite comfortable there. I suppose you deemed the weather too fine to need your usual cabin?”

“Yes. I have a companion to-day, you see.”

Helen was a little bewildered by this; but it was very pleasant to claim undisputed possession of a quiet retreat from which to watch others trying to find chairs. And, although Bower had a place reserved by her side, he did not sit down. He chatted for a few minutes on such eminently safe topics as the smooth sea, the superiority of turbine engines in the matter of steadiness, the advisability of lunching in the train after leaving Calais, rather than on board the ship, and soon betook himself aft, there to smoke and chat with some acquaintances whom he fell in with. Dover Castle was becoming a gray blur on the horizon when he spoke to Helen again.

“You look quite comfortable,” he said pleasantly, “and it is wise not to risk walking about if you are afraid of being ill.”

“I used to cross in bad weather without consequences,” she answered; “but I am older now, and am doubtful of experiments.”

“You were educated abroad, then?”

“Yes. I was three years in Brussels – three happy years.”

“Ah! Why qualify them? All your years are happy, I should imagine, if I may judge by appearances.”

“Well, if happiness can be defined as contentment, you are right; but I have had my sad periods too, Mr. Bower. I lost my mother when I was eighteen, and that was a blow under which I have never ceased to wince. Fortunately, I had to seek consolation in work. Added to good health, it makes for content.”

“You are quite a philosopher. Will you pardon my curiosity? I too lead the strenuous life. Now, I should like to have your definition of work. I am not questioning your capacity. My wonder is that you should mention it at all.”

“But why? Any man who knows what toil is should not regard women as dolls.”

“I prefer to look on them as goddesses.”

Helen smiled. “I fear, then, you will deem my pedestal a sorry one,” she said. “Perhaps you think, because you met me once in Miss Jaques’s company, and again here, traveling de luxe, that I am in her set. I am not. By courtesy I am called a ‘secretary’; but the title might be shortened into ‘typist.’ I help Professor von Eulenberg with his – scientific researches.”

Though it was on the tip of her tongue to say “beetles,” she substituted the more dignified phrase. Bower was very nice and kind; but she felt that “beetles” might sound somewhat flippant and lend a too familiar tone to their conversation.

“Von Eulenberg? I have heard of him. Quite a distinguished man in his own line; an authority on – moths, is it?”

“Insects generally.”

She blushed and laughed outright, not only at the boomerang effect of her grandiloquent description of the professor’s industry, but at the absurdity of her position. Above all else, Helen was candid, and there was no reason why she should not enlighten a comparative stranger who seemed to take a friendly interest in her.

“I ought to explain,” she went on, “that I am going to the Engadine as a journalist. I have had the good fortune to be chosen for a very pleasant task. Hence this present grandeur, which, I assure you, is not a usual condition of entomological secretaries.”

Bower pretended to ward off some unexpected attack. “I have done nothing to deserve a hard word like that, Miss Wynton,” he cried. “I shall not recover till we reach Calais. May I sit beside you while you tell me what it means?”

She made room for him. “Strictly speaking, it is nonsense,” she said.

“Excellent. That is the better line for women who are young and pretty. We jaded men of the world hate to be serious when we leave business behind. Now, you would scarce credit what a lively youngster I am when I come abroad for a holiday. I always kiss my fingers to France at the first sight of her fair face. She bubbles like her own champagne, whereas London invariably reminds me of beer.”

“Do I take it that you prefer gas to froth?”

“You offer me difficult alternatives, yet I accept them. Though gas is as dreadful a description of champagne as entomological is of a certain type of secretary, I would venture to point out that it expands, effervesces, soars ever to greater heights; but beer, froth and all, tends to become flat, stale, and unprofitable.”

“I assure you my knowledge of both is limited. I had never even tasted champagne until the other day.”

“When you lunched with Millicent at the Embankment Hotel?”

“Well – yes. She was at school with me, and we met last week by accident. She is making quite a success at the Wellington Theater, is she not?”

“So I hear. I am a director of that concern; but I seldom go there.”

“How odd that sounds to one who saves up her pennies to attend a favorite play!”

“Then you must have my address, and when I am in town you need never want a stall at any theater in London. Now, that is no idle promise. I mean it. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to think you were enjoying something through my instrumentality.”

“How exceedingly kind of you! I shall take you at your word. What girl wouldn’t?”

“I know quite a number who regard me as an ogre. I am not a lady’s man in the general sense of the term, Miss Wynton. I might tell you more about myself if it were not for signs that the next five minutes will bring us to Calais. You are far too independent, I suppose, that I should offer to carry your bag; but will you allow me to reserve a joint table for déjeuner? There will be a rush for the first service, which is the best, as a rule, and I have friends at court on this line. Please don’t say you are not hungry.”

“That would be impolite, and horribly untrue,” laughed Helen.

He took the implied permission, and hurried away. They did not meet again until he came to her carriage in the train.

“Is this where you are?” he cried, looking up at her through the open window. “I am in the next block, as they say in America. When you are ready I shall take you to the dining car. Come out on the platform. The corridors are simply impassable. And here are baskets of peaches, and ripe pears, and all manner of pleasant fruits. Yes, try the corridor to the right, and charge resolutely. If you inflict the maximum injury on others, you seldom damage yourself.”

In a word, Mark Bower spoke as lightheartedly as he professed to feel, and Helen had no cause whatever to be other than thankful for the chance that brought him to Switzerland on the same day and in the same train as herself. His delicate consideration for her well being was manifested in many ways. That such a man, whom she knew to be a figure of importance in the financial world, should take an interest in the simple chronicles of her past life was a flattering thing in itself. He listened sympathetically to the story of her struggles since the death of her mother. The consequent stoppage of the annuity paid to the widow of an Indian civilian rendered it necessary that Helen should supplement by her own efforts the fifty pounds a year allotted to her “until death or marriage.”

“There are plenty of country districts where I could exist quite easily on such a sum,” she said; “but I declined to be buried alive in that fashion, and I made up my mind to earn my own living. Somehow, London appeals to young people situated as I was. It is there that the great prizes are to be gained; so I came to London.”

“From – ” broke in Bower, who was peeling one of the peaches bought at Calais.

“From a village near Sheringham, in Norfolk.”

He nodded with smiling comprehension when she detailed her struggles with editors who could detect no originality in her literary work.

“But that phase has passed now,” he said encouragingly.

“Well, it looks like it. I hope so; for I am tired of classifying beetles.”

There – the word was out at last. Perhaps Bower wondered why she laughed and blushed at the recollection of her earlier determination to suppress von Eulenberg’s “specimens” as a topic of conversation. Already the stiffness of their talk on board the steamship seemed to have vanished completely. It was really a pleasant way of passing the time to sit and chat in this glass palace while the train skimmed over a dull land of marshes and poplars.

“Beetles, though apt to be flighty, are otherwise dull creatures,” he said. “May I ask what paper you are representing on your present tour?”

It was an obvious and harmless question; but Helen was loyal to her bond. “It sounds absurd to have to say it, but I am pledged to secrecy,” she answered.

“Good gracious! Don’t tell me you intend to interview anarchists, or runaway queens, or the other disgruntled people who live in Switzerland. Moreover, they usually find quarters in Geneva, while you presumably are bound for the Engadine.”

“Oh, no. My work lies in less excitable circles. ‘Life in a Swiss hotel’ would be nearer the mark.”

“Apart from the unusual surroundings, you will find it suspiciously like life in a quiet Norfolk village, Miss Wynton,” said Bower. He paused, tasted the peach, and made a grimace. “Sour!” he protested. “Really, when all is said and done, the only place in which one can buy a decent peach is London.”

“Ah, a distinct score for Britain!”

“And a fair hit to your credit. Let me urge in self defense that if life in France bubbles, it occasionally leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Now you shall go and read, and sleep a little perhaps, if that is not a heretical thing to suggest. We have the same table for afternoon tea and dinner.”

Helen had never met such a versatile man. He talked of most things with knowledge and restraint and some humor. She could not help admitting that the journey would have been exceedingly dull without his companionship, and he had the tact to make her feel that he was equally indebted to her for passing the long hours. At dinner she noticed that they were served with dishes not supplied to others in the dining car.

“I hope you have not been ordering a dreadfully expensive meal,” she ventured to say. “I must pay my share, you know, and I am quite an economical person.”

“There!” he vowed. “That is the first unkind word you have uttered. Surely you will not refuse to be my guest? Indeed, I was hoping that to-day marked the beginning of a new era, wherein we might meet at times and criticize humanity to our hearts’ content.”

“I should feel unhappy if I did not pay,” she insisted.

“Well, then, I shall charge you table d’hôte prices. Will that content you?”

So, when the attendant came to the other tables, Helen produced her purse, and Bower solemnly accepted her few francs; but no bill was presented to him.

“You see,” he said, smiling at her through a glass of golden wine, “you have missed a great opportunity. Not one woman in a million can say that she has dined at the railway company’s expense in France.”

She was puzzled. His manner had become slightly more confidential during the meal. It needed no feminine intuition to realize that he admired her. Excitement, the sea air, the heated atmosphere, and unceasing onrush of the train, had flushed her cheeks and lent a deeper shade to her brown eyes. She knew that Bower’s was not the only glance that dwelt on her with a curious and somewhat unnerving appraisement. Other men, and not a few women, stared at her. The mirror in her dressing room had told her that she was looking her best, and her heart fluttered a little at the thought that she had succeeded, without effort, in winning the appreciation of a man highly placed in the world of fashion and finance. The conceit induced an odd feeling of embarrassment. To dispel it she took up his words in a vein of playful sarcasm.

“If you assure me that for some unexplained reason the railway authorities are giving us this excellent dinner for nothing, please return my money,” she said.

“The gifts of the gods, and eke of railway companies, must be taken without question,” he answered. “No, I shall keep your pieces of silver. I mean to invest them. It will amuse me to learn how much I can make on an initial capital of twelve francs, fifty centimes. Will you allow that? I shall be scrupulously accurate, and submit an audited account at Christmas. Even my worst enemies have never alleged dishonesty against me. Is it a bargain?”

“Y-yes,” she stammered confusedly, hardly knowing what he meant. He was leaning over the small table and looking steadfastly at her. She noticed that the wine and food had made his skin greasy. It suddenly occurred to her that Mark Bower resembled certain exotic plants which must be viewed from a distance if they would gratify the critical senses. The gloss of a careful toilet was gone. He was altogether cruder, coarser, more animal, since he had eaten, though his consumption of wine was quite moderate. His big, rather fierce eyes were more than prominent now; they bulged. Certain Jewish characteristics in his face had become accentuated. She remembered the ancient habit of anointing with oil, and laughed at the thought, for that was a little trick of hers to conceal nervousness.

“You doubt me, then?” he half whispered. “Or do you deem it beyond the power of finance to convert so small a sum into hundreds – it may be thousands – of pounds in six months?”

“Indeed I should credit you with ability to do that and more, Mr. Bower,” she said; “but I was wondering why you made such an offer to a mere acquaintance, – one whom it is more than likely you will never meet again.”

The phrase had a harsh and awkward sound in her ears. Bower, to her relief, seemed to ignore it.

“It is permissible to gratify an impulse once in awhile,” he countered. “And not to mention the audited accounts, there was a matter of theater tickets that should serve to bring us together again. Won’t you give me your address, in London if not in Switzerland? Here is mine.”

He produced a pocketbook, and picked out a card. It bore his name and his club. He added, in pencil, “50 Hamilton Place.”

“Letters sent to my house reach me, no matter where I may happen to be,” he said.

The incident brought fresh tremors to Helen. Indeed, the penciled address came as an unpleasant shock; for Millicent Jaques, on the day they met in Piccadilly, having gone home with Helen to tea, excused an early departure on the ground that she was due to dinner at that very house.

But she took the card, and strove desperately to appear at ease, for she had no cause to quarrel with one whose manners were so courteous.

“Thank you very much,” she said. “If you care to see my articles in the – in the paper, I shall send you copies. Now I must say good by. I am rather tired. Before I go let me say how deeply indebted I feel for your kindness to-day.”

She rose. Bower stood up too, and bowed with smiling deference. “Good night,” he said. “You will not be disturbed by the customs people at the frontier. I have arranged all that.”

Helen made the best of her way along the swaying corridors till she reached her section of the sleeping car; but Bower resumed his seat at the table. He ordered a glass of fine champagne and held it up to the light. There was a decided frown on his strong face, and the attendant who served him imagined that there was something wrong with the liqueur.

“N’est-ce pas bon, m’sieur?” he began.

“Will you go to the devil?” said Bower, speaking very slowly without looking at him.

“Oui, m’sieur, Je vous assure,” and the man disappeared.

It was not the wine, but the woman, that was perplexing him. Not often had the lure of gold failed so signally. And why was she so manifestly startled at the last moment? Had he gone too far? Was he mistaken in the assumption that Millicent Jaques had said little or nothing concerning him to her friend? And this commission too, – there were inexplicable features about it. He knew a great deal of the ways of newspapers, daily and weekly, and it was not the journalistic habit to send inexperienced young women on costly journeys to write up Swiss summer resorts.

He frowned still more deeply as he thought of the Maloja-Kulm Hotel, for Helen had innocently affixed a label bearing her address on her handbag. He peopled it with dozens of smart young men and not a few older beaux of his own type. His features relaxed somewhat when he remembered the women. Helen was alone, and far too good-looking to command sympathy. There should be the elements of trouble in that quarter. If he played his cards well, and he had no reason to doubt his skill, Helen should greet him as her best friend when he surprised her by appearing unexpectedly at the Maloja-Kulm.

Then he waxed critical. She was young, and lively, and unquestionably pretty; but was she worth all this planning and contriving? She was by way of being a prude too, and held serious notions of women’s place in the scheme of things. At any rate, the day’s hunting had not brought him far out of his path, Frankfort being his real objective, and he would make up his mind later. Perhaps she would remove all obstacles by writing to him on her return to London; but the recollection of her frank, clear gaze, of lips that were molded for strength as well as sweetness, of the dignity and grace with which the well shaped head was poised on a white firm neck, warned him that such a woman might surrender to love, but never to greed.

Then he laughed, and ordered another liqueur, and drank a toast to to-morrow, when all things come to pass for the man who knows how to contrive to-day.

In the early morning, at Basle, he awoke, and was somewhat angry with himself when he found that his thoughts still dwelt on Helen Wynton. In the cold gray glimmer of dawn, and after the unpleasant shaking his pampered body had received all night, some of the romance of this latest quest had evaporated. He was stiff and weary, and he regretted the whim that had led him a good twelve hours astray. But he roused himself and dressed with care. Some twenty minutes short of Zurich he sent an attendant to Miss Wynton’s berth to inquire if she would join him for early coffee at that station, there being a wait of a quarter of an hour before the train went on to Coire.

Helen, who was up and dressed, said she would be delighted. She too had been thinking, and, being a healthy-minded and kind-hearted girl, had come to the conclusion that her abrupt departure the previous night was wholly uncalled for and ungracious.

So it was with a smiling face that she awaited Bower on the steps of her carriage. She shook hands with him cordially, did not object in the least degree when he seized her arm to pilot her through a noisy crowd of foreigners, and laughed with utmost cheerfulness when they both failed to drink some extraordinarily hot coffee served in glasses that seemed to be hotter still.

Helen had the rare distinction of being quite as bright and pleasing to the eye in the searching light of the sun’s first rays as at any other hour. Bower, though spruce and dandified, looked rather worn.

“I did not sleep well,” he explained. “And the rails to the frontier on this line are the worst laid in Europe.”

“It is early yet,” she said. “Why not turn in again when you reach your hotel?”

“Perish the thought!” he cried. “I shall wander disconsolate by the side of the lake. Please say you will miss me at breakfast. And, by the way, you will find a table specially set apart for you. I suppose you change at Coire?”

“How kind and thoughtful you are. Yes, I am going to the Engadine, you know.”

“Well, give my greetings to the high Alps. I have climbed most of them in my time. More improbable things have happened than that I may renew the acquaintance with some of my old friends this year. What fun if you and I met on the Matterhorn or Jungfrau! But they are far away from the valley of the inn, and perhaps you do not climb.”

“I have never had the opportunity; but I mean to try. Moreover, it is part of my undertaking.”

“Then may we soon be tied to the same rope!”

Thus they parted, with cheery words, and, on Helen’s side, a genuine wish that they might renew a pleasant acquaintance. Bower waited on the platform to see the last of her as the train steamed away.

“Yes, it is worth while,” he muttered, when the white feathers on her hat were no longer visible. He did not go to the lake, but to the telegraph office, and there he wrote two long messages, which he revised carefully, and copied. Yet he frowned again, even while he was paying for their transmission. Never before had he taken such pains to win any woman’s regard. And the knowledge vexed him, for the taking of pains was not his way with women.