Edward Oppenheim - Anna the Adventuress

The official had no more to say. Only it was with a further and most unbelieving shrug of the shoulders that he resumed his seat.

“You will be so good as to leave us your correct name and address, mademoiselle,” he said curtly.

“You have them both,” Anna answered.

He opened the door for her with a faint disagreeable smile.

“It is possible, mademoiselle,” he said, “that this affair is not yet ended. It may bring us together again.”

She passed out without reply. Yet she took with her an uneasy consciousness that in this affair might lie the germs of future trouble.

As she crossed the square, almost within a stone’s throw of her lodgings, she came face to face with Courtlaw. He stopped short with a little exclamation of surprise.

“My dear friend,” she laughed, “not so tragic, if you please.”

He recovered himself.

“I was surprised, I admit,” he said. “You did not tell me that you were going out, or I would have offered my escort. Do you know how late it is?”

She nodded.

“I heard the clock strike as I crossed the square,” she answered. “I was sent for to go to the Hospital St. Denis. But what are you doing here?”

“Old Père Runeval met me on your doorstep, and he would not let me go. I have been sitting with him ever since. The Hospital St. Denis, did you say? I hope that no one of our friends has met with an accident.”

She shook her head.

“They wanted me to identify some one whom I had certainly never seen before in my life, and to tell you the truth, they were positively rude to me because I could not. Have you ever heard the name of Meysey Hill?”

“Meysey Hill?” He repeated it after her, and she knew at once from his tone and his quick glance into her face that the name possessed some significance for him.

“Yes, I have heard of him, and I know him by sight,” he admitted. “He was a friend of your sister’s, was he not?”

“I never heard her mention his name,” she answered. “Still, of course, it is possible. This man was apparently not sure whether he was Meysey Hill or not.”

“How long had he been in the hospital?” Courtlaw asked.

“Since last night.”

“Then, whoever he may be, he is not Meysey Hill,” Courtlaw said. “That young man was giving a luncheon party to a dozen friends at the Café de Paris to-day. I sat within a few feet of him. I feel almost inclined to regret the fact.”

“Why?” she asked.

“If one half of the stories about Meysey Hill are true,” he answered, “I would not stretch out my little finger to save his life.”

“Isn’t that a little extreme?”

“I am an extreme person at times. This man has an evil reputation. I know of scandalous deeds which he has done.”

Anna had reached the house where she lodged, but she hesitated on the doorstep.

“Have you ever seen Annabel with him?” she asked.

“Never.”

“It is odd that this man at the hospital should call himself Meysey Hill,” she remarked.

“If you wish,” he said, “I will go there in the morning and see what can be done for him.”

“It would be very kind of you,” she declared. “I am only sorry that I did not ask you to go with me.”

She rang the bell, and he waited by her side until she was admitted to the tall, gloomy lodging-house. And ever after it struck him that her backward smile as she disappeared was charged with some special significance. The door closed upon her, and he moved reluctantly away. When next he asked for her, some twelve hours later, he was told that Mademoiselle had left. His most eager inquiries and most lavish bribes could gain no further information than that she had left for England, and that her address was – London.

“Anna!”

Anna kissed her sister and nodded to her aunt. Then she sat down – uninvited – and looked from one to the other curiously. There was something about their greeting and the tone of Annabel’s exclamation which puzzled her.

“I wish,” she said, “that you would leave off looking at me as though I were something grisly. I am your very dutiful niece, aunt, and your most devoted sister, Annabel. I haven’t murdered any one, or broken the law in any way that I know of. Perhaps you will explain the state of panic into which I seem to have thrown you.”

Annabel, who was looking very well, and who was most becomingly dressed, moved to a seat from which she could command a view of the road outside. She was the first to recover herself. Her aunt, a faded, anæmic-looking lady of somewhat too obtrusive gentility, was still sitting with her hand pressed to her heart.

Annabel looked up and down the empty street, and then turned to her sister.

“For one thing, Anna,” she remarked, “we had not the slightest idea that you had left, or were leaving Paris. You did not say a word about it last week, nor have you written. It is quite a descent from the clouds, isn’t it?”

“I will accept that,” Anna said, “as accounting for the surprise. Perhaps you will now explain the alarm.”

Miss Pellissier was beginning to recover herself. She too at once developed an anxious interest in the street outside.

“I am sure, Anna,” she said, “I do not see why we should conceal the truth from you. We are expecting a visit from Sir John Ferringhall at any moment. He is coming here to tea.”

“Well?” Anna remarked calmly.

“Sir John,” her aunt repeated, with thin emphasis, “is coming to see your sister.”

Anna drummed impatiently with her fingers against the arm of her chair.

“Well!” she declared good-humouredly. “I shan’t eat him.”

Miss Pellissier stiffened visibly.

“This is not a matter altogether for levity, Anna,” she said. “Your sister’s future is at stake. I imagine that even you must realize that this is of some importance.”

Anna glanced towards her sister, but the latter avoided her eyes.

“I have always,” she admitted calmly, “taken a certain amount of interest in Annabel’s future. I should like to know how it is concerned with Sir John Ferringhall, and how my presence intervenes.”

“Sir John,” Miss Pellissier said impressively, “has asked your sister to be his wife. It is a most wonderful piece of good fortune, as I suppose you will be prepared to admit. The Ferringhalls are of course without any pretence at family, but Sir John is a very rich man, and will be able to give Annabel a very enviable position in the world. The settlements which he has spoken of, too, are most munificent. No wonder we are anxious that nothing should happen to make him change his mind.”

“I still – ”

Anna stopped short. Suddenly she understood. She grew perhaps a shade paler, and she glanced out into the street, where her four-wheeler cab, laden with luggage, was still waiting.

“Sir John of course disapproves of me,” she remarked slowly.

“Sir John is a man of the world,” her aunt answered coldly. “He naturally does not wish for connexions which are – I do not wish to hurt you feelings, Anna, but I must say it – not altogether desirable.”

The irrepressible smile curved Anna’s lips. She glanced towards her sister, and curiously enough found in her face some faint reflection of her own rather sombre mirth. She leaned back in her chair. It was no use. The smile had become a laugh. She laughed till the tears stood in her eyes.

“I had a visit from Sir John in my rooms,” she said. “Did he tell you, Annabel?”

“Yes.”

“He mentioned the matter to me also,” Miss Pellissier remarked stiffly. “The visit seems to have made a most painful impression upon him. To tell you the truth, he spoke to me very seriously upon the subject.”