The Mystery Road

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 257, 30 October 1928, Page 18

The Mystery Road

By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

CHAPTER XXll.—(Continued.) The door of the sitting room was suddenly opened and closed. Christophei stood there, a little breathless, as though he had run up the stairs, pale, and with a look in his eyes from which both Gerald and Myrtile quailed —Gerald with fuller understanding. His arms dropped He was nearer fear than ever before ir his life. Christopher spoke with marvel lous calmness. "Gerald," he said, "were you thinking of breaking your trust?" "Yes!" Gerald answered, hoarsely "Drop this Don Quixote business, Chris' topher. I'm sick of it." Christopher came a step nearer. "Myrtile is coming back to her lodg ings with me," he announced. "She is going to England to-morrow morning Your sister has promised to take her.' "But it is impossible!" Myrtile cried passionately. "It is arranged,"' Christopher declared "I went to your rooms to-night, Myrtile !to tell you. I received Annette's h'ing [ message. I was told that you were in bed and asleep. I left a note. Then for the first time since I have been here I went to the club and stayed late. J heard your guests downstairs speak 01 your good fortune, Gerald." Gerald laid his hand upon Myrtile's wrist. "Well." he said, "what arc you going to do about it?" "I am going to take Myrtile home," Christopher insisted. "T refuse to let her go," Gerald declared. Christopher looked for a moment away at Myrtile. She clung to Gerald like a frightened child. "Listen," Christopher went on, "you and I have been friends ali our lives, Gerald. We know each other pretty well. You know of me that I am a man of my word. I know of you that, though you are selfish, and worship pleasure, you are white enough when the hour strikes. The hour has struck, Gerald. Let me take Myrtile home." "Myrtile shail choose," Gerald proposed. "Myrtile shall do nothing of the sort," was the prompt reply. "You might as well ask her to choose the right path through a strange city. Gerald, old chap, don't take this hardly. I am not here to sling abuse at you. And Myrtile— just doesn't understand. Thank God I was in time! Myrtile, take your cloak!" She clung to Gerald's arm, looking anxiously into his face. Something else discordant ha/] come into the room, son unbeautiful, something to be feared. She looked from one to the other of the two men. Gerald's fist was clenched. For all his calm, there was a subtle threat in Christopher's attitude. "I don't want to quarrel," Christopher went on. "Don't let it come to that, Gerald, but, you see, it's inevitable that Myrtile should leave with me tonight. I shall not go without her. You know what that means." "I am to remember, I suppo-e," Gerald said, thickly, "that you were the 'Varsity boxing champion?" "Please don't," Christopher begged, "Myrtile must come. I can't always be in the way. To-night I am. To-night, at any rate, you have a reprieve. Myrtile!" She stooped for her cloak. Christophei arranged it around her shoulders. His fingers shivered at the touch of the filmy laciness, as though he loathed it. "You are ready, Myrtile?" he asked. She looked once more at Gerald. He seemed so far away. And, was it hei fancy, or was there so nothing in his face which she had seen iu the faces oi those others? He lit a cigarette almost ostentatiously. "You had better go, Myrtile," he said, "Christopher has the whip-hand of us We can't have a row here." "Good-bye, Gerald," she faltered. "It isn't my fault." "Of course not," Gerald declared. "Wt are all a little overstrung, I think. Good bye, little one!" He kissed her almost carelessly, and nodded to Christopher. The two left the room. The music had ceased. They walked through the empty streets in silence. When they arrived within a few yards of Myrtile's lodgings Christopher slackened his pace. Myrtile was crying quietly. "Myrtile," he begged, "please lister to me." "lam listening," she told him, drearily "This morning at eight o'clock I shall be here to take you to the station Please leave behind the clothes you arc wearing, and I will return them tc Madame Lenore. You will go to London, and Lady Mary will take care oi you. Lady Mary is Gerald's sister. Dc you understand ?" "Yes," she faltered. "Please don't think of me as an executioner," Christopher went on, with s note of unusual feeling in his tone. "Lovt is a very wonderful thing, Myrtile, but it is also a very dangerous paradise. II you care for Gerald, and he cares foi you, believe me, some day, you wil belong to one another, and you will b< happy, but the love which brings happiness is not of a moment's growth. II is not a matter of feeling only. To-day you love Gerald with your whole soul Gerald has simply a little affection foi you. You are a whim to him, a child whose softness and prettiness attract him. The kingdom of love is a wonderful place, but no two people who are in the position of you and Gerald can enter it by the lower gates. If you are faithful, remember this. A year or two of life will bring womanhood to you, and you will understand just what was lacking to-night, just what, in a corner of your heart, Myrtile, I believe that you guessed was lacking. That something would have poisoned, even your wonderful happiness. You must wait. dear. Nothing in the world will keep you and Gerald apart if your love for one another becomes the love that endures." Myrtile crept away without a word. For an hour Christopher waited, unseen, at the darkened corner of the street. He waited until he . saw the light go out in Myrtile's room. Then h» went back to the hotel, changed his clothes, and rested for a couple of hours. When he returned to her room she was waiting for him, dressed in her little blue serge suit, pale, mutely -pathetic. Christopher carried her small bag, and they made their way to the station. "Myrtile," he said, as they stood together watching the train come round the bay, "this morning I think that you are hating me. You think me very cruel. Try and 1 - not judge me for a year.

"I think that you mean well," she sighed, •"but you do not understand." Christopher put money into her purse, and took her up to where Lady Mary was standing with her little array of dependents. She spoke a few kindly words to Myrtile, who answered her politely, but without any trace of feeling in her tone. Myrtile sat down on one of the trunks, and looked steadily across at the sleeping white-fronted hotel. Christopher and Lady Mary walked for a moment apart.

."I don't know why I am doing this thing for you," Mary said. "If you want to know the truth, I dislike the young woman intensely." "If you can't feel that you are doing it for my sake," Christopher replied, "think that you are doing it for Gerald's."

Lady Mary stared at him for a moment, and Christopher fancied that he could read in her somewhat haughty look some trace of that patrician superstition which claimed for its people the bodies and souls of their satellites. The train thundered in. '"You will come and see me in London?" she asked, a little softened. "Directly I return/' he promised. "I shan't forget this. Mary," he added, a little awkwardly. "You've been a brick." She smiled, curiously gratified at his hesitating words. Christopher leaned towards Myrtile. "Good-bye, Myrtile," he said. She removed her eyes from the window for a moment. "Good-bye, Christopher," she answered —and looked back again at the white building, with its irregular front and dose-drawn curtains. Behind one of them Gerald was sleeping. With a cloud of black smoke and a succession of hoarse, sobbing pants, the long train steamed slowly out of the station. CHAPTER XXni. Wonderful Luck. Gerald had been lunching at the Hyde Park Hotel, and was on his way to pay a call in Curzon Street. Hence his progress through the Bun-baked and dusty park at three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon in August. Christopher, who had been his fellow-guest, caught him just as he had reached the shelter of the trees. The two young men were apparently still on the same friendly terms. Xo one but themselves realised the slight cloud which had never wholly passed away from between them since "the night in Gerald's sitting-room, at the Hotel do Paris, eighteen months ago. "Couldn't get near you at lunch," Christopher remarked. "What a squash!" "Hideous!" Gerald agreed. "Everyone all right at Hinterlevs?" Christopher inquired.

"Haven't heard for over a week. Aren't they rather expecting you down there?"

"I'm going tomorrow. Can't take you, I suppose?"

Gerald shook his head. "I can't stand Hinterleys when there's nothing to do," he confided. "I shall be there on the 31st all right." "You're not going to stay in town till then ?"

"I'm off to Bourne End this afterneon." was the unenthusiastic reply. "I shall probably stay there a day or two. T ought to have gone up to Scotland this week, but I have put it off until the end of September. The Governor forgives a good deal, but he wouldn't forgive me if I weren't at Hinterlevs for the Ist."

Christopher took his friend's arm lightly. He had made several attempts to break through the slight restraint that existed between them, and Gerald's appearance these days rather troubled him. He was thinner, his eyes were restless, his manner a little nervous. He was still fit enough, for he had had a great season at polo, and had played cricket half a dozen times for his county with almost startling success. Yet ho had not the appearance of being the spoilt child of fortune that he certainly was.

"I wonder you don't get fed up with that Bourne End crowd," Christopher remarked.

"I very nearly am," Gerald confessed. "They were much more amusing in the old days, before they took up marriage as a hobby. Now the most flagrant little hussy begins to talk about her people in the country and St. George's, Hanover Square, if you hold her fingers! Tt s all the fault of these callow Youths —Christopher Great Heavens!" They had passed tlie Achilles statue and were making towards Stanhope Gato. The crowd here seemed more spiritless than ever. There was a sprinkling of ladies' maids, sitting demurely alone, waiting patiently for the coming of romance: a few young men of doubtful types, a certain number of loafers pure and pimple, and a few reasonable people, driven out by the craving for air which had some of the qualities of freshness. In chairs a little way back and apart from the others, two women, dressed in plain black, were seated. One was elderly, the other young. Both were weary, both sat there with the air of wishing to avoid observation. To Christopher they were entirely unfamiliar. His whole attention was absorbed by Gerald's strange demeanour. Gerald's long fingers had gripped his arm almost painfully. For the first time for many months there was real feeling in his face. "It's Pauline!" he exclaimed. "Wait for me, Chris." Without hesitation, Gerald turned and threaded his way through the chairs. The two women watched his approach, the older one with stolid indifference, Pauline apparently with some faint resentment. Gerald, however, in these hist few seconds had become a very determined person. He stood before them with his hat in his hand. His bow was lower than is customary among3t English people. His manner could scarcely have been more respectful if he had been paying his homage at Buckingham Palace.

"May I be permitted to recall myself to the recollection of Madame de Poniere?" he begged. The woman • looked at him with tinrecognising eyes. The last eighteen months had dealt hardly, with her. The flesh had sagged a little from her cheekbones, her mouth had become bitter,, her throat was thin, her eyes cold and glassy. "You do not succeed in doing so, monsieur," she said, coldly. (To be continued daily.) '