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“Oh, yes; I acknowledge that; and our abhorrence of the man with the atrophied heart is quite as natural as the process known as atrophy.”
Sir Creighton laughed.
“And you will be able to tell Mr. Winwood the names of the people—the two men: the man with the heart and the man with the ambition?” continued Amber.
“I could tell him both names; but I am not certain that I should tell him so much as one of them,” said her father. “At any rate, you are going to ask him to dinner. By the way, who did you say sat with him at the little feast to-night—you said he told you the story after dinner?”
“Josephine sat beside him. I think mother mentioned it when we returned,” said Amber.
“Of course she did,” said her father. “I had forgotten for the moment. And I suppose one may take it for granted that Josephine and he got on all right?”
“I’m sure they did. I hadn’t a chance of asking her. Oh, of course, they got on all right; Joe isn’t the girl to let a stranger feel ‘heavy and ill at ease,’ as the song says.”
“That occurred to me. And the man—would he tell her the story too? Oh, I don’t suppose that he would have the chance at the dinner table. He isn’t in the position of the Ancient Mariner.”
“I don’t suppose he would have told me if we hadn’t begun to talk about Australian romances. He had a groom who used to play polo at Ranelagh—and a stock rider too. Funny, isn’t it?”
“Very funny. You came to the conclusion that he was a good sort of chap?”
“You mean Mr. Winwood? Oh, yes, he is very nice.”
“I think you might ask Josephine to come on whatever night you invite him. Make it a small party, Amber.”
“I’ll make it as small as you please, if you want to talk to him afterwards. Why should not I ask him to drop in to lunch? that will be more informal, and besides, we really haven’t a spare evening for three weeks to come.”
“A capital idea! Yes, ask him to lunch. Only he may not have a spare morning for as many weeks. Don’t forget Josephine: meantime we’ll go to our beds and have a sleep or two. Who sat beside you at dinner?”
“Lord Lullworth. A nice—no, he might be nice only that he’s pig-headed. He ridiculed the school.”
They had walked towards the house, and now they were standing together at the foot of the flight of steps leading to the door by which they meant to enter.
“He ridiculed the school, did he? Well, your friend Willie Bateman will tell us that he could not do more for the school than that. By the way, did this Mr. Winwood bind you down to secrecy in regard to his story?”
“On the contrary he asked me to tell it to you; but now that I come to think of it he said he would rather that I didn’t tell it to Mr. Richmond: you see I suggested before he told it to me that it would serve—possibly—as an exercise for one of the classes.”
“I think he was right. I would advise you to refrain from telling it to Mr. Richmond or in fact to any one. I would even go the length of refraining from telling it to Josephine.”
“What! oh, he did not tell me to keep it such a secret as all that. Why shouldn’t I tell it to Joe?”
“Why should you tell it to her. It may concern this Mr. Winwood more closely than you think. You remember what the knowing man says in one of Angler’s comedies?—‘When any one tells me a story of what happened to a friend of his, I know pretty well who that friend is.’”
“You mean to say that it is—that it was——”
“I mean to say nothing more, and I would advise you to follow my example. Good-night, my dear. Don’t give too much of your thought to the question of who Mr. Winwood’s friend is—or was. He told you he was dead, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he said that he was dead and that he didn’t even know what his name was.”
“Ah, well, I have the better of him there. Goodnight.”
He kissed her, and she suffered herself to be kissed by him, but was too far lost in thought to be able to return his valediction.
She went to her dressing-room; but she heard her father go down the corridor to his study before she had reached the first lobby. She could not, however, hear the way he paced the floor of his study for some minutes before throwing himself upon his sofa, or she might have come to the conclusion that the story which she had repeated to him concerned him much more closely than it did.
But he was a scientific man and his methods of thought were scientific.
“A coincidence—a coincidence!” he muttered. “Yes, one of those coincidences that are carefully arranged for. He never would have told her the story but for the fact of his hearing that I knew all about it. It would have been a coincidence if he had told her the story without knowing who she was.”
He resumed his pacing of the room for some minutes longer, but then, with an impatient word, he extinguished the lights.
“Psha!” he said. “What does it amount to after all? Not much, only I never thought it possible that all that old business would ever be revived. I fancied that it was dead and buried long ago. It’s a pity—a great pity. Yes, that’s what I think now. But...”
He remained for a minute or two in the dark, but whatever his thoughts were he did not utter them. He went silently upstairs to his room.
When Amber saw Josephine a couple of days later and asked her to drop in to lunch on the following Friday, Josephine said she would be delighted; but when Amber mentioned immediately afterwards, that Pierce Winwood would probably be the only stranger of the party she was rather surprised to notice a little flush upon Josephine’s face followed by a little drawing down of the corners of her mouth, and the airiest shadow of a frown—perhaps a pout.
“Did you say Friday?” Josephine asked in a tone that suggested a vocal sequence to the tiny frown that might have been a pout.
“Yes, I said Friday and you said you would come. Don’t try to make out now that you misunderstood me,” cried Amber.
“I’m not going to try. Only——”
“Only what? Why should you dislike meeting Mr. Winwood? Did you expect me to ask Guy Overton or Mr. Richmond—or was it Arthur you had set your heart on? Didn’t you find Mr. Win-wood entertaining?”
