第75章 CHAPTER XXIX(1)

A cold twilight had fallen upon the land when Hamel left the Tower that evening and walked briskly along the foot-way to the Hall.

Little patches of mist hung over the creeks, the sky was almost frosty. The lights from St. David's Hall shone like cheerful beacons before him. He hastened up the stone steps, crossed the terrace, and passed into the hall. A servant conducted him at once to the drawing-room. Mrs. Fentolin, in a pink evening dress, with a pink ornament in her hair, held out both her hands. In the background, Mr. Fentolin, in his queerly-cut evening clothes, sat with folded arms, leaning back in his carriage. He listened grimly to his sister-in-law as she stood with Hamel's hands in hers.

"My dear Mr. Hamel!" she exclaimed. "How perfectly charming of you to come up and relieve a little our sad loneliness! Delightful, I call it, of you. I was just saying so to Miles."

Hamel looked around the room. Already his heart was beginning to sink.

"Miss Fentolin is well, I hope?" he asked.

"Well, but a very naughty girl," her mother declared. "I let her go to Lady Saxthorpe's to lunch, and now we have had simply the firmest letter from Lady Saxthorpe. They insist upon keeping Esther to dine and sleep. I have had to send her evening clothes, but you can't tell, Mr. Hamel, how I miss her."

Hamel's disappointment was a little too obvious to pass unnoticed.

There was a shade of annoyance, too, in his face. Mr. Fentolin smoothly intervened.

"Let us be quite candid with Mr. Hamel, dear Florence," he begged.

"I have spoken to my sister-in-law and told her the substance of our conversation this morning," he proceeded, wheeling his chair nearer to Hamel. "She is thunderstruck. She wishes to reflect, to consider. Esther chanced to be away. We have encouraged her absence for a few more hours."

"I hope, Mrs, Fentolin," Hamel said simply, " that you will give her to me. I am not a rich man, but I am fairly well off. I should be willing to live exactly where Esther wishes, and I would do my best to make her happy."

Mrs, Fentolin opened her lips once and closed them again. She laughed a little - a high-pitched, semi-hysterical laugh. The hand which gripped her fan was straining so that the blue veins stood out almost like whipcord.

"Esther is very young, Mr. Hamel. We must talk this over. You have known her for such a very short time."

A servant announced dinner, and Hamel offered his arm to his hostess.

"Is Gerald away, too?" he asked.

"We do indeed owe you our apologies," Mr. Fentolin declared.

"Gerald is spending a couple of days at the Dormy House at Brancaster - a golf arrangement made some time back."

"He promised to play with me to-morrow," Hamel remarked thoughtfully.

"He said nothing about going away."

"I fear that like most young men of his age he has little memory,"

Mr. Fentolin sighed. "However, he will be back to-morrow or the next day. I owe you my apologies, Mr. Hamel, for our lack of young people. We must do our best to entertain our guest, Florence. You must be at your best, dear. You must tell him some of those capital stories of yours."

Mrs, Fentolin shivered for a moment. Hamel, as he handed her to her place, was struck by a strange look which she threw upon him, half furtive, full of pain. Her hand almost clung to his. She slipped a little, and he held her tightly. Then he was suchdenly conscious that something hard was being pressed into his palm. He drew his hand away at once.

"You seem a little unsteady this evening, my dear Florence," Mr.

Fentolin remarked, peering across the round table.

She eyed him nonchalantly enough.

"The floor is slippery," she said. "I was glad, for a moment, of Mr. Hamel's strong hand. Where are those dear puppies? Chow-Chow," she went on, "come and sit by your mistress at once."

Hamel's fingers inside his waistcoat pocket were smoothing out the crumpled piece of paper which she had passed to him. Soon he had it quite flat. Mrs, Fentolin, as though freed from some anxiety, chattered away gaily.

"I don't know that I shall apologise to Mr. Hamel at all for the young people being away," she declared. "Just fancy what we have saved him from - a solitary meal served by Hannah Cox! Do you know that they say she is half-witted, Mr. Hamel?"

"So far, she has looked after me very well," Hamel observed.

"Her intellect is defective," Mr. Fentolin remarked, "on one point only. The good woman is obsessed by the idea that her husband and sons are still calling to her from the Dagger Rocks. It is almost pitiful to meet her wandering about there on a stormy night. The seacoasts are full of these little village tragedies - real tragedies, too, however insignificant they may seem to us."

Mr. Fentolin's tone was gently sympathetic. He changed the subject a moment or two later, however.

"Nero fiddles to-night," he said, "while Rome burns. There are hundreds in our position, yet it certainly seems queer that we should be sitting here so quietly when the whole country is in such a state of excitement. I see the press this morning is preaching an immediate declaration of war."

"Against whom?" Mrs, Fentolin asked.

Mr. Fentolin smiled.

"That does seem to be rather the trouble," he admitted. "Russia, Austria, Germany, Italy, and France are all assisting at a Conference to which no English representative has been bidden. In a sense, of course, that is equivalent to an act of hostility from all these countries towards England. The question is whether we have or have not a secret understanding with France, and if so, how far she will be bound by it. There is a rumour that when Monsieur Deschelles was asked formally whom he represented, that he replied - 'France and Great Britain.' There may be something in it. It is hard to see how any English statesman could have left unguarded the Mediterranean, with all that it means, trusting simply to the faith of a country with whom we have no binding agreement. On the other hand, there is the mobilisation of the fleet. If France is really faithful, one wonders if there was need for such an extreme step."