The Avenger
by
E. Phillips Oppenheim
Part 2 out of 6
time. Now I can watch and talk. Truly, the dresses are ravishing.
Doucet never conceived anything more delightful than that blend of
greens! Tell me about your mysterious-looking friend, Mr. Wrayson. Is
he, too, an editor?"
Wrayson shook his head.
"To tell you the truth," he said, "I know very little about him. He is
one of those men who seldom talk about themselves. He is a barrister, and
he has written a volume of travels. A clever fellow, I believe, but
possibly without ambition. At any rate, one never hears of his doing
anything now."
"Perhaps," the Baroness remarked, with her eyes upon the stage, "he is
one of those who keep their own counsel, in more ways than one. He does
not look like a man who has no object in life."
Wrayson glanced downwards at the empty stall.
"Very likely," he admitted carelessly, "and yet, nowadays, it is a little
difficult, isn't it, to do anything really worth doing, and not be found
out? They say that the press is lynx-eyed."
Louise leaned a little forward in her chair.
"And you," she remarked, "are an editor! Do you feel quite safe, Amy? Mr.
Wrayson may rob us of our most cherished secrets."
Her eyes challenged his, her lips were parted in a slight smile.
Underneath the levity of her remark, he was fully conscious of the
undernote of serious meaning.
"I am not afraid of Mr. Wrayson," the Baroness answered, smiling. "My age
and my dressmaker are the only two things I keep entirely to myself, and
I don't think he is likely to guess either."
"And you?" he asked, looking into her companion's eyes.
"There are many things," she answered, in a low tone, "which one keeps
to oneself, because confidences with regard to them are impossible.
And yet--"
She paused. Her eyes seemed to be following out the mystic design painted
upon her fan.
"And yet?" he reminded her under his breath.
"Yet," she continued, glancing towards the Baroness, and lowering her
voice as though anxious not to be overheard, "there is something
poisonous, I think, about secrets. To have them known without disclosing
them would be very often--a great relief."
He leaned a little towards her.
"Is that a challenge?" he asked, "if I can find out?"
The colour left her face with amazing suddenness. She drew away from him
quickly. Her whisper was almost a moan.
"No! for God's sake, no!" she murmured. "I meant nothing. You must not
think that I was speaking about myself."
"I hoped that you were," he answered simply.
The Baroness turned in her chair as though anxious to join in the
conversation. At that moment came a knock at the door of the box. Wrayson
rose and opened it. Heneage stood there and entered at once, as though
his coming were the most natural thing in the world.
"Thought I recognized you," he remarked, shaking hands with Wrayson. "I
believe, too, I may be mistaken, but I fancy that I have had the pleasure
of meeting the Baroness de Sturm."
The Baroness turned towards him with a smile. Nevertheless, Wrayson
noticed what seemed to him a strange thing. The slim-fingered, bejewelled
hand which rested upon the ledge of the box was trembling. The Baroness
was disturbed.
