The Swindler by Ethel May Dell (books to read for teens .TXT) 📖

guessed so much you had better know the whole. I did not do this thing by request. I undertook it voluntarily. If I had not done so, some other means--possibly some less discreet means--would have been employed to gain the same end."
"I see!" West's head was bent. He seemed to be closely examining the marble on which his arms rested. "Well," he said abruptly, "you've told me the truth. I will do the same to you. This business has got to end. I have done my part towards bringing that about. And now you must do yours. You will have to prosecute, whether you like it or not. It is the only way."
"What?" Babbacombe said sharply.
West turned at last. The glare had gone out of his eyes--they were cold and still as an Arctic sky.
"I think we understand one another," he said. "I see you don't like your job. But you'll stick to it, for all that. There must be an end--a painless end if possible, without regrets. She has got to realise that I'm a swindler to the marrow of my bones, that I couldn't turn to and lead a decent, honourable life--even for love of her."
The words fell grimly, but there was no mockery in the steely eyes, no feeling of any sort. They looked full at Babbacombe with unflickering steadiness, that was all.
Babbacombe listened in the silence of a great amazement. Vaguely he had groped after the truth, but he had never even dimly imagined this. It struck him dumb--this sudden glimpse of a man's heart which till that moment had been so strenuously hidden from him.
"My dear fellow," he said at last; "but this is insanity!"
"Perhaps," West returned, unmoved. "They say every man has his mania. This is mine, and it is a very harmless one. It won't hurt you to humour it."
"But--good heavens!--have you thought of her?" Babbacombe exclaimed.
"I am thinking of her only," West answered quietly. "And I am asking you to do the same, both now and after you have married her."
"And send you to perdition to secure her peace of mind? A thousand times--no!" Babbacombe turned, and began to pace the room as though his feelings were too much for him. But very soon he stopped in front of West, and spoke with grave resolution. "Look here," he said, "I think you know that her happiness is more to me than anything else in the world, except my honour. To you it seems to be even more than that. And now listen, for as man to man I tell you the truth. You hold her happiness in the hollow of your hand!"
West's face remained as a mask; his eyes never varied.
"You can change all that," he said.
Babbacombe shook his head.
"I am not even sure that I shall try."
"What then?" said West. "Are you suggesting that the woman you love should marry an ex-convict--a notorious swindler, a blackguard?"
"I think," Babbacombe answered firmly, "that she ought to be allowed to decide that point."
"Allowed to ruin herself without interference," substituted West, sneering faintly. "Well, I don't agree with you, and I shall never give her the opportunity. You won't move me from that if you argue till Doomsday. So, in heaven's name, take what the gods offer, and leave me alone. Marry her. Give her all a good woman ever wants--a happy home, a husband who worships her, and children for her to worship, and you will soon find that I have dropped below the horizon."
He swung round again to the fire, and drove the poker hard into the coals.
"And find another agent as soon as possible," he said; "a respectable one this time, one who won't let you down when you are not looking, who won't call you a fool when you make mistakes--in short, a gentleman. There are plenty of them about. But they are not to be found in the world's rubbish heap. There's nothing but filth and broken crockery there."
He ended with his brief, cynical laugh, and Babbacombe knew that further discussion would be vain. For good or ill the swindler had made his decision, and he realised that no effort of his would alter it. To attempt to do so would be to beat against a stone wall--a struggle in which he might possibly hurt himself, but which would make no difference whatever to the wall.
Reluctantly he abandoned the argument, and prepared to take his departure.
But later, as he drove home, the man's words recurred to him and dwelt long in his memory. Their bitterness seemed to cloak something upon which no eye had ever looked--a regret unspeakable, a passionate repentance that found no place.


IX

"I have just discovered of whom it is that your very unpleasant agent reminds me," observed Lady Cottesbrook at the breakfast-table on the following morning. "It flashed upon me suddenly. He is the very image of that nasty person, Nat Verney, who swindled such a crowd of people a few years ago. I was present at part of his trial, and a more callous, thoroughly insolent creature I never saw. I suppose he is still in prison. I forget exactly what the sentence was, but I know it was a long one. I should think this man must be his twin-brother, Jack. I never saw a more remarkable likeness."
Babbacombe barely glanced up from his letter. "You are always finding that the people you don't like resemble criminals, Ursula," he said, with something less than his usual courtesy. "Did you say you were leaving by the eleven-fifty? I think I shall come with you."
"My dear Jack, how you change! I thought you were going to stay down here for another week."
"I was," he answered. "But I have had a line from Cynthia to tell me that her hand is poisoned from that infernal trap. It may be very serious. It probably is, or she would not have written."
That note of Cynthia's had in fact roused his deepest anxiety. He had fancied all along that she had deliberately made light of the injury. Soon after three o'clock he was in town, and he hastened forthwith to Cynthia's flat in Mayfair.
He found her on a couch in her dainty boudoir, lying alone before the fire. Her eyes shone like stars in her white face as she greeted him.
"It was just dear of you to come so soon," she said. "I kind of thought you would. I'm having a really bad time for once, and I thought you'd like to know."
"Tell me about it," he said, sitting down beside her.
Her left hand lay in his for a few moments, but after a little she softly drew it away. Her right was in a sling.
"There's hardly anything to tell," she said. "Only my arm is bad right up to the shoulder, and the doctor is putting things on the wound so that it sha'n't leave off hurting night or day. I dreamt I was Dante last night. But no, I won't tell you about that. It was too horrible. I've never been really sick before, Jack. It frightens me some. I sent for you because I felt I wanted--a friend to talk to. It was outrageously selfish of me."
"It was the kindest thing you could do," Babbacombe said.
"Ah, but you mustn't misunderstand." A note of wistfulness sounded in the high voice. "You won't misunderstand, will you, Jack? I only want--a friend."
"You needn't be afraid, Cynthia," he said. "I shall never attempt to be anything else to you without your free consent."
"Thank you," she murmured. "I know I'm very mean. But I had such a bad night. I thought that all the devils in hell were jeering at me because I had told you my romance was dead. Oh, Jack! it was a great big lie, and it's come home to roost. I can't get rid of it. It won't die."
He heard the quiver of tears in her confession, and set his teeth.
"My dear," he said, "don't fret about that. I knew it at the bottom of my heart."
She reached out her hand to him again. "I hate myself for treating you like this," she whispered. "But I--I'm lonely, and I can't help it. You--you shouldn't be so kind."
"Ah, child, don't grudge me your friendship," he said. "It is the dearest thing I have."
"It's so hard," wailed Cynthia, "that I can give you so little, when I would so gladly give all if I could."
"You are not to blame yourself for that," he answered steadily. "You loved each other before I ever met you."
"Loved each other!" she said. "Do you really mean that, Jack?"
He hesitated. He had not intended to say so much.
"Jack," she urged piteously, "then you think he really cares?"
"Don't you know it, Cynthia?" he asked, in a low voice.
"My heart knows it," she said brokenly. "But my mind isn't sure. Do you know, Jack, I almost proposed to him because I felt so sure he cared. And he--he just looked beyond me, as if--as if he didn't even hear."
"He thinks he isn't good enough for you," Babbacombe said, with an effort. "I don't think he will ever be persuaded to act otherwise. He seems to consider himself hopelessly handicapped."
"What makes you say that?" whispered Cynthia.
He had not meant to tell her. It was against his will that he did so; but he felt impelled to do it. For her peace of mind it seemed imperative that she should understand.
And so, in a few words, he told her of West's abortive attempt to plunge a second time into the black depths from which he had so recently escaped, of the man's absolutely selfless devotion, of his rigid refusal to suffer even her love for him to move him from this attitude.
Cynthia listened with her bright eyes fixed unswervingly upon Babbacombe's face. She made no comment of any sort when he ended. She only pressed his hand.
He remained with her for some time, and when he got up to go at length, it was with manifest reluctance. He lingered beside her after he had spoken his farewell, as though he still had something to say.
"You will come again soon," said Cynthia.
"To-morrow," he answered. "And--Cynthia, there is just one thing I want to say."
She looked up at him questioningly.
"Only this," he said. "You sent for me because you wanted a friend. I want you from now onward to treat me and to think of me in that light only. As I now see things, I do not think I shall ever be anything more to you than just that. Remember it, won't you, and make use of me in any way that you wish. I will gladly do anything."
The words went straight from his heart to hers. Cynthia's eyes filled with sudden tears. She reached out and clasped his hand very closely.
"Dear Jack," she said softly; "you're just the best friend I have in the world, and I sha'n't forget it--ever."
He called early on the following day, and received the information that she was keeping her bed by the doctor's orders. Later in the day he went again, and found that the doctor was with her. He decided to wait, and paced up and down the drawing-room for nearly an hour. Eventually the doctor came.
Babbacombe knew him slightly, and was not surprised when, at sight of him in the doorway, the doctor turned aside at once, and entered the room.
"Miss Mortimer told me I should probably see you," he said, "and if I did so, she desired me to tell you everything. I am sorry to say that I think very seriously of the injury.