The Lone Wolf Series. Louis Joseph Vance
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exactly. I had meant to make no profit of the affair — I'm a bit squeamish about tainted money! — but under present conditions, if France insists on rewarding me with safe conduct out of the country, I shan't refuse it…. Do you approve?"
She nodded earnestly: "It would be worse than criminal to return them to Ekstrom…."
"That's my view of the matter."
"But these?" The girl rested her hand upon the jewel-case.
"Those go back to Madame Omber. She has a home here in Paris that I know very well. In fact, the sole reason why I didn't steal them here was that she left for England unexpectedly, just as I was all set to strike. Now I purpose making use of my knowledge to restore the jewels without risk of falling into the hands of the police. That will be an easy matter…. And that brings me to a great favour I would beg of you."
She gave him a look so unexpectedly kind that it staggered him. But he had himself well in hand.
"You can't now leave Paris before morning — thanks to my having overslept," he explained. "There's no honest way I know to raise money before the pawn-shops open. But I'm hoping that won't be necessary; I'm hoping I can arrange matters without going to that extreme. Meanwhile, you agree that these jewels must be returned?"
"Of course," she affirmed gently.
"Then … will you accompany me when I replace them? There won't be any danger: I promise you that. Indeed, it would be more hazardous for you to wait for me elsewhere while I attended to the matter alone. And I'd like you to be convinced of my good faith."
"Don't you think you can trust me for that as well?" she asked, with a flash of humour.
"Trust you!"
"To believe … Mr. Lanyard," she told him gently but earnestly, "I do believe."
"You make me very happy," he said … "but I'd like you to see for yourself…. And I'd be glad not to have to fret about your safety in my absence. As a bureau of espionage, Popinot's brigade of Apaches is without a peer in Europe. I am positively afraid to leave you alone…."
She was silent.
"Will you come with me, Miss Shannon?" "That is your sole reason for asking this of me?" she insisted, eyeing him steadily.
"That I wish you to believe in me — yes."
"Why?" she pursued, inexorable.
"Because … I've already told you."
"That you want someone's good opinion to cherish…. But why, of all people, me — whom you hardly know, of whom what little you do know is hardly reassuring?"
He coloured, and boggled his answer…. "I can't tell you," he confessed in the end.
"Why can't you tell me?"
He stared at her miserably…. "I've no right…."
"In spite of all I've said, in spite of the faith you so generously promise me, in your eyes I must still figure as a thief, a liar, an impostor — self-confessed. Men aren't made over by mere protestations, nor even by their own efforts, in an hour, or a day, or a week. But give me a year: if I can live a year in honesty, and earn my bread, and so prove my strength — then, perhaps, I might find the courage, the — the effrontery to tell you why I want your good opinion…. Now I've said far more than I meant or had any right to. I hope," he ventured pleadingly — "you're not offended."
Only an instant longer could she maintain her direct and unflinching look. Then, his meaning would no more be ignored. Her lashes fell; a tide of crimson flooded her face; and with a quick movement, pushing her chair a little from the table, she turned aside. But she said nothing.
He remained as he had been, bending eagerly toward her. And in the long minute that elapsed before either spoke again, both became oddly conscious of the silence brooding in that lonely little house, of their isolation from the world, of their common peril and mutual dependence.
"I'm afraid," Lanyard said, after a time — "I'm afraid I know what you must be thinking. One can't do your intelligence the injustice to imagine that you haven't understood me — read all that was in my mind and" — his voice fell — "in my heart. I own I was wrong to speak so transparently, to suggest my regard for you, at such a time, under such conditions. I am truly sorry, and beg you to consider unsaid all that I should not have said…. After all, what earthly difference can it make to you if one thief more decides suddenly to reform?"
That brought her abruptly to her feet, to show him a face of glowing loveliness and eyes distractingly dimmed and softened.
"No!" she implored him breathlessly — "please — you mustn't spoil it! You've paid me the finest of compliments, and one I'm glad and grateful for … and would I might think I deserved! … You say you need a year to prove yourself? Then — I've no right to say this — and you must please not ask me what I mean — then I grant you that year. A year I shall wait to hear from you from the day we part, here in Paris…. And to-night, I will go with you, too, and gladly, since you wish it!"
And then as he, having risen, stood at loss, thrilled, and incredulous, with a brave and generous gesture she offered him her hand.
"Mr. Lanyard, I promise…."
To every woman, even the least lovely, her hour of beauty: it had not entered Lanyard's mind to think this woman beautiful until that moment. Of her exotic charm, of the allure of her pensive, plaintive prettiness, he had been well aware; even as he had been unable to deny to himself that he was all for her, that he loved her with all the strength that was his; but not till now had he understood that she was the one woman whose loveliness to him would darken the fairness of all others.
And for a little, holding her tremulous hand upon his finger-tips as though he feared to bruise it with a ruder contact, he could not take his eyes from her.
Then reverently he bowed his head and touched his lips to that hand … and felt it snatched swiftly away, and started back, aghast, the idyll roughly dissipated, the castle of his dreams falling in thunders round his ears.
In the studio-skylight overhead a pane of glass had fallen in with a shattering crash as ominous as the Trump of Doom.
XIV
RIVE DROIT
Falling without presage upon the slumberous hush enveloping the little house marooned in that dead back-water of Paris, the shock of that alarm drove the girl back from the table to the nearest wall, and for a moment held her there, transfixed in panic.
To the wide, staring eyes that questioned his so urgently, Lanyard promptly nodded grave reassurance. He hadn't stirred since his first, involuntary and almost imperceptible start, and before the last fragment of splintered glass had tinkled on the floor above, he was calming her in the most matter-of-fact manner.
"Don't be alarmed," he said. "It's nothing — merely Solon's skylight gone smash!"
"You call that nothing!" she cried gustily. "What caused it, then?"
"My negligence," he admitted gloomily. "I might have known that wide spread of glass with the studio electrics on, full-blaze, would give the show away completely. The house is known to be unoccupied; and it wasn't to be expected that both the police and Popinot's crew would overlook so shining a mark…. And it's all my fault, my oversight: I should have thought of it before…. High time I was quitting a game I've no longer the wit to play by the rules!"
"But the police would never…!"
"Certainly not. This is Popinot's gentle method of letting us know he's on the job. But I'll just have a look, to make sure…. No: stop where you are, please. I'd rather go alone."
He swung alertly through to the hall window, pausing there only long enough for an instantaneous glance through