Flames. Robert Hichens
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or as a pianist," responded the man, rather enviously. "His looks would crowd St. James's Hall even if he couldn't play a note. I never can understand how Cresswell manages to have such a complexion in London. He must take precious good care of himself."
"Saints generally do. You see, we live for time, they for eternity. We only have to keep the wrinkles at bay for a few years, but they want to look nice on the Judgment Day."
She was a little actress, and at this point she laughed to indicate that she had said something smart. As her laugh was dutifully echoed by the man who was paying for the dinner, she felt deliriously clever for the rest of the evening.
Presently Julian said:
"I went to the club this afternoon."
"Did you?"
"Yes. I wanted to have a talk with that fellow Marr."
Valentine suddenly put down the glass of champagne which he was in the act of raising to his lips.
"But surely," he began, with some appearance of haste. Then he seemed to check himself, and finished calmly:
"You found him, I suppose?"
"No."
"I thought he was perpetually there, apparently on the lookout for you."
"Yes, but to-day he hadn't been in at all. Perhaps he has gone out of town."
"Ah, probably."
At this moment two men entered the restaurant and strolled towards the table next to that at which Valentine and Julian sat. One of them knew Julian and nodded as he passed. He was just on the point of sitting down and unfolding his napkin when a sudden thought seemed to strike him, and he came over and said to Julian:
"You remember that dinner at Lady Crichton's, where we met the other night?"
"Yes."
"Startling bit of news to-night, wasn't it? Damned sudden!"
Julian looked puzzled.
"What—is Lady Crichton ill, then?"
"Lady Crichton! No. I meant about that poor fellow, Marr."
Julian swung round in his seat and regarded the man full in the face.
"Marr! Why, what is it? Has he had an accident?"
"Dead!" the other man said laconically, arranging the gardenia in his coat, and taking a comprehensive survey of the room.
"Dead!" Julian repeated, without expression. "Dead!"
"Yes. Well, bye-bye. Going on to the Empire!"
He turned to go, but Julian caught his arm.
"Wait a moment. When did he die?"
"Last night. In the dead of the night, or in the early morning."
"What of?"
"They don't know. There's going to be an inquest. The poor chap didn't die at home, but in a private hotel, in the Euston Road, the 'European.' He's lying there now. Funny sort of chap, but not bad in his way. I expect—"
Here the man bent down and murmured something into Julian's ear.
"Well, see you again presently. 'In the midst of life,' eh?"
He lounged away and began applying his intellect to the dissection of a sardine.
Julian turned round in his chair and again faced Valentine. But he did not go on eating the cutlet in aspic that lay upon his plate. He sat looking at Valentine, and at last said:
"How horribly sudden!"
"Yes," Valentine answered sympathetically. "He must have had a weak heart."
"I dare say. I suppose so. Valentine, I can't realize it."
"It must be difficult. A man whom you saw so recently, and I suppose apparently quite well."
"Quite. Absolutely."
Julian sat silent again and allowed the waiter to take away his plate with the untouched cutlet.
"I didn't like the man," he began at last. "But still I'm sorry, damned sorry, about this. I wanted to see him again. He was an awfully interesting fellow, Val; and, as I told you, might, I believe, in time have gained a sort of influence over me—not like yours, of course, but he certainly had a power, a strength, about him, even a kind of fascination. He was not like other people. Ah—" and he exclaimed impatiently, "I wish you had met him."
"Why?"
"I scarcely know. But I should like you to have had the experience. And then, you are so intuitive about people, you might have read him. I could not. And he was a fellow worth reading, that I'm certain of. No, I won't have any mutton. I seem to have lost my appetite over this."
Valentine calmly continued his dinner, while Julian talked on about Marr rather excitedly. When they were having coffee Valentine said:
"What shall we do to-night? It is only a quarter past nine. Shall we go anywhere?"
"Oh no, I think not—wait—yes, we will."
Julian drank his coffee off at a gulp, in a way that would have made him the despair of an epicure.
"Where shall we go, then?"
Julian answered:
"To the Euston Road. To the 'European.'"
"The 'European'!"
"Yes, Valentine; I must see Marr once more, even dead. And I want you to see him. It was he who made the strangeness in our lives. But for him these curious events of the last days would not have happened. And isn't it peculiar that he must have died just about the time you were in your trance?"
"I do not see that. The two things were totally unconnected."
"Perhaps. I suppose so. But I must know how he died. I must see what he looks like dead. You will come with me?"
"If you wish it. But we may not be admitted."
"I will manage that somehow. Let us go."
Valentine got up. He showed neither definite reluctance nor excitement. They put on their coats in the vestibule and went out into the street. While they had been dining the weather, fine during the day, had changed, and rain was falling in sheets. They stood in the doorway while the hall-porter called a cab. Piccadilly on such a night as this looked perhaps more decisively dreary than a rain-soaked country lane, or storm-driven sand-dunes by the sea. For wet humanity, with wispy hair and swishing petticoats, draggled with desire for shelter, is a piteous vision as it passes by.
Valentine and Julian regarded it, turning up their coat collars and instinctively thrusting their hands deep into their pockets. Two soldiers passed, pursued by a weary and tattered woman, at whom they laughingly jeered as they adjusted the cloaks over their broad shoulders. They were hurrying back to barracks, and disregarded the woman's reiterated exclamation that she would go with them, having no home. A hansom went by with the glass down, a painted face staring through it upon the yellow mud that splashed round the horse's feet. Suddenly the horse slipped and came down. The glass splintered as the painted and now screaming face was dashed through it. A wet crowd of roughs and pavement vagabonds gathered and made hoarse remarks on the woman's dress as she was hauled out in her finery, bleeding and half fainting, her silk gown a prey to the mud, her half-naked shoulders a hostage to the wind. Two men in opera-hats, walked towards their club, discussing a divorce case, and telling funny stories through the rain. A very small, pale, and filthy boy stood with bare feet upon the kerbstone, and cried damp matches.
"How horrible London is to-night," Julian said as he and Valentine got into their cab.
"Yes. Why add to our necessary contemplation of its horrors? Why go on this mad errand?"
"I want you to see Marr," Julian replied, with a curious obstinacy.