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Drexley let him go, despising himself, with a vague feeling of irritation, too, against the beautiful face which smiled at him from his table. Douglas's one idea was to get out of the place. He had no wish to see Rice or any one. But on the landing he came face to face with the latter, who had not as yet gone into his room. "Hullo," he exclaimed. "You're soon off.
He chaffed back again and held his own as usual, but not a soul, save perhaps Drexley, understood him in those days. Then there came to him one day a sudden fear. She was surely ill or she had disappeared. He caught up his hat and coat and walked swiftly to Grosvenor Square. He reached the house and stopped short in front of it. It seemed to him to have a gloomy, almost an uninhabited appearance.
For Douglas Jesson there was a future never more bright than now. "Come," he said. "You must drink with me once. Waiter, two more liqueurs." "Success," Rice cried, lifting his glass, "to your interview with Drexley! He's not a bad chap, although he has his humours." Douglas drained his glass to the dregs but he drank to a different toast. The two men left the place together.
"It's awfully good of you, Drexley," Douglas declared, but Drexley was bowing to Cicely. All the gratitude the heart of man could desire was in those soft brown eyes and flushed cheeks. "I see you've nearly finished," Drexley said. "I am only in time to offer you liqueurs.
He turned back with a rare smile upon his lips and laid his hand upon Douglas's shoulder. "Your cousin is charming, Jesson," he said. "I'll never be able to thank you enough for this evening. For the first time I have felt that after all there may be a chance for me." "I'm very glad," Douglas answered "very glad indeed." Drexley looked at him curiously.
Douglas went off to his club with a keen sense of having acquired a new interest in life. He was in that mood when companionship of some sort is a necessity. "You think," Drexley said, his deep, bass voice trembling with barely-restrained passion, "that we are all your puppets that you have but to touch the string and we dance to your tune. Leave young Jesson alone, Emily.
Drexley wandering about, seeing never a face he knew, felt ill at ease, conscious of his own deficiency in dress and deportment, in a world where form was the one material thing, and a studhole shirt or an ill-cut waistcoat were easy means of acquiring notoriety.
But I'll have the truth. I'll have no lonely nights when doubts of you creep like hideous phantoms about the room, and Drexley and Strong come mocking me. Oh, forgive me, but you don't know what solitude is. Be merciful, Emily. Trust me." She had turned white. The hands she held out to him trembled. "Douglas," she cried, "if you have any love for me at all you must have faith in me too.
Drexley frowned and turned back to his letters. "Never mind that," he said. "I've good reasons for what I'm telling you to do. Jesson's story is not to appear until I give the word." The manager withdrew without a word. Drexley went on with his correspondence. In a few minutes there was another knock at his door. He looked up annoyed.
And there are also women," Drexley continued, with voice not quite so steady, "who have the opposite gift, who are absolutely heartless, wholly unscrupulous, as cold as adders, and who are continually promising with their eyes, and lips, and their cursed manner what they never intend to give.
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