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Updated: May 20, 2025
Sharp shouted, pressing with his whole weight against the door. "Let me see her! the villain! Mounseer Glendore! No, no, Herbert Daker!" The power of observation is at its quickest in moments of intense excitement. I remember looking with the utmost calmness at Sharp's face and figure, as he stood gasping before the door of Herbert Daker's lodging. It was the head of a satyr in anger.
He fanned her; and she sought his eyes incessantly with the deep pure blue of hers, and slaked her ever-thirsty love with long, passionate gazing. She took no notice of me: he was all her world. Daker was in an airy humour a man I thought without guile or care, passing away from England to happy connubial times along the enchanting shores which the Mediterranean bathes.
"I see," Bertram continued, much relieved at finding his revelation forestalled in its chief episodes; "I see there is not much to tell you. You are pretty well posted up. I cannot see why you should look so savage; Mrs. Daker is no relation of yours." "No!" I shouted, for I could not hold my passion "had she been " "You would have the right to call me to account.
When I remembered our conversation about Daker, his light, airy, unconcerned manner, and the consummate deceit which effectually conveyed to me the idea that he had never heard the name of Daker, I was inclined to turn upon him, and let him know I was not altogether in the dark. Again, at the ball, he had carried off the introduction to Mrs.
His voice fell as he pronounced the name. "I deceived you, my dear Q. M., when I affected unconcern and ignorance." "I know it, Bertram," was my answer. "But that is unimportant: go on." "I met Mrs. Daker at her hotel, very soon after she arrived in Paris. She talked about you; and I happened to say that I knew you. We were friends at once." "More than friends."
While he dwelt on himself with all the volubility and wearying detail of a wholly selfish man, I was eager to catch the least clue to a history that interested me much more deeply than his; and in which I had good reason to suspect he had not borne an honourable part. The gossips had confirmed the fears which Mrs. Daker had created. I had picked up scraps here and there which I had put together.
I passed away from Baden, and Bertram passed out of my mind. I had not seen him again when I spent those eventful few days at Boulogne with Hanger. Another year had gone, and I had often thought over the death scene of Daker, and Sharp's trudges about Paris in search of his niece. I could not help him, for I was homeward bound at the time, and shortly afterwards was despatched to St. Petersburg.
I took him into a quiet café and ordered breakfast. His face and voice recalled to me all the Daker story; and I felt that I was touching another link in it. He avoided my eye. He grasped the bottle greedily, and took a deep draught. The wine warmed him, and loosed "the jesses of his tongue." He had a long tale to tell about himself!
The old girl had designs on Bertram when he first turned up; and the Daker affair cast her plot to the winds. Mrs. Daker, you remember, was at old Tayleure's place Rue d'Angoulême!" "A pretty business that was. But who the deuce was Daker?" "Bad egg." The threads of this story lay in a tangle in Paris, in Boulogne, and in Kent!
Bertram was right here. Then what had become of Mrs. Daker? Daker, if alive, was a scoundrel, and one who had contrived to take care of himself. But that sweet country face! Here was a heart that might break, but would never harden. "Mystery it must and will remain, I suppose." "One of many," was Bertram's gay reply. "How they overload these matches with sulphur!" He was lighting his cigar.
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