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He had not kept his word. Rochester rose to his feet with a little exclamation. "He shall tell me!" he muttered to himself, "or I will expose him, if I have to turn detective and follow him round the world." He swung round again across the Park toward Mayfair, and rang the bell at Saton's new house. Mr. Saton was not at home, he was informed, but was expected back at any moment.
It's blackmail, pure and simple. I wonder Huntley dare tackle it. It might mean five years' penal servitude for him." "He'd give you away before he went to penal servitude," Violet remarked. "You may make yourself jolly sure of that." Saton passed his hand across his forehead. "Phew!" he said. "How stuffy this place is! Violet, I wish you'd go round to Huntley, and talk to him.
"How are you going to live, then?" she asked curiously. "You're not the sort of man to go back to poverty." Saton considered for a moment. After all, perhaps it would pay him best to be straightforward with this girl. He would tell her the truth. If she were disagreeable about it, he could always swear that he had been joking. "Violet," he said, "I will tell you what I am going to do.
"Too experienced," Madame remarked. "Perhaps too good a judge of your sex. Who else?" "Lady Marrabel." "A very beautiful woman, I have heard," Madame remarked. "Also young, I believe. Also, I presume, a victim." "It is not kind of you," Saton protested. "These women were staying in the house. One has to make oneself agreeable to them."
Saton leaned towards her till he seemed even about to spring. "You could not see his face?" he said. There was no answer. Two of the women behind were sobbing now. A third was lying back, half unconscious. Rochester had risen to his feet. The faces of all of them seemed suddenly to reflect a new and nameless terror. Saton moved slowly towards Pauline. He moved unsteadily.
Why do you allow him to worry you?" "I think," Lois answered, "that I do like him. Oh, I must like him, Maurice!" "Yes?" he answered. "Don't let us talk about him. He has gone away now. Come with me to the other end of the Park. Let us hurry...." Saton walked on until he saw a certain mauve parasol raised a little over one of the seats.
She had resented some contemptuous speech of his, and as though to mark her sense of his lack of generosity, she had encouraged Saton to talk, encouraged him to talk until the other conversation had died away, and the whole room had listened to this exponent of what he declared to be a new science. The fellow was a poseur and an impostor, Rochester told himself vigorously.
Vandermere was conscious that in some way the girl by his side was changed. She drew a little away from him. "Very well," she said, "I shall be pleased to go in and see her. You do not mind, Maurice?" "Not at all," he answered. "If I may be allowed, I will come with you." There was a moment's silence. Then Saton spoke quietly, regretfully.
Vandermere, an ordinarily intelligent but unimaginative Englishman, of the normally healthy type, a sportsman, a good fellow, and a man of breeding and Saton, this strange product of strange circumstances, externally passable enough, but with something about him which seemed, even in that clear November sunshine, to suggest the footlights.
"There isn't much to be wrung from life," Saton answered bitterly, "that one doesn't pay for." "A little later on," Rochester said, "it will give me very much pleasure to hear something of your adventures. At present, I fear that I must deny myself that pleasure. My wife has done me the honor to make me one of her somewhat rare visits, and my house is consequently full of guests."
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