Hugo | Page 9

be almost deprived. 'I am Eve!' say
the mocking, melting eyes of the Southern woman, and so said
Camilla's eyes. No man could rest calm under that glance; no man
could forbear the attempt to decipher the hidden secrecies of its
message, and no man could succeed in the task.
Hugo felt that he had never seen this woman before.
And he might have been excused for feeling so; for instead of the black
alpaca, Camilla now wore a simple but effectively charming toilette
such as 'Hugo's' created and sold to women for the rapture of men in
summer twilights, and over the white dress was thrown a very rich
pearl-tinted opera-cloak, which only partly concealed the curves of the
shoulders, and poised aslant on the glistening coiffure was the identical
blue hat with its wide brims that had visited the dome seventeen hours
before. The total effect was calculated, perfect, overwhelming.
'I'm sorry to disturb you, Mr. Hugo,' said Camilla, throwing back her
cloak on the left side with a fine gesture, 'but I am in need of your
assistance.'
'Yes?' Hugo whispered, seating himself.
She had a low voice, rare in a blonde, and it thrilled him. And she was
so near him in the great chamber!
'I want you to tell me what plot I am in the midst of. What is the web
that has begun to surround me?'
'Plot?' stammered Hugo. 'Web?'

Her eyes flashed scrutinizingly on his face.
'You have a kind heart,' she said; 'everybody can see that. Be frank. Do
you know,' she asked in a different tone, 'or don't you, that you spoke
very gruffly to me this morning?'
'Miss Payne,' he began, 'I assure you--'
'I thought perhaps you didn't know,' she smiled calmly. 'But you did
speak very gruffly. Now, I have taken my courage in both hands in
order to come to you to-night. I may have lost my situation through it--I
can't tell. Whether I have lost my situation or not, I appeal to you for
candour.'
'Miss Payne,' said Hugo, 'it distresses me to hear you speak of a
"situation."'
'And why?'
'You know why,' he answered. 'A woman as distinguished as you are
must be perfectly well aware how distinguished she is, and perfectly
capable, let me add, of hiding her distinction from the common crowd.
For what purpose of your own you came into my shop, I can't guess.
But necessity never forced you there. No doubt you meant to avoid
getting yourself talked about; nevertheless, you have got yourself
talked about.'
'Indeed!' She looked at him sideways.
'Yes,' Hugo went on; 'several thousands of commonplace persons are
saying that I have fallen in love with you. Do you think it's true, this
rumour?'
'How can I tell you?' said she.
'Well, it is true!' he cried. 'It's doubly and trebly true! It's the greatest
truth in the world at the present moment. It is one of those truths that a
believer can't keep to himself.' He paused, expectant. 'A woman less

fine than you would have protested against this sudden avowal, which
is only too like me--too like Hugo. You don't protest. I knew you
wouldn't. I knew you knew. You asked for candour. You have it. I love
you.'
'Then, why,' she demanded firmly, with a desolating smile--'why do
you have me followed by your private detective?'
Hugo was caught in a trap. He had hesitated long before instructing
Albert Shawn to shadow Camilla, but in the end his desire for exact
knowledge concerning her, and his possession of a corps of detectives
ready to hand, had proved too much for his scruples. He had, however,
till that day discovered little of importance for his pains--merely that
her parents, who were dead, had kept a small milliner's shop in
Edgware Road, that her age was twenty-five, that she had come to his
millinery department with a good testimonial from an establishment in
Walham Green, that she lived in lodgings at Fulham and saw scarcely
anyone, and that she had once been a typewriter.
'The fact is--'
He stopped, perceiving that the 'fact' would not do at all, and that to
explain to the woman you love why you have spied on her is a
somewhat nice operation.
'Is that the way you usually serve us?' pursued Camilla, with a strange
emphasis on the word 'us' which maddened him.
'The fact is, Miss Payne,' he said boldly, sitting down as soon as he had
invented the solution of the difficulty, 'you will not deny that this
afternoon and this evening you have been in a position of some slight
delicacy. What your relations are with Mr. Francis Tudor I have never
sought to inquire, but I have always doubted the bonâ fides of Mr.
Francis