The Mischief Maker | Page 6

Mrs. Carraby listened to his footsteps in the hall, heard his suave reply to his secretary, heard his orders to the footman who let him out. From where she stood she watched him cross the square. Already he had recovered his alert bearing. His shoes and his hat were glossy, his coat was of an excellent fit. The woman watched him without movement or any change of expression.

CHAPTER III
A RUINED CAREER
Sir Julien Portel stood in the middle of his bedroom, dressed in shirt and trousers only. The sofa and chairs around him were littered with portions of the brilliant uniform which he had torn from his person a few minutes before with almost feverish haste. His perplexed servant, who had only just arrived, was doing his best to restore the room to some appearance of order.
"You needn't mind those wretched things for the present, Richards," his master ordered sharply. "Bring the rest of the tweed traveling suit like the trousers I have on, and then see about packing some clothes."
The man ceased his task. He looked around, a little bewildered.
"Do I understand that you are going out of town tonight, Sir Julien?" he asked.
"I am going on to the continent by the nine o'clock train," was the curt reply.
Richards was a perfectly trained servant, but the situation was too much for him.
"You will excuse me, Sir Julien," he said, "but there is Lord Cardington's dinner tonight, and the reception afterwards at the Foreign Office. I have your court clothes ready."
His master laughed shortly.
"I am not attending the dinner or the reception, Richards. You can put those things back again and get me the traveling clothes."
The man seemed a little dazed, but turned automatically towards the wardrobe.
"Shall you require me to accompany you, sir?" he inquired.
"Not at present," Sir Julien replied. "You will have to come on with the rest of my luggage when I have decided what to do."
Richards was not more than ordinarily inquisitive, but the circumstances were certainly unusual.
"Do you mean, sir, that you will not be returning to London at present?" he ventured to ask.
"I shall not be returning to London for some time," Sir Julien answered sharply. "Get on with the packing as quickly as you can. Put the whiskey and soda on the table in the sitting-room, and the cigarettes. Remember, if any one comes I am not at home."
"Too late, my dear fellow," a voice called out from the adjoining room. "You see, I have found my way up unannounced--a bad habit, but my profession excuses everything."
The man stood on the threshold of the room opening out from the bedroom--tall, florid, untidily dressed, with clean-shaven, humorous face, ungloved hands, and a terribly shabby hat. He looked around the room and shrugged his shoulders.
"What an infernal mess!" he exclaimed. "Come along out into the sitting-room, Julien. I want to talk to you."
"I should like to know how the devil you got in here!" Sir Julien muttered. "I told the fellow downstairs that no one was to be allowed up."
"He did try to make himself disagreeable," the newcomer replied. "However, here I am--that's enough."
Sir Julien turned to his servant.
"Get on with your packing, Richards," he directed, "and let me know when you have finished."
Sir Julien followed his visitor into the sitting-room, closing the door behind him. His manner was not in the least cordial.
"Look here, Kendricks, old fellow," he said, "I don't want to be rude, but I am not in the humor to talk to any one. I have had a rotten week of it and just about as much as I can stand. Help yourself to a whiskey and soda, say what you have to say and then go."
The newcomer nodded. He helped himself to the whiskey and soda, but he seemed in no hurry to speak. On the contrary, he settled himself down in an easy-chair with the appearance of a man who had come to stay.
"Julien," he remarked presently, "you are up against it--up against it rather hard. Don't trouble to interrupt me. I know pretty well all about it. I said from the first you'd have to resign. There wasn't any other way out of it."
"Quite right," Julien agreed. "There wasn't. I've finished up everything to-day--resigned my office, applied for the Chiltern Hundreds, and I am going to clear out of the country to-night."
"And all because you wrote a foolish letter to a woman!" Kendricks murmured, half to himself. "By the bye, there's no doubt about the letter, I suppose?"
"None in the world," Julien replied.
"There's nothing that the Press can do to set you right?"
"Great heavens, no!" Julien declared. "No one can help me. I've no one to blame but myself. I wrote the letter--there the matter ends."
"And she passed it on to that shocking little bounder of a husband of