The Philanderers | Page 3

spite of his intentions.
The actual settling down to the work, with the material duly ticketed at his elbow, in Drake's case Hugh Fielding dated back to a certain day towards the close of October.
Upon that afternoon the Dunrobin Castle from Cape Town steamed into Plymouth Harbour, and amongst the passengers one man stepped from the tender on to the quay and stood there absolutely alone. No one had gone out to the ship to meet him; no one came forward now on the quay-side, and it was evident from his indifference to the bystanders that he expected no one. The more careless of these would have accounted him a complete stranger to the locality, the more observant an absentee who had just returned, for while his looks expressed isolation, one significant gesture proved familiarity with the environments. As his eyes travelled up the tiers of houses and glanced along towards the Hoe, they paused now and again and rested upon any prominent object as though upon a remembered landmark, and each such recognition he emphasised with a nod of the head.
He turned his back towards the town, directing his glance in a circle. The afternoon, although toning to dusk, was kept bright by the scouring of a keen wind, and he noted the guard-ship on his right at its old moorings, the funnels rising like solid yellow columns from within a stockade of masts; thence he looked across the water to the yellowing woods of Mount Edgcumbe, watched for a moment or so the brown sails of the fishing-smacks dancing a chassez-croisez in the Sound, and turned back to face the hill-side. A fellow-passenger, hustled past him by half a dozen importunate children, extricated a hand to wave, and shouted a cheery 'See you in town, Drake.' Drake roused himself with a start and took a step in the same direction; he was confronted by a man in a Norfolk jacket and tweed knickerbockers, who, standing by, had caught the name.
'Captain Stephen Drake?'
'Yes. Why?'
The man mopped a perspiring face.
'I was afraid I had missed you. I should have gone out on the tender, only I was late. Can you spare me a moment? You have time.'
'Certainly,' answered Drake, with a look of inquiry.
The man in the knickerbockers led the way along the quay until he came to an angle between an unused derrick and a wall.
'We shall not be disturbed here,' he said, and he drew an oblong note-book and a cedar-wood pencil from his pocket.
'I begin to understand,' said Drake, with a laugh.
'You can have no objection?'
There was the suavity of the dentist who holds the forceps behind his back in the tone of the speaker's voice.
'On the contrary, a little notoriety will be helpful to me too.'
That word 'too' jarred on the reporter, suggesting a flippancy which he felt to be entirely out of place. The feeling, however, was quickly swallowed up in the satisfaction which he experienced at obtaining so easily a result which had threatened the need of diplomacy.
'O si sic omnes!' he exclaimed, and made a note of the quotation upon the top of the open leaf.
'Surely the quotation is rather hackneyed to begin with?' suggested Drake with a perfectly serious inquisitiveness. The reporter looked at him suspiciously.
'We have to consider our readers,' he replied with some asperity.
'By the way, what paper do you represent?'
The reporter hesitated a little.
'The Evening Meteor,' he admitted reluctantly, keeping a watchful eye upon his questioner. He saw the lips join in a hard line, and began to wonder whether, after all, the need for diplomacy had passed.
'I begin to appreciate the meaning of journalistic enterprise,' said Drake. 'Your editor makes a violent attack upon me, and then sends a member of his staff to interview me the moment I set foot in England.'
'You hardly take the correct view, if I may say so. Our chief when he made the attacks acted under a sense of responsibility, and he thought it only fair that you should have the earliest possible opportunity of making your defence.'
'I beg your pardon,' replied Drake gravely. 'Your chief is the most considerate of men, and I trust that his equity will leave him a margin of profit, only I don't seem to feel that I need make any defence. I have no objection to be interviewed, as I told you, but you must make it clear that I intend nothing in the way of apology. Is that understood?'
The pressman agreed, and made a note of the proviso.
'There is another point. I have seen nothing of the paper necessarily for the last few weeks. The Meteor has, I suppose, continued its--crusade, shall we call it?--but on what lines exactly I am, of course, ignorant. It will be better, consequently, that you should put questions and I