The Zeppelin's Passenger
table and order lunch. When he came back, he found Philippa sitting very
upright and with a significant glitter in her eyes.
“Look over there,” she whispered, “by the palm.”
He followed the direction which she indicated. A man was standing
against one of the pillars, talking to a tall, dark woman, obviously a
foreigner, wrapped in wonderful furs. There was something familiar about
his figure and the slight droop of his head.
“Why, it's Sir Henry!” Lessingham exclaimed, as the man turned around.
“My husband,” Philippa faltered.
Sir Henry, if indeed it were he, seemed afflicted with a sudden
shortsightedness. He met the incredulous gaze both of Lessingham and his
wife without recognition or any sign of flinching. At that distance it
was impossible to see the tightening of his lips and the steely flash in
his blue eyes.
“The whiting seem to have brought him a long way,” Philippa said, with
an unnatural little laugh.
“Shall I go and speak to him?” Lessingham asked.
“For heaven's sake, no!” she insisted. “Don't leave me. I wouldn't have
him come near me for anything in the world. It is only a few weeks ago
that I begged him to come to London with me, and he said that he hated
the place. You don't know--the woman?”
Lessingham shook his head.
“She looks like a foreigner,” was all he could say.
“Take me in to lunch at once,” Philippa begged, rising abruptly to her
feet. “This is really the last straw.”
They passed up the stairway and within a few feet of where Sir Henry
was standing. He appeared absorbed, however, in conversation with his
companion, and did not even turn around. Philippa's little face
seemed to have hardened as she took her seat. Only her eyes were still
unnaturally bright.
“I am so sorry if this has annoyed you,” Lessingham regretted. “You
would not care to go elsewhere?”
“I? Go anywhere else?” she exclaimed scornfully. “Thank you, I am
perfectly satisfied here. And with my companion,” she added, with a
brilliant little smile. “Now tell me about New York. Have you ever been
there?”
“Twice,” he told her. “At present the dream of my life is to go there
with you.”
She looked at him a little wonderingly.
“I wonder if you really care,” she said. “Men get so much into the habit
of saying that sort of thing to women. Sometimes it seems to me they
must do a great deal of mischief. But you--Is that really your wish?”
“I would sacrifice everything that I have ever held dear in life,” he
declared, with his face aglow, “for its realization.”
“But you would be a deserter from your country,” she pointed out. “You
would never be able to return. Your estates would be confiscated. You
would be homeless.”
“Home,” he said softly, “is where one's heart takes one. Home is just
where love is.”
Her eyes, as they met his, were for a moment suspiciously soft. Then
she began to talk very quickly of other things, to compare notes of
countries which they had both visited, even of people whom they had met.
They were obliged to leave early to catch their train. As they passed
down the crowded restaurant they once more found themselves within a few
feet of Sir Henry. His back was turned to them, and he was apparently
ignorant of their near presence. The party had become a partie Carríe,
another man, and a still younger and more beautiful woman having joined
it.
“Of course,” Philippa said, as they descended the stairs, “I am behaving
like an idiot. I ought to go and tell Henry exactly what I think of him,
or pull him away in the approved Whitechapel fashion. We lose so much,
don't we, by stifling our instincts.”
“For the next few minutes,” he replied, glancing at his watch, “I think
we had better concentrate our attention upon catching our train.”
They reached King's Cross with only a few minutes to spare. Grover,
however, had already secured a carriage, and Helen was waiting for them,
ensconced in a corner. She accepted the news of Lessingham's return with
resignation. Philippa became thoughtful as they drew towards the close
of their journey and the slow, frosty twilight began to creep down upon
the land.
“I suppose we don't really know what war is,” she observed, looking
out of the window at a comfortable little village tucked away with a
background of trees and guarded by a weather-beaten old church. “The
people are safe in their homes. You must appreciate what that means, Mr.
Lessingham.”
“Indeed I do,” he answered gravely. “I have seen the earth torn and
dismembered as though by the plough of some destroying angel. A few
blackened ruins where, an hour or so before, a peaceful village stood;
men and women running about like lunatics stricken with a mortal fear.
And all the time a red glow on the horizon, a blood-red glow, and little
specks of grey or brown lying all over the fields; even the cattle
racing round in terror. And every now and then the cry of Death! You are
fortunate in England.”
Philippa leaned forward.
“Do you believe that our turn will come?” she asked. “Do you believe
that the wave will break over our country?”
“Who can tell?”
“Ah, no, but answer me,” she begged. “Is it possible for you to land an
army here?”
“I think,” he replied, “that all things are possible to the military
genius of Germany. The only question is whether it is worth while.
Germans are supposed to be sentimentalists, you know. I rather doubt it.
There is nothing would set the joybells of Berlin clanging so much as
the news of a German invasion of Great Britain. On the other hand,
there is a great party in Germany, and a very far-seeing one, which is
continually reminding the Government that, without Great Britain as a
market, Germany would never recover from the financial strain of the
war.”
“This is all too impersonal,” Philippa objected. “Do you, in your heart,
believe that the time might come when in the night we should hear the
guns booming in Dreymarsh Bay, and see your grey-clad soldiers forming
up on the beach and scaling our cliffs?”
“That will not be yet,” he pronounced. “It has been thought of. Once it
was almost attempted. Just at present, no.”
Philippa drew a sigh of relief.
“Then your mission in Dreymarsh has nothing to do with an attempted
landing?”
“Nothing,” he assured her. “I can even go a little further. I can tell
you that if ever we do try to land, it will be in an unsuspected place,
in an unexpected fashion.”
“Well, it's really very comforting to hear these things at first-hand,”
Philippa declared, with some return to her usual manner. “I suppose we
are really two disgraceful women, Helen and I--traitors and all the rest
of it. Here we sit talking to an enemy as though he were one of our best
friends.”
“I refuse to be called an enemy,” Lessingham protested. “There are times
when individuality is a far greater thing than nationality. I am just a
human being, born into the same world and warmed by the same sun as you.
Nothing can alter the fact that we are fellow creatures.”
“Dreymarsh once more,” Philippa announced, looking out of the window.
“And you're a terribly plausible person, Mr. Lessingham. Come round and
see us after dinner--if it doesn't interfere with your work.”
“On the contrary,” he murmured under his breath. “Thank you very much.”
CHAPTER XVIII
Sir Henry was standing with his hands in his pockets and a very blank
expression upon his face, looking out upon the Admiralty Square. He was
alone in a large, barely furnished apartment, the walls of which were
so hung with charts that it had almost the appearance of a schoolroom
prepared for an advanced geography class. The table from which he had
risen was covered with an amazing number of scientific appliances, some
samples of rock and sand, two microscopes and several telephones.
Sir Henry, having apparently exhausted the possibilities of the outlook,
turned somewhat reluctantly away to find himself confronted by an
elderly gentleman of cheerful appearance, who at that moment had entered
the room. From the fact that he had done so without knocking, it was
obvious that he was an intimate.
“Well, my gloomy friend,” the newcomer demanded, “what's wrong with
you?”
Sir Henry was apparently relieved to see his visitor. He pushed a chair
towards him and indicated with a gesture of invitation a box of cigars
upon his desk.
“Your little Laranagas,” he observed. “Try one.”
The visitor opened the box, sniffed at its contents, and helped himself.
“Now, then, get at it, Henry,” he enjoined. “I've a Board in
half-an-hour, and three dispatches to read before I go in. What's your
trouble?”
“Look here, Rayton,” was the firm reply, “I want to chuck this infernal
hole-and-corner business. I tell you I've worked it threadbare at
Dreymarsh and it's getting jolly uncomfortable.”
The newcomer grinned.
“Poor chap!” he observed, watching his cigar smoke curl upwards. “You're
in a nasty mess, you know, Henry. Did I tell you that I had a letter
from your wife the other day, asking me if I couldn't find you a job?”
Sir Henry waited a little grimly, whilst his friend enjoyed the joke.
“That's all very well,” he said, “but we are on the point of a
separation, or something of the sort. I'll admit it was all right at
first to run the thing on the Q.T., but that's pretty well busted up by
now. Why, according to your own reports, they know all about me on the
other side.”
“Not a doubt about it,” the other agreed. “I'm not sure that you haven't
got a spy fellow down at Dreymarsh now.”
“I'm quite sure of it,” Sir Henry replied grimly. “The brute was
lunching with my wife at the Carlton to-day, and, as luck would have it,
I was landed with that Russian Admiral's wife and sister-in-law. You're
breaking up the happy home, that's what you're doing, Rayton!”
His lordship at any rate seemed to find the process amusing. He laughed
until the tears stood in his eyes.
“I should love to have seen Philippa's face,” he chuckled, “when she
walked into the restaurant and saw you there! You're supposed to be off
on a fishing expedition, aren't you?”
“I went out after whiting,” Sir Henry groaned, “and I'd just promised to
chuck it for a time when I got the Admiral's message.”
“Well, we'll see to your German spy, anyway,” his visitor promised.
“Don't be an ass!” Sir Henry exclaimed irritably. “I don't want the
fellow touched at present. Why, he's been a sort of persona grata at my
house. Hangs around there all the time when I'm away.”
“All the more reason for putting an end to his little game, I should
say,” was the cheerful reply.
“And have the whole neighbourhood either laughing at my wife and Miss
Fairclough, or talking scandal about them!” Sir Henry retorted.
“I forgot that,” his friend confessed ruminatively. “He's a gentlemanly
sort of fellow, from what I hear, but a rotten spy. What do you want
done with him?”
“Leave him for me to deal with,” Sir Henry insisted. “I have a little
scheme on hand in which he is concerned.”
Rayton scratched his chin doubtfully.
“The fellow may not be such a fool as he seems,” he reminded his friend.
“I won't run any risks,” Sir Henry promised. “I just want him left
there, that's all. And look here, Rayton, you know what I want from you.
I quite agreed to your proposals as to my anonymity at the time when I
was up in Scotland, but the thing's a secret no longer with the people
who count. Every one in Germany knows that I'm a mine-field specialist,
so I don't see why the dickens I should pose any longer as a sort of
half-baked idiot.”
Rayton's eyes twinkled.
“You want to play the Wilson Barrett hero and make a theatrical
disclosure of your greatness,” he laughed. “Poor Philippa will fall
upon her knees. You will be the hero of the village, which will probably