Anna the Adventuress

Sir John was wholly unable to understand the laugh and semi-ironical

cheer which greeted his entrance to the smoking-room of the English

Club on the following evening. He stood upon the threshold, dangling

his eye-glasses in his fingers, stolid, imperturbable, mildly

interrogative. He wanted to know what the joke against him was--if

any.

"May I enquire," he asked smoothly, "in what way my appearance

contributes to your amusement? If there is a joke I should like to

share it."

A fair-haired young Englishman looked up from the depths of his easy

chair.

"You hear him?" he remarked, looking impressively around. "A joke!

Sir John, if you had presented yourself here an hour ago we should

have greeted you in pained silence. We had not then recovered from

thef shock. Our ideal had fallen. A sense of loss was amongst us.

Drummond," he continued, looking across at his _vis-a-vis_, "we look

to you to give expression to our sentiments. Your career at the bar

had given you a command of language, also a self-control not

vouchsafed to us ordinary mortals. Explain to Sir John our feelings."

Drummond, a few years older, dark, clean-shaven, with bright eyes and

humorous mouth, laid down his paper and turned towards Sir John. He

removed his cigarette from his lips and waved it gently in the air.

"Holcroft," he remarked, "in bald language, and with the usual

limitations of his clouded intellect, has still given some slight

expression to the consternation which I believe I may say is general

amongst us. We looked upon you, my dear Sir John, with reverence,

almost with awe. You represented to us the immaculate Briton, the one

Englishman who typified the Saxonism, if I may coin a word, of our

race. We have seen great and sober-minded men come to this unholy

city, and become degenerates. We have known men who have come here for

no other purpose than to prove their unassailable virtue, who have

strode into the arena of temptation, waving the--the what is it--the

white flower of a blameless life, only to exchange it with marvellous

facility for the violets of the Parisienne. But you, Ferringhall, our

pattern, an erstwhile Sheriff of London, a county magistrate, a

prospective politician, a sober and an upright man, one who, had he

aspired to it, might even have filled the glorious position of Lord

Mayor--James, a whisky and Apollinaris at once. I cannot go on. My

feelings overpower me."

"You all seem to be trying to pull my leg," Sir John remarked quietly.

"I suppose you'll come to the point soon--if there is one."

Drummond shook his head in melancholy fashion.

"He dissembles," he said. "After all, how easy the descent is, even

for the greatest of us. I hope that James will not be long with that

whisky and Apollinaris. My nerves are shaken. I require stimulant."