Anna the Adventuress

Like most men who lie but seldom, he lied well. Drummond smoked his

cigarette meditatively. He remembered that he had heard stories about

the wonderful likeness between these two sisters, one of whom was an

artist and a recluse, whilst the other had attached herself to a very

gay and a very brilliant little _coterie_ of pleasure-seekers. There

was a bare chance that he had been mistaken. He thought it best to let

the matter drop. A few minutes later Sir John left the room.

He walked out into the Champs Elysees and sat down. His cigar burnt

out between his fingers, and he threw it impatiently away. He had

seldom been more perturbed. He sat with folded arms and knitted brows,

thinking intently. The girl had told him distinctly that her name was

Anna. Her whole conduct and tone had been modest and ladylike. He went

over his interview with her again, their conversation at dinner-time.

She had behaved in every way perfectly. His spirits began to rise.

Drummond had made an abominable mistake. It was not possible for him

to have been deceived. He drew a little sigh of relief.

Sir John, by instinct and training, was an unimaginative person. He

was a business man, pure and simple, his eyes were fastened always

upon the practical side of life. Such ambitions as he had were

stereotyped and material. Yet in some hidden corner was a vein of

sentiment, of which for the first time in his later life he was now

unexpectedly aware. He was conscious of a peculiar pleasure in sitting

there and thinking of those few hours which already were becoming to

assume a definite importance in his mind--a place curiously apart from

those dry-as-dust images which had become the gods of his prosaic

life. Somehow or other his reputation as a hardened and unassailable

bachelor had won for him during the last few years a comparative

immunity from attentions on the part of those women with whom he had

been brought into contact. It was a reputation by no means deserved. A

wife formed part of his scheme of life, for several years he had been

secretly but assiduously looking for her. In his way he was critical.

The young ladies in the somewhat mixed society amongst which he moved

neither satisfied his taste nor appealed in any way to his affections.

This girl whom he had met by chance and befriended had done both. She

possessed what he affected to despise, but secretly worshipped--the

innate charm of breeding. The Pellissiers had been an old family in

Hampshire, while his grandfather had driven a van.

As in all things, so his thoughts came to him deliberately. He

pictured himself visiting the girl in this shabby little home of her

aunt's--she had told him that it was shabby--and he recalled that

delicious little smile with which she would surely greet him, a smile

which seemed to be a matter of the eyes as well as the lips. She was

poor. He was heartily thankful for it. He thought of his wealth for

once from a different point of view. How much he would be able to do

for her. Flowers, theatre boxes, carriages, the "open sesame" to the

whole world of pleasure. He himself, middle-aged, steeped in

traditions of the City and money-making, very ill-skilled in all the

lighter graces of life, as he himself well knew, could yet come to her

invested with something of the halo of romance by the almost magical

powers of an unlimited banking account. She should be lifted out of

her narrow little life, and it should be all owing to him. And

afterwards! Sir John drew his cigar from his lips, and looked upwards

where the white-lights flashed strangely amongst the deep cool green

of the lime-trees. His lips parted in a rare smile. Afterwards was the

most delightful part of all!...