Mr. Sabin

“ Sabin, that so great a man should talk with him so earnestly? He was looking up now, he was going to speak. What was he going to say? Harcutt held his breath. The idea of moving away never occurred to him now.
“Yet,” Mr. Sabin said slowly, “your country should be a low bidder. The importance of such a thing to you must be less than to France, less than to her great ally. Your relations here are close and friendly. Nature and destiny seemed to have made you allies. ”

“ Sabin’s champagne, having first satisfied himself as to the absence of any probability of fog. Mr. Watson, too, was making an effort to appear amiable, and his wife, though her colour seemed a trifle hectic and her laughter not altogether natural, contributed her share to the conversation. Mr. Sabin alone was curiously silent and distant. Many times he had escaped death by what seemed almost a fluke; more often than most men he had been at least in danger of losing it. ”

“ Sabin answered, “but it was scarcely necessary; you stopped to speak to him of your own accord, and you asked him to supper, which was scarcely discreet.”
“One gets so bored sometimes,” she admitted frankly.
“You are only a woman,” he said indulgently; “a year of waiting seems to you an eternity, however vast the stake. There will come a time when you will see things differently.”
“I wonder!” she said softly, “I wonder!”
Mr. Sabin had unconsciously spoken the truth when he had pleaded an appointment to Lord Wolfenden. His servant drew him on one side directly they entered the house. ”

“ Sabin’s face, no longer pleasant and courteous, had taken to itself some very grim lines.
“I am a weak man, Mr. Horser, but I am never without the means of self-defence,” Mr. Sabin said in a still, cold tone. “Be so good as to sit down in that easy-chair.”
Mr. Horser hesitated. For one moment he stood as though about to carry out his first intention. He stood glaring at his opponent, his face contracted into a snarl, his whole appearance hideous, almost bestial. Mr. Sabin smiled upon him contemptuously—the maddening, compelling smile of the born aristocrat. ”

“ Helène had been sitting through the meal, still and statuesque in her black dinner gown, a little more pale than usual, and very silent. At Mr. Sabin’s remark she looked up quickly.
“Are you alluding to Lord Wolfenden?” she asked.
Mr. Sabin lit his cigarette, and nodded through the mist of blue smoke.
“To no less a person,” he answered, with a shade of mockery in his tone. “I am beginning to find my guardianship no sinecure after all! Do you know, it never occurred to me, when we concluded our little arrangement, that I might have to exercise my authority against so ardent a suitor. ”

“ Sabin?”
“Nothing whatever,” she answered promptly. “How I should like to tell you everything! But I have made a solemn promise, and I must keep it. My lips are sealed. But one thing I should like you to understand, in case you have ever had any doubt about it. Mr. Sabin is really my uncle, my mother’s brother. He is engaged in a great enterprise in which I am a necessary figure. He has suddenly become very much afraid of you.”
“Afraid of me!” Wolfenden repeated. ”

“ Sabin’s carriage. He himself took the opposite seat.
“I had no idea,” Mr. Sabin remarked, “that you were in the neighbourhood.”
Felix smiled.
“You have been so engrossed in your—golf,” he remarked. “It is a fascinating game, is it not?”
“Very,” Mr. Sabin assented. “You yourself are a devotee, I see.”
“I am a beginner,” Felix answered, “and a very clumsy beginner too. I take my clubs with me, however, whenever I go to the coast at this time of year; they save one from being considered a madman.”
“It is singular,” Mr. Sabin remarked, “that you should have chosen to visit Cromer just now. ”

“ The girl rose up. She came over and stood before him. Mr. Sabin knew at once that something unusual was going to happen.
“You want to make of him,” she said, in a low, intense tone, “what you make of every one—a tool! Understand that I will not have it!”
“Helène!”
The single word, and the glance which flashed from his eyes, was expressive, but the girl did not falter.
“Oh! I am weary of it,” she cried, with a little passionate outburst. “I am sick to death of it all! You will never succeed in what you are planning. One might sooner expect a miracle. I shall go back to Vienna. ”

“ In the ante-room Mr. Sabin stopped.
“My watch,” he remarked, “was fast. You will have time after all for a cigarette with your friends. Good-night.”
Wolfenden had no alternative but to accept his dismissal. A little, white hand, flashing with jewels, but shapely and delicate, stole out from the dark fur of her cloak, and he held it within his for a second.
“I hope,” he said, “that at any rate you will allow me to call, and say goodbye before you leave England?”
She looked at him with a faint smile upon her lips. Yet her eyes were very sad. ”

“ Mr. Sabin said suavely, as he commenced filling in the body of the cheque. “Are all your sisters, may I ask, as delightful as you?”
She looked at him defiantly.
“Look here,” she said, “none of that! Of course you wouldn’t come, but in any case I won’t have you. The girls are—well, not like me, I’m glad to say. I won’t have the responsibility of introducing a Mephistocles into the domestic circle.”
“I can assure you,” Mr. Sabin said, “that I had not the faintest idea of coming. My visit to Norfolk will be anything but a pleasure trip, and I shall have no time to spare. ”

“ Be wise, friend. This is a disappointment to you; well, is not our life one long torturing disappointment? What of us, indeed? We are like the waves which beat ceaselessly against the sea-shore, what we gain one day we lose the next. It is fate, it is life! Once more, friend, remember! Farewell!”
Mr. Sabin was left alone, a martyr to his thoughts. Already it was past the hour for Knigenstein’s visit. Should he remain and brave the storm, or should he catch the boat-train from Charing Cross and hasten to hide himself in one of the most remote quarters of the civilised world? ”

“ Her face was as innocent and proud as the face of a child. She was unconscious even of his close scrutiny. The man might be anything; it might even be that every word that Felix had spoken was true. But of the girl he would believe no evil, he would not doubt her even for a moment.
“Your friend,” remarked Mr. Sabin, helping himself to an ortolan, “is a journalist, is he not? His face seems familiar to me although I have forgotten his name, if ever I knew it.”
“He is a journalist,” Wolfenden answered. “Not one of the rank and file—rather a dilettante, but still a hard worker. ”

“ Am I the first man whose footsteps upon the sands have fallen lightly? Now, what is it you want to ask me, Lord Wolfenden?”
Wolfenden was in no way disturbed at the man’s coming. On the contrary, he was glad of it. He answered boldly and without hesitation.
“I want to marry your niece, Mr. Sabin,” he said.
“Very natural indeed,” Mr. Sabin remarked easily. “If I were a young man of your age and evident taste I have not the least doubt but that I should want to marry her myself. I offer you my sincere sympathy. Unfortunately it is impossible.” ”

“ By dinner time he would be calm, the opera would soothe him still more, and by the time it was over he would be quite ready to take Mademoiselle Somebody out to supper. With the first glass of champagne his sorrow would be drowned for ever. If any wound remained at all, it would be the wound to his vanity.”
“You have considered, then, the possibility of upsetting my schemes and withdrawing your part?” Mr. Sabin said quietly. “You understand that your marriage with Henri would be an absolute necessity—that without it all would be chaos?” ”

“ Sabin himself,” Felix answered, “but almost the same thing. It was Foo Cha, his Chinese servant who has just arrived in England. Have you any idea where Mr. Sabin is?”
They both shook their heads.
“I do not know,” Wolfenden said, “but I am very anxious to find out. I have an account to settle with him!”
“And I,” Felix murmured in a low tone, “have a very much longer one against him. To-night, if I am not too late, there will be a balance struck between us! I have lost Foo Cha, but others, better skilled than I am, are in search of his master. They will succeed, too! They always succeed. ”

“ Sabin appeared upon the pavilion tee, followed by a tall, dark young man carrying a bag of golf clubs. Mr. Sabin, on the other hand, was inclined to be sardonically cheerful.
“Your handicap,” he remarked, “is two. Mine is one. Suppose we play level. We ought to make a good match.”
Wolfenden looked at him in surprise.
“Did you say one?”
Mr. Sabin smiled.
“Yes; they give me one at Pau and Cannes. My foot interferes very little with my walking upon turf. All the same, I expect you will find me an easy victim here. Shall I drive? ”

“ You are sacrificing yourself. To talk of marrying a man whom you do not love is absurd. Who are you? If you do not tell me, I shall go to your guardian. I shall go to Mr. Sabin.”
“Mr. Sabin is always at your service,” said a suave voice almost at his elbow. “Never more so than at the present.”
Wolfenden turned round with a start. It was indeed [Pg 153] Mr. Sabin who stood there—Mr. Sabin, in unaccustomed guise, clad in a tweed suit and leaning upon an ordinary walking-stick. ”

“ Sabin answered. “In fact, I may say, that I have tasted it—on the tip of my finger.”
“And yet,” the captain remarked, laughing, “you are alive.”
“And yet I am alive,” Mr. Sabin echoed. “But there is nothing very wonderful in that. I am poison-proof.”
Mr. Watson was in the act of raising a hastily filled glass [Pg 360] to his lips when his eyes met Mr. Sabin’s. He set it down hurriedly, white to the lips. He knew, then! Surely there must be something supernatural about the man. A conviction of his own absolute impotence suddenly laid hold of him. He was completely shaken. ”

“ All has been locked in the breasts of a few. The thing is full-fledged when it is hatched upon the world. It has grown strong in darkness. You understand me?”
“Yes; I think that I understand you,” Mr. Sabin said, his piercing eyes raised now from the ground and fixed upon the other man’s face. “You have given me food for serious thought. I shall do nothing further till I have talked with you again.”
Harcutt suddenly and swiftly withdrew. ”

“ He will not leave the smoking-room until the lights are put out.”
“In an ordinary way,” he remarked, “that must be dull for you.”
“In an ordinary way, and every way,” she answered in a low tone, “I am always dull. But, after all, I must not weary a stranger with my woes. Tell me about yourself, Mr. Sabin. Are you going to America on pleasure, or have you business there?”
A faint smile flickered across Mr. Sabin’s face. He watched the white ash trembling upon his cigar for a moment before he spoke. ”

“ Wolfenden said slowly. “I will talk with Lady Deringham again. She is in an extremely nervous state; it is possible of course that she may have misunderstood you.”
Mr. Sabin sighed with an air of gentle relief. Ah! if the men of other countries were only as easy to delude as these Englishmen! What a triumphant career might yet be his!
“I am very glad,” he said, “that you do me the honour to take, what I can assure you, is the correct view of the situation. I hope that you will not hurry away; may I not offer you a cigarette?” ”

“ He stakes his all upon one single venture, and, win or lose, he has no second throw. Failure is absolute, and spells despair.
In such unhappy state was Mr. Sabin. More than ten days had passed since the tragedy in Boston Harbour, and now he sat alone in a private room in a small but exclusive [Pg 384] hotel in New York. He had affected no small change in his appearance by shaving off his imperial and moustache, but a far more serviceable disguise was provided for him by the extreme pallor of his face and the listlessness of his every movement. ”

“ He passed on, and they both watched his slim figure lost in the throng of passers-by.
“He is a great man,” she murmured. “He knows how to bear defeat.”
“He is a great man,” Wolfenden answered; “but none the less I am not sorry to see the last of Mr. Sabin!” ”

“ Everywhere treasures of art, yet everywhere the restraining hand of the artist. The faint smell of dead rose leaves hung about the room. Already one seemed conscious of a certain emptiness as though the genius of the place had gone. Mr. Sabin leaned heavily upon his stick, and his head drooped lower and lower. A soft, respectful voice came to him from the other room.
“In five minutes, sir, the carriage will be at the door. I have your coat and hat here.”
Mr. Sabin looked up.
“I am quite ready, Duson!” he said.
The servants in the hall stood respectfully aside to let him pass. ”

“ Knigenstein groaned. “I must go and telegraph. But Souspennier, one word.”
Mr. Sabin looked up.
“You are a brave man and a patriot; you want to see your country free. Well, why not free it still? You and I are philosophers, we know that life after all is an uncertain thing. Hold to your bargain with us. It will be to your death, I do not deny that. But I will pledge the honour of my country, I will give you the holy word of the Emperor, that we will faithfully carry out our part of the contract, and the whole glory shall be yours. You will be immortalised ”

“ Harcutt answered.
Wolfenden was getting puzzled.
“Mr. Sabin interests you professionally?” he repeated slowly. “Then you have learnt something. Mr. Sabin has an identity other than his own.”
“I suspect him to be,” Harcutt said slowly, “a most important and interesting personage. I have learnt a little concerning him. I am here to learn more; I am convinced that it is worth while.”
“Have you learnt anything,” Wolfenden asked, “concerning his niece?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Harcutt answered decidedly. “I may as well repeat that my interest is in the man alone. I am not a sentimental person at all. ”