COMETHUP DRIVES A BARGAIN.

It scarcely occurred to Comethup until after he had started on his chase what a mad business it all really was. He was in a mood more than once to turn back, to let this cousin take his own path; the feverish desire was upon him to be with ’Linda—even, perhaps, by reason of the other’s desertion, to creep a little nearer into her life. But that thought was a blasphemy. After all, this man who had left her was the one man she loved, the one man she ever would love; if Comethup would play the part he had set himself, the part of loyal friend, he must bring that man back.

He had made a careless, half-jesting excuse to his aunt, and had stated that he would be back again within a few days. And now, in Paris, he wondered how he should set about his quest, or in what quarter of the city he should discover the runaway. He had no clew. Brian knew Paris well, and it was impossible to say where he would take up his abode, especially if, as his father had hinted, he had a companion. However, the search had to be made, and it was begun within an hour of Comethup’s arrival in the city.

For two long days and nights he scarcely rested, going to every place of amusement, from the highest to the lowest; scanning the faces of people who passed him in the streets; standing at the doors of theatres and dancing-halls, and watching every one wherever the life of the city beat most thick and fast. And at last his patience was rewarded.

He was sitting in a cafÉ late on the afternoon of the third day, miserably turning over the matter in his mind and almost giving up the business as hopeless; he had a paper in his hand, but had not read a line of it. Suddenly, from the street where the lamps were beginning to gleam, Brian Carlaw came swinging in and took a seat near the door. Comethup raised the paper so as to hide his own face, and peered round it at his cousin. He was glad, for one thing, to find him alone; but he felt that it would be impossible to broach the subject in a public place, or even to confront him. For the present he must merely watch and be careful that his quarry did not again escape him.

Brian proved to be in a restless mood. After but a few minutes, and when he had only half consumed the refreshment he had ordered, he looked at his watch and got up and went out. Comethup dropped the paper, and followed him. Brian walked rapidly, evidently having a settled destination in view; at last he turned in at the door of a small hotel in a side street, and the door closed behind him.

Comethup waited for some moments and then followed him; discovered from the servant the number of Brian’s room, and ran up the stairs. Without pause of any kind he knocked sharply at the door, turned the handle, and went in. His cousin had divested himself of his coat and waistcoat, and was evidently preparing to dress for the evening; he turned round quickly on hearing the movement at the door, and looked in astonishment at his visitor. Then gradually a smile stole over his face, and he cried out to Comethup with great cordiality:

“Why, my dear boy, what on earth does this mean? How did you discover me? I thought I was hidden from all the world.”

“Yes,” said Comethup, “I suppose you did. I have been searching for you for nearly three days. I followed you home just now.”

Something in his voice caused Brian’s face to change; the mirthful light went out of it, and his lips, so pleasantly smiling a moment before, became a hard, thin line. He advanced a little from the dressing table where he had been standing, and looked at the other with a frown. “What the devil should you follow me for? What do you want?”

Comethup backed away to the door, turned the key in the lock, and dropped the key in his pocket. His voice was very cool and steady when he spoke, only in his own ears it sounded as though some one else were speaking far away. “There’s something I want to say to you—something that must be said now. Are you listening?”

“Damn your impudence!” cried the other. “You were always a crack-brained fellow. What’s your game now, that you force your way into my room like this and lock me in? Do you want to murder me?”

“I am not quite sure,” said Comethup, with a strange little laugh. “It might come to that, perhaps; it depends upon yourself—Come away from that bell”—for Brian had made a dash at the white electric button in the wall—“or, by God, I’ll strangle you before any one can get this door open! And I’m a stronger man than you are; I’ve had a better training.”

Brian came back to the dressing table in a sidelong, furtive fashion, watching Comethup narrowly. “Well, what do you wish? I don’t want to have a scene, and I may tell you that I have no time to waste. I’m going out.”

“Not yet,” replied Comethup. “You’ve lots of time before we catch the night train.”

“The night train!” echoed Brian. “What the devil do I want with the night train?”

“To take you back to London,” said Comethup calmly. “I’m just going to explain, and it will be well for you to listen quietly. I know that it’s quite useless to appeal to you; I’ve learned that long since. So now I’ll put it more brutally, and tell you what you must do.”

“Go on,” said Brian sneeringly; “when one deals with a madman I suppose the best way is to humour him; at least I’ve always been told so.”

“I don’t want to say anything about myself; that would be rather out of place,” began Comethup in his slow, soft voice. “But I want to speak of some one else—of your wife. I heard, quite by accident, that you had deserted her; left her, for aught that you cared, to starve; that you had come here after another woman. I suppose you won’t—won’t think it worth while to deny all that?”

“Why should I? You seem to have got the story pretty accurately. What’s it to do with you?”

“Everything,” replied Comethup. “That’s what has brought me here. You don’t suppose I’d be racing about Paris for two or three days after you for the pleasure of the thing, do you? I said I wasn’t going to speak about myself, but I find I must. This girl, ’Linda, the sweetest and brightest it was ever a man’s good fortune to win—this girl loves you; would give, I think, her immortal soul for you. Yet, at a whim, a caprice, you fling her aside, careless whether you break her heart, or——”

“Break her heart! Hearts are not so easily broken; even I can tell you that, although I am a poet. Besides, what the devil’s her heart got to do with you?”

“More than you can understand. I think I’d give everything I have in the world to spare her any pain. I’m afraid you can’t understand what that feeling is. I’d give my very soul to save her from tears or sorrow, to prevent any one of her ideals from being shattered. If I could die and know that in dying I gave her any greater happiness—well, my life wouldn’t be worth an hour’s purchase from this moment—Oh, I forgot; you don’t understand all that. But there’s one thing you shall understand: you’re going back with me to London to-night.”

“Indeed? You seem to have made up your mind about that. If you take so deep an interest in ’Linda, why the devil don’t you let me go my own way and—well, look after her yourself?”

The words were nothing; it was the horrible smile that played about Brian’s lips—the sneering suggestion that he knew of the love in the other man’s mind, and triumphed in the knowledge; it was all this that maddened Comethup. With a cry he threw himself upon the other and forced him to his knees, and kept a grip upon his throat sufficient to stifle the life out of him had he kept it there long. “You coward! I’ve bandied words with you too long; I’ve told you things that are as far from your ken as the knowledge of the stars. Get up”—he dragged him to his feet and flung him off—“and get on that coat! I’ll waste no more time in talking. I won’t lose sight of you until I see you in your own home.”

“Well, and if I refuse?” said Brian sullenly, glaring at the other like a creature at bay.

Comethup laughed quietly and glanced round the room; buttoned his coat swiftly and came at his cousin slowly, steadily, without once taking his eyes from the eyes that shifted uneasily before his. “Why, if you refuse, I’ll kill you! Don’t think that’s a threat merely; we’re near the top of this house, and I can choke the life out of you long before any one breaks in this door, or even before you can give the alarm. Understand—I’m desperate; I’ve staked everything on this, and I won’t hesitate. Now, as we stand man to man, I’ll tell you what you may have guessed before. I love your wife; to me she’s higher even than the angels. And my love has this quality—that life and death and heaven and hell are nothing, mere words, compared with my love for her, compared to what that love would make me do. It’s a madness, isn’t it, friend Brian, that a man may love a woman so well that he would kill another man rather than see her trust in that other betrayed? She thinks nothing of me. How should she? If I killed you, she would never cease to revile my memory and hold you up as a martyr; there’s where the madness comes in. But that would be best for her, better than that she should find you out. Do you understand me?”

Brian looked at him curiously for a few moments and then began to laugh in a foolish, half-nervous fashion, as though he had suddenly been confronted with something he did not understand, and scarcely knew what attitude to take toward it. “Well, you’re more mad than I thought you were,” he said at last. “Suppose I go back to London, do you think I’m going to settle down in that dull house all my days? I tell you I’m made of different stuff. I want life, movement, music, laughter about me; a dull old dog like you can’t understand that.”

“You shall have them all,” said Comethup eagerly. “Come, I’ll make no one-sided bargain; let’s understand one another. I’ve shown you my hand, shown you the reason for this thing I’m doing. Don’t think I’m doing it for your sake; you needn’t flatter yourself to that extent. In all these things I put her first—her happiness is the great thing. Now, if I ask you to take up again a life which you say is distasteful, I’ll take upon myself to make it sweet. You shall have what money you want; I have a large income now, and when—God forgive the thought, but you force me to say it—when my aunt dies I shall be a very rich man. If you do this thing, I swear to you you shall never need money; that’s all it’s in my power to do, as a complete outsider, for the woman I love. She won’t ever know it, and you—well, you can keep her happy.”

“Oh, yes, I can do that,” said the other easily. “You talk of your love for her; you know you might strive all your days, you poor beggar, and never come nearer her heart; might spend every farthing you have in the world on her, and she would scarcely feel grateful to you. That’s where I’ve got the pull of you. She’s grateful to me if she can win a smile from me at any hour of the day; she’s so wrapped up in me that the simple words ‘my dear,’ flung carelessly to her, are more to her than the most impassioned love-speech could be from you or any one else. I don’t know what it is”—he went on with a laugh, tossing his hair back from his forehead—“but I have that power over women; I may even flout and insult them, and, by God! I think they like me the better for it.—Well, I don’t see the fun of risking starvation if it can be avoided, and, after all, you’re pretty safe. I’ll go back to London; but mind, I hold you to your word. If you care so much for her happiness, by the Lord, you shall pay for it!”

“I’ll pay you what you like,” said Comethup quietly. “But one word more: what brought you over here? Who’s the woman?”

“What a dear old moralist you are!” exclaimed Brian, laughing. “I suppose you’re afraid I may be deserting some one else, eh? Well, let me tell you for your comfort that she’s rich; that she’s taken a fancy to me, held up a beckoning finger, and I—well, I followed. I dare say she’d have dropped me in a month or two, when she found that her poet was like most other men, so perhaps it’s as well that you’ve rescued me. And, when I come to think of it, it will be quite in keeping with my character that I should rush away at a moment’s notice, without even an apology. You see, we poor devils are always supposed to do the most unexpected things—never anything proper or regular, you know. Upon my word, now I come to think of it, this will be better than dangling after her. She’ll think all the more highly of me.”

“Let us hope so,” said Comethup. “Now, as I think we understand each other clearly, I’ll leave you; I’ll come to you in time for us to catch the train. I must get my things from the hotel.” He moved toward the door, hesitated a moment, and then came back again. “On second thoughts, I won’t leave you. Pack up your things and come with me now; we can dine together.”

“I see, you don’t trust me?” said Brian with a sneer.

“Frankly, I don’t; you’ve scarcely given me reason to do so. And the game is too desperate for me to run any risks.”

Brian shrugged his shoulders and began to get his things together. He stopped once or twice and glanced rebelliously at his cousin; but Comethup sat on the side of the bed, with his hands on his hips, looking steadily at him—a figure not to be reasoned with, or argued out of anything he had determined upon.

The dinner at Comethup’s hotel passed in silence until almost the finish; then Brian, warmed by wine, looked up at the man opposite, and shook his head at him rallyingly, and spoke in his most charming and playful manner: “My dear old boy, when I’m dead you shall write my biography, the whole amazing business—’pon my word, you shall!”

“No,” said Comethup, shaking his head; “I don’t think—I’m quite sure I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you see,” replied Comethup gravely, “you’ve done so many things I don’t understand; I might—might misinterpret them. Employ some one who doesn’t know you.”

They crossed to England together and went on to London. Comethup left his own luggage at the London terminus and would have parted there with Brian; but the latter had a devilish scheme in his head—a well-contrived and carefully-thought-out piece of cruelty—the only revenge of which he was capable for his defeat. “I’m not going to leave you here,” said Brian; “you’ve got to come on to the house with me, come in with me, and see your work concluded. By God! I’m not going to have the thing half done; you’ve undertaken it, and you shall see it through to the bitter end. Oh, yes, you shall see the touching reconciliation between husband and wife; you shall stand, figuratively, with uplifted hands to bless them.”

“I—I’d rather not,” said Comethup hastily. “Why not meet her in quite the usual fashion, and—and make what excuses you will for your absence?”

“Not a bit of it. I’m not going to let you off so easily. I shall say we met in Paris and travelled over together. I tell you you sha’n’t get out of it.”

“Do you insist?”

“I do. You shall find, friend Comethup, that you don’t have things all your own way; we don’t part until you leave me safely in the bosom of my family. You can’t trust me, you know,” he added sneeringly.

They drove together to the house. But for that hidden side of the picture the return of the prodigal would have been a matter for laughter. Mr. Robert Carlaw was in the hall, affected almost to tears; he haughtily brushed aside the servant who would have assisted with the luggage, and valorously staggered under its weight himself, murmuring between gasps, “My son, my beloved son!” Comethup would have made his escape, but Brian caught him by the arm and dragged him into the room where ’Linda was. She started up and ran to her husband; he took her with excessive tenderness into his arms, casting a side glance at his cousin.

“Why, my darling,” he cried, “you hug me as though you feared you had lost me altogether. Surely you know my erratic behaviour by this time? I had to rush off to Paris on business—business that admitted of no delay.—Kiss me again, my love; why, you’re almost crying!—and in Paris I met Comethup—dear old moral Comethup in Paris; think of it! So we travelled home together. Oh, you needn’t be ashamed of your tears or your joy before Comethup; he doesn’t mind—do you, old chap?”

With his arm about her he drew her down beside him on a settee, and looked past her at Comethup with a smile of triumph in his eyes; held her closer and closer yet, with little tender caresses for her hands and her hair, that each might be a stab for the man who stood looking on.

“And I have some good news for you, my sweetheart. In Paris I conducted my business so well that I made quite a lot of money; we’ll be able to live in glorious style. We’ll give up this stuffy house—what do you think of that, friend Comethup?—and we’ll have a better one, and more servants; and, by Heaven! you shall drive a carriage. We’ll give dinners, and go out, and mix with people; you shall be the best-dressed woman in London. What do you think of that, old Comethup?”

“Oh, but I don’t want all those things,” said ’Linda softly, nestling to him. “So that I have you it would not matter, even if we were poor.”

“Nonsense, my darling! there’s no talk of poverty; I tell you we’re rich.” He burst into a roar of laughter. “By ’Jove! I’d no idea that poetry could ever pay so well. But there, while we are spooning and thinking about ourselves, we’re forgetting old Comethup. I dare say he’ll want to be going?”

“Yes,” said Comethup slowly, “I think I’ll be going. Good-night, ’Linda, good-night!”

He was crossing the little hall when Brian dashed out of the room after him, closing the door behind him. He came up to Comethup with his face completely changed, with the hard look upon it which it had worn during their interview in the hotel at Paris.

“Look here, you know,” he said quickly, “let’s have no misunderstanding about this. A bargain’s a bargain; I’ve fulfilled my part, now it’s your turn.”

“I’m not likely to forget,” replied Comethup.

“Well, we want money at once. I’m going to take you at your word. You want to see this comedy played out, and, by Heaven! you’ll have to pay for staging it. It’s a fair bargain: you have the fun of looking on, and I’ve got to play. Did I play my part well to-night?”

Comethup looked at him for a moment and made a movement as though he would strike him; then let his hand fall and turned away. “Almost too well,” he said.

“Ah, there I don’t agree with you; one can’t play a part too well.—So I shall expect to hear from you—say, to-morrow?”

“Yes, you shall hear from me to-morrow.”

Mr. Robert Carlaw was hovering about near the hall door with a look of expectancy on his face, and a hand darting out to seize Comethup if possible. But Comethup was in no mood to be stopped; he thrust him aside and went out, and walked rapidly down the street. “’Linda, ’Linda, my poor ’Linda!” he whispered. “God grant he plays his part well to the end!”