Anyway, she faced the situation with a courage that one could not refuse to admire. By two o'clock that same day the servants had been paid their wages, the keys of the furnished house handed over to the agent, and Mrs. Pomfret had departed for London.
Murchison could never forget that terrible time till something came that seemed to dwarf all other things. In August, nineteen hundred and fourteen, there burst the first storm of the war which shook the world to its centre. In the blood-soaked plains of France he forgot everything except his country.
Jack Pomfret and Norah Burton seemed dim memories in those strenuous times of the world's upheaval. And yet, when he had a moment's leisure to think of the past, he felt a savage longing to be even with that fair-faced, smiling adventuress who had driven his poor young friend to a suicide's grave.
|It's a good proposition, old man. You couldn't employ a couple of hours better. I have been in London Society of all sorts for the best part of my life, and I tell you that Stella Keane is the most charming girl I have ever met."
The speaker was little Tommy Esmond, short, genial, and rotund of person. Tommy knew everybody who was anybody, and everybody knew the mercurial Tommy.
Guy Spencer puffed leisurely at his cigar, and regarded his rotund little friend with an amused smile. Spencer was about thirty, Tommy was old enough to be his father. But he wore well.
"Most excellent Tommy, how many times have I heard you say the same thing? Every girl you come across is the most charming you have ever met--until one sees you the next week. And then, the last girl has the super-charm--like the young lady you just mentioned, Miss Stella Keane."
But Esmond was not to be rebuffed by a clumsy attempt at humour on the part of a young man so much his junior. Besides, Tommy was impervious to humour. It fell off him, like water from a duck's back. In his way he was a very strenuous little man, he had no time to frivol.
"Don't try to be funny, old man: it doesn't suit you. Be sensible, and come round with me to Mrs. L'Estrange's flat and be introduced to Miss Keane."
"It's an interesting suggestion, Tommy, but before I decide tell me first--who is Mrs. L'Estrange, and secondly, who and what is Miss Keane?"