Winged Victory/Chapter 5

“The man who doesn't give luck her chance deserves never to know her.”

The words came to Fenton from over the low bank of flowers that divided the hotel conservatory, and involuntarily he glanced in the direction of the speaker. An elderly man, whose somewhat haggard features were half hidden by a heavy beard, had stopped a moment to light his cigar, and it was between puffs that he had addressed his remark to his companion. The latter, obviously considerably his junior, nodded, and something about the white, masklike face held Fenton's attention. He had a vague consciousness that he had seen it somewhere before, but as he grappled with the recollection, it slipped from him, leaving his memory blank.

“There's bad luck and good luck,” the man rejoined carelessly. “The coward naturally shrinks from an error in choice. But, as you say, the brave man takes his chance. Heroes are born gamblers.”

They passed on. For a moment Fenton stood irresolute, turning the snatch of conversation over in his brain. It seemed to him that the words had had their special significance. Luck! In his cast-iron life of work and duty luck had played no part, but here in this place it predominated like some god over the green tables where men staked sometimes life and rarely less than honor. It touched his elbow at every turn, reminding him of its presence and of endless possibilities. It came to him on the low, sensuous music, a throbbing, feverish pulse of restless emotion.

Impatiently he turned away. He had heard voices, and he was in no mood to meet either friend or stranger. The last weeks had dealt badly with him. The stubborn resolve with which he had set out had weakened with the consciousness of failure. For the barrier between Eileen and him had grown. She shrank from him, and they had gone from reserve to reserve till they had reached that impasse where explanation becomes impossible. He had lost her—how or why he could not tell; but with the knowledge of that loss had come the bitter knowledge of his need.

With compressed lips he turned and stepped out into the dimly lit alcove that led into the gardens. There he hesitated, and, caught by a familiar sound, glanced back. Eileen was coming toward him. He stood in the shadow. She did not see him, though her eyes were fixed in his direction. They were wide open and full of a wondering pain that gave the sweet, once vivacious face a look of pathetic wistfulness. Delisle walked at her side, his head bent. It was his voice that Fenton had heard.

“We may be recalled at any moment,” he said.

She stood still at that, and Fenton saw how her hand tightened on her fragile ivory fan.

“Both of you?” she asked.

“Yes—both of us. There are rumors of a grave kind and if war broke out—well, there would be not a moment to lose.”

“So that this may be our last evening?”

“Together—yes!”

The pause that followed seemed an eternity to the man standing in the shadows. He had not moved. He was not conscious of listening; he felt that he was being held up by a relentless destiny to witness the lifting of a curtain from something incredible. Delisle had looked up and his face was white and almost expressionless.

“You have been happy here?” he asked quietly.

“No—not happy, Oscar.”

“I had hoped”

“You know that I have not.” And suddenly she held out her hands with a gesture of helpless appeal. “Oscar, I'm in the dark. I feel as if everything were unreal, untrue. A few weeks ago I was happy—I had everything. I had my husband—I loved him and believed in him. And then came that night, and I knew what he had done—and perhaps I could have forgiven him, but he lied to me, and since then”

“Surely he has done his best,” Delisle interrupted sharply. “He has brought you here, as he promised. He gives you everything you wish”

“Does he?”

The question fell with an icy significance into the midst of the man's impulsive protest.

“Does he?” she repeated.

“Eileen—what is it? What are you asking?”

“I am asking for the truth,” she returned, with a dignity that was new to her. “My father is ruined. My husband had nothing. Yet we have come here and nothing has changed in our lives. Who has done this for us?”

There was no answer. Fenton Villiers involuntarily threw back his head. He was looking at his friend—waiting. Delisle did not speak or move. But the look of strained suspense was gone. There was something like smothered relief—almost triumph—in his resolute silence.

“Why did you do it, Oscar?” she pleaded brokenly.

And still he did not speak. He smiled down at her with a wistfulness and a self-mockery that were like a light thrown into darkness. Fenton did not hear the low cry of distress that broke from his wife's lips. He had already turned and slipped out into the gardens.

In the distance the Casino shone like a white, luxurious pearl set in a somber sapphire. Fenton walked steadily, and without haste. There was nothing about him to attract attention, yet as he passed through the doorway that led into the first of the brilliant gambling dens, an attendant glanced at him with the keenness of recognition. The expression, if not the face, was familiar enough.

A crowd three deep clustered around the first green table. Fenton waited patiently for his place. It was very quiet all around him. The only sound was the level call of the croupier and then the subdued whir of the roulette and the magic, mocking jangle of money swept like a golden torrent from the fateful squares. On the other side of the table the elderly man with the pale, emaciated features watched the changes of fortune with calm interest. He was not playing, but once, at a peculiar run of luck, he smiled, and, looking up, met Fenton's eyes. The smile lingered as if in recognition.

“The man who doesn't give luck her chance deserves never to know her.”

To Fenton the words had been spoken aloud. A well-dressed woman in front of him turned with a shrug of her bare shoulders and a little gust of hysterical laughter. Under the rouge her face looked old and gray.

“You can have my place and my luck!” she said.

Fenton bowed and let her pass. He had in his hand a sheaf of paper money which he threw down carelessly without counting it. In the interval of waiting, his eyes traveled across the table to the man opposite and encountered the same half-amused, half-kindly scrutiny. The whirring, the faint stir on either hand, reminded him that luck had again spoken. He looked down and saw that the green square was empty. For a moment he did not move, then he turned, and, as quietly and unobtrusively as he had come, traversed the great room to the exit.

“May I speak with you a moment?”

Villiers, standing on the first of the broad steps that led down to the dusky garden, glanced back without surprise. It seemed to him, in his overstrained state, that' he knew this man and that their meeting here had long been inevitable.

“With pleasure. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“You would favor me with the permission to walk with you back to your hotel.”

“I am not returning to my hotel—just yet.”

“May I at least go with you as far as you are going?”

“Part of the way at least,” Fenton returned, with grim amusement.

“I thank you.” For a moment he was silent. “Might I take your arm?” he asked then. “I am an old man and not strong. Walking is, in fact, forbidden me.”

“In which case, would it not be wiser for you to return?”

“No, I am interested, and to be interested is to be young again. I am interested in you, Mr. Villiers.” He waited a moment as if giving his companion an opportunity to speak, and then added thoughtfully, “That was a big bid for fortune. Two hundred pounds on one figure—that alone is unusual.”

“I gave luck her chance,” Fenton returned in the same careless tone, “and she turned me down.”

“And now you are going to blow your brains out.”

Fenton stopped short.

“How did you know that?”

“I knew it as well as the plain-clothes detective who watched you come down the stairs and is now making all the preparations necessary to smoothing the affair over prettily. And all for two hundred pounds, Mr. Villiers? Is life so cheap?”

“No.” Fenton walked on again steadily. “It is worth other things—which I have also lost.”

“Ah, yes—friendship, our faith in ourselves and in some one dear to us I understand. And if that two hundred pounds had come back to you trebled?”

“I would have paid my debt.”

“A debt of honor?”

“Yes.”

“And afterward?”

“It would have been the same.”

The elder man was silent. They had reached a narrow balustrade that overlooked the sea, and there, as if by mutual consent, they stopped, facing each other. A curious luminousness that seemed to rise like a mist from the still water lit up the sharply chiseled features of the stranger, and again a swift sense of recognition vibrated amidst Fenton's memories.

“Mr. Villiers,” the elder man began quietly, “I followed you to-night because I know you and enough of you to wish to save you. I do not know, it is true, exactly what disaster has driven you finally to madness, but I tell you that it is not too late to turn back, to turn that disaster into triumph. You smile. You are very young, Mr. Villiers. Is it a friend who has failed you? There are other and better friends waiting you. Is it a woman's love you have lost? It can be won back. There is nothing that can't be won back by success. You still smile. You think me a crazy old man. Would it make you think more seriously of what I say if I told you that I was the one expert who passed a favorable verdict on your invention?”

He was silent again, his sunken eyes shining with a curious brilliancy, and then, as Fenton did not move, he went on, with a restrained, yet passionate insistence:

“I was the only one against a dozen, Mr. Villiers. But I believed in you. I saw what the others could got see—the endless possibilities of your discovery. I followed you here. I am not a rich man, but I mean to back you with every penny I possess. Will you live for it?”

“It is too late.”

“You don't care? Mr. Villiers, you are an Englishman. The hour of your country's danger is at hand. Is it nothing to you that you could add a great wall to her defenses? Have you thought of that?”

“I am thinking,” came the rough answer.

The man came closer. He laid a hand on Fenton's arm, and his voice sank to a persuasive gentleness.

“And you will be great—and rich, Mr. Villiers. You will pay your debt of honor—you will win back all you have lost. 1s that nothing to you?”

“My God—who are you?”

“A friend—an Englishman like yourself, with the same hope, the same enthusiasm. There is my card. I have a villa here on the outskirts. Come to me to-morrow night. We will draw up our plans together. In a few months the government shall see with its own eyes. Will you live for that, Mr. Villiers?”

The younger man drew himself upright. His clenched hands rested on the balustrade, and his eyes were fixed intently seaward, as on some new-risen vision of the future.

“If there were any hope of that” he muttered.

“There is hope. Will you come?” Villiers nodded silently.