Then they both witnessed what they had never before seen in Jocelyn Thew. They saw his eyes blaze with a sudden concentrated fury. They saw his lips part and something that was almost a snarl transform and disfigure his mouth.
“Fight for England?” he exclaimed bitterly. “I would sooner cut off my right hand!”
His words left them at first speechless. He, too, after his little outburst seemed shaken, lacking in his usual sangfroid. It was Katharine who first recovered herself.
“But you are English?” she protested wonderingly.
“Am I?” he replied. “Will you forgive me if I beg you to change the subject?”
The subject was effectually changed for them by the advent of some of Richard Beverley’s brothers in arms. It was some time before they passed on. Then a little note almost of tragedy concluded the feast. A tall and elderly man, gaunt, with sunken cheeks, silver-white hair, complexion curiously waxen, and big, dark eyes, left the table where he had been sitting with a few Americans and came over towards them. His advance was measured, almost abnormally slow. His manner would have been melodramatic but for its intense earnestness. He stood at their table for a few seconds before speaking, his eyes fixed upon Jocelyn Thew’s in a curious, almost unnatural stare.
“You will forgive me,” he said. “I must be speaking to Sir Denis Cathley?”
Neither of the two young people, who were filled with wonder at the strange appearance of the newcomer, noticed Jocelyn Thew’s sudden grip of the tablecloth, the tightening of his frame, the ominous contraction of his eyebrows as for a moment he sat there speechless. Then he was himself again. He shook his head courteously.
“I am afraid,” he replied, “that you must be making some mistake. My name is Jocelyn Thew.”
“And mine,” the stranger announced, “is Michael Dilwyn. Is that name known to you?”
“Perfectly well,” Jocelyn Thew acknowledged. “I was present at the production of your last play in New York. I have since read with much regret,” he went on courteously, “of the losses you have sustained.”
The old man’s wonderful eyes flashed for a moment.
“They are losses I am proud to endure, sir,” he said. “But I did not come to speak of myself. I came to speak to Sir Denis Cathley.”
Jocelyn Thew shook his head.
“It is a likeness which deceives you,” he declared.
“A likeness!” the other repeated. “Nine weeks ago I stood in a ruined mansion — so dilapidated, in fact, that one corner of it is open to the skies. I listened to the roar of the Atlantic as I heard it in the same place fifty years ago. A herdsman and his wife, perhaps a girl or two, live somewhere in the back quarters. The only apartment in any sort of preservation is the one sometimes called the picture gallery and sometimes the banqueting hall. You should visit this ruined mansion, sir. You should visit it before you give me the lie when I call you Sir Denis Cathley.”
Jocelyn Thew’s hand for a moment shielded part of his face, as though he found the electric light a little strong. From behind the shelter of his palm his eyes met the eyes of his visitor. The latter suddenly turned and bowed to Katharine.
“You will forgive an old man,” he begged courteously, “who has seen much trouble lately, for his ill manners. Perhaps your friend here, your friend whose name is not Sir Denis Cathley, can explain to you why I felt some emotion at the sight of so wonderful a likeness.”
He bowed, murmured some broken words in reply to Katharine’s kindly little speech, and moved away. Jocelyn Thew’s eyes watched him with a curious softness.
“Yes,” he acknowledged, “I can tell you why, if he really saw a likeness in me to the person he spoke of, it might remind him of strange things. You know him by name, of course — Michael Dilwyn?”
“He wrote the wonderful Sinn Fein play, ‘The New Green,’ didn’t he?” Katharine asked eagerly. “I heard you mention it to him. My aunt and I were there at the first night.”
“He wrote that and some more wonderful poetry. He has spent more than half his life working for the cause of Ireland. He was the father and patriarch of the last rising. One of his sons was shot at Dublin.”
“And who is Sir Denis Cathley?”
“The Cathleys are another so-called revolutionary family,” Jocelyn Thew explained. “The late Sir Denis, the father of the man whom he supposed me to be, was Michael Dilwyn’s closest friend. They, too, have paid a heavy price for their patriotism or their rebellious instincts, whichever way you choose to look at the matter.”
“I think,” Katharine declared, “that Mr. Dilwyn is the most picturesque-looking man I ever saw. I don’t believe that even now he is altogether convinced as to your identity.”
“He has probably reached an age,” was the cool reply, “when his memory begins to suffer. — Ah! I see our friend Crawshay is taking counsel with Henshaw. They are looking in this direction. Richard, my young friend, you are in a bad way. Suspicion is beginning to fasten upon you. Believe me, one of my parasites will be on your track to-night. I can almost convince myself as to their present subject of conversation. They are preening themselves upon having seen through my subtle scheme. I am very sure they are asking themselves— ‘When is the transfer of documents to take place?’”
“It may all seem very humorous to you,” the young man remarked, a little sullenly, “but it leaves a sort of nasty flavour in one’s mouth, all the same. If they were to suspect me of trying to drop documents over the German lines except under instructions, it would mean a court-martial, even though they were unable to prove anything, and a firing party in five minutes if they were.”
“Take heart, my young friend,” Jocelyn Thew advised him, “and do not refuse the Courvoisier brandy which our saintly friend with the chain is proffering. If it is not indeed a relic of the Napoleonic era, it is at least drinkable. And listen — this may help you to drink it with zest — I am not going to ask you to drop any documents over the German lines.”
The thankfulness in Katharine’s face was reflected in her brother’s.
“Thank God for that!” he exclaimed, helping himself liberally to the brandy. “You know I’d find it hard to refuse you anything, Thew, but there are limits. Besides, you are never really out of sight there. We go out in squadrons, and from the height we fly at nothing I could drop would be very likely to reach its destination.”
Jocelyn Thew smiled coldly.
“My dear Richard,” he said, “I am not going to make you an unwilling partner in any foolhardy scheme such as you are thinking of, because that is just the Obvious thing that our friends who take so much interest in us would expect and prepare for. All the same, there is just a trifling commission which I will ask you to undertake for me, and which I will explain to you later. When do you leave?”
“Ten o’clock train from Charing Cross on Monday night,” the young man replied. “I have to fly on Tuesday morning.”
“Then if it pleases you we will all dine here that night,” Jocelyn Thew suggested, “and I will take you on to the Alhambra for an hour. Doctor Gant and I were there our first night in town, and we found the performance excellent. You will honour me, Miss Beverley?”
“I shall be delighted,” she answered, “but I am not at all sure that you will be able to get seats at the Alhambra.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“There is a great benefit performance there on Monday night,” she told him. “The house is closed now for rehearsals. All the stalls have gone already, and the boxes are to be sold by auction at the Theatrical Fête.”