The other two started. A deep note of seriousness had come into the voice of the venerable old man. It portended something, something vast and far-reaching, and they all stood silent for a moment occupied with their own thoughts.
The distant music of piano and violin rose higher and higher in keen vibrating melody. There was a note of triumph in it which seemed to accentuate the gravity and importance of Lord Malvin's words. The triumphant notes of the man who was coming were singing and ringing through the halls and chambers of this great house!
The music ceased suddenly, and there was a great clapping of hands.
At that moment the three men waiting in the inner room saw a tall, black figure moving towards them, the figure of a man on whom people were beginning to press and converge, a figure that smiled, bowed, stopped continually to shake hands and receive greetings, and made a slow progress towards them.
Sir William Gouldesbrough, the man of the future, radiant, honoured and successful, was arriving to greet Lord Malvin, the man of the past.
CHAPTER XIV
DONALD MEGBIE SEES POSSIBILITIES
So Sir William Gouldesbrough passed through the crowds of friends and acquaintances who crowded round him in a welter of curiosity and congratulation, and came into the inner room, where Lord Malvin, Sir Harold Oliver and Mr. Donald Megbie were waiting to receive him.
Tall, suave, and self-contained, he bowed and shook hands. Then there was a moment's pause--they were waiting for him to speak, expectant of what he should say.
"I am sorry, Lord Malvin," he began, "that I have arrived so late at your party. But I was conducting an experiment, and when I was half-way through I found that it was going to lead me much further than I thought. You know how that happens sometimes?"
"Perfectly, Sir William, and the fact is a scientist's greatest pleasure very often. Now, may I ask you--you will excuse an old man's impatience--may I ask you if you have finally succeeded? When I last saw you the composition of the spectrum presented a difficulty."
"That I have now completely overcome, Lord Malvin."
Lord Malvin trembled, actually trembled with excitement. "Then the series of experiments is complete?"
"Quite. And more than that, I have done, not once or twice but many times, exactly what I told you I hoped to do. The thing, my lord, is an accomplished fact, indisputable--_certain_!"
Lord Malvin turned to Sir Harold Oliver and Megbie.
"Gentlemen," he said in a clear voice but full of a profound emotion.
"The history of life is changed. We all must stand in a new relation to each other, to society and to the world."
Donald Megbie knew that here was a chance of his literary lifetime. Lord Malvin would never have spoken in this way without due consideration and absolute conviction. Something very big indeed was in the air. But what was it? The journalist had not an idea as yet.
He looked eagerly at the aquiline, ascetic face of the inventor, marked the slight smile of triumph that lingered round the lips, and noted how the eyes shone, brilliantly, steadily, as if they were lighted up from behind. Megbie had seen many men in many countries.
And as he looked keenly at Sir William Gouldesbrough two thoughts came into his mind. One was something like this--"You are certainly one of the most intellectual and remarkable men now living. You are unique, and you stand upon a pedestal of fame that only one man in several generations ever reaches. All the same, I shouldn't like to be in your power or to stand in your way!" And moreover the question came to the quick analytic brain of the writer whether the brilliance of those lamp-like eyes was wholly natural, was wholly sane.
These twin thoughts were born and over in a flash, and even as he thought of them Megbie began to speak.
"Now that Lord Malvin has told us so much, Sir William," he said, "won't you tell us some more? I suppose you know that all the world is waiting for a pronouncement?"
"The world will know very soon, Mr. Megbie," Gouldesbrough answered pleasantly. "In about a fortnight's time I am sending out some invitations to some of our leading people to witness the result of my experiments in my laboratories. I hope I may have the pleasure of seeing you there also. But if you wish it, I will certainly give you a slight idea of the work. Since the public seem interested in what I am doing, and something seems to have leaked out, I am quite willing that they should know more. And of course there is no one to whom I would rather say anything than yourself."
Megbie bowed. He was tremendously excited. Brother writers who did not make a tenth of his income and had not a quarter of his eminence were wont to say that his ears twitched when in the presence of a great celebrity. This no doubt was calumny, but the journalist stood in an attitude of strained attention--as well a man might stand when the secret of the hour was about to be revealed to him in preference to all other men.
Gouldesbrough bowed to Lord Malvin.
"I'm going to have half-an-hour's conversation with Mr. Megbie," he said. "Meanwhile, my lord, I wonder if you would give Sir Harold Oliver a slight technical outline of my processes? And of course, as I understand this is to be in some sense a night on which your friends are to be given some general information, I shall place myself entirely in your hands as to any revelations you may think proper to make."
He moved off with the journalist, leaving the two other men already fallen into deep talk.
"Where shall we go, Mr. Megbie?" he said, as they came out into a large room hung with old Flemish tapestry and full of people.
"There is a little conservatory down a corridor here," Megbie answered. "I expect we should be quite undisturbed there. Moreover, we could smoke, and I know that you are like me, Sir William, a cigarette-smoker."
"That will do very well, then," Gouldesbrough answered, and they walked away together. Every one saw them go. Ladies nodded and whispered, gentlemen whispered and nodded to each other. The occasion was perfectly well understood. Sir William was telling Donald Megbie! By supper time it would be all over the rooms and the _Eastminster Gazette_ to-morrow afternoon would have all the details.
"Megbie is always chosen in affairs of this sort." "That's Megbie, the writing Johnny, who sort of stage-manages all these things." "The ubiquitous Donald has got him in his grip, and we shall soon know all the details"--these were the remarks made upon every side as the two men strolled through the rooms.
Then an incident that was much commented on next day in society, occurred quite suddenly. It created quite a little sensation and gave rise to a great deal of gossip.
Sir William and Mr. Megbie came to a part of the room where Lady Poole and her daughter Marjorie were standing talking to General Mayne of the War Office.
Lady Poole saw the scientist.
"Ah, William!" she said, somewhat loudly, and quite in her old manner of the days when Sir William and Marjorie were engaged. "So here you are, blazing with triumph. Every one's talking of you, and every one has been asking Marjorie if she knows what it is you've invented this time!"
Megbie, who knew both Lady Poole and her daughter, but did not wish to enter into a conversation just at this important moment, bowed, smiled at the old lady and the girl, and stood a little aside.
Gouldesbrough took Lady Poole by the hand and bent over it, saying something in a low voice to her. And once more society nodded and whispered as it saw the flush of pleasure in the lady's face and her gratified smile. Again society whispered and nodded as it saw Marjorie Poole shake hands with her _ex-fiance_, and marked the brightness of her beautiful eyes and saw the proud lips moving in words of friendship and congratulation.
What Gouldesbrough said in answer to Marjorie was this--
"It is so kind and good of you to be pleased, Marjorie. Nothing is more valuable to me than that. I am going to have half-an-hour with Donald Megbie now. I find that it's usual to tell the general public something at this stage. So I'm doing it through Megbie. He's safe, you know, and he understands one. But after that, will you let me take you in to have some supper? Do please let me! It would just make everything splendid, be the final joy, you know!"
"I should be very churlish to refuse you anything to-night, William,"
she answered sadly, but with great pride for him in her voice. "Haven't you done almost everything for me? You've done what no other living man would have done. I shall be very glad and feel very proud if you will come back here for me after you have talked to Donald Megbie."
Gouldesbrough went away with the journalist. In five minutes every one in Lord Malvin's house was saying that Marjorie Poole was engaged to Sir William Gouldesbrough once more.
Marjorie watched the two men go away. Her heart was full of pride and pain. She rejoiced that all this had come to the chivalrous gentleman who had been her lover and plighted husband. She felt each incident of his growing triumph with intense sympathy and pleasure. He had been so good to her! From the very first he had been splendid. If only she could have loved him, how happy would her lot have been as mate and companion to such a man as this! She was not worldly, but she was of the world and knew it well. She realized most completely all the advantages, the subtle pleasures that would belong to the wife of this great man. The love of power and dominion, the sense of a high intellectual correspondence with the finest brain of the day, the incense of a lofty and chivalrous devotion--all these, yes, all these, would be for the girl Sir William loved and wedded.
She half-wondered if such devotion as his had proved to be ought to go unrewarded.
Was it _right_? Had any girl a real excuse for making a man like William Gouldesbrough unhappy? Guy Rathbone had faded utterly out of life. The greatest skill, the most active and prolonged inquiry had failed to throw the slightest light upon his disappearance.
As a person, Guy had ceased to exist. He lived only as a memory in her heart. A dear memory, bitter-sweet--ah, sweet and bitter!--but no more a thing of flesh and blood. A phantom, a shadow now and for evermore!
Sir William and Donald Megbie sat in a small palm house talking earnestly together. A tiny fountain sent up its glittering whip of water from a marble pool on which water-lilies were floating, while tiny iridescent fish swum slowly round their roots. There was a silence and fragrance in the pleasant remote place, the perfume of exotic flowers, the grateful green of giant cacti which rested the eye.
Concealed electric lights shed their radiance upon fern, flower, and sparkling water, and both men felt that here was a place for confidences and a fit spot in which matters of import might be unfolded.