The Great Impersonation by E. Phillips Oppenheim (books to read now txt) 📕

He moved his chair deliberately a little nearer, took her hand and raised it to his lips. Her face was perilously near to his. She drew a little back⁠—and too abruptly.

“My dear Everard,” she whispered, “Henry is in the house! Besides⁠—Yes, I suppose you must be Everard. Just now there was something in your eyes exactly like his. But you are so stiff. Have you been drilling out there or anything?”

He shook his head.

“One spends half one’s time in the saddle.”

“And you are really well off?” she asked again wonderingly.

“If I had stayed there another year,” he replied, “and been able to marry a Dutch Jewess, I should have qualified for Park Lane.”

She sighed.

“It’s too wonderful. Henry will love having his money back.”

“And you?”

She looked positively distressed.

“You’ve lost all your manners,” she complained. “You make love like a garden rake. You should have leaned towards me with a quiver in your voice when you said those last two words, and instead of that you look as though you were sitting at attention, with a positive glint of steel in your eyes.”

“One sees a woman once in a blue moon out there,” he pleaded.

She shook her head. “You’ve changed. It was a sixth sense with you to make love in exactly the right tone, to say exactly the right thing in the right manner.”

“I shall pick it up,” he declared hopefully, “with a little assistance.”

She made a little grimace.

“You won’t want an old woman like me to assist you, Everard. You’ll have the town at your feet. You’ll be able to frivol with musical comedy, flirt with our married beauties, or⁠—I’m sorry, Everard, I forgot.”

“You forgot what?” he asked steadfastly.

“I forgot the tragedy which finally drove you abroad. I forgot your marriage. Is there any change in your wife?”

“Not much, I am afraid.”

“And Mr. Mangan⁠—he thinks that you are safe over here?”

“Perfectly.”

She looked at him earnestly. Perhaps she had never admitted, even to herself, how fond she had been of this scapegrace cousin.

“You’ll find that no one will have a word to say against you,” she told him, “now that you are wealthy and regenerate. They’ll forget everything you want them to. When will you come and dine here and meet all your relatives?”

“Whenever you are kind enough to ask me,” he answered. “I thought of going down to Dominey tomorrow.”

She looked at him with a new thing in her eyes⁠—something of fear, something, too, of admiration.

“But⁠—your wife?”

“She is there, I believe,” he said. “I cannot help it. I have been an exile from my home long enough.”

“Don’t go,” she begged suddenly. “Why not be brave and have her removed. I know how tenderhearted you are, but you have your future and your career to consider. For her sake, too, you ought not to give her the opportunity⁠—”

Dominey could never make up his mind whether the interruption which came at that moment was welcome or otherwise. Caroline suddenly broke off in her speech and glanced warningly towards the larger room. A tall, grey-haired man, dressed in old-fashioned clothes and wearing a pince-nez, had lifted the curtains. He addressed the Duchess in a thin, reedy voice.

“My dear Caroline,” he began⁠—“ah, you must forgive me. I did not know that you were engaged. We will not stay, but I should like to present to you a young friend of mine who is going to help me at the meeting this evening.”

“Do bring him in,” his wife replied, her voice once more attuned to its natural drawl. “And I have a surprise for you too, Henry⁠—a very great surprise, I think you will find it!”

Dominey rose to his feet⁠—a tall, commanding figure⁠—and stood waiting the approach of the newcomer. The Duke advanced, looking at him enquiringly. A young man, very obviously a soldier in mufti, was hovering in the background.

“I must plead guilty to the surprise,” the Duke confessed courteously. “There is something exceedingly familiar about your face, sir, but I cannot remember having had the privilege of meeting you.”

“You see,” Caroline observed, “I am not the only one, Everard, who did not accept you upon a glance. This is Everard Dominey, Henry, returned from foreign exile and regenerated in every sense of the word.”

“How do you do?” Dominey said, holding out his hand. “I seem to be rather a surprise to everyone, but I hope you haven’t quite forgotten me.”

“God bless my soul!” the Duke exclaimed. “You don’t mean to say that you’re really Everard Dominey?”

“I am he, beyond a doubt,” was the calm assurance.

“Most amazing!” the Duke declared, as he shook hands. “Most amazing! I never saw such a change in my life. Yes, yes, I see⁠—same complexion, of course⁠—nose and eyes⁠—yes, yes! But you seem taller, and you carry yourself like a soldier. Dear, dear me! Africa has done wonderfully by you. Delighted, my dear Everard! Delighted!”

“You’ll be more delighted still when you hear the rest of the news,” his wife remarked drily. “In the meantime, do present your friend.”

“Precisely so,” the Duke acquiesced, turning to the young man in the background. “Most sorry, my dear Captain Bartram. The unexpected return of a connection of my wife must be my apology for this lapse of manners. Let me present you to the Duchess. Captain Bartram is just back from Germany, my dear, and is an enthusiastic supporter of our cause.⁠—Sir Everard Dominey.”

Caroline shook hands kindly with her husband’s protégé, and Dominey exchanged a solemn handshake with him.

“You, too, are one of those, then, Captain Bartram, who are convinced that Germany has evil designs upon us?” the former said, smiling.

“I have just returned from Germany after twelve months’ stay there,” the young soldier replied. “I went with an open mind. I have come back convinced that we shall be at war with Germany within a couple of years.”

The Duke nodded vigorously.

“Our young friend is right,” he declared. “Three times a week for many months I have been drumming the fact into the handful of wooden-headed Englishmen who have deigned to come to our