If Sinners Entice Thee

William Le Queux

Le Queux William

If Sinners Entice Thee

Chapter One

Zertho

“No, Zertho. You forget that Liane is my daughter, the daughter of Brooker of the Guards, once an officer, and still, I hope, a gentleman.”

“Gentleman!” sneered the other with a curl of his lip.

Erle Brooker shrugged his shoulders, but did not reply.

“Yet many women would be eager enough to become Princess d’Auzac if they had the chance,” observed the tall, dark-bearded, handsome man, speaking English with a slight accent as he leaned easily against the edge of the table, and glanced around the shabby, cheaply-furnished little dining-room. Sallow-faced, dark-eyed, broad-shouldered, he was aged about forty – with full lips and long tapering hands, white as a woman’s.

“Both of us know the world, my dear fellow,” answered Captain Erle Brooker at last, standing astride before the fireplace in which a gaudy Japanese umbrella had been placed to hide its ugliness. “Surely the five years we spent together were sufficient to show us that there are women – and women?”

“Of course, as I expected,” the other cried cynically. “Now that you’re back again in England, buried in this sleepy country village, you are becoming sentimental. I suppose it is respectable to be so; but it’s hardly like you.”

“You’ve prospered. I’ve fallen upon evil days.”

“And you could have had similar luck if only you would have continued to run with me that snug little place in Nice, instead of showing the white feather,” he said.

“It was entirely against my grain to fleece those beardless boys. I’ll play fair, or not at all.”

“Sentiment again! It’s your curse, Brooker.”

“The speculation no doubt proved a veritable gold mine, as of course it must. But I had a second reason in dissolving our partnership.”

“Liane urged you?”

“Yes.”

“And you took her advice, the advice of a mere girl!” he laughed contemptuously.

“Luck is always with her,” the Captain answered. “She sat beside me and prompted me on the occasion of my last big coup at roulette.”

“A sort of sorceress, eh?”

Brooker smiled coldly, but again made no reply. “Well,” continued his companion. “Do you intend to accept my proposal?”

“Certainly not,” replied the luckless gamester. “I’ll never sacrifice my daughter’s happiness.”

“Rubbish!”

“I have already decided.”

Zertho was silent; his features became fierce and authoritative. His was an arrestive face, indicating rare, possibly prodigious, mental and also bodily activity, an activity that, unless curbed and restrained by carefully cultivated habits, might become distorted, and thus become injurious to himself as well as to others. Two rows of strong white teeth redeemed a large mouth from the commonplace, but those teeth were seldom seen – never, indeed, unless their owner laughed, and if smiles were rare, laughter still more rarely disturbed the steady composure of that saturnine countenance. Yet there was an individuality about the man which produced interest, though not always an agreeable interest, much less liking. He made an impression; he produced an effect upon the imagination that was not easily forgotten. Again, regarding the Captain keenly, he asked:

“Don’t you think I’m straight?”

“As straight as you ever were, Zertho,” the other answered ambiguously, with a light laugh. “But if you want a wife, surely you can fancy some other girl besides Liane. I’m afraid we know a little too much of each other to trust one another very far.”

There was another long silence. The golden sunset streamed in at the open window, which revealed an old-fashioned garden filled with fragrant roses, and a tiny lawn bounded by a hedgerow beyond. Through the garden ran a paved path to the white dusty road. The afternoon had been hot and drowsy. Upon the warm wind was borne in the sound of children at play in the village street of Stratfiel