Act II

VENDALE MAKES LOVE

The summer and the autumn passed. Christmas and the New Year were at
hand.

As executors honestly bent on performing their duty towards the dead,
Vendale and Bintrey had held more than one anxious consultation on the
subject of Wilding's will. The lawyer had declared, from the first, that
it was simply impossible to take any useful action in the matter at all.
The only obvious inquiries to make, in relation to the lost man, had been
made already by Wilding himself; with this result, that time and death
together had not left a trace of him discoverable. To advertise for the
claimant to the property, it would be necessary to mention particulars--a
course of proceeding which would invite half the impostors in England to
present themselves in the character of the true Walter Wilding. "If we
find a chance of tracing the lost man, we will take it. If we don't, let
us meet for another consultation on the first anniversary of Wilding's
death." So Bintrey advised. And so, with the most earnest desire to
fulfil his dead friend's wishes, Vendale was fain to let the matter rest
for the present.

Turning from his interest in the past to his interest in the future,
Vendale still found himself confronting a doubtful prospect. Months on
months had passed since his first visit to Soho Square--and through all
that time, the one language in which he had told Marguerite that he loved
her was the language of the eyes, assisted, at convenient opportunities,
by the language of the hand.

What was the obstacle in his way? The one immovable obstacle which had
been in his way from the first. No matter how fairly the opportunities
looked, Vendale's efforts to speak with Marguerite alone ended invariably
in one and the same result. Under the most accidental circumstances, in
the most innocent manner possible, Obenreizer was always in the way.

With the last days of the old year came an unexpected chance of spending
an evening with Marguerite, which Vendale resolved should be a chance of
speaking privately to her as well. A cordial note from Obenreizer
invited him, on New Year's Day, to a little family dinner in Soho Square.
"We shall be only four," the note said. "We shall be only two," Vendale
determined, "before the evening is out!"

New Year's Day, among the English, is associated with the giving and
receiving of dinners, and with nothing more. New Year's Day, among the
foreigners, is the grand opportunity of the year for the giving and
receiving of presents. It is occasionally possible to acclimatise a
foreign custom. In this instance Vendale felt no hesitation about making
the attempt. His one difficulty was to decide what his New Year's gift