The Yellow Face

CHAPTER I.

NOSTALGO.

The flickering firelight fell upon the girl's pretty, thoughtful face; her violet eyes looked like deep lakes in it. She stood with one small foot tapping the polished brass rail of the fender. Claire Helmsley was accounted fortunate by her friends, for she was pretty and rich, and as popular as she was good-looking. The young man by her side, who stood looking moodily into the heart of the ship-log fire, was also popular and good-looking, but Jack Masefield was anything but rich. He had all the brain and all the daring ambition that makes for success, but he was poor and struggling yet, and the briefs that he dreamed of at the Bar had not come.

But he was not thinking of the Bar now as he stood by Claire Helmsley's side. They were both in evening dress, and obviously waiting for dinner. Jack's arm was around Claire's slender waist, and her head rested on his shoulder, so that by looking up she could just see the shadow on his clean-cut face. Though the pressure of his arm was strong and tender, he seemed as if he had forgotten all about the presence of the girl.

"Why so silent?" the girl said. "What are you thinking about, Jack?"

"Well, I was thinking about you, dearest," Jack replied. "About you and myself. Also of your guardian, Anstruther. I was wondering why he asks me so often and leaves us so much together when he has not the slightest intention of letting me marry you."

The girl colored slightly. The expression in her violet eyes was one of pain.

"You have never asked my guardian," she said . "We have been engaged now for over six months, Jack, and at your request I have kept the thing a dead secret. Why should we keep the matter a secret? You are certain to get on in your profession, and you would do no worse if the world knew that you had a rich wife. My guardian is kindness itself. He has never thwarted me in a single wish. He would not be likely to try and cross my life's happiness."

Jack Masefield made no reply for a moment. It was perhaps a singular prejudice on his part, but he did not like the brilliant and volatile Dr. Spencer Anstruther, who was Claire's guardian. He would have found it impossible to account for this feeling, but there it was.

"My guardian has plenty of money of his own," Claire said, as if reading his thoughts.

"There you are mistaken," Jack replied. "This is a fine old house, filled with beautiful old things. Anstruther goes everywhere; he is a favorite in the best society. Men of letters say he is one of the finest talkers in the world. But I happen to know that he has very little money, for a lawyer told me so. That being so, the £2,000 a year you pay him till you marry or come of age is decidedly a thing to take care of. On the whole, dearest, we had better go on as we are."

Claire had a smile for her lover's prejudices. Personally she saw nothing amiss with her guardian. She crossed over to the window, the blinds of which had not yet been drawn, and looked out. She looked across the old-fashioned garden in front of the house to the street beyond, where a few passengers straggled along. On the far side of the road stood an electric standard holding a flaring lamp aloft. The house opposite was being refaced, so that it was masked in a high scaffold.

As was the custom in London, the scaffolding had been let out to some enterprising bill-posting company. It was a mass of gaudy sheets and placards puffing a variety of different kinds of wares. In the centre, bordered by a deep band of black, was one solitary yellow face with dark hair and starting eyes. At the base was the single word "Nostalgo."

An extraordinary vivid and striking piece of work for a poster. The face was strong and yet evil, the eyes were full of a devilish malignity, yet there was a kind of laugh in them too. Artists spoke freely of the Nostalgo poster as a work of positive genius, yet nobody could name the author of it. Nobody knew what it meant, what it foreshadowed. For two months now the thing had been one of the sensations of London. The cheap Press had built up legends round that diabolically clever poster; the head had been dragged into a story. The firm who posted Nostalgo professed to know nothing as to its inner meaning. It had become a catchword; actors on the variety stage made jokes about it. But still that devilish yellow face stared down at London with the malignant smile in the starting eyes.

"Jack, they have put up a fresh 'Nostalgo' poster on the hoarding opposite," Claire said. "I wish they hadn't. That face frightens me. It reminds me of somebody."

"So it does me," Jack replied, with sudden boldness. "It reminds me of your guardian."