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Frankl's Bank was scanning the agents' yacht-lists for her, when Sir Moses Cohen, who was closely associated with Frankl, placed his own three-master at her disposal; and she set out from Bristol, with her being three Jewish ladies, Frankl's manager, and a snuffy Portuguese rabbi who resembled a Rembrandt portrait.
It was late at night, and Hogarth, who had lately acquired a passion for those Mathematics which touch upon Mysticism, was bent over Quaternions and the quirks of [Proofers note: checkmark symbol] (—i) in an alcove of his Boodah suite hardly fourteen feet square, cosy, rosy, and homely: he sitting at a sofa-head, and, lying on the sofa, Loveday, his head on Hogarth's thigh, escaped from office and frockcoat, in happy shirt-sleeves, between sleeping and waking.
Hogarth was interrupted by a telephone bell.
"Well?" he answered.
"My Lord King", from Quilter-Beckett, "Frankl has handed to his warder something written: will your Lordship's Majesty see it now?"
"Yes!" Then: "John! Frankl has yielded!"
Up Loveday started with "Thank God!" while Hogarth: "When does my yacht arrive?"
"At midnight"—from Quilter-Beckett.
"She starts back immediately for England with me and Mr. Loveday".
Now an officer entered to present an envelope, and the two looked together over these words:
"Your Lordship's Majesty's sister, Margaret Hogarth, is at No. 11, Market Street, Edgware Road, London. She goes under the name of Rachel Oppenheimer, I don't know why. As God is my witness, I repent in ashes. Won't your Lordship's Majesty have mercy on a worm of the earth? I am an old man, getting on, and starved to madness. The ever devoted slave, from this day forth, of my Lord King.
Hogarth 'phoned up: "Give Frankl food now, and put him where it is
not cold…." and to Loveday he said, "Well, you see, she is there:
'No. 11, Market Street'. And under the name of—what? 'Rachel
Oppenheimer'…John Loveday, do you fathom the meaning of that?"
"No—don't bother me about meanings, but shout, like her, 'O Happy Day!' I say, Richard, you remember that singing? how we would hear her from the forge? All day, washing, cooking—melodious soul! There was 'O Happy Day', and there was—By God, how charmingly holy! how English! And, Richard, you remember—?"
Another telephone bell: Hogarth turned to hear.
"Just arrived in the yacht, Tyre , my Lord King", said Quilter- Beckett's voice, "four Jewish ladies, a Jewish gentleman, and a rabbi, who request early audience to-morrow; they lie-to, and have sent a boat—"
"Rubbish! I shall not be here to-morrow, and even if I was—Who are they? By the way, no sign of the yacht?"
"Not yet. They are Miss Frankl—"
"Who?"
"Miss Rebekah Frankl—"
"God", went Hogarth faintly, stabbed to the heart.
"Miss Agnes Friedrich, Mrs.—"
But the rest fell upon ears deaf as death, the teeth of Hogarth now chattering as with cold, that haggard, gaunt yellow, which was his pallor, overspreading his face. So long was he speechless, that Quilter-Beckett asked: "Are you there, my Lord King?"
"Quilter-Beckett!"
"Yes, my Lord King?"
"Will you go yourself —for me—to them? Make them sleep here, will you? This is most urgent, I assure you. And go quick, will you?"
That night did not the Lord of the Sea sleep: she under his roof…
Nor did he go that night to find Margaret—nor the next day, nor the next, though Loveday chafed: for, gyrating through the giddy air of a galaxy where Margaret was not, he forgot her.