Volume Two—Chapter Three.Lady Millet’s Choice.Rich men are not always to be congratulated, especially if they are good-looking and weak. Frank Morrison was both, and in early days after her wedding Renée found that a loveless marriage was not all bliss.But she had marked out her own course, and, with the hopefulness of youth, she often sat alone, thinking that she would win her husband entirely to herself, and that when he fully saw her devotion he would give up acquaintances whom he must have known before they were wed.One Sunday evening, and she was seated waiting, when she heard a well-known step upon the stairs.It was quite dinner-time, and she was waiting, dressed, for her husband’s return, looking sad, but very sweet and self-possessed; and as he entered the room she ran to meet him, put her arms round his neck and kissed him on lips that had been caressing others not an hour before.“Ah, Renée,” he said quietly, “waiting dinner? So sorry, little woman. I could not get near a telegraph office, or I would have sent and told you.”“I have not waited long, Frank,” she said cheerfully. “I am so glad you have come back.”“But that is not what I meant, dear,” he replied. “I am only returned to dress. I dine out.”“Dine out, Frank?” she said, trying hard not to seem troubled.“Yes—obliged to. Two or three fellows at the club. Couldn’t refuse. You will excuse me to-night, little one?”“Oh yes, Frank,” she said quickly, “if you must go, dear. I will not say I am not disappointed; but if you must go—”“Yes, I must, really,” he said. “Don’t fidget, and don’t wait up. There may be a rubber of whist afterwards, and I shall be late.”“How easy it is to lie and deceive!” thought Renée, as, with the same calm, placid smile, she listened to her husband’s excuses. “You are going, Frank, to that handsome, fashionable-looking woman? You will dine with her, and spend the evening at her house, while I, with breaking heart, sit here alone, mad almost with jealousy I dare not show.”Thoughts like these flitted through her mind as she put up her face and kissed him before quietly ringing the bell for her dinner to be served, and going down to the solitary meal.Her husband came in for a moment to say good-bye, cheerfully, and then she was alone.It was a hard and a bitter task, but she fulfilled it, sitting there calmly, and partaking of her solitary dinner. It was for his sake, she said, for no servant must dream that they were not happy; all must go on as usual, and some day he would come back repentant to her forgiving arms, won by her patience and long-suffering.She sat thinking this over and over again later in the drawing-room with a sad smile upon her lips, pitying, but telling herself that she could be strong enough to fulfil her self-imposed task. Not one word of reproach should be his, only tenderness and kindness always. She was his wife, and would forgive; yes, had already forgiven, and granted him a dispensation for the sins against her that he might commit.“Poor Frank, he never loved me as he thought he did; but I shall win him yet,” she murmured; and then started, for she fancied that she heard a door close.She saw nothing, though, and paid little heed, for if it was, it might easily be one of the servants in the farther drawing-room, one of the set of three, the third being quite a small boudoir, where she was seated, while the others were only half lit.She leaned back in her low chair dreaming of the happy days to come, when her husband would return to her, and then her thoughts glided off to Gertrude and her projected marriage.“I wonder whether I shall have a child,” she thought, “and if so, whether I shall be, in time to come, as mamma is. Poor Gerty! it seems very shocking that she, too, while caring for another, should be almost forced to accept the addresses of an old man like Lord Henry Moorpark. For that’s what mamma means,” she said half aloud.Then she sat dreaming on and wondering whether some reports she had heard about John Huish were true—reports of a very dishonourable nature, but which she had carefully hidden from her sister.“It may be all scandal,” she murmured; “but I am getting hard now—so soon! ah, so soon! Where there is smoke, they say, there is fire. Poor Gerty! Better Lord Henry—who seems to love her—than that she should waste her days on a worthless man. And yet I liked John Huish. Uncle Robert likes him, too; and I never knew him wrong, in spite of his retired life.”But it would be strange, she thought, if both she and her sister should have set the affections of their young hearts upon men who upon being tried proved to be unworthy of trust. “Poor Gerty!—poor me!” she said, half laughing. “It is a strange world, and perhaps, after all, our parents are right in choosing our partners for life.”Then she started once more, for she knew that she was not alone, and on turning, there, in evening dress, his crush hat in his hand, and looking calm, handsome, and sardonic enough for an incarnation of the spirit of evil himself, stood Major Malpas.“Nervous, Mrs Morrison? Good-evening. Did you not hear me announced? No? Your carpets are so soft.”He almost forced her to hold out her hand to him as she sat up, by extending his own, and he took it and raised it respectfully to his lips.“But where is Frank?” he asked.“My husband dines out this evening,” said Renée coldly.“Indeed! how unfortunate! He asked me to run over one evening for a cup of coffee and a cigar. Perhaps he will return soon.”“Not till quite late,” said Renée, who tried hard not to show that she was troubled by the visit.“I am so glad to see you better, Renée,” he said, taking a chair near her, and speaking in a low, earnest voice.Renée started, for it was the first time since her marriage that he had called her by her name; and as she met his eyes she felt that it was also the first time since the same event that he had gazed at her with such bold admiration.What could she do? She could not bid him leave her; and, besides, she felt that in a few minutes his gentlemanly instincts must lead him to go, and, indeed, what was there to fear? He was a gentleman—a friend of her husband—and he had called to see them.“How times are changed, Renée!” he said, after a pause, as he gazed at her pensively. “Once your eyes used to brighten and the colour flushed into your cheek when I came near. Now, is it a dream—a trick of fancy? I find you another’s, and you turn from me with coldness.”“Major Malpas,” said Renée quietly, “is this a suitable way of addressing the wife of your friend?”The mask fell off at these words.“Friend!” he cried bitterly, as he drew his chair close to the couch on which she sat; “he is no friend of mine. Friend! What, the man who has robbed me of all that was dear—who has made my life a desert! Friend? Renée, you mock me by using such a word.”“Major Malpas!” she cried loudly.“Hush!” he exclaimed, throwing down his hat. “Hear me now, for the time has come, and I must speak, even though it be to wound the heart of the tenderest and sweetest of women. Renée, can I call the man friend who deliberately forsakes you for the society of a notorious woman—an actress!”“Friend? No,” cried Renée with flashing eyes, as she rose to ring; but he caught her wrist and stayed her. “No; nor he you, if this is your friendship—to come and blacken my husband’s name with foul calumny to his wife.”“Stop!” he said. “You shall not ring. Calumny! foul! Is it a foul calumny to say that he was driving her in the Park to-day, that he is dining with her and her friends to-night? Shame, Renée, that you should speak thus to the man who has ever been your faithful slave.”“Major Malpas, I insist upon your leaving me this instant. There is the door!”“Leave you! No,” he cried, seizing her other hand, as he fell upon his knees at her feet, “not till I have told you, Renée, that the old love never died in my heart, but has grown up stronger, day by day, till it has mastered my very being.”That same night there was a party given by Madame Dorinde, limited to eight, fairly balanced between the sexes. The dinner was to be good, the supply of wines very liberal, especially as they cost the hostess nothing.But they were a curious collection of guests, such as would have puzzled a student of human nature. Certainly he would have understood the status of Madame Dorinde, a handsome, showy woman, with plenty of smart repartee on her lips, and an abundance of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds for neck, arms and fingers—the gifts of the admirers of her histrionic powers. He would have told you that this would be a bright and gay career for a few years, and then probably she would drop out of sight.There was a pretty, fair girl with good features and the glow of youth on her cheeks, putting to shame the additions of paint, and who seemed to think it right to laugh loudly and boisterously at everything said to her; there was Miss Grace Lister, the first burlesque actress of the day, dark, almost gipsy-looking in her swarthy complexion, whose colour was heightened by the novelty and excitement of the scene; Lottie Deloraine,néeSimpkins, of the Marquise Theatre; Frank Morrison and a couple of washed-out habitués of the stalls lounged about the room, and the assembled company were beginning to wonder why dinner was not announced.“What are we waiting for, Dory?” said Morrison at last. “Aren’t we all here?”“Only for an old friend of mine. You know him—John Huish,” said the hostess rather maliciously; and then she added to herself, “He’ll keep your eyes off Gracy Lister, my gentleman.”Morrison screwed up his face a little, laughed in a curious way, uttered the ejaculation “Oh!” and then smiled as the door was opened and a smart soubrette loudly announced “Mr John Huish!” the bearer of that name entering hurriedly, looking flushed and full of apologies, which were at once received and the dinner commenced.It was intended to be free and easy and full of spirit; but somehow it seemed as if a spirit of discontent had crept in, and from time to time, though there was no open unpleasantly, flashes of annoyance played like the summer lightning which prefaces a storm over the table with its sparkling glass.Madame Dorinde had a great favour to ask of her admirer, Frank Morrison, and sought to put him in the best of humours; but to her great annoyance she found him preoccupied, for his attention had from the first moment been taken up by Grace Lister, and his eyes were being constantly turned in her direction as, after a time, forgetting past troubles and neglect in the gaiety and excitement of the scene, Madame Dorinde looked brighter and more animated than she had seemed for weeks.All this annoyed Huish, who was not long in detecting the glances directed by Frank Morrison at the glowing beauty of Grace, and he was the more annoyed because, just before dinner, he had whispered to the giver of the feast:“Have the cards on the table as soon as you can. You propose.”“There will be no cards to-night, my friend, so you need not expect to win any money,” the hostess had replied; and the young man had bitten his lip, and sat thinking how he could turn the little party to his own account.“Why, I say, Huish,” Morrison cried gaily, a little later on, “what a canting humbug you are! I never thought to meet you at a party like this;” and he smiled significantly. “We always thought you were a kind of saint.”“I am—sometimes.”“It’s wonderful,” sneered Morrison.“Yes, it is a wonder, my dear fellow; but you set me such an example.”The two habitués of the stalls nodded to one another their approbation of the retort, and Madame Dorinde, to calm what threatened to be one ebullition with another, called for champagne.As the dinner went on, the elements of discord began to leaven the party with greater effect, and a calm observer would have felt sure that the evening would not pass away without a quarrel. Morrison slighted his hostess more than once, and a redder spot burned in her cheeks right in the centre of a rather unnatural tint, while Huish, out of sheer bravado, on seeing how Morrison kept trying to draw Grace into conversation, directed his to Madame Dorinde.“By the way, why hasn’t Malpas come?” said Morrison at last. “I expected to see him here with little Merelle.”“Better employed, perhaps,” said Madame Dorinde tartly; and the young girl with the youthful look laughed very heartily.“I say, Huish,” said Morrison at last, on finding that his attentions to Grace were resented by her companion, “I shall see little fair somebody to-morrow. You know whom I mean. What tales I might tell!”“Tell them, then,” said Huish sharply; “perhaps I shall retort by telling too.”“Oh, tut, tut, tut!” cried Dorinde. “Nobody tells tales out of school.”“This is not the School for Scandal, then,” said one of the habitués of the stalls; and the fair young lady laughed again.“I say, Dorinde,” said Morrison at last, rather uneasily, “why is not Malpas here?” and as he spoke he directed a peculiar smile at Grace.Huish drew his breath hard, but said nothing. He set one of themenucards close to his plate, wrote something on the back, and, waiting his time, doubled it up at last.“Give that to the gentleman opposite,” he whispered to a waiter, slipping a florin into the man’s hand. “Don’t say where it came from.”The man nodded, and Huish turned to chat gaily with Dorinde; then, filling his glass slowly, he directed a sidelong glance at Morrison as he took the card, glanced at its writing, crushed it up in his hand, and closed his eyes, as a spasm ran through his countenance and he turned pale as death.No one else noticed it, and he opened his eyes and glanced quickly round to see that the company were all busily conversing. Then, rising quietly, he left the room, walked slowly to the lobby of the great building, where he had left hat and coat, and went out of the house.Then he let his excitement have its full vent.“Hansom!” he shouted, leaping into the first he saw. “Chesham Place—double fare—gallop.”The horse dashed off in answer to the sharp cut of the whip, and as it tore along Piccadilly Frank Morrison strove to get rid of the fumes of the wine he had been drinking, and to think calmly.“She is too pure and sweet and true a woman—I don’t believe it,” he said, grinding his teeth. “Whom I am cursed scoundrel enough to neglect. Who could have written that? Curse him! that John Huish, of course. What a scoundrel he has turned out!”“Bah! what am I railing at?” he cried. “Whom do I call scoundrel? Damn you!” he roared, forcing up the little trap in the roof of the hansom. “Faster, man, faster.”There was another lash of the whip, and the horse galloped furiously.“Scoundrel, indeed! he is no worse scoundrel than I. He is an open roué, while I stoop to all kinds of beggarly petty subterfuges to conceal the life I lead. I won’t believe it, though; it is a malicious trick of John Huish’s because he was jealous—and he has fooled me.”“Well,” he muttered, after a pause, “a good thing too. I’m sick of the whole thing—cards, lose, pay, feast a woman who does not care asoufor me. Heavens, what a fool I am! John Huish, you have ousted me; take my place and welcome. Renée, little woman, I’ll come back, and be a good boy now.”He said this with a mocking laugh, and then changed his position impatiently in the cab, growing, in spite of his words, more excited every moment.“How could Huish know?” he said, gnawing his nails. “Impossible; and, besides, he is too good and tried a friend. Suppose he did drop in, what then? Why, he is wiser than I: he prefers the society of a sweet good little woman to that of a set of painted animals, who have not a scrap of reputation big enough to make a bow for their false hair.”“There, I’ve been tricked,” he exclaimed, as the cab turned down out of Knightsbridge and he neared Chesham Place. “Never mind; I’ll forgive him for fooling me, and I’ll try to leave all this wretched, stupid life behind. We’ll go abroad for a bit; or, no, we’ll go yachting—there’ll be no temptations there. I’m going to begin afresh. We’ll have a new honeymoon, Renée, my little girl. But—but—if that fellow’s words were true!”The gas-lamps seemed to spin round as he stopped the cab, and he leapt out to hastily thrust some money in the drivers hand, and then walked sharply down the Place till he came opposite his own house.“Curse it—it can’t be so!” he groaned, as he saw the dimly-lit drawing-room. “If it were true, I should go mad or go to the bad altogether. I won’t believe it. Malpas, old fellow, I beg your pardon,” he muttered. “Renée, my child, if heaven will give me strength, I’ll confess to you like an honest man that I’ve been a fool and an idiot, and ask you to forgive me.”“Yes, and she’ll forgive me without a word,” he said, as he opened the door, quickly threw off hat and coat, and ran up the great stone staircase three steps at a time, then, trying to control the agitation that made his heart beat so heavily against his side, he threw open the door, closed it hastily, and walked across the faintly-lit room into the next, where he could see into the little boudoir with its bright furniture, flowers, and graceful hanging-lamp, which shed a softened light through the place.The next instant he had entered, and was standing there face to face with his wife, who with flushed face stood trembling before him, supporting herself by-one hand upon the chimney-piece.“Renée,” he cried, turning white with rage, as his worst suspicions seemed confirmed, “what does this mean?”“Frank, Frank!” stretching out her hands towards him as she tottered a couple of steps and then reeled and would have fallen, but he caught her and swung her round on to the couch, where he laid her, and stood gazing down for a few moments.Then, looking dazed, and trembling in every limb, he turned round, his eyes rested on the curtains which shut off the little conservatory, and with two strides he reached them, tore them aside, and then started away.It was exactly what he had wound himself up to expect; but his faith in his injured wife was so strong that, as he drew back, he could scarcely believe his eyes, and with a giddy feeling stealing over him, he stood staring wildly at the apparition that he had unveiled. The blood seemed to swell in a chilling flood to his heart, and for a few moments he could neither speak nor move.Then with an electric rush it seemed to dart again through every vein in his body, making his nerves tingle, and he flew at the man who had crept like a serpent into his Eden.“Devil!” he cried hoarsely; and he tried to seize his enemy by the throat.With a deft movement of the arms, though, Malpas struck his hands aside, caught them by the wrist, gave them a dexterous twist, and forced the other, stronger man though he was of the two, upon his knees.“Fool! idiot!” he said, in a low voice. “Do you wish to publish it all over Belgravia?”“You crawling, deceitful fiend!” cried Frank Morrison, making a savage effort to free himself, and succeeding so that he closed, and a sharp struggle ensued, which again went against the young husband. For his adversary was an adept in athletic exercises, and taking advantage of a low ottoman being behind, forced him backwards so suddenly that he fell, and in a moment was down with Malpas’s hands in his necktie and a knee on his chest.“Are you mad?” he said, panting and trying to recover his breath; “what do you want?”“Your life, you crawling, lying villain,” gasped Morrison.“Look here, Morrison, be a man of the world,” said Malpas quietly. “So far, I don’t suppose they have heard anything downstairs, so why make a scene? If you wish it, I’ll meet you in Belgium; that is,” he added, smiling, “if you consider that your honour has suffered.”“You scoundrel!” panted Morrison. “You have blasted my home!”“Bah! don’t go into high sentiment. Blasted your home? Hang it, man, talk sense! What did you care for your home? Where have you been to-night?”“Where I pleased,” cried Morrison, with subdued rage in his eyes; but he lowered his voice.“Exactly, you had your little affair to attend to: why should not madame have her guest by way of solace, in the absence of so true and faithful a husband?”“You villain!” panted Morrison again, as he caught the wrists that held him down.“Villain, if you like to use such strong language,mon cher; but for heaven’s sake be calm—be a man of the world! We don’t live in the old, sentimental Darby-and-Joan days, my dear fellow, but in times when it is fashionable to follow one’s own sweet will. You are like the dog in the manger: obstinate—selfish—brutal. Go to, my dear friend, and enjoy yourself, but let others live and enjoy themselves too.”For answer Frank Morrison made a desperate struggle to rise, but he was quite helpless under the strong pressure of his opponent’s knee.“For goodness’ sake, be calm,” said Malpas angrily. “Hang it, man, what did you expect in our matter-of-fact world! You brought me here constantly, and you left us together constantly. Do you forget that we were old lovers before you came between us? There, you are coming to your senses, I hope.”He stepped away quickly towards the door, and Frank Morrison sprang up and made as if once more to seize him, but with a violent thrust Malpas sent him backwards and was gone.Frank Morrison stood motionless till he heard the front door close; then with a moan of anguish he turned towards where Renée still lay insensible upon the couch.“My punishment!” he groaned: “and I believed in her so thoroughly; I thought her so pure, so sweet that—out upon me! I left her, dog that I was, for garbage. Curse him!” he cried in a paroxysm of rage, “curse her, with her smooth, white, innocent looks! The whole world is blasted with villainy, and there is not one among us worthy of a moment’s faith.”“Frank—husband,” moaned a voice, and Renée, pale as death, rose trembling to clasp her hands before him.He caught them in his, dragged her up savagely, and then swung her down upon her knees.“And you, too, of all women in the world! Curse you! curse you! may you—”“Frank, my own, I—”“Out upon you!” he cried. “I’ll never look upon your smooth false face again!”Choking with her emotion, she tried to speak—to cling to him; but he snatched himself away, and as she fell heavily upon the carpet he rushed from the house.
Rich men are not always to be congratulated, especially if they are good-looking and weak. Frank Morrison was both, and in early days after her wedding Renée found that a loveless marriage was not all bliss.
But she had marked out her own course, and, with the hopefulness of youth, she often sat alone, thinking that she would win her husband entirely to herself, and that when he fully saw her devotion he would give up acquaintances whom he must have known before they were wed.
One Sunday evening, and she was seated waiting, when she heard a well-known step upon the stairs.
It was quite dinner-time, and she was waiting, dressed, for her husband’s return, looking sad, but very sweet and self-possessed; and as he entered the room she ran to meet him, put her arms round his neck and kissed him on lips that had been caressing others not an hour before.
“Ah, Renée,” he said quietly, “waiting dinner? So sorry, little woman. I could not get near a telegraph office, or I would have sent and told you.”
“I have not waited long, Frank,” she said cheerfully. “I am so glad you have come back.”
“But that is not what I meant, dear,” he replied. “I am only returned to dress. I dine out.”
“Dine out, Frank?” she said, trying hard not to seem troubled.
“Yes—obliged to. Two or three fellows at the club. Couldn’t refuse. You will excuse me to-night, little one?”
“Oh yes, Frank,” she said quickly, “if you must go, dear. I will not say I am not disappointed; but if you must go—”
“Yes, I must, really,” he said. “Don’t fidget, and don’t wait up. There may be a rubber of whist afterwards, and I shall be late.”
“How easy it is to lie and deceive!” thought Renée, as, with the same calm, placid smile, she listened to her husband’s excuses. “You are going, Frank, to that handsome, fashionable-looking woman? You will dine with her, and spend the evening at her house, while I, with breaking heart, sit here alone, mad almost with jealousy I dare not show.”
Thoughts like these flitted through her mind as she put up her face and kissed him before quietly ringing the bell for her dinner to be served, and going down to the solitary meal.
Her husband came in for a moment to say good-bye, cheerfully, and then she was alone.
It was a hard and a bitter task, but she fulfilled it, sitting there calmly, and partaking of her solitary dinner. It was for his sake, she said, for no servant must dream that they were not happy; all must go on as usual, and some day he would come back repentant to her forgiving arms, won by her patience and long-suffering.
She sat thinking this over and over again later in the drawing-room with a sad smile upon her lips, pitying, but telling herself that she could be strong enough to fulfil her self-imposed task. Not one word of reproach should be his, only tenderness and kindness always. She was his wife, and would forgive; yes, had already forgiven, and granted him a dispensation for the sins against her that he might commit.
“Poor Frank, he never loved me as he thought he did; but I shall win him yet,” she murmured; and then started, for she fancied that she heard a door close.
She saw nothing, though, and paid little heed, for if it was, it might easily be one of the servants in the farther drawing-room, one of the set of three, the third being quite a small boudoir, where she was seated, while the others were only half lit.
She leaned back in her low chair dreaming of the happy days to come, when her husband would return to her, and then her thoughts glided off to Gertrude and her projected marriage.
“I wonder whether I shall have a child,” she thought, “and if so, whether I shall be, in time to come, as mamma is. Poor Gerty! it seems very shocking that she, too, while caring for another, should be almost forced to accept the addresses of an old man like Lord Henry Moorpark. For that’s what mamma means,” she said half aloud.
Then she sat dreaming on and wondering whether some reports she had heard about John Huish were true—reports of a very dishonourable nature, but which she had carefully hidden from her sister.
“It may be all scandal,” she murmured; “but I am getting hard now—so soon! ah, so soon! Where there is smoke, they say, there is fire. Poor Gerty! Better Lord Henry—who seems to love her—than that she should waste her days on a worthless man. And yet I liked John Huish. Uncle Robert likes him, too; and I never knew him wrong, in spite of his retired life.”
But it would be strange, she thought, if both she and her sister should have set the affections of their young hearts upon men who upon being tried proved to be unworthy of trust. “Poor Gerty!—poor me!” she said, half laughing. “It is a strange world, and perhaps, after all, our parents are right in choosing our partners for life.”
Then she started once more, for she knew that she was not alone, and on turning, there, in evening dress, his crush hat in his hand, and looking calm, handsome, and sardonic enough for an incarnation of the spirit of evil himself, stood Major Malpas.
“Nervous, Mrs Morrison? Good-evening. Did you not hear me announced? No? Your carpets are so soft.”
He almost forced her to hold out her hand to him as she sat up, by extending his own, and he took it and raised it respectfully to his lips.
“But where is Frank?” he asked.
“My husband dines out this evening,” said Renée coldly.
“Indeed! how unfortunate! He asked me to run over one evening for a cup of coffee and a cigar. Perhaps he will return soon.”
“Not till quite late,” said Renée, who tried hard not to show that she was troubled by the visit.
“I am so glad to see you better, Renée,” he said, taking a chair near her, and speaking in a low, earnest voice.
Renée started, for it was the first time since her marriage that he had called her by her name; and as she met his eyes she felt that it was also the first time since the same event that he had gazed at her with such bold admiration.
What could she do? She could not bid him leave her; and, besides, she felt that in a few minutes his gentlemanly instincts must lead him to go, and, indeed, what was there to fear? He was a gentleman—a friend of her husband—and he had called to see them.
“How times are changed, Renée!” he said, after a pause, as he gazed at her pensively. “Once your eyes used to brighten and the colour flushed into your cheek when I came near. Now, is it a dream—a trick of fancy? I find you another’s, and you turn from me with coldness.”
“Major Malpas,” said Renée quietly, “is this a suitable way of addressing the wife of your friend?”
The mask fell off at these words.
“Friend!” he cried bitterly, as he drew his chair close to the couch on which she sat; “he is no friend of mine. Friend! What, the man who has robbed me of all that was dear—who has made my life a desert! Friend? Renée, you mock me by using such a word.”
“Major Malpas!” she cried loudly.
“Hush!” he exclaimed, throwing down his hat. “Hear me now, for the time has come, and I must speak, even though it be to wound the heart of the tenderest and sweetest of women. Renée, can I call the man friend who deliberately forsakes you for the society of a notorious woman—an actress!”
“Friend? No,” cried Renée with flashing eyes, as she rose to ring; but he caught her wrist and stayed her. “No; nor he you, if this is your friendship—to come and blacken my husband’s name with foul calumny to his wife.”
“Stop!” he said. “You shall not ring. Calumny! foul! Is it a foul calumny to say that he was driving her in the Park to-day, that he is dining with her and her friends to-night? Shame, Renée, that you should speak thus to the man who has ever been your faithful slave.”
“Major Malpas, I insist upon your leaving me this instant. There is the door!”
“Leave you! No,” he cried, seizing her other hand, as he fell upon his knees at her feet, “not till I have told you, Renée, that the old love never died in my heart, but has grown up stronger, day by day, till it has mastered my very being.”
That same night there was a party given by Madame Dorinde, limited to eight, fairly balanced between the sexes. The dinner was to be good, the supply of wines very liberal, especially as they cost the hostess nothing.
But they were a curious collection of guests, such as would have puzzled a student of human nature. Certainly he would have understood the status of Madame Dorinde, a handsome, showy woman, with plenty of smart repartee on her lips, and an abundance of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds for neck, arms and fingers—the gifts of the admirers of her histrionic powers. He would have told you that this would be a bright and gay career for a few years, and then probably she would drop out of sight.
There was a pretty, fair girl with good features and the glow of youth on her cheeks, putting to shame the additions of paint, and who seemed to think it right to laugh loudly and boisterously at everything said to her; there was Miss Grace Lister, the first burlesque actress of the day, dark, almost gipsy-looking in her swarthy complexion, whose colour was heightened by the novelty and excitement of the scene; Lottie Deloraine,néeSimpkins, of the Marquise Theatre; Frank Morrison and a couple of washed-out habitués of the stalls lounged about the room, and the assembled company were beginning to wonder why dinner was not announced.
“What are we waiting for, Dory?” said Morrison at last. “Aren’t we all here?”
“Only for an old friend of mine. You know him—John Huish,” said the hostess rather maliciously; and then she added to herself, “He’ll keep your eyes off Gracy Lister, my gentleman.”
Morrison screwed up his face a little, laughed in a curious way, uttered the ejaculation “Oh!” and then smiled as the door was opened and a smart soubrette loudly announced “Mr John Huish!” the bearer of that name entering hurriedly, looking flushed and full of apologies, which were at once received and the dinner commenced.
It was intended to be free and easy and full of spirit; but somehow it seemed as if a spirit of discontent had crept in, and from time to time, though there was no open unpleasantly, flashes of annoyance played like the summer lightning which prefaces a storm over the table with its sparkling glass.
Madame Dorinde had a great favour to ask of her admirer, Frank Morrison, and sought to put him in the best of humours; but to her great annoyance she found him preoccupied, for his attention had from the first moment been taken up by Grace Lister, and his eyes were being constantly turned in her direction as, after a time, forgetting past troubles and neglect in the gaiety and excitement of the scene, Madame Dorinde looked brighter and more animated than she had seemed for weeks.
All this annoyed Huish, who was not long in detecting the glances directed by Frank Morrison at the glowing beauty of Grace, and he was the more annoyed because, just before dinner, he had whispered to the giver of the feast:
“Have the cards on the table as soon as you can. You propose.”
“There will be no cards to-night, my friend, so you need not expect to win any money,” the hostess had replied; and the young man had bitten his lip, and sat thinking how he could turn the little party to his own account.
“Why, I say, Huish,” Morrison cried gaily, a little later on, “what a canting humbug you are! I never thought to meet you at a party like this;” and he smiled significantly. “We always thought you were a kind of saint.”
“I am—sometimes.”
“It’s wonderful,” sneered Morrison.
“Yes, it is a wonder, my dear fellow; but you set me such an example.”
The two habitués of the stalls nodded to one another their approbation of the retort, and Madame Dorinde, to calm what threatened to be one ebullition with another, called for champagne.
As the dinner went on, the elements of discord began to leaven the party with greater effect, and a calm observer would have felt sure that the evening would not pass away without a quarrel. Morrison slighted his hostess more than once, and a redder spot burned in her cheeks right in the centre of a rather unnatural tint, while Huish, out of sheer bravado, on seeing how Morrison kept trying to draw Grace into conversation, directed his to Madame Dorinde.
“By the way, why hasn’t Malpas come?” said Morrison at last. “I expected to see him here with little Merelle.”
“Better employed, perhaps,” said Madame Dorinde tartly; and the young girl with the youthful look laughed very heartily.
“I say, Huish,” said Morrison at last, on finding that his attentions to Grace were resented by her companion, “I shall see little fair somebody to-morrow. You know whom I mean. What tales I might tell!”
“Tell them, then,” said Huish sharply; “perhaps I shall retort by telling too.”
“Oh, tut, tut, tut!” cried Dorinde. “Nobody tells tales out of school.”
“This is not the School for Scandal, then,” said one of the habitués of the stalls; and the fair young lady laughed again.
“I say, Dorinde,” said Morrison at last, rather uneasily, “why is not Malpas here?” and as he spoke he directed a peculiar smile at Grace.
Huish drew his breath hard, but said nothing. He set one of themenucards close to his plate, wrote something on the back, and, waiting his time, doubled it up at last.
“Give that to the gentleman opposite,” he whispered to a waiter, slipping a florin into the man’s hand. “Don’t say where it came from.”
The man nodded, and Huish turned to chat gaily with Dorinde; then, filling his glass slowly, he directed a sidelong glance at Morrison as he took the card, glanced at its writing, crushed it up in his hand, and closed his eyes, as a spasm ran through his countenance and he turned pale as death.
No one else noticed it, and he opened his eyes and glanced quickly round to see that the company were all busily conversing. Then, rising quietly, he left the room, walked slowly to the lobby of the great building, where he had left hat and coat, and went out of the house.
Then he let his excitement have its full vent.
“Hansom!” he shouted, leaping into the first he saw. “Chesham Place—double fare—gallop.”
The horse dashed off in answer to the sharp cut of the whip, and as it tore along Piccadilly Frank Morrison strove to get rid of the fumes of the wine he had been drinking, and to think calmly.
“She is too pure and sweet and true a woman—I don’t believe it,” he said, grinding his teeth. “Whom I am cursed scoundrel enough to neglect. Who could have written that? Curse him! that John Huish, of course. What a scoundrel he has turned out!”
“Bah! what am I railing at?” he cried. “Whom do I call scoundrel? Damn you!” he roared, forcing up the little trap in the roof of the hansom. “Faster, man, faster.”
There was another lash of the whip, and the horse galloped furiously.
“Scoundrel, indeed! he is no worse scoundrel than I. He is an open roué, while I stoop to all kinds of beggarly petty subterfuges to conceal the life I lead. I won’t believe it, though; it is a malicious trick of John Huish’s because he was jealous—and he has fooled me.”
“Well,” he muttered, after a pause, “a good thing too. I’m sick of the whole thing—cards, lose, pay, feast a woman who does not care asoufor me. Heavens, what a fool I am! John Huish, you have ousted me; take my place and welcome. Renée, little woman, I’ll come back, and be a good boy now.”
He said this with a mocking laugh, and then changed his position impatiently in the cab, growing, in spite of his words, more excited every moment.
“How could Huish know?” he said, gnawing his nails. “Impossible; and, besides, he is too good and tried a friend. Suppose he did drop in, what then? Why, he is wiser than I: he prefers the society of a sweet good little woman to that of a set of painted animals, who have not a scrap of reputation big enough to make a bow for their false hair.”
“There, I’ve been tricked,” he exclaimed, as the cab turned down out of Knightsbridge and he neared Chesham Place. “Never mind; I’ll forgive him for fooling me, and I’ll try to leave all this wretched, stupid life behind. We’ll go abroad for a bit; or, no, we’ll go yachting—there’ll be no temptations there. I’m going to begin afresh. We’ll have a new honeymoon, Renée, my little girl. But—but—if that fellow’s words were true!”
The gas-lamps seemed to spin round as he stopped the cab, and he leapt out to hastily thrust some money in the drivers hand, and then walked sharply down the Place till he came opposite his own house.
“Curse it—it can’t be so!” he groaned, as he saw the dimly-lit drawing-room. “If it were true, I should go mad or go to the bad altogether. I won’t believe it. Malpas, old fellow, I beg your pardon,” he muttered. “Renée, my child, if heaven will give me strength, I’ll confess to you like an honest man that I’ve been a fool and an idiot, and ask you to forgive me.”
“Yes, and she’ll forgive me without a word,” he said, as he opened the door, quickly threw off hat and coat, and ran up the great stone staircase three steps at a time, then, trying to control the agitation that made his heart beat so heavily against his side, he threw open the door, closed it hastily, and walked across the faintly-lit room into the next, where he could see into the little boudoir with its bright furniture, flowers, and graceful hanging-lamp, which shed a softened light through the place.
The next instant he had entered, and was standing there face to face with his wife, who with flushed face stood trembling before him, supporting herself by-one hand upon the chimney-piece.
“Renée,” he cried, turning white with rage, as his worst suspicions seemed confirmed, “what does this mean?”
“Frank, Frank!” stretching out her hands towards him as she tottered a couple of steps and then reeled and would have fallen, but he caught her and swung her round on to the couch, where he laid her, and stood gazing down for a few moments.
Then, looking dazed, and trembling in every limb, he turned round, his eyes rested on the curtains which shut off the little conservatory, and with two strides he reached them, tore them aside, and then started away.
It was exactly what he had wound himself up to expect; but his faith in his injured wife was so strong that, as he drew back, he could scarcely believe his eyes, and with a giddy feeling stealing over him, he stood staring wildly at the apparition that he had unveiled. The blood seemed to swell in a chilling flood to his heart, and for a few moments he could neither speak nor move.
Then with an electric rush it seemed to dart again through every vein in his body, making his nerves tingle, and he flew at the man who had crept like a serpent into his Eden.
“Devil!” he cried hoarsely; and he tried to seize his enemy by the throat.
With a deft movement of the arms, though, Malpas struck his hands aside, caught them by the wrist, gave them a dexterous twist, and forced the other, stronger man though he was of the two, upon his knees.
“Fool! idiot!” he said, in a low voice. “Do you wish to publish it all over Belgravia?”
“You crawling, deceitful fiend!” cried Frank Morrison, making a savage effort to free himself, and succeeding so that he closed, and a sharp struggle ensued, which again went against the young husband. For his adversary was an adept in athletic exercises, and taking advantage of a low ottoman being behind, forced him backwards so suddenly that he fell, and in a moment was down with Malpas’s hands in his necktie and a knee on his chest.
“Are you mad?” he said, panting and trying to recover his breath; “what do you want?”
“Your life, you crawling, lying villain,” gasped Morrison.
“Look here, Morrison, be a man of the world,” said Malpas quietly. “So far, I don’t suppose they have heard anything downstairs, so why make a scene? If you wish it, I’ll meet you in Belgium; that is,” he added, smiling, “if you consider that your honour has suffered.”
“You scoundrel!” panted Morrison. “You have blasted my home!”
“Bah! don’t go into high sentiment. Blasted your home? Hang it, man, talk sense! What did you care for your home? Where have you been to-night?”
“Where I pleased,” cried Morrison, with subdued rage in his eyes; but he lowered his voice.
“Exactly, you had your little affair to attend to: why should not madame have her guest by way of solace, in the absence of so true and faithful a husband?”
“You villain!” panted Morrison again, as he caught the wrists that held him down.
“Villain, if you like to use such strong language,mon cher; but for heaven’s sake be calm—be a man of the world! We don’t live in the old, sentimental Darby-and-Joan days, my dear fellow, but in times when it is fashionable to follow one’s own sweet will. You are like the dog in the manger: obstinate—selfish—brutal. Go to, my dear friend, and enjoy yourself, but let others live and enjoy themselves too.”
For answer Frank Morrison made a desperate struggle to rise, but he was quite helpless under the strong pressure of his opponent’s knee.
“For goodness’ sake, be calm,” said Malpas angrily. “Hang it, man, what did you expect in our matter-of-fact world! You brought me here constantly, and you left us together constantly. Do you forget that we were old lovers before you came between us? There, you are coming to your senses, I hope.”
He stepped away quickly towards the door, and Frank Morrison sprang up and made as if once more to seize him, but with a violent thrust Malpas sent him backwards and was gone.
Frank Morrison stood motionless till he heard the front door close; then with a moan of anguish he turned towards where Renée still lay insensible upon the couch.
“My punishment!” he groaned: “and I believed in her so thoroughly; I thought her so pure, so sweet that—out upon me! I left her, dog that I was, for garbage. Curse him!” he cried in a paroxysm of rage, “curse her, with her smooth, white, innocent looks! The whole world is blasted with villainy, and there is not one among us worthy of a moment’s faith.”
“Frank—husband,” moaned a voice, and Renée, pale as death, rose trembling to clasp her hands before him.
He caught them in his, dragged her up savagely, and then swung her down upon her knees.
“And you, too, of all women in the world! Curse you! curse you! may you—”
“Frank, my own, I—”
“Out upon you!” he cried. “I’ll never look upon your smooth false face again!”
Choking with her emotion, she tried to speak—to cling to him; but he snatched himself away, and as she fell heavily upon the carpet he rushed from the house.
Volume Two—Chapter Four.Late in the Field.“Why, what’s the matter?”“Matter!” panted Dick Millet, dancing excitedly into Marcus Glen’s room, where the latter was sitting back, cigar in mouth, reading the most interesting parts of a sporting paper. “Why, everything’s the matter. While you are sitting here at your ease, those two old patriarchs have been stealing a march upon us.”“When you get a little less excited,” said Glen coolly, “perhaps you will explain.”“Oh, it’s easily explained: those two—that Jew fellow, Elbraham, and that old yellow apricot, Lord Henry Moorpark—have been in at the private apartments this hour.”“Visit of ceremony,” said Glen, sending up a little cloud of smoke.“Yes, and then they’ve been walking up and down in the gardens, talking earnestly together.”“While you have been in the Maze and got lost,” said Glen.“I tell you they were walking together, and shaking hands in the most affectionate manner.”“While you played the spy, Dick? I say, my lad, that’s not square.”“But it’s a horrible sell. My mother was always asking those two to our place.”“With matrimonial intentions?”“I suppose so. Elbraham never came, but old Moorpark often did, and it was on the cards—”“Visiting-cards?”“No. That he was to be my brother-in-law. I say, Glen, who is a fellow to trust?”“But he was not engaged to your sister?”“No, of course not. Our Gertrude thought a deal of another fellow; but the mater’s word is law, you see, and it might have come off. Good heavens! she will be mad.”“Your sister?”“Not she—the mother. Well, I’m not going to stand it. My dear fellow, we are being cut out.”“Nonsense, my dear boy; those two are old enough to be their grandfathers.”“But they are rich—at least, Elbraham is rolling in wealth.”“Then Lord Henry was getting the Jew to do a bill.”“You seem as if nothing would move you, Glen; I tell you I am sure they have been to propose to those girls.”“And if they had, what then?”“I should go mad.”“Nonsense! you’d go and fall in love with someone else.”“I? with another!” cried the little fellow tragically. “I tell you I never knew what it was to love till now I can’t bear it, Glen; pray get up, and come and see.”“Nonsense, man, nonsense! We couldn’t call. Wait till to-morrow, and we shall meet them in the grounds.”“You’ll drive me mad with your coolness. You can’t care for her. Oh, Glen, ’pon my soul, it’s too bad! I loved Clotilde almost to distraction, but seeing how you seemed to be taken with her, I gave her up to the man I looked upon more as brother than friend, and devoted myself to Marie. If I had known, though, I should have taken up very different ground.”Glen had felt troubled at his little companion’s remarks, and he had begun to think seriously of the possibility of what he had announced being true; but the tragic manner in which he had spoken of the transfer of his affections in obedience to his friendship was more than Glen could bear, and he burst out into such a hearty fit of laughter that little Richard faced round, and marched pompously and indignantly out of the room.No sooner had he gone than Glen began to think, and very seriously now. Somehow he seemed to have been stirred by Clotilde from the depths of his ordinary calm life; he did not know that he loved her, but the thought of her dark, passionate eyes had such an effect upon him that he got up and began to pace the room. Never had woman so moved him from his apathy before; and the more he thought of her simplicity and daring combined, the more he told himself that this woman was his fate.It was plain enough to him, with his knowledge of the world, that he was the first who had ever intruded upon her maiden repose. He knew that she had led an almost conventual life, and that her young heart seemed, as it were, to leap to meet him, so that what would have appeared brazen effrontery in a girl of several seasons, was in her but the natural act of her newly-awakened love.“I can’t help it,” he exclaimed at last; “she is not the sort of girl that I thought I should have chosen to call wife; but she is all that is innocent and passionate, and, well, I feel sure she loves me, and if she does—”He stopped short for a few moments, thinking:“We shall be as poor as the proverbial church mouse; but what does that matter, so long as a man finds a wealth of love?”He continued his two or three strides backwards and forwards, and then threw himself down in his seat.“The girl’s a syren,” he exclaimed, “and she has bewitched me. Hang me if I ever thought I could feel such a fool!”Glen’s folly, as he considered it, increased in intensity like a fever. For years past he had trifled with the complaint—rather laughed at it, in fact; but now he had it badly, and, with the customary unreason of men in his condition, he saw nothing but perfection in the lady who had made his pulses throb.Certainly, as far as appearance went, he was right, for nature could have done no more to make her attractive. To what art had made her he was perfectly blind, and, intoxicated by his new delight, he began to think of how he should contrive to see her again.Glen’s mind went faster than his body, which, in spite of energetic promptings, refused to do more than go on in a stolidly calm, well-disciplined way, and the utmost it would accord, when urged by passion to go and loiter about the Palace gardens or the private apartments in the hope of seeing Clotilde, was a stroll slowly towards Hampton.“I’m not going to behave like a foolish boy,” he said to himself. “I’ve tumbled head over ears in love with her, and if I can read a woman’s face she is not indifferent to me. Till I have a chance to say so I must wait patiently in a sensible way. It would be pleasant, though, to walk as far as Lady Littletown’s and make a call. The old lady might, perhaps, talk about her, and I should hear a little more.”He started with the idea of walking straight to Hampton, but he met Major Malpas, who detained him some little time. Then he encountered Maberley, the surgeon, and had to hear an account about one of the corporals who had been kicked by a vicious horse.The consequence was that he did not get to Lady Littletown’s on that day, while the next was pretty well taken up with a march out and other military duties; but free at last, he hurriedly got rid of his uniform, and once more set off to walk to Hampton.He had hardly seen Dick Millet since he left his quarters in dudgeon. They had met at the mess dinner, and also during the march out, but the little fellow had held himself aloof, and seemed hurt and annoyed.“I must have a talk with Master Dick,” said Glen to himself, as he walked on. “He’s a good little fellow at heart, and I don’t like to hurt his feelings.”He had hardly formed the thought when he heard rapid steps behind, and directly after his name was uttered.Turning round, there was the boy coming on at as nearly a run as his dignity would allow.“I say, old fellow, how fast you do walk! Either your legs are precious long or mine are precious short.”“Little of both, perhaps. Take the happy medium, Dick.”“Ah, that’s better,” exclaimed the boy, whose face was now bright and beaming. “I do hate to see you in one of those sulky, ill-humoured fits of yours.”“Yes, they are objectionable; but where are you going?”“Going? I was coming after you. I say, I’ve made it right.”“Made what right?”“Why,that. I hung about till I saw the Dymcoxes’ maid, a regular old griffin; and when I spoke to her she looked as if she would have snapped off my head. Couldn’t make anything of her, but I’ve secured the footman.”“Under military arrest?”“No, no, of course not. You know what I mean. I tipped him a sov., and the fellow seemed to think I had gone mad; then he thought I meant to have given him a shilling, and told me so. I don’t believe he hardly knew what a sov. was, and he’d do anything for me now. He’ll take letters, or messages, or anything; and he says that I was right.”“What about?”“What about? Why, those two ancient patriarchs; and that he is sure the old women are going to make up a match and regularly sell the girls. Glen, old fellow, this must be stopped.”“How?”“By proper advances first, and if diplomacy fails, by a dashing charge—an elopement.”“Humph!” ejaculated Marcus. “Should you inform Lady Millet, your mamma, before you took such a step?”“I should take the lady I had chosen for my wife straight home.”“And a very good place, too,” said Glen, who remained very thoughtful, saying little till they reached Lady Littletown’s gates.“Are you going to call here?”“To be sure. Come with me?” replied Glen; and receiving an answer in the affirmative to the inquiry as to whether Lady Littletown was at home, they were shown in, to find to their great delight that her ladyship had been over to the Palace that afternoon, and had brought back Clotilde and Marie to dine with her and spend the evening.“It will help to form their minds, my dears,” her ladyship had said to the Honourable Misses Dymcox; “and really, now that we have this project in hand, I feel towards them as if they were my own children.”This was while the young ladies had gone up to dress and frighten Ruth by their exigencies and sharp ways, after which they had an airing in Lady Littletown’s carriage, and, when the young officers were announced, were sipping their five o’clock tea.“Now, now, now,” cried Lady Littletown in tones of playful menace, as she gave her fingers to the officers in turn, “I shall not allow this sort of thing. You soldiers are such dreadful men. You knew my poor children here had come over to cheer my solitude, and you mount your chargers and gallop over at once.”“I can assure your ladyship that my visit was frankly intended to yourself, and that I was in utter ignorance of your having company; but of course I am the more delighted.”Glen had never delivered so courtly a speech before, and he felt uncomfortable when he had said it; but he recovered directly as he met Clotilde’s eyes, which were fixed earnestly upon his, and her hand spoke very plainly as they exchanged salutations; Marie, on the contrary, seeming as cold as her sister was warm.“Then that dreadful little Don Juan knew of it,” cried her ladyship sharply. “I shall forbid him the house.”“I assure your ladyship”—began Dick.“Eh? What, Edward?” said Lady Littletown, as a servant made a communication to her in a low, respectful tone. “Dear me, how tiresome! My dears, pray excuse me a minute, I’m called away. You can give these dreadful men a cup of tea each if they will condescend to drink it;” and she rustled out of the room.“I did not think to have seen you again so soon,” said Dick, crossing to where Marie sat, looking pale and troubled, while Clotilde rose from her seat, looking fixedly at Glen, and walked out into the great conservatory, where, of course, he followed.Marie turned paler and her breath came faster as she made as if to rise and follow them; but Dick set down the emotion as being caused by his presence, and catching her hand in both of his, he repeated his words, “I did not expect to see you again so soon.”“Let us go,” replied Marie hoarsely. “My sister; do you not see?”“Yes,” whispered Dick, full of boyish ardour. “But don’t—pray don’t go.”Lady Littletown was very proud of her conservatory, which was kept lavishly filled with the choicest flowers and foliage plants. Following on the example of Hampton Court, there were oranges of goodly size, with their bright-green leaves, yellow fruit, green fruit, and delicious blossoms all growing at the same time.It was into this semi-tropical region, where the atmosphere was redolent of sweet and cloying perfume, that Clotilde had slowly walked, her eyes dreamy and downcast, and her fingers idling amongst the beautiful blossoms on either side.As Glen followed, and noted her soft undulating form, her bent head with masses of dark hair clustering about her neck, he felt his heart go throb, throb, heavily and slowly, while his blood seemed to bound through his veins.Clotilde went on down the central path of the great glass-house, and then, without glancing back, she turned off at the bottom, where she was completely hidden from the drawing-room windows, and it was here that Glen overtook her.“Miss Riversley! Clotilde!” he said softly.She did not speak, but he saw her shudder, as if a tremor had run through her frame.“Have I offended you?” he whispered, holding out his hands.“Oh no,” she cried, starting round with her face flushed; and placing her hands in his, she looked up full in his eyes for a moment, and then let them fall.It was very shocking, very unusual, and it was all entirely opposed to the etiquette of such matters, but there was a something in Clotilde’s looks and ways that made Glen turn giddy; and he behaved giddily. Some people will say it was his fault, some others may blame the lady for her want of reserve, but the fact remains the same, that, forgetting everything in the moment but the look that had spoken so much to his eyes, the young officer pressed his lips to the hand that not only seemed to, but did invite the caress; but just then there was a sharp “Oh!” and in an instant Clotilde and Glen were admiring the beauty of the colours in some caladiums of which Lady Littletown was very proud.The ejaculation was not uttered by that lady, however, but by Marie, who, closely followed by Dick Millet, had come down the conservatory tiles silent as a cat and seen all.“Clotilde!” she exclaimed in a low, angry voice, and then she darted an imperious look at Glen.“Well, Marie?” said Clotilde coolly, as the rich red slowly died out of her cheeks, “did you find the drawing-room too warm, love? Look, Captain Glen, this one is lovely.”“Lovely indeed!” cried Marcus, giving a beseeching glance at Marie; but she turned from him scornfully, only to look back at him with a fierce, passionate gaze which startled and surprised him, for he did not then realise the truth.There was nothing to be done then but to go on admiring the flowers, and as they went from group to group, Glen’s feelings were a strange contradiction. His pulse throbbed with pleasure, but this was marred by the bitterly reproachful look he had received from Marie; while upon catching Dick’s eyes fixed upon him, and receiving a half-droll, half-reproving shake of the head from that young gentleman, he felt so angry and annoyed at his having witnessed the scene, that he could have freely kicked him out of the conservatory.A gorgeous display of blossoms cultivated to the highest pitch of perfection Lady Littletown had gathered together in her conservatory, but these nobles of Flora’s train might well have felt offence at the treatment they received, for, though the occupants of the glass-house babbled and talked flowers, any disinterested listener would have been astonished at the rubbish that was said.“Ah, you are admiring my pets,” cried Lady Littletown, returning hastily; “I’m so sorry to have had to leave you, my dears. One of my old pensioners was ill, and had sent on for some wine I promised. Yes, those are my gloxinias, Captain Glen. Delightful, are they not? Did you have some tea? No! Ah, I see how it is. Next time I receive a call at this hour from you military gentlemen, I shall have a pot with two teaspoonfuls of soda in it, and then fill it up with brandy. You would be happy then.”They stayed very little longer, and when at parting, after receiving a long, earnest pressure from Clotilde’s hand, Glen turned to Marie and took hers, most grudgingly held out, he found time to whisper:“Don’t be angry with me; surely we ought to be the best of friends.”Marie’s heart gave a great throb as she felt the warm pressure of his hand, and in spite of herself she could not help her eyes lifting to meet his in a gaze that was full of sadness and reproach.“Oh, come, I say, Glen, old fellow,” cried Dick as soon as they were well outside the gates. “You do go it, you do! Only just known her.”“Hold your tongue, do! Hang it, Millet, there are things a man ought not to see.”“Oh, very well, then, I’m as blind as a beetle and as quiet as a fish. I didn’t see anything; but, I say, didn’t it make Marie cross!”“Oh, of course. She was surprised.”“I tried to keep her in the drawing-room, but she was nervous and frightened—poor little darling!—at being alone with me, and I was obliged to let her come at last, or there would have been a scene.”There was something very suggestive of a dapper little bantam paying his addresses to a handsome young pullet in the boy’s remarks anent the “poor little darling”; but Glen was too much troubled just then to pay much heed, so his companion prattled on.For Glen was not satisfied: he wished that Clotilde had not been so yielding.Then he excused her. She was so sweet and innocent. She had been so restrained and kept down; all was so fresh to her, that her young love, he told himself, was like Haidee’s, and like some bird she had flown unhesitatingly to his breast.It was very delicious, but, all the same, he wished that it was all to come, and that she had been more retiring and reserved.Still, she loved him. There was no doubt of that, and perceiving that he was dreamy, and strange, and likely to excite notice from his companion, he roused himself from the reverie.“Well, Dick,” he cried, laughing, “what have you to say now to your story of the patriarchs?”“Well, I don’t know. I suppose it must be all a flam.”“Yes, there’s no doubt about that, and you have wasted a sovereign that might have gone in buttonholes and gloves.”“Oh, no—not wasted,” cried the little fellow. “Decidedly not. Oh, no, my dear boy, my experience teaches me that it is always as well in such matters to have a friend at court.”“I say, young fellow,” cried Glen, who had cast off his reserve, and was now making an effort to be merry, “you say, ‘in these affairs’! In the name of commonsense, how many love affairs do you happen to have had?”“Well, really,” said the boy importantly, “I don’t exactly know. Somehow or another, I did begin early.”Glen laughed merrily, and went on chatting away; but somehow the thoughts of Marie’s reproachful eyes were mingled largely with those of Clotilde’s longing, loving gaze, and there were times when he did not know whether he was most happy or most vexed.
“Why, what’s the matter?”
“Matter!” panted Dick Millet, dancing excitedly into Marcus Glen’s room, where the latter was sitting back, cigar in mouth, reading the most interesting parts of a sporting paper. “Why, everything’s the matter. While you are sitting here at your ease, those two old patriarchs have been stealing a march upon us.”
“When you get a little less excited,” said Glen coolly, “perhaps you will explain.”
“Oh, it’s easily explained: those two—that Jew fellow, Elbraham, and that old yellow apricot, Lord Henry Moorpark—have been in at the private apartments this hour.”
“Visit of ceremony,” said Glen, sending up a little cloud of smoke.
“Yes, and then they’ve been walking up and down in the gardens, talking earnestly together.”
“While you have been in the Maze and got lost,” said Glen.
“I tell you they were walking together, and shaking hands in the most affectionate manner.”
“While you played the spy, Dick? I say, my lad, that’s not square.”
“But it’s a horrible sell. My mother was always asking those two to our place.”
“With matrimonial intentions?”
“I suppose so. Elbraham never came, but old Moorpark often did, and it was on the cards—”
“Visiting-cards?”
“No. That he was to be my brother-in-law. I say, Glen, who is a fellow to trust?”
“But he was not engaged to your sister?”
“No, of course not. Our Gertrude thought a deal of another fellow; but the mater’s word is law, you see, and it might have come off. Good heavens! she will be mad.”
“Your sister?”
“Not she—the mother. Well, I’m not going to stand it. My dear fellow, we are being cut out.”
“Nonsense, my dear boy; those two are old enough to be their grandfathers.”
“But they are rich—at least, Elbraham is rolling in wealth.”
“Then Lord Henry was getting the Jew to do a bill.”
“You seem as if nothing would move you, Glen; I tell you I am sure they have been to propose to those girls.”
“And if they had, what then?”
“I should go mad.”
“Nonsense! you’d go and fall in love with someone else.”
“I? with another!” cried the little fellow tragically. “I tell you I never knew what it was to love till now I can’t bear it, Glen; pray get up, and come and see.”
“Nonsense, man, nonsense! We couldn’t call. Wait till to-morrow, and we shall meet them in the grounds.”
“You’ll drive me mad with your coolness. You can’t care for her. Oh, Glen, ’pon my soul, it’s too bad! I loved Clotilde almost to distraction, but seeing how you seemed to be taken with her, I gave her up to the man I looked upon more as brother than friend, and devoted myself to Marie. If I had known, though, I should have taken up very different ground.”
Glen had felt troubled at his little companion’s remarks, and he had begun to think seriously of the possibility of what he had announced being true; but the tragic manner in which he had spoken of the transfer of his affections in obedience to his friendship was more than Glen could bear, and he burst out into such a hearty fit of laughter that little Richard faced round, and marched pompously and indignantly out of the room.
No sooner had he gone than Glen began to think, and very seriously now. Somehow he seemed to have been stirred by Clotilde from the depths of his ordinary calm life; he did not know that he loved her, but the thought of her dark, passionate eyes had such an effect upon him that he got up and began to pace the room. Never had woman so moved him from his apathy before; and the more he thought of her simplicity and daring combined, the more he told himself that this woman was his fate.
It was plain enough to him, with his knowledge of the world, that he was the first who had ever intruded upon her maiden repose. He knew that she had led an almost conventual life, and that her young heart seemed, as it were, to leap to meet him, so that what would have appeared brazen effrontery in a girl of several seasons, was in her but the natural act of her newly-awakened love.
“I can’t help it,” he exclaimed at last; “she is not the sort of girl that I thought I should have chosen to call wife; but she is all that is innocent and passionate, and, well, I feel sure she loves me, and if she does—”
He stopped short for a few moments, thinking:
“We shall be as poor as the proverbial church mouse; but what does that matter, so long as a man finds a wealth of love?”
He continued his two or three strides backwards and forwards, and then threw himself down in his seat.
“The girl’s a syren,” he exclaimed, “and she has bewitched me. Hang me if I ever thought I could feel such a fool!”
Glen’s folly, as he considered it, increased in intensity like a fever. For years past he had trifled with the complaint—rather laughed at it, in fact; but now he had it badly, and, with the customary unreason of men in his condition, he saw nothing but perfection in the lady who had made his pulses throb.
Certainly, as far as appearance went, he was right, for nature could have done no more to make her attractive. To what art had made her he was perfectly blind, and, intoxicated by his new delight, he began to think of how he should contrive to see her again.
Glen’s mind went faster than his body, which, in spite of energetic promptings, refused to do more than go on in a stolidly calm, well-disciplined way, and the utmost it would accord, when urged by passion to go and loiter about the Palace gardens or the private apartments in the hope of seeing Clotilde, was a stroll slowly towards Hampton.
“I’m not going to behave like a foolish boy,” he said to himself. “I’ve tumbled head over ears in love with her, and if I can read a woman’s face she is not indifferent to me. Till I have a chance to say so I must wait patiently in a sensible way. It would be pleasant, though, to walk as far as Lady Littletown’s and make a call. The old lady might, perhaps, talk about her, and I should hear a little more.”
He started with the idea of walking straight to Hampton, but he met Major Malpas, who detained him some little time. Then he encountered Maberley, the surgeon, and had to hear an account about one of the corporals who had been kicked by a vicious horse.
The consequence was that he did not get to Lady Littletown’s on that day, while the next was pretty well taken up with a march out and other military duties; but free at last, he hurriedly got rid of his uniform, and once more set off to walk to Hampton.
He had hardly seen Dick Millet since he left his quarters in dudgeon. They had met at the mess dinner, and also during the march out, but the little fellow had held himself aloof, and seemed hurt and annoyed.
“I must have a talk with Master Dick,” said Glen to himself, as he walked on. “He’s a good little fellow at heart, and I don’t like to hurt his feelings.”
He had hardly formed the thought when he heard rapid steps behind, and directly after his name was uttered.
Turning round, there was the boy coming on at as nearly a run as his dignity would allow.
“I say, old fellow, how fast you do walk! Either your legs are precious long or mine are precious short.”
“Little of both, perhaps. Take the happy medium, Dick.”
“Ah, that’s better,” exclaimed the boy, whose face was now bright and beaming. “I do hate to see you in one of those sulky, ill-humoured fits of yours.”
“Yes, they are objectionable; but where are you going?”
“Going? I was coming after you. I say, I’ve made it right.”
“Made what right?”
“Why,that. I hung about till I saw the Dymcoxes’ maid, a regular old griffin; and when I spoke to her she looked as if she would have snapped off my head. Couldn’t make anything of her, but I’ve secured the footman.”
“Under military arrest?”
“No, no, of course not. You know what I mean. I tipped him a sov., and the fellow seemed to think I had gone mad; then he thought I meant to have given him a shilling, and told me so. I don’t believe he hardly knew what a sov. was, and he’d do anything for me now. He’ll take letters, or messages, or anything; and he says that I was right.”
“What about?”
“What about? Why, those two ancient patriarchs; and that he is sure the old women are going to make up a match and regularly sell the girls. Glen, old fellow, this must be stopped.”
“How?”
“By proper advances first, and if diplomacy fails, by a dashing charge—an elopement.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Marcus. “Should you inform Lady Millet, your mamma, before you took such a step?”
“I should take the lady I had chosen for my wife straight home.”
“And a very good place, too,” said Glen, who remained very thoughtful, saying little till they reached Lady Littletown’s gates.
“Are you going to call here?”
“To be sure. Come with me?” replied Glen; and receiving an answer in the affirmative to the inquiry as to whether Lady Littletown was at home, they were shown in, to find to their great delight that her ladyship had been over to the Palace that afternoon, and had brought back Clotilde and Marie to dine with her and spend the evening.
“It will help to form their minds, my dears,” her ladyship had said to the Honourable Misses Dymcox; “and really, now that we have this project in hand, I feel towards them as if they were my own children.”
This was while the young ladies had gone up to dress and frighten Ruth by their exigencies and sharp ways, after which they had an airing in Lady Littletown’s carriage, and, when the young officers were announced, were sipping their five o’clock tea.
“Now, now, now,” cried Lady Littletown in tones of playful menace, as she gave her fingers to the officers in turn, “I shall not allow this sort of thing. You soldiers are such dreadful men. You knew my poor children here had come over to cheer my solitude, and you mount your chargers and gallop over at once.”
“I can assure your ladyship that my visit was frankly intended to yourself, and that I was in utter ignorance of your having company; but of course I am the more delighted.”
Glen had never delivered so courtly a speech before, and he felt uncomfortable when he had said it; but he recovered directly as he met Clotilde’s eyes, which were fixed earnestly upon his, and her hand spoke very plainly as they exchanged salutations; Marie, on the contrary, seeming as cold as her sister was warm.
“Then that dreadful little Don Juan knew of it,” cried her ladyship sharply. “I shall forbid him the house.”
“I assure your ladyship”—began Dick.
“Eh? What, Edward?” said Lady Littletown, as a servant made a communication to her in a low, respectful tone. “Dear me, how tiresome! My dears, pray excuse me a minute, I’m called away. You can give these dreadful men a cup of tea each if they will condescend to drink it;” and she rustled out of the room.
“I did not think to have seen you again so soon,” said Dick, crossing to where Marie sat, looking pale and troubled, while Clotilde rose from her seat, looking fixedly at Glen, and walked out into the great conservatory, where, of course, he followed.
Marie turned paler and her breath came faster as she made as if to rise and follow them; but Dick set down the emotion as being caused by his presence, and catching her hand in both of his, he repeated his words, “I did not expect to see you again so soon.”
“Let us go,” replied Marie hoarsely. “My sister; do you not see?”
“Yes,” whispered Dick, full of boyish ardour. “But don’t—pray don’t go.”
Lady Littletown was very proud of her conservatory, which was kept lavishly filled with the choicest flowers and foliage plants. Following on the example of Hampton Court, there were oranges of goodly size, with their bright-green leaves, yellow fruit, green fruit, and delicious blossoms all growing at the same time.
It was into this semi-tropical region, where the atmosphere was redolent of sweet and cloying perfume, that Clotilde had slowly walked, her eyes dreamy and downcast, and her fingers idling amongst the beautiful blossoms on either side.
As Glen followed, and noted her soft undulating form, her bent head with masses of dark hair clustering about her neck, he felt his heart go throb, throb, heavily and slowly, while his blood seemed to bound through his veins.
Clotilde went on down the central path of the great glass-house, and then, without glancing back, she turned off at the bottom, where she was completely hidden from the drawing-room windows, and it was here that Glen overtook her.
“Miss Riversley! Clotilde!” he said softly.
She did not speak, but he saw her shudder, as if a tremor had run through her frame.
“Have I offended you?” he whispered, holding out his hands.
“Oh no,” she cried, starting round with her face flushed; and placing her hands in his, she looked up full in his eyes for a moment, and then let them fall.
It was very shocking, very unusual, and it was all entirely opposed to the etiquette of such matters, but there was a something in Clotilde’s looks and ways that made Glen turn giddy; and he behaved giddily. Some people will say it was his fault, some others may blame the lady for her want of reserve, but the fact remains the same, that, forgetting everything in the moment but the look that had spoken so much to his eyes, the young officer pressed his lips to the hand that not only seemed to, but did invite the caress; but just then there was a sharp “Oh!” and in an instant Clotilde and Glen were admiring the beauty of the colours in some caladiums of which Lady Littletown was very proud.
The ejaculation was not uttered by that lady, however, but by Marie, who, closely followed by Dick Millet, had come down the conservatory tiles silent as a cat and seen all.
“Clotilde!” she exclaimed in a low, angry voice, and then she darted an imperious look at Glen.
“Well, Marie?” said Clotilde coolly, as the rich red slowly died out of her cheeks, “did you find the drawing-room too warm, love? Look, Captain Glen, this one is lovely.”
“Lovely indeed!” cried Marcus, giving a beseeching glance at Marie; but she turned from him scornfully, only to look back at him with a fierce, passionate gaze which startled and surprised him, for he did not then realise the truth.
There was nothing to be done then but to go on admiring the flowers, and as they went from group to group, Glen’s feelings were a strange contradiction. His pulse throbbed with pleasure, but this was marred by the bitterly reproachful look he had received from Marie; while upon catching Dick’s eyes fixed upon him, and receiving a half-droll, half-reproving shake of the head from that young gentleman, he felt so angry and annoyed at his having witnessed the scene, that he could have freely kicked him out of the conservatory.
A gorgeous display of blossoms cultivated to the highest pitch of perfection Lady Littletown had gathered together in her conservatory, but these nobles of Flora’s train might well have felt offence at the treatment they received, for, though the occupants of the glass-house babbled and talked flowers, any disinterested listener would have been astonished at the rubbish that was said.
“Ah, you are admiring my pets,” cried Lady Littletown, returning hastily; “I’m so sorry to have had to leave you, my dears. One of my old pensioners was ill, and had sent on for some wine I promised. Yes, those are my gloxinias, Captain Glen. Delightful, are they not? Did you have some tea? No! Ah, I see how it is. Next time I receive a call at this hour from you military gentlemen, I shall have a pot with two teaspoonfuls of soda in it, and then fill it up with brandy. You would be happy then.”
They stayed very little longer, and when at parting, after receiving a long, earnest pressure from Clotilde’s hand, Glen turned to Marie and took hers, most grudgingly held out, he found time to whisper:
“Don’t be angry with me; surely we ought to be the best of friends.”
Marie’s heart gave a great throb as she felt the warm pressure of his hand, and in spite of herself she could not help her eyes lifting to meet his in a gaze that was full of sadness and reproach.
“Oh, come, I say, Glen, old fellow,” cried Dick as soon as they were well outside the gates. “You do go it, you do! Only just known her.”
“Hold your tongue, do! Hang it, Millet, there are things a man ought not to see.”
“Oh, very well, then, I’m as blind as a beetle and as quiet as a fish. I didn’t see anything; but, I say, didn’t it make Marie cross!”
“Oh, of course. She was surprised.”
“I tried to keep her in the drawing-room, but she was nervous and frightened—poor little darling!—at being alone with me, and I was obliged to let her come at last, or there would have been a scene.”
There was something very suggestive of a dapper little bantam paying his addresses to a handsome young pullet in the boy’s remarks anent the “poor little darling”; but Glen was too much troubled just then to pay much heed, so his companion prattled on.
For Glen was not satisfied: he wished that Clotilde had not been so yielding.
Then he excused her. She was so sweet and innocent. She had been so restrained and kept down; all was so fresh to her, that her young love, he told himself, was like Haidee’s, and like some bird she had flown unhesitatingly to his breast.
It was very delicious, but, all the same, he wished that it was all to come, and that she had been more retiring and reserved.
Still, she loved him. There was no doubt of that, and perceiving that he was dreamy, and strange, and likely to excite notice from his companion, he roused himself from the reverie.
“Well, Dick,” he cried, laughing, “what have you to say now to your story of the patriarchs?”
“Well, I don’t know. I suppose it must be all a flam.”
“Yes, there’s no doubt about that, and you have wasted a sovereign that might have gone in buttonholes and gloves.”
“Oh, no—not wasted,” cried the little fellow. “Decidedly not. Oh, no, my dear boy, my experience teaches me that it is always as well in such matters to have a friend at court.”
“I say, young fellow,” cried Glen, who had cast off his reserve, and was now making an effort to be merry, “you say, ‘in these affairs’! In the name of commonsense, how many love affairs do you happen to have had?”
“Well, really,” said the boy importantly, “I don’t exactly know. Somehow or another, I did begin early.”
Glen laughed merrily, and went on chatting away; but somehow the thoughts of Marie’s reproachful eyes were mingled largely with those of Clotilde’s longing, loving gaze, and there were times when he did not know whether he was most happy or most vexed.
Volume Two—Chapter Five.A Walk in the Gardens.The days glided on, with the younger sisters wondering at the change that had taken place, for everything now seemed to be done with an idea to their comfort.Mr Montaigne called, according to his custom, pretty frequently, and he was quite affectionate in his ways. He and the Honourable Misses Dymcox had long conversations together, after which he used to go, seeming to bless Clotilde and Marie, he was so paternal and gentle—Ruth obtaining, too, her share of his benevolent smiles.Then, after a good deal of waiting, came a time when Clotilde met Glen alone. The latter did not know that he had Dick to thank for the arrangement; but he it was who made the suggestion to Clotilde, by whom the idea was seized at once, and the very next morning she proposed that Marie and she should have a walk in the gardens directly after breakfast.“My head aches a good deal, aunties, and a walk will do it good.”Miss Philippa looked at her sister, and Miss Isabella returned the look.“Well, my dears, as it is far too early for anyone to be down from London,” said Miss Philippa, “I think you might go, don’t you, sister?”“Yes, decidedly,” said Miss Isabella; and the young ladies went up to dress, Markes entering the bedroom as they prepared for their walk.“But you two ain’t going alone?” said the maid.“Indeed but we are, Markes,” retorted Clotilde.“But not without your aunts?”“Yes, of course. How absurd you are!”“Well, things is coming to a pretty pass! I couldn’t have believed it if I’d been told.”She went out, and, according to her custom, slammed the door, but it was not heeded now; and soon after, with the affectionate kisses of their aunts moist upon their cheeks, the two girls strolled along one of the paths in the direction of the Lion Gate.For a time they were very silent, but at last, after two or three sidelong glances at Marie, Clotilde opened the ball.“Well, dear,” she said, “what do you think of it?”Marie remained silent.“For my part,” continued Clotilde, “I think it horrible. It’s like being sold into a seraglio. I won’t have him.”“Then why did you accept that bracelet?” exclaimed Marie sharply.“Because it was very beautiful, my dear sister; because I only had a wretchedly commonporte bonheur; and, lastly, because it was of diamonds, and I liked it.”“But it was like telling the man you would have him.”“Then why did you accept that pearl ring Lord Henry sent you, sweet sissy?”“For the same reason—because I liked it,” said Marie bitterly; “but I’ve hated myself ever since.”“It’s a pity they are so old,” said Clotilde. “It would be very nice if they were not, for I like the idea of having plenty of good things, and being able to spend as much money as I like. Why, Rie,” she exclaimed, “let’s have a run through the Maze. We haven’t been since we were quite little children.”“Nonsense! absurd!”“Never mind; let’s be absurd for once. There will be no one there so soon as this. I shall go; you can stay away if you like.”With a quiet, disdainful look, Marie followed her sister, and carelessly began with her threading the devious course through the quaint old labyrinth.“How ridiculous of you, Clo!” she said at last. “There is not a breath of air, and it is growing terribly hot. Come back, there is someone here.”“Very well; come back, then,” said Clotilde. “This way, Rie.”“No; that is not the path.”“Yes it is. I’m sure it is; and—oh, how strange! Here are those two.”Marie’s cheeks crimsoned as she found that they had come suddenly upon the two officers. That it was a planned thing she was sure; but this was not the time to resent it, and she returned the salutations with which she was greeted, making up her mind that she would keep close to Clotilde the whole time, and prevent atête-à-tête.But such a determination would have been difficult to carry out in the gardens, when three people were arrayed dead against her. In a maze it was simply impossible; and the guide was not there.She never knew how or when they were separated, but all at once she and Dick were on one side of a hedge, and Clotilde and Glen on the other, and when the boy laughingly tried to put matters right, he did it so cleverly that they were soon two hedges separate; then three, and likely to be four; by which time, forgetful of all his scrupulous feelings, and Clotilde’s want of perfection in his eyes, Glen had clasped her to his heart with a deep, low “My darling, at last!”“Oh, no, no, no, Marcus,” she sobbed, as she gently thrust him away, and then clung to his arm, gazing piteously up at him the while. “You must not. I ought not to let you. I feel so wicked and despairing I hardly care to live.”“But why, my darling—my beautiful darling?” he whispered passionately, contenting himself now with holding her hands.“Because this is so wrong. My aunts would never forgive me if they knew.”“That is what I want to speak about, dearest,” he said, in a low voice, as he drew her arm through his and they walked on. “May I speak to them? Let me call and ask their permission to come freely and openly to the apartments. I am only a poor suitor, Clotilde—only a captain of cavalry, with very little beside his pay; but you will not despise me for that?”“For what?” she cried innocently, as she gazed up into his face.“For my want of money,” he said, smiling down, and longing to clasp her once more in his arms.“I hardly know what money is,” she said quietly. “We have never had any; so why should I care for that?”“Then I may speak?” he whispered. “I may be better off by-and-by, and we can wait.”“Oh yes, we could wait,” sighed Clotilde. “But no—no—no, it is madness! I ought not to talk like this. I’ve been very weak and foolish, and I don’t know what you must think of me.”“Think of you!” he whispered; “that you are all that is beautiful and innocent and good, and that I love you with all my heart.”“But I’m not good,” faltered Clotilde; “I’m very wicked indeed, and I don’t know what will become of me; I don’t, really.”“Become the woman who will share my fate—the woman I shall make my idol. Clotilde, I never saw one I could sincerely say such things to till we met, and at one bound my heart seemed to go out to meet you. Tell me, my darling, that nothing shall separate us now.”“Oh, don’t, pray don’t speak to me like that,” sighed Clotilde. “You don’t know—you can’t know. What shall I do?”“My dear girl, tell me,” he whispered, as he gazed in her wild eyes.“Oh, no, no!” she sobbed.“Not give your confidence to one who loves you as I do?”“I dare not tell you—yes, I will,” she cried piteously. “What shall I do? My aunts say that I must marry Mr Elbraham.”“Then Millet was right,” cried Glen excitedly. “But no, no, my darling, it cannot—it shall not be. Only tell me you love me—that I may care for you—guard you—defend you, and no aunts or Elbrahams in the world shall separate us.”“I—I think—I believe I do care for you,” she faltered, as she looked up at him in a piteous, pleading way.“Heaven bless you, sweet!” he cried. “Then this very day I will see them. They are women, and will listen to reason. I will plead to them, and you shall help me.”“Oh, no, no, no!” cried Clotilde in horrified tones. “That would be to separate us for ever, and—and—and,” she sobbed, “I could not bear that.”“But surely”—he began.“Oh, you do not know my aunts!” she said excitedly. “It would only be to force me into that dreadful man’s arms. We must not let them know. It would be too dreadful.”“But, my darling, I think I could show them—”“No, no! Don’t show them—don’t try to show them, if you love me!”“If I love you!” he said reproachfully.“Then pray—pray keep it secret,” she said imploringly, “for the present.”“But I must see you—I must talk to you.”“Yes, yes; you shall sometimes. But if they thought you spoke to me as you have, I should never see you again.”“But what am I to do?” he pleaded.“You may write to me sometimes,” she said ingenuously; “and sometimes, perhaps, we may meet.”“But—”“Hush! No more now. Oh, pray—pray—pray! Here is sister Marie.”Glen did not notice it, but Clotilde recovered her calmness very rapidly, as, after a very awkward time spent in trying hard to keep her from joining the others, Marie found out the way for herself, and snubbed Dick so sharply that he came up with her looking exceedingly rueful, and telling himself that the sacrifice he had made to friendship was far too great, and that he ought to have kept to Clotilde.“Why, Marie,” exclaimed the latter, “where have you been?”Marie did not reply, only darted an angry glance at her sister, and then one full of scorn at Glen, who made a sign to Millet, one which the little fellow eagerly obeyed, going on with Clotilde, while Glen lingered behind with Marie.“I am not so blind or so foolish as not to see that you are displeased with my attentions to your sister,” he said in a low voice, which made her thrill with pleasure, in spite of the jealous anger she felt. “Yes, you need not tell me,” he continued, meeting her eyes. “But come, let us be friends—more, let us be like brother and sister, for, believe me, my feelings towards you are warmer than you think. I know that I am no worthy match for your sister, but if love can make up for poverty—there, you will not be angry with me, for I want you to be my ally.”Marie turned to him again to look scorn and anger, but as she met his eyes her resolution failed, and it was all she could do to keep from bursting into a passionate fit of sobbing.“He loves her,” she sobbed to herself; “and he cannot see her, he cannot know her, as I do.”The next moment she was upbraiding herself with her own unworthiness, while he was interpreting her silence into a more softened feeling towards him; and when they parted a few minutes later, and he pressed her hand, Marie felt that if he wished it she could become his slave, while somehow Glen did not feel quite satisfied with his idol.The sisters did not speak on their way back, while when they re-entered the Palace their aunts were loud in praise of the animation their walk had imparted to their countenances.“Such news, my dears!” cried Miss Philippa.“Such good news, my dears!” echoed Miss Isabella.“Mr Elbraham is coming down to-day,” said Miss Philippa.“And he will drive Lord Henry Moorpark down in his phaeton.”“Yes, my sweet darlings,” said Miss Philippa affectionately. “I think, dears, I would sit quietly in the drawing-room all the morning.”“And go up just before lunch to dress.”“Yes, dears. Your new morning dresses have come home.”“Oh, have they, aunt dear?” cried Clotilde. “Come upstairs, then, at once, Rie, and we’ll try them on.”
The days glided on, with the younger sisters wondering at the change that had taken place, for everything now seemed to be done with an idea to their comfort.
Mr Montaigne called, according to his custom, pretty frequently, and he was quite affectionate in his ways. He and the Honourable Misses Dymcox had long conversations together, after which he used to go, seeming to bless Clotilde and Marie, he was so paternal and gentle—Ruth obtaining, too, her share of his benevolent smiles.
Then, after a good deal of waiting, came a time when Clotilde met Glen alone. The latter did not know that he had Dick to thank for the arrangement; but he it was who made the suggestion to Clotilde, by whom the idea was seized at once, and the very next morning she proposed that Marie and she should have a walk in the gardens directly after breakfast.
“My head aches a good deal, aunties, and a walk will do it good.”
Miss Philippa looked at her sister, and Miss Isabella returned the look.
“Well, my dears, as it is far too early for anyone to be down from London,” said Miss Philippa, “I think you might go, don’t you, sister?”
“Yes, decidedly,” said Miss Isabella; and the young ladies went up to dress, Markes entering the bedroom as they prepared for their walk.
“But you two ain’t going alone?” said the maid.
“Indeed but we are, Markes,” retorted Clotilde.
“But not without your aunts?”
“Yes, of course. How absurd you are!”
“Well, things is coming to a pretty pass! I couldn’t have believed it if I’d been told.”
She went out, and, according to her custom, slammed the door, but it was not heeded now; and soon after, with the affectionate kisses of their aunts moist upon their cheeks, the two girls strolled along one of the paths in the direction of the Lion Gate.
For a time they were very silent, but at last, after two or three sidelong glances at Marie, Clotilde opened the ball.
“Well, dear,” she said, “what do you think of it?”
Marie remained silent.
“For my part,” continued Clotilde, “I think it horrible. It’s like being sold into a seraglio. I won’t have him.”
“Then why did you accept that bracelet?” exclaimed Marie sharply.
“Because it was very beautiful, my dear sister; because I only had a wretchedly commonporte bonheur; and, lastly, because it was of diamonds, and I liked it.”
“But it was like telling the man you would have him.”
“Then why did you accept that pearl ring Lord Henry sent you, sweet sissy?”
“For the same reason—because I liked it,” said Marie bitterly; “but I’ve hated myself ever since.”
“It’s a pity they are so old,” said Clotilde. “It would be very nice if they were not, for I like the idea of having plenty of good things, and being able to spend as much money as I like. Why, Rie,” she exclaimed, “let’s have a run through the Maze. We haven’t been since we were quite little children.”
“Nonsense! absurd!”
“Never mind; let’s be absurd for once. There will be no one there so soon as this. I shall go; you can stay away if you like.”
With a quiet, disdainful look, Marie followed her sister, and carelessly began with her threading the devious course through the quaint old labyrinth.
“How ridiculous of you, Clo!” she said at last. “There is not a breath of air, and it is growing terribly hot. Come back, there is someone here.”
“Very well; come back, then,” said Clotilde. “This way, Rie.”
“No; that is not the path.”
“Yes it is. I’m sure it is; and—oh, how strange! Here are those two.”
Marie’s cheeks crimsoned as she found that they had come suddenly upon the two officers. That it was a planned thing she was sure; but this was not the time to resent it, and she returned the salutations with which she was greeted, making up her mind that she would keep close to Clotilde the whole time, and prevent atête-à-tête.
But such a determination would have been difficult to carry out in the gardens, when three people were arrayed dead against her. In a maze it was simply impossible; and the guide was not there.
She never knew how or when they were separated, but all at once she and Dick were on one side of a hedge, and Clotilde and Glen on the other, and when the boy laughingly tried to put matters right, he did it so cleverly that they were soon two hedges separate; then three, and likely to be four; by which time, forgetful of all his scrupulous feelings, and Clotilde’s want of perfection in his eyes, Glen had clasped her to his heart with a deep, low “My darling, at last!”
“Oh, no, no, no, Marcus,” she sobbed, as she gently thrust him away, and then clung to his arm, gazing piteously up at him the while. “You must not. I ought not to let you. I feel so wicked and despairing I hardly care to live.”
“But why, my darling—my beautiful darling?” he whispered passionately, contenting himself now with holding her hands.
“Because this is so wrong. My aunts would never forgive me if they knew.”
“That is what I want to speak about, dearest,” he said, in a low voice, as he drew her arm through his and they walked on. “May I speak to them? Let me call and ask their permission to come freely and openly to the apartments. I am only a poor suitor, Clotilde—only a captain of cavalry, with very little beside his pay; but you will not despise me for that?”
“For what?” she cried innocently, as she gazed up into his face.
“For my want of money,” he said, smiling down, and longing to clasp her once more in his arms.
“I hardly know what money is,” she said quietly. “We have never had any; so why should I care for that?”
“Then I may speak?” he whispered. “I may be better off by-and-by, and we can wait.”
“Oh yes, we could wait,” sighed Clotilde. “But no—no—no, it is madness! I ought not to talk like this. I’ve been very weak and foolish, and I don’t know what you must think of me.”
“Think of you!” he whispered; “that you are all that is beautiful and innocent and good, and that I love you with all my heart.”
“But I’m not good,” faltered Clotilde; “I’m very wicked indeed, and I don’t know what will become of me; I don’t, really.”
“Become the woman who will share my fate—the woman I shall make my idol. Clotilde, I never saw one I could sincerely say such things to till we met, and at one bound my heart seemed to go out to meet you. Tell me, my darling, that nothing shall separate us now.”
“Oh, don’t, pray don’t speak to me like that,” sighed Clotilde. “You don’t know—you can’t know. What shall I do?”
“My dear girl, tell me,” he whispered, as he gazed in her wild eyes.
“Oh, no, no!” she sobbed.
“Not give your confidence to one who loves you as I do?”
“I dare not tell you—yes, I will,” she cried piteously. “What shall I do? My aunts say that I must marry Mr Elbraham.”
“Then Millet was right,” cried Glen excitedly. “But no, no, my darling, it cannot—it shall not be. Only tell me you love me—that I may care for you—guard you—defend you, and no aunts or Elbrahams in the world shall separate us.”
“I—I think—I believe I do care for you,” she faltered, as she looked up at him in a piteous, pleading way.
“Heaven bless you, sweet!” he cried. “Then this very day I will see them. They are women, and will listen to reason. I will plead to them, and you shall help me.”
“Oh, no, no, no!” cried Clotilde in horrified tones. “That would be to separate us for ever, and—and—and,” she sobbed, “I could not bear that.”
“But surely”—he began.
“Oh, you do not know my aunts!” she said excitedly. “It would only be to force me into that dreadful man’s arms. We must not let them know. It would be too dreadful.”
“But, my darling, I think I could show them—”
“No, no! Don’t show them—don’t try to show them, if you love me!”
“If I love you!” he said reproachfully.
“Then pray—pray keep it secret,” she said imploringly, “for the present.”
“But I must see you—I must talk to you.”
“Yes, yes; you shall sometimes. But if they thought you spoke to me as you have, I should never see you again.”
“But what am I to do?” he pleaded.
“You may write to me sometimes,” she said ingenuously; “and sometimes, perhaps, we may meet.”
“But—”
“Hush! No more now. Oh, pray—pray—pray! Here is sister Marie.”
Glen did not notice it, but Clotilde recovered her calmness very rapidly, as, after a very awkward time spent in trying hard to keep her from joining the others, Marie found out the way for herself, and snubbed Dick so sharply that he came up with her looking exceedingly rueful, and telling himself that the sacrifice he had made to friendship was far too great, and that he ought to have kept to Clotilde.
“Why, Marie,” exclaimed the latter, “where have you been?”
Marie did not reply, only darted an angry glance at her sister, and then one full of scorn at Glen, who made a sign to Millet, one which the little fellow eagerly obeyed, going on with Clotilde, while Glen lingered behind with Marie.
“I am not so blind or so foolish as not to see that you are displeased with my attentions to your sister,” he said in a low voice, which made her thrill with pleasure, in spite of the jealous anger she felt. “Yes, you need not tell me,” he continued, meeting her eyes. “But come, let us be friends—more, let us be like brother and sister, for, believe me, my feelings towards you are warmer than you think. I know that I am no worthy match for your sister, but if love can make up for poverty—there, you will not be angry with me, for I want you to be my ally.”
Marie turned to him again to look scorn and anger, but as she met his eyes her resolution failed, and it was all she could do to keep from bursting into a passionate fit of sobbing.
“He loves her,” she sobbed to herself; “and he cannot see her, he cannot know her, as I do.”
The next moment she was upbraiding herself with her own unworthiness, while he was interpreting her silence into a more softened feeling towards him; and when they parted a few minutes later, and he pressed her hand, Marie felt that if he wished it she could become his slave, while somehow Glen did not feel quite satisfied with his idol.
The sisters did not speak on their way back, while when they re-entered the Palace their aunts were loud in praise of the animation their walk had imparted to their countenances.
“Such news, my dears!” cried Miss Philippa.
“Such good news, my dears!” echoed Miss Isabella.
“Mr Elbraham is coming down to-day,” said Miss Philippa.
“And he will drive Lord Henry Moorpark down in his phaeton.”
“Yes, my sweet darlings,” said Miss Philippa affectionately. “I think, dears, I would sit quietly in the drawing-room all the morning.”
“And go up just before lunch to dress.”
“Yes, dears. Your new morning dresses have come home.”
“Oh, have they, aunt dear?” cried Clotilde. “Come upstairs, then, at once, Rie, and we’ll try them on.”