"If thou canst see not, hast thou ears to hear?—Oris thy soul too as a leaf that dies?"
"If thou canst see not, hast thou ears to hear?—Oris thy soul too as a leaf that dies?"
"Well, after all, life has its compensations," says Mr. Beauclerk, sinking upon the satin lounge beside Miss Kavanagh, and giving way to a rapturous sigh. He is looking very big and very handsome. His close-cropped eminently aristocratic head is thrown a little back, to give full play to the ecstatic smile he is directing at Joyce.
She bears it wonderfully. She receives it indeed with all the amiable imbecility of a person who doesn't understand what on earth you are talking about. Whether this reception of his little opening speech—so carefully prepared—puzzles or nettles Mr. Beauclerk there is no way of learning. He makes no sign.
"I thought I should never be able to get a dance with you; you see,"—smiling—"when one is the belle of the evening, one grows difficult. But youmighthave kept a fifth or sixth for a poor outsider like me. An old friend too."
"Old friends don't count at a dance, I'm afraid," says she, with a smile as genial as his own; "though for the matter of that you could have had the first;no one—hard as it may be to make you believe it—had asked the belle of the evening for that."
This is not quite true. Many had asked for it, Dysart amongst others; but she had kept it open for—the one who didn't want it. However, fibs of this sort one blinks at where pretty girls are the criminals. Her tone is delicately sarcastic. She would willingly suppress the sarcasm altogether as beneath her, but she is very angry; and when a woman is angry there is generally somebody to pay.
"Oh! thatfirst!" says he, with a gesture of impatience. "I shan't forgive Isabel in a hurry about that; she ruined my evening—up tothis. However," throwing off as it were unpleasant memories by a shake of his head, "don't let me spoil my one good time by dwelling upon a bad one. Here I am now, at all events; here is comfort, here is peace. The hour I have been longing for is mine at last."
"It might have been yours considerably earlier," says Miss Kavanagh with very noteworthy deliberation, unmoved by his lover-like glances, which after all have more truth in them than most of his declarations. She sits playing with her fan, and with a face expressionless as any sphinx.
"Oh! mydeargirl!" says Mr. Beauclerk reproachfully, "how can you say that! You know in one's sister's house one must—eh? And she laid positive commands on me——"
"To dance the first dance with Miss Maliphant?"
"Now, that's not like you," says Mr. Beauclerk very gently. "It's not just. When I found Miss Dunscombe engaged for that ridiculous quadrille, what could I do?Youwere engaged to Blake. I was looking aimlessly round me, cursing my luck in that I had not thrown up even my sister's wishes and secured before it was too late the only girl in the room I cared to dance with when Isabel came again. 'Not dancing,' says she; 'and there's Miss Maliphant over there, partnerless!'"
He tells all this with as genuine an air as if it was not false from start to finish.
"YouknowIsabel," says he, laughing airily; "she takes the oddest fancies at times. Miss Maliphant is her latest craze. Though what she can see in her——Anicegirl. Thoroughly nice—essentiallyreal—a littletooreal perhaps," with a laugh so irresistible that even Miss Kavanagh against her will is compelled to join in it.
"Honest all through, I admit; but as awaltzer! Well, well, we shouldn't be too severe—but really, there you know, she leaveseverythingto be desired. And I've been victimized not once, but twice—threetimes."
"It is nothing remarkable," says Miss Kavanagh, coldly. "Many very charming girls do not dance well. It is a gift."
"A very precious one. When a charming girl can't waltz, she ought to learn how to sit down charmingly, and not oppress innocent people. As for Miss Maliphant!" throwing out his large handsome hands expressively, "shecertainly should not dance. Her complexion doesn't stand it. Did you notice her?"
"No," icily.
"Ah, you wouldn't, you know. I could see how thoroughly well occupiedyouwere! Not a thought for even an old friend; and besides you're a girl in ten thousand. Nothing petty or small about you. Now, another woman would not have failed to notice the fatal tendency towards rubicundity that marks Miss Maliphant's nose whenever——"
"I do so dislike discussing people behind their backs," says Miss Kavanagh, slowly. "I always think it is sounfair. They can't defend themselves. It is like maligning the dead."
"Miss Maliphant isn't dead at all events. She is dreadfully alive," says Mr. Beauclerk, totally unabashed. He laughs gaily. To refuse to be lectured was a rule he had laid down for his own guidance early in life. Those people who will not see when they ought to be offended have generally the best of the game.
"Would you have her dead?" asks Joyce, with calm interrogation.
"I don't remember saying I would have heranyway," says he, still evidently clinging to the frivolous mood. "And at all events I wouldn't have herdancing. It disagrees with her nose. It makes her suggestive; it betrays one into the making of bad parodies. One I made to-night when looking at her; I couldn't resist it. For once in her life you see she was irresistible. Hear it. 'Oh! my love's got a red, red nose!' Ha! ha! Not half bad, eh? It kept repeating itself in my brain all the time I was looking at her."
"I thought you liked her," says Joyce, lifting her large dark eyes for the first time to his. Beautiful eyes! a little shocked now—a little cold—almost entreating. Surely, surely, he will not destroy her ideal of him.
"You think I am censorious," says he readily, "cruel almost; but toyou"—with delicate flattery—"surely I may speak toyouas I would speak to no other. May I not?" He leans a little forward, and compelling the girl's reluctant gaze, goes on speaking. It chafes him that she should put him on his defence; but someonedivine instinct within him warns him not to break with her entirely. "Still," says he, in a low tone, always with his eyes on hers, "I see that you condemn me."
"Condemn you! No! Why shouldIbe your judge?"
"Youare, however—and my judge and jury too. I cannot bear to think that you should despise me. And all because of that wretched girl."
"I don't despise you," says the girl, quickly. "If you were really despicable I should not like you as well as I do; I am only sorry that you should say little unkind things of a girl like Miss Maliphant, who, if not beautiful, is surely to be regarded in a very kindly light."
"Do you know," says Mr. Beauclerk, gently, "I think you are the one sweet character in the world." There is a great amount of belief in his tone, perhaps half of it is honest. "I never met any one like you. Women as a rule are willing to tear each other to pieces but you—you condone all faults; that is why I——"
A pause. He leans forward. His eyes are eloquent; his tongue alone refrains from finishing the declaration that he had begun. To the girl beside him, however, ignorant of subterfuge, unknowing of the wiles that run in and out of society like a thread, his words sound sweet—the sweeter for the very hesitation that accompanies them.
"I am not so perfect as you think me," says she, rather sadly—her voice a little faint.
"That is true," says he quickly, as though compelled against his will to find fault with her. "A while ago you were angry with me because I was driven to waste my time with people uncongenial to me.Thatwas unfair if you like." He throws her own accusation back at her in the gentlest fashion. "I danced with this, that, and the other person it is true, but do you not know where my heart was all this time?"
He pauses for a moment, just long enough to make more real his question, but hardly long enough to let her reply to it. To bring matters to a climax, would not suit him at all.
"Yes, youdoknow," says he, seeing her about to speak. "Andyetyou misjudge me. If—if I were to tell you that I would rather be with you than with any other woman in the world, you would believe me, wouldn't you?"
He stoops over her, and taking her hand presses it fondly, lingeringly. "Answer me."
"Yes," says Joyce in a low tone. It has not occurred to her that his words are a question rather than an asseveration. That he loves her, seems to her certain. A soft glow illumines her cheeks; her eyes sink beneath his; the idea that she is happy, or at all eventsoughtto be happy, fills her with a curious wonderment. Do people always feel so strange, so surprised, sounsure, when love comes to them?
"Yet youdiddoubt," says Beauclerk, giving her hand a last pressure, and now nestling back amongst his cushions with all the air of a man who has fought and conquered and has been given his reward. "Well, don't let us throw an unpleasant memory into this happy hour. As I have said," taking up her fan and idly, if gracefully, waving it to and fro, "after all the turmoil of the fight it is sweet to find oneself at last in the haven where one would be."
He is smiling at Joyce—the gayest, the most candid smile in the world. Smiles become him. He is looking really handsome andhappyat finding himself thus alone with her. Sincerity declares itself in every line of his face. Perhaps heisas sincere as he has ever yet been in his life. The one thing that he unquestionably does regard with interest beyond his own poor precious bones, is the exquisite bit of nature's workmanship now sitting beside him.
At this present moment, in spite of his flattering words, his smiles and telling glances, she is still a little cold, a little uncertain, a phase of manner that renders her indescribably charming to the one watching her.
Beauclerk indeed is enjoying himself immensely. To a man of his temperament to be able to play upon a nature as fine, as honest, as pure as Joyce's is to know a keen delight. That the girl is dissatisfied, vaguely, nervously dissatisfied, he can read as easily as though the workings of her soul lay before him in broad type, and to assuage those half-defined misgivings of hers is a task that suits him. He attacks itcon amore.
"How silent you are," says he, very gently, when he has let quite a long pause occur.
"I am tired, I think."
"Of me?"
"No."
"Of what then?" He has found that as a rule there is nothing a woman likes better than to be asked to define her own feelings, Joyce, however, disappoints him.
"I don't know. Sitting up so late I suppose."
"Look here!" says he, in a voice so full of earnest emotion that Joyce involuntarily stares at him; "Iknow what is the matter with you. You are fighting against your better nature. You aretryingto be ungenerous. You are trying to believe what you know is not true. Tell me—honestlymind—are you not forcing yourself to regard me as a monster of insincerity?"
"You are wrong," says she, slowly. "I am forcing myself, on the contrary, to believe you a very giant of sincerity."
"And you find that difficult?"
"Yes."
An intense feeling of admiration for her sways Beauclerk. How new a thing to find a girl so beautiful, with so much intelligence. Surely instinct is the great lever that moves humanity. Why has not this girl the thousands that render Miss Maliphant so very desirable? What abêtiseon the part of Mother Nature. Alas! it would be too much to expect from that niggardly Dame. Beauty, intelligence, wealth! All rolled into one personality. Impossible!
"You are candid,'" says he, his tone sorrowful.
"That is what one should always be," says she in turn.
"You aretoostern a judge. How shall I convince you," exclaims he—"ofwhathe leaves open? If I were to swear——"
"Donot," says she quickly.
"Well, I won't. But Joyce!" He pauses, purposely. It is the first time he has ever called her by her Christian name, and a little soft color springs into the girl's cheeks as she hears him. "You know," says he, "youdoknow?"
It is a question; butagainwhat?Whatdoes she know? He had accredited her with remarkable intelligence a moment ago, but as a fact the girl's knowledge of life is but a poor thing in comparison with that of the man of the world. She belies her intelligence on the spot.
"Yes, I think I do," says she shyly. In fact she is longing to believe, to be sure of this thing, that to her is so plain that she has omitted to notice that he has never put it into words.
"You will trust in me?" says he.
"Yes, I trust you," says she simply.
Her pretty gloved hand is lying on her lap. Raising it, he presses it passionately to his lips. Joyce, with a little nervous movement, withdraws it quickly. The color dies from her lips. Even at this supreme moment does Doubt hold her in thrall!
Her face is marvelously bright and happy, however, as she rises precipitately to her feet, much to Beauclerk's relief. It has gone quite far enough he tells himself—five minutes more and he would have found himself in a rather embarrassing position. Really these pretty girls are very dangerous.
"Come, we must go back to the ballroom," says she gaily. "We have been here an unconscionable time. I am afraid my partner for this dance has been looking for me, and will scarcely forgive my treating him so badly. If I had only told him Iwouldn'tdance with him he might have got another partner and enjoyed himself."
"Better to have loved and lost," quotes Beauclerk in his airiest manner. It issoairy that it strikes Joyce unpleasantly. Surely after all—after——She pulls herself together angrily. Is shealwaysto find fault with him? Must she have his whole nature altered to suit her taste?
"Ah, there is Dicky Browne," says she, glancing from where she is now standing at the door of the conservatory to where Mr. Browne may be seen leaning against a curtain with his lips curved in a truly benevolent smile.
"Now the nights are all past overOf our dreaming, dreams that hoverIn a mist of fair false things:Night's afloat on wide wan wings."
"Now the nights are all past overOf our dreaming, dreams that hoverIn a mist of fair false things:Night's afloat on wide wan wings."
"Why, so it is! OurownDicky, in the flesh and an admirable temper apparently," says Mr. Beauclerk. "Shall we come and interview him?"
They move forward and presently find themselves at Mr. Browne's elbow; he is, however, so far lost in his kindly ridicule of the poor silly revolving atoms before him, that it is not until Miss Kavanagh gives his arm a highly suggestive pinch that he learns that she is beside him.
"Wough!" says he, shouting out this unclassic if highly expressive word without the slightest regard for decency. "Whatfingers you've got! I really think you might reserve that kind of thing for Mr. Dysart.He'dlike it."
This is a most infelicitous speech, and Miss Kavanagh might have resented it, but for the strange fact that Beauclerk, on hearing it, laughs heartily. Well, ifhedoesn't mind, it can't matter, but how silly Dicky can be! Mr. Beauclerk continues to laugh with much enjoyment.
"Try him!" says he to Miss Kavanagh, with the liveliest encouragement in his tone. If it occurs to her that, perhaps, lovers, as a rule, do not advise their sweethearts to play fast and loose with other men, she refuses to give heed to the warning. He is not like other men. He is not basely jealous. He knows her. He trusts her. He had hinted to her but just now, so very, very kindly thatshewas suspicious, that she must try to conquer that fault—if it is hers. And it is. There can be no doubt of that. She had even distrustedhim!
"Is that your advice?" asks Mr. Browne, regarding him with a rather piercing eye. "Capital,under the circumstances, but rather, eh?——Has it ever occurred to you that Dysart is capable of a good deal of feeling?"
"So few things occur to me, I'm ashamed to say," says Beauclerk, genially. "I take the present moment. It is all-sufficing, so far as I'm concerned. Well; and so you tell me Dysart has feeling?"
"Yes; I shouldn't advise Miss Kavanagh to play pranks with him," says Dicky, with a pretentiously rueful glance at the arm she has just pinched so very delicately.
"You're a poor soldier!" says she, with a little scornful uptilting of her chin. "You wrong Mr. Dysart if you think he would feel so slight an injury. What! A mere touch fromme!"
"Your touch is deadlier than you know, perhaps," says Mr. Browne, lightly.
"What a slander!" says Miss Kavanagh, who, in spite of herself, is growing a little conscious.
"Yes; isn't it?" says Beauclerk, to whom she has appealed. "As for me——" He breaks off suddenly and fastens his gaze severely on the other side of the room. "By Jove! I had forgotten! There is my partner for this dance looking daggers at me. Dear Miss Kavanagh, you will excuse me, won't you? Shall I take you to your chaperone, or will you let Browne have the remainder of this waltz?"
"I'll look after Miss Kavanagh, if she will allow me," says Dicky, rather drily. "Will you?" with a quizzical glance at Joyce.
She makes a little affirmative sign to him, returns Beauclerk's parting bow, and, still with a heart as light as a feather, stands by Mr. Browne's side, watching in silence the form of Beauclerk as it moves here and there amongst the crowd. What a handsome man he is! How distinguished! How tall! How big! Every other man looks dwarfed beside him. Presently he disappears into an anteroom, and she turns to find Mr. Browne, for a wonder, as silent as herself, and evidently lost in thought.
"What are you thinking of?" asks she.
"Of you!"
"Nonsense! What were you doing just then when I spoke to you?"
"I have told you."
"No, you haven't. Whatwereyou doing?"
"Hankering!" says Mr. Browne, heavily.
"Dicky!" says she indignantly.
"Well; what? Do you suppose a fellow gets rid of a disease of that sort all in a minute? It generally lasts a good month, I can tell you. But come; that 'Beautiful Star' of yours, that 'shines in your heaven so bright,' has given you into my charge. What can I do for you?"
"Deliver me from the wrath of that man over there," says Miss Kavanagh, indicating Mr. Blake, who, with a thunderous brow, is making his way towards her. "The last was his. I forgot all about it. Take me away, Dicky; somewhere, anywhere; I know he's got a horrid temper, and he is going to say uncivil things. Where" (here she meanly tries to get behind Mr. Browne) "shallwe go."
"Right through this door," says Mr. Browne, who, as a rule, is equal to all emergencies. He pushes her gently towards the conservatory she has just quitted, that has steps leading from it to the illuminated gardens below, and just barely gets her safely ensconced behind a respectable barricade of greenery before Mr. Blake arrives on the spot they have just vacated.
They have indeed the satisfaction of seeing him look vaguely round, murmur a gentle anathema or two, and then resign himself to the inevitable.
"He's gone!" says Miss Kavanagh, with a sigh of relief.
"To perdition!" says Mr. Browne in an awesome tone.
"I really wish you wouldn't, Dicky," says Joyce.
"Why not? You seem to think men's hearts are made of adamant! A moment ago you sneered atmine, and now——By Jove! Here's Baltimore—and alone, for a wonder."
"Well!Hisheart is adamant!" says she softly.
"Or hers—which?"
"Of course—manlike—you condemn our sex. That's why I'm glad I'm not a man."
"Why? Because, if you were, you would condemn your present sex?"
"Certainlynot! Because I wouldn't be of an unfair, mean, ungenerous disposition for the world."
"Good old Jo!" says Mr. Browne, giving her a tender pat upon the back.
By this time Baltimore has reached them.
"Have you seen Lady Baltimore anywhere?" asks he.
"Not quite lately," says Dicky; "last tune I saw her she was dancing with Farnham."
"Oh—after that she went to the library," says Joyce quickly. "I fancy she may be there still, because she looked a little tired."
"Well, she had been dancing a good deal," says Dicky.
"Thanks. I dare say I'll find her," says Baltimore, with an air of indifference, hurrying on.
"I hope he will," says Joyce, looking after him.
"I hope so too—and in a favorable temper."
"You're a cynic, Dicky, under all that airy manner of yours," says Miss Kavanagh severely. "Come out to the gardens, the air may cool your brain, and reduce you to milder judgments."
"Of Lady Baltimore?"
"Yes."
"Truly I do seem to be sitting in judgment on her and her family."
"Herfamily! What has Bertie done?"
"Oh, there is more family than Bertie," says Mr. Browne. "She has a brother, hasn't she?"
Meantime Lord Baltimore, taking Joyce's hint, makes his way to the library, to find his wife there lying back in a huge arm-chair. She is looking a little pale. A littleennuyée; it is plain that she has sought this room—one too public to be in much request—with a view to getting away for a little while from the noise and heat of the ballroom.
"Not dancing?" says her husband, standing well away from her. She had sprung into a sitting posture the moment she saw him, an action that has angered Baltimore. His tone is uncivil; his remark, it must be confessed, superfluous.Whydoes she persist in treating him as a stranger? Surely, on whatever bad terms they may be, she need not feel it necessary to make herself uncomfortable on his appearance. She has evidently been enjoying that stolen lounge, andnow——
The lamplight is streaming full upon her face. A faint color has crept into it. The white velvet gown she is wearing is hardly whiter than her neck and arms, and her eyes are as bright as her diamonds; yet there is no feature in her face that could be called strictly handsome. This, Baltimore tells himself, staring at her as he is, in a sort of insolent defiance of the cold glance she has directed at him. No; there is no beauty about that face; distinctly bred, calm and pure, it might possibly be called charming by those who liked her, but nothing more. She is not half so handsome as—as—any amount of other women he knows, and yet——
It increases his anger towards her tenfold to know that in her secret soul she has the one face that tohimis beautiful, and everwillbe beautiful.
"You see," says she gently, and with an expressive gesture, "I longed for a moment's pause, so I came here. Do they want me?" She rises from her seat, looking very tall and graceful. If her face is not strictly lovely, there is, at all events, no lack of loveliness in her form.
"I can't answer for 'they,'" says Baltimore, "but"——he stops dead short here. If hehadbeen going to say anything, the desire to carry out his intention dies upon the spot. "No, I am not aware that 'they' or anybody wants you particularly at this moment. Pray sit down again."
"I have had quite a long rest already."
"You look tired, however.Areyou?"
"Not in the least."
"Give me this dance," then says he, half mockingly, yet with a terrible earnestness in his voice.
"Give it toyou! Thank you. No."
"Fearful of contamination?" with a smiling sneer.
"Pray spare me your jibes," says she very coldly, her face whitening.
"Pray spare me your presence, you should rather say. Let us have the truth at all hazards. A saint like you should be careful."
To this she makes him no answer.
"What!" cries he, sardonically; "and will you miss this splendid opportunity of giving a sop to your Cerberus? Of conciliating your bugbear? yourbête noire? yourfear of gossip?"
"I fear nothing"—icily.
"You do, however. Forgive the contradiction," with a sarcastic inclination of the head. "But for this fear of yours you would have cast me off long ago, and bade me go to the devil as soon as—nay, the sooner the better. And indeed if it were not for the child——By the bye, do you forget I have a hold onhim—a stronger than yours?"
"Iforgetnothing either," returns she as icily as before; but now a tremor, barely perceptible, but terrible in its intensity, shakes her voice.
"Hah! You need not tell methat. You are relentless as—well, 'Fate' comes in handy," with a reckless laugh. "Let us be conventional by all means, and it is a good old simile, well worn! You decline my proposal then? It is a sensible one, and should suit you. Dance with me to-night, when all the County is present, and Mother Grundy goes to bed with a sore heart. Scandal lies slain. All will cry aloud: 'There they go!Fast friends in spite of all the lies we have heard about them.' Is it possible you can deliberately forego so great a chance of puzzling our neighbors?"
"I can."
"Why, where is your sense of humor? One trembles for it! To be able to deceive them all so deliriously; to send them home believing us on good terms, a veritable loving couple"—he breaks into a curious laugh.
"This is too much," says she, her face now like death. "You would insult me! Believe me, that not to spare myself all the gossip with which the whole world could hurt me would I endure your arm around my waist!"
His short-lived, most unmirthful mirth has died from him, he has laid a hand upon the table near him to steady himself.
"You are candid, on my soul," says he slowly.
She moves quickly towards the door, her velvet skirt sweeping over his feet as she goes by—the perfume of the violets lying in her bosom reaches him.
Hardly knowing his own meaning, he puts out his hand and catches her by her naked arm, just where the long glove ceases above the elbow.
"Isabel, give me this dance," says he a little wildly.
"No!"
She shakes herself free of him. A moment her eyes blaze into his. "No!" she says again, trembling from head to foot. Another moment, and the door has closed behind her.
"The old, old pain of earth."
"The old, old pain of earth."
It is now close upon midnight—that midnight of the warmer months when day sets its light finger on the fringes of it. There is a sighing through the woods, a murmur from the everlasting sea, and though Diana still rides high in heaven with her handmaiden Venus by her side, yet in a little while her glory will be departed, and her one rival, the sun, will push her from her throne.
The gleaming lamps among the trees-are scarcely so bright as they were an hour ago, the faint sighing of the wind that heralds the morning is shaking them to and fro. A silly bird has waked, and is chirping in a foolish fashion among the rhododendrons, where, in a secluded path, Joyce and Dicky Browne are wandering somewhat aimlessly. Before them lies a turn in the path that leads presumably into the dark wood, darkest of all at this hour, and where presumably, too, no one has ventured, though one should never presume about hidden corners.
"I can't think what you see in him," says Mr. Browne, after a big pause. "I'd say nothing if his face wasn't so fat, but if I were you, that would condemn him in my eyes."
"I can't see that his face is fatter than yours," says Miss Kavanagh, with what she fondly believes perfect indifference.
"Neither is it," says Mr. Browne meekly, "but my dear girl, there lies the gist of my argument. You have condemned me. All my devotion has been scouted by you. I don't pretend to be the wreck still that once by your cruelty you made me, but——"
"Oh, that will do," says Joyce, unfeelingly. "As for Mr. Beauclerk, I don't know why you should imagine I see anything in him."
"Well, I confess I can't quite understand it myself. He couldn't hold a candle to—er—well, several other fellows I could name, myself not included, Miss Kavanagh, so that supercilious smile is thrown away. He may be good to look at, there is certainly plenty of him on which to feast the eye, but to fall in love with——"
"What do you mean, Dicky? What are you speaking about—do you know? You," with a deadly desire to insult him, "must be in love yourself to—to maunder as you are doing?"
"I'm not," says Mr. Browne, "that's the queer part of it. I don't know what's the matter with me. Ever since you blighted me, I have lain fallow, as it were. I," dejectedly, "haven't been in love for quite a long, long time now. I miss it—I can't explain it. I can't be well, can I? I," anxiously, "I don't look well, do I?"
"I never saw you looking better," with unkind force.
"Ah!" sadly, "that's because you don't give your attention to me. It's my opinion that I'm fading away to the land o' the leal, like old What-you-may-call-'em."
"If that's the way he did it, it must have taken him some time. In fact, he must be still at it," says Miss Kavanagh, heartlessly.
By this time they had come to the end of the walk, and have turned the corner. Before them lies a small grass plot surrounded by evergreens, a cosy nook not to be suspected by any one until quite close upon it. It bursts upon the casual pedestrian, indeed, as a charming surprise. There is something warm, friendly, confidential about it—something safe. Beyond lies the gloomy wood, embedded in night, but here the moonbeams play. Some one with a thoughtful care for loving souls has placed in this excellent spot for flirtation a comfortable garden seat, just barely large enough for two, sternly indicative of being far too small far the leanest three.
Upon this delightful seat four eyes now concentrate themselves. As if by one consent, although unconsciously, Mr. Browne and his companion come to a dead stop. The unoffending seat holds them in thrall.
Upon it, evidently on the best of terms with each other, are two people. One is Miss Maliphant, the other Mr. Beauclerk. They are whispering "soft and low." Miss Maliphant is looking, perhaps, a little confused—for her—and the cause of the small confusion is transparent. Beauclerk's hand is tightly closed over hers, and even as Dicky and Miss Kavanagh gaze spellbound at them, he lifts the massive hand of the heiress and imprints a lingering kiss upon it.
"Come away," says Dicky, touching Joyce's arm. "Run for your life, but softly."
He and she have been standing in shadow, protected from the view of the other two by a crimson rhododendron. Joyce starts as he touches her, as one might who is roused from an ugly dream, and then follows him swiftly, but lightly, back to the path they had forsaken.
She is trembling in a nervous fashion, that angers herself cruelly, and something of her suppressed emotion becomes known to Mr. Browne. Perhaps, being a friend of hers, it angers him, too.
"What strange freaks moonbeams play," says he, with a truly delightful air of saying nothing in particular. "I could have sworn that just then I saw Beauclerk kissing Miss Maliphant's hand."
No answer. There is a little silence, fraught with what angry grief who can tell? Dicky, who is not all froth, and is capable of a liking here and there, is conscious of, and is sorry for, the nervous tremor that shakes the small hand he has drawn within his arm; but he is so far a philosopher that he tells himself it is but a little thing in her life; she can bear it; she will recover from it; "and in time forget that she had been ever ill," says this good-natured skeptic to himself.
Joyce, who has evidently been struggling with herself, and has now conquered her first feeling, turns to him.
"You should not condemn the moonbeams unheard," says she, bravely, with the ghost of a little smile. "The evidence of two impartial witnesses should count in their favor."
"But, my dear girl, consider," says Mr. Browne, mildly. "If it had been anyone else's hand! I could then accuse the moonbeams of a secondary offense, and say that their influence alone, which we all know has a maddening effect, had driven him to so bold a deed. But not madness itself could inspire me with a longing to kiss her hand."
"She is a very good girl, and I like her," says Joyce, with a suspicious vehemence.
"So do I; so much, indeed, that I should shrink from calling her a good girl. It is very damnatory, you know. You could hardly say anything more prejudicial. It at once precludes the idea of her having any such minor virtues as grace, beauty, wit, etc. Well, granted she is 'a good girl,' that doesn't give her pretty hands, does it? As a rule, I think that all good girls have gigantic points. I don't think I would care to kiss Miss Maliphant's hands, even if she would let me."
"She is a very honest, kind-hearted girl," says Miss Kavanagh a little heavily. It suggests itself to Mr. Browne that she has not been listening to him.
"And a very rich one."
"I never think about that when I am with her. I couldn't."
"Beauclerk could," says Mr. Browne, tersely.
There is another rather long silence, and Dicky is beginning to think he has gone a trifle too far, and that Miss Kavanagh will cut him to-morrow, when she speaks again. Her tone is composed, but icy enough to freeze him.
"It is a mistake," says she, "to discuss people towards whom one feels a natural antagonism. It leads, one, perhaps, to say more than one actually means. One is apt to grow unjust. I would never discuss Mr. Beauclerk if I were you. You don't like him."
"Well," says Mr. Browne, thoughtfully, "since you put it to me, I confess I think he is the most rubbishy person I ever met!"
After this sweeping opinion, conversation comes to a deadlock. It is not resumed. Reaching the stone steps leading to the conservatory, they ascend them in silence, and reach that perfumed retreat to find Dysart on the threshold.
"Oh, there you are!" cries he to Miss Kavanagh. "I thought you lost for good and all!" His face has lighted up. Perhaps he feels a sense of relief at finding her with Dicky, who is warranted harmless. He looks almost handsome, better than handsome! The very soul of honesty shines, in his kind eyes.
"Oh! it is hard to lose what nobody wants," says Joyce in a would-be playful tone, but something in the drawn, pained lines about her mouth belies her mirth. Dysart, after a swift examination of her face, takes her hand and draws it within his arm.
"The last was our dance," says he.
"Speak kindly of the dead," says Mr. Browne, as he beats a hasty retreat.
"Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly;Most friendship is feigning, most loving is folly."
"Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly;Most friendship is feigning, most loving is folly."
"Did you forget?" asks Dysart, looking at her.
"Forget?"
"That the last dance was mine?"
"Oh, was it? I'm so sorry. You must forgive me," with a feverish attempt at gayety, "I will try to make amends. You shall have this one instead, no matter to whom it may belong. Come. It is only just begun, I think."
"Never mind," says Dysart, gently. "We won't dance this, I think. It is cool and quiet here, and you are tired."
"Oh, so tired," returns she with a little sudden pathetic cry, so impulsive, so inexpressible that it goes to his heart.
"Joyce! what is it?" says he, quickly. "Here, come and sit down. No, I don't want an answer. It was an absurd question. You have overdone it a little, that is all."
"Yes, that is all!" She sinks heavily into the seat he has pointed out to her, and lets her head fall back against the cushions. "However, when you come to think of it, that means a great deal," says she, smiling languidly.
"There, don't talk," says he. "What is the good of having a friend if you can't be silent with him when it so pleases you. That," laughing, and arranging the cushions behind her head, "is one for you and two for myself. I, too, pine for a moment when even the meagre 'yes' and 'no' will not be required of me."
"Oh, no," shaking her head. "It is all for me and nothing for yourself!" she pauses, and putting out her hand lays it on his sleeve. "I think, Felix," says she, softly, "you are the kindest man I ever met."
"I told you you felt overdone," says he, laughing as if to hide the sudden emotion that is gleaming in his eyes. He presses the hand resting on his arm very gently, and then replaces it in her lap. To take advantage of any little kindness she may show him now, when it is plain that she is suffering from some mental excitement, grief or anger, or both, would seem base to him.
She has evidently accepted his offer of silence, and lying back in her soft couch stares with unseeing eyes at the bank of flowers before her. Behind her tall, fragrant shrubs rear themselves, and somewhere behind her, too, a tiny fountain is making musical tinklings. The faint, tender glow of a colored lamp gleams from the branches of a tropical tree close by, and round it pale, downy moths are flitting, the sound of their wings, as every now and then they approach too near the tempting glow and beat them against the Japanese shade, mingling with the silvery fall of the scented water.
The atmosphere is warm, drowsy, a little melancholy. It seems to seize upon the two sitting within its seductive influence, and threatens to waft them from day dreams into dreams born of idle slumber. The rustle of a coming skirt, however, a low voice, a voice still lower whispering a reply, recalls them both to the fact that rest, complete and perfect, is impossible under the circumstances.
A little opening among the tall evergreens upon their right shows them Lord Baltimore once more, but this time not alone. Lady Swansdown is with him.
She is looking rather lovelier than usual, with that soft tinge of red upon her cheeks born of her last waltz, and her lips parted in a happy smile. The subdued lights of the many lamps falling on her satin gown rest there as if in love with its beauty. It is an old shade made new, a yellow that is almost white, and has yet a tinge of green in it. A curious shade, difficult, perhaps, to wear with good effect; but on Lady Swansdown it seems to reign alone as queen of all the toilets in the rooms to-night. She looks, indeed, like a perfect picture stepped down from its canvas, "a thing of beauty," a very vision of delight.
She seems, indeed, to Joyce watching her—Joyce who likes her—that she has grown beyond herself (or rather into her own real self) to-night. There is a touch of life, of passionate joy, of abandonment, of hope that has yet a sting in it, in all her air, that, though not understood of the girl, is still apparent.
The radiant smile that illumines her beautiful face as she glances up at Baltimore—who is bending over her in more lover-like fashion than should be—is still making all her face a lovely fire as she passes out of sight down the steps that lead to the lighted gardens—the steps that Joyce had but just now ascended.
The latter is still a little wrapt in wonder and admiration, and some other thought that is akin to trouble, when Dysart breaks in upon her fancies.
"I am sorry about that," says he, bluntly, indicating with a nod of his head the departing shadows of the two who have just passed out. There are no fancies about Dysart. Nothing vague.
"Yes; it is a pity," says Joyce, hurriedly.
"More than that, I think."
"Something ought to be done," nervously.
"Yes," flushing hotly; "I know—I know what you mean"—she had meant nothing—"but it is so difficult to know what to do, and—I am only a cousin."
"Oh, I wasn't thinking of you. I wasn't, really," says she, a good deal shocked. "As you say, why should you speak, when——"
"There is Beauclerk," says Dysart, quickly, as if a little angry with somebody, but certainly not with her. "How can he stand by and see it?"
"Perhaps he doesn't see it," says she in a strange tone, her eyes on the marble flooring. It seems to herself that the words are forced from her. "Because—because he has——"
She brings her hands tightly together, so tightly that she reduces the feathers on the fan she is holding to their last gasp. Because she is now disappointed in him; because he has proved himself, perhaps, unstable, deceptive to the heart's core, is she to vilify, him? A thousand times no! That would be, indeed, to be base herself.
"Perhaps not," says Dysart, drily. In his secret heart this defence of his rival is detestable to him. Something in her whole manner when she came in from the garden had suggested to him the possibility that she had at last found him out. Dysart would have been puzzled to explain how Beauclerk was supposed to be "found out" or for what, but that he was liable to discovery at any moment on some count or counts unknown, was one of his Christian beliefs. "Perhaps not," says he. "And yet I cannot help thinking that a matter so open to all must be patent to him."
"But," anxiously, "is it so open?"
"I leave that to your own judgment," a little warmly. "You," with rather sharp question, "are a friend of Isabel's?"
"Yes, yes," quickly. "You know that. But——"
"But?" sternly.
"I like Lady Swansdown, too," says she, with some determination. "I find it hard to believe that she can—can——"
"Be false to her friend," supplements he. "Have you yet to learn that friendship ends where love begins?"
"You think——?"
"That she is in love with Baltimore."
"And he?"
"Oh!" contemptuously; "who shall gauge the depth of his heart? What can he mean?" he has risen and is now pacing angrily up and down the small space before her. "He used to be such a good fellow, and now——Is he dead to all sense of honor, of honesty?"
"He is a man," says Joyce, coldly.
"No. I deny that. Not a true man, surely."
"Is there a true man?" says she. "Is there any truth, any honesty to be found in the whole wide world?"
She too has risen now, and is standing with her large dark eyes fixed almost defiantly on his. There is something so strange, so wild, so unlike her usual joyous, happy self in this outburst, in her whole attitude, that Dysart regards her with an astonishment that is largely tinctured with fear.
"I don't know what is in your mind," says he, calmly; "something out of the common has occurred to disturb you so much, I can guess, but," looking at her earnestly, "whatever it maybe, I entreat you to beat it under. Conquer it; do not let it conquer you. There must be evil in the world, but never lose sight of the good; that must be there, just as surely. Truth, honor, honesty, are no fables; they are to be found everywhere. If not in this one, then in that. Do not lose faith in them."
"You think me evidently in a bad way," says she, smiling faintly. She has recovered herself in part, but though she tries to turn his earnest words into a jest, one can see that she is perilously near to tears.
"You mean that I am preaching to you," says he, smiling too. "Well, so I am. What right has a girl like you to disbelieve in anything? Why," laughing, "it can't be so very long ago since you believed in fairies, in pixies, and the fierce dragons of our childhood."
"I don't know that I am not a believer in them still," says she. "In the dragons, at all events. Evil seems to rule the world."
"Tut!" says he. "I have preached in vain."
"You would have me believe in good only," says she. "You assure me very positively that all the best virtues are still riding to and fro, redeeming the world, with lances couched and hearts on fire. But where to find them? In you?"
It is a very gentle smile she gives him as she says this.
"Yes: so far, at least, as you are concerned," says he, stoutly. "I shall be true and honest to you so long as my breath lives in my body. So much I can swear to."
"Well," says she, with a rather meagre attempt at light-heartedness, "you almost persuade me with that truculent manner of yours into believing in you at all events, or is it," a little sadly, "that the ways of others drive me to that belief? Well," with a sigh, "never mind how it is, you benefit by it, any way."
"I don't want to force your confidence," says Dysart; "but you have been made unhappy by somebody, have you not?"
"I have not been made happy," says she, her eyes on the ground. "I don't know why I tell you that. You asked a hard question."
"I know. I should have been silent, perhaps, and yet——"
At this moment the sound of approaching footsteps coming up the steps startles them.
"Joyce!" says he, "grant me one request."
"One! You rise to tragedy!" says she, as if a little amused in spite of the depression under which she is so evidently laboring. "Is it to be your last, your dying prayer?"
"I hope not. Nevertheless I would have it granted."
"You have only to speak," says she, with a slight gesture that is half mocking, half kindly.
"Come with me after luncheon, to-morrow, up to St. Bridget's Hill?"
"Is that all? And to throw such force into it. Yes, yes; I shall enjoy a long walk like that."
"It is not because of the walk that I ask you to go there with me," says Dysart, the innate honesty that distinguishes him compelling him to lay bare to her his secret meaning. "I have something to say to you. You will listen?"
"Why should I not?" returns she, a little pale. He might, perhaps, have said something further, but that now the footsteps sound close at hand. A glance towards the door that leads from the fragrant night into the still more perfumed air within reveals to them two figures.
Mr. Beauclerk and Miss Maliphant come leisurely forward. The blood receding to Joyce's heart leaves her cold and singularly calm.