While Stafford was dressing for dinner that night, and wondering whether even if he should get an opportunity of speaking to his father, it would be wise to tell him of Ida, Howard knocked at the door. Stafford told him to come in, and sent Measom away, and Howard, who was already dressed, sank into an easy-chair and surveyed his friend with bland approval.
"A white tie to-night, Staff? Anything on?"
"Yes; there is a dance," replied Stafford, rather absently. What would his father say and do? Would he go over to Heron Hall the next morning? Yes, that is what he would do!
"A dance? Is that all? From the undercurrent of suppressed excitement animating most of the guests I should think it was something more important. Have you noticed the air of suspense, of fluctuating hope and doubt, triumph and despair which has characterized our noble band of financiers during the last few days?"
Stafford shook his head.
"No; I haven't noticed 'em particularly. In fact, I scarcely see them, or do more than exchange the usual greetings. They seem to me to move and look and speak just about as usual." Howard smiled.
"To be young and happy and free from care is to be blind: puppies, for instance, are blind!"
Stafford grinned.
"That's complimentary, anyhow. What do you think is up?"
"I think Sir Stephen is going to pull off his great event, to make his grandcoup," said Howard. "So you find a black-and-tan terrier improves a dress-coat by lying on it?"
Tiny had coiled himself up on that garment, which Measom had laid ready on the chair, and was lying apparently asleep, but with his large eyes fixed on his beloved master.
"Oh, he's a peculiar little beast, and is always getting where he shouldn't be. Hi! young man, get off my coat!"
He picked the terrier up and threw him softly on the bed, but Tiny got down at once and curled himself up on the fur mat by Stafford's feet.
"Seems to be fond of you: strange dog!" said Howard. "Yes, I think Sir Stephen's 'little scheme'—as if any scheme of his could be 'little'!—has worked out successfully, and I shouldn't be surprised if the financiers had a meeting to-night and the floating of the company was announced."
"Oh," said Stafford, as he got into his coat. "Yes, I daresay it's all right. The governor seems always to pull it off."
Howard smiled.
"You talk as if an affair of thousands of thousands, perhaps millions, were quite a bagatelle," he said. "My dear boy, don't you understand, realise, the importance of this business? It's nothing less than a railway from—"
Stafford nodded. "Oh, yes, you told me about it. It's a very big thing, I daresay, but what puzzles me is why the governor should care to worry about it. He has money enough—"
"No man has money enough," said Howard, solemnly. "But no matter. It is a waste of time to discuss philosophy with a man who has no mind above fox-hunting, fishing, pheasant-shooting, and dancing. By the way, how many times do you intend to dance with the Grecian goddess?"
"Meaning—" said Stafford.
"Miss Falconer, of course. Grecian goddesses are not so common, my dearStafford, as to permit of more than one in a house-party."
"I'm sure I don't know," replied Stafford, eyeing him with faint surprise. "What the devil made you ask me that?"
Howard eyed the handsome face with cynical amusement.
"Pardon, if I was impertinent; but I assure you the question is being asked amongst themselves by all the women in the house—"
Stafford stared at him and began to frown with perplexity rather than anger.
"My dear Stafford, I know that you are not possessed of a particularly brilliant intellect, but you surely possess sufficient intelligence to see that your attentions to Miss Falconer are somewhat obvious."
"What?" said Stafford. "My attentions to Miss Falconer—Are you chaffing, Howard?"
"Not in the least: it's usually too great a waste of time with you, my dear boy: you don't listen, and when you do, half the time you don't understand. No, I'm quite serious; but perhaps I ought to have said her attentions to you; it would have been more correct."
Stafford coloured.
"Look here, old man," he said. "If you think—Oh, dash it all, what nonsense it is! Miss Falconer and I are very good friends; and of course I like to talk to her—she's so sharp, almost as smart and clever as you are, when she likes to take the trouble; and of course I like to hear her sing—Why, my dear Howard, it's like listening to one of the big operatic swells; but—but to suggest that there is anything—that—there is any reason to warn me—Oh, dash it! come off it, old man, you're chaffing?"
"Not in the least. But I didn't intend any warning: in fact, I am in honour bound to refrain from anything of the kind—"
"In honour bound?" said Stafford.
Howard almost blushed.
"Oh, it's nothing; only a silly wager," he said. "I can't tell you, so don't enquire. But all the same—well, there, I won't say more if you are sure there is nothing between you."
"I have the best of reasons for saying so," said Stafford, carelessly, and with a touch of colour in his face. "But it's all dashed nonsense! The women always think there's something serious going on if you dance twice with a girl, or sit and talk to her for half an hour."
"Right!" said Howard, rising. "There's the bell!"
As Howard had said, there was an air of suppressed excitement about the people; and it was not confined to the financiers who clustered together in the hall and discussed and talked in undertones, every now and then glancing up the stairs down which Sir Stephen would presently descend. Most of the other guests, though they had no direct and personal interest in the great scheme, more or less had heard rumours and come within reflective radius of the excitement; as for the rest, who knew nothing or cared less for Sir Stephen's railway, they were in a pleasant condition of excitement over the coming dance.
Stafford, as he stood in the hall talking about the night's programme to Bertie—who had been elected, by common and tacit consent, master of the ceremonies—saw Maude Falconer descending the stairs. She was even more exquisitely dressed than usual; and Stafford heard some of the women and men murmur admiringly and enviously as she swept across the hall in her magnificent ball-dress; her diamonds, for which she was famous, glittering in her hair, on her white throat, and on her slender wrists. The dress was a mixture of grey and black, which would have lookedbizarreon anyone else less beautiful; but its strange tints harmonised with her superb and classic class of beauty, and she looked like a vision of loveliness which might well dazzle the eyes of the beholders.
She paused in her progress—it might almost be called a triumphant one, for the other women's looks were eloquent of dismay—and looked at Stafford with the slow, half-dreamy smile which had come into her face of late when she spoke to him.
"Have you seen my father? Has he come down, Mr. Orme?" she asked.
"No," said Stafford. He looked at her, as a man does when he admires a woman's dress, and forgetting Howard's words of warning, said: "What a splendacious frock, Miss Falconer!"
"Do you like it? I am glad," she said. "I had my doubts, but now—"
Her eyes rested on his for a moment, then she passed on.
"I shouldn't like to have to pay Miss Falconer's dress bill," remarked a young married woman, looking after her. "That 'frock' as you call it, in your masculine ignorance, must have cost a small fortune."
Stafford laughed.
"We men always put our foot in it when we talk about a woman's dress," he said.
A moment after, the dinner was announced, and Sir Stephen, who had come down at the last moment, as he went up to take in Lady Clansford, nodded to Stafford, and smiled significantly. He was as carefully dressed as usual, but on his face, and in his eyes particularly, was an expression of satisfaction and anticipatory triumph which was too obvious to escape the notice of but very few. He was not "loud" at dinner, but talked even more fluently than usual, and once or twice his fine eyes swept the long table with a victorious, masterful glance.
Directly the ladies had gone, the little knot of financiers drew up nearer to their host, and Griffenberg raised his eyebrows interrogatively.
Sir Stephen nodded.
"Yes," he said, in an undertone. "It's all right! I heard this morning. My man will be down, with the final decision, by a special train which ought to land him about midnight. We'll meet in the library, say at half past twelve, and get the thing finished, eh, baron?"
Wirsch grunted approval.
"Vare goot, Sare Stephen; dee sooner a ting ees congluded, de bedder.'Arf bast dwelve!"
There was but a short stay made in the drawing-room, and before ten o'clock the guests streamed into the magnificent ball-room.
There were a number of the neighbouring gentry who were making their acquaintance with the Villa for the first time, and they regarded the splendour around them with an amazement which was not without reason; for to-night the artistically designed and shaded electric lamps, the beautiful rooms with their chaste yet effective decorations, on which money had been lavished like water, were seen to their greatest advantage; and the Vaynes, the Bannerdales, and the local gentry generally exchanged glances and murmured exclamations of surprise and admiration, and wondered whether there could be any end to the wealth of a man who could raise such a palace in so short a time.
From the gallery of white-and-gold the famous band, every man of which was a musician, presently began to send forth the sweet strains of a Waldteufel waltz, and Stafford found Lady Clansford for the first dance. Though he had paid little attention to Howard's remarks about Maude Falconer, he remembered them, and he did not ask her for a dance until the ball had been running about an hour; then he went up to where she was standing talking to Lord Bunnerdale, her last partner. His lordship and Stafford had already met, and Lord Bannerdale, who admired and liked Stafford, nodded pleasantly.
"I was just saying to Miss Falconer that I wish Fate had made me a great financier instead of a country squire, Orme! By Jove! this place is a perfect—er—dream; and, when I think of my damp old house—"
"What frightful language!" said Stafford.
Lord Bannerdale laughed.
"If Miss Falconer had not been present, I might just as well have used the other word. I say I can't help envying your father that magician's wand with which he manages to raise such marvels. I'm going to find him and tell him so!"
"A dance?" said Maude, as Stafford proffered his request. "Yes, I have one, only one; it is this."
He put his arm round her, and as he did so her eyes half closed and her lip quivered at his touch. Stafford waltzed well, and Maude was far and away the best dancer in the room; they moved as one body in the slow and graceful modern waltz, and Stafford, in the enjoyment of this perfect poetry of motion, forgot everything, even his partner; but he came back from his reverie as she suddenly paused.
"Are you tired?" he asked. "By George! how perfectly you waltz! I've never enjoyed a dance more."
A faint colour rose to her face—it had been very pale a moment before—and she looked at him with an earnestness which rather puzzled him.
"They say that to agree in waltzing is an unfortunate thing for those who wish to be friends."
"Do they?" he said, with a smile. "I wonder who it is says all those silly things? Now, what nonsense this one is, for instance! To enjoy a dance as I've just enjoyed this, puts a man in a good temper with himself and his partner; and, of course, makes him feel more friendly. I'm not a good logician, but that sounds all right, doesn't it?"
"Yes," she said in a low voice. "No, I won't dance any more. I—I am a little tired to-night and disinclined for dancing."
"All right," he said. "I'm sorry—both that you won't dance and the cause. You have been doing too much to-day—too long a ride, I expect. These hills are rather trying to those who are not used to them. Shall we go and sit in that recess? I'll bring you some wine—"
"No, thanks," she said, quickly; she could not bear him to leave her.
He led her to one of the recesses leading on to the fernery, and found her a seat near a softly plashing fountain. The lights were shaded with rose-coloured silk and threw a soft, warm glow upon her face and snowy neck.
For the hundredth time, as he looked at her, he thought how beautiful she was, and for the hundredth time compared her to Ida, of course to his sweetheart's advantage. She leant back in the luxurious lounge with her eyes bent on her jewelled fan, and seemed lost in thought. Then suddenly she said:
"Do you know how long we have been here, Mr. Orme? It is a tremendous time. I told my father to-night that we must take our departure."
"Oh, no!" he said. "Pray don't think of it—if you care to stay, if you are happy. You would be a very serious loss to us."
"If I care—if I am happy!" She laughed a low, strange laugh and raised her eyes to his for an instant. "Do you think I have not been happy?"
"Oh, I hope so," he said. "My father would be awfully cut up if he thought you had not: if he thought there had been anything to prevent your being happy he would remove it even if it—it were one of those mountains outside," he added, with a laugh.
"You admire your father?" she said. "You—are fond of him?"
Stafford nodded. It seemed an unnecessary question.
"Rather!" he said. "There never was such a father as mine!"
"And Sir Stephen thinks there never was such a son as his," she said in a low voice. "I suppose you are both quite willing to make sacrifices for each other. Would you do—would you give up much for your father, Mr. Orme?"
She raised her eyes again, and let them rest on his.
Stafford tried to smile, but his face grew grave.
"Just my life, if it were any use to him," he said.
Her lips moved.
"That is so little!" she said. "We can all die for those we love, but few of us can live for them—go on living a life which has to be moulded to a plan, bent on another's will—Could you do that?"
"Yes," he said, after a pause. "There is no sacrifice I would not make for my father's sake; but"—he laughed and cleared the gravity from his brow—"all the sacrifice seems to be on his side. He has worked for me all his life, is working still, I'm afraid—Here isyourfather, Miss Falconer; and looking for you, I'm afraid."
Ralph Falconer stood in the doorway looking round, his heavy face seeming heavier than usual, his thick lips drooping. As he saw the two young people, his lips straightened and he went over to them slowly.
"I hope you are not going to take Miss Falconer away, sir?" saidStafford.
Ralph Falconer shook his head, and, avoiding his daughter's eye, said:
"Sir Stephen wants to see you in the library, Mr. Orme, and wishes me to accompany you."
"Certainly, if Miss Falconer will excuse me."
He rose, and he fancied her hand trembled slightly as it rested almost as lightly as a feather on his arm.
"I'll take you to Lady Clansford—"
"There is no need: here is my next partner," she said, as the "beautiful, bountiful Bertie" came up smiling and buoyant.
"Anything the matter, sir?" asked Stafford, as he and Falconer made their way round the room through which was floating the last thing in waltzes, a soft and sensuous melody which sang the soul to rest.
"I think not. A matter of business, I think," said Ralph Falconer. "His secretary, Mr. Murray, has just come from London: it may be something to do with the papers he had brought."
Stafford nodded, though the explanation seemed unsatisfactory: for what concern had Stafford with the "papers"? As they went through the hall they saw the financiers clustered together with an expectant air, as if they were waiting for the result of the arrival of the man by the special train; and they stared at Falconer and exchanged glances as he and Stafford passed them and went to the library door.
Sir Stephen's voice came cheerily in response to Stafford's knock, and Stafford entered; Falconer following him with bent head and the same heavy look.
Sir Stephen was sitting at the table before a despatch box, and he held out his hand and uttered a little cry of pleasure as he saw who it was.
"Stafford, my boy! You could not have come at a better moment—Don't go, Falconer! I'd like you to hear me tell him the good news. I've got it here!"
He patted the despatch case. "This is Pandora's box, Staff! With something better than Hope at the bottom: Certainty!"
He laughed quietly, confidently, and his bright eyes flashed under their dark brows from one to the other.
"Murray has just arrived, Falconer, with the good news!" he took out the gold chain to which the key of the despatch box was fastened, and inserted it in the lock. "The good news, Staff! I haven't bothered and bored you with details; but you know, my dear boy, that I have had a big scheme on hand for some time past—a very big scheme. It has been rather a touch-and-go business, but I think I have managed to pull it off—eh, Falconer? The last day or two has been one of suspense—great suspense—but success has come. You don't care for money, Staff, I know. Nor do I. Honestly, no! Not for the mere money, but for what it can buy and bring. But even you will have some respect for a million and a half, Staff."
He laughed.
"A large sum, and this means more than money. There ought to be something in the way of an honour—"
Falconer nodded.
"Ifthe scheme is successful, your father will be a peer of the realm, Mr. Stafford," he said drily, with an emphasis on the "if."
"If!" echoed Sir Stephen, laughing and nodding. Stafford could see by the brilliance of his eyes, the flush on his face, that he was excited and was struggling with excitement. "If!"
Falconer nodded at the despatch-case, and, with another bantering laugh, Sir Stephen opened it and took out a large envelope. He held this for a moment poised between finger and thumb, then he tore it open and took out a sheet of paper, and turned his flashing eyes from the two men to the document.
He rose for a moment with the smile still on his face; then they saw it fade, saw the flush slowly disappear, and in its place a dull grey steal over the face.
Stafford, startled, went round to him and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"What is the matter, sir?" he asked. "Bad news?"
Sir Stephen looked at him as if he did not see him, then turned his eyes upon Falconer, who stood regarding him with a fixed, sardonic gaze.
"Hast thou found me, oh, mine enemy?" came at last from Sir Stephen's white lips.
Stafford looked from one to the other.
"What—what on earth is the matter? What do you mean?" he said.
Sir Stephen raised his hand and pointed to Ralph Falconer.
"This—this man!" he gasped; then he shook his head impatiently, as if he were fighting against his weakness. "This man Falconer has betrayed me!"
Stafford drew himself up, as he stood by his father's side, and eyedFalconer sternly.
"Will you explain, Mr. Falconer?" he said.
"Certainly," said Falconer, with a grim calmness. "Your father uses unwarrantably strong language, Mr. Orme, for an action of mine which is quite a common one amongst business men."
"No!" gasped Sir Stephen, as he sank back into the chair. "Treachery is not common—"
"Treachery is the wrong word," said Falconer, as coldly as before. "Better let me explain to Mr. Stafford. I can do so in a few words, Mr. Orme. The fact is, your father and I have been, quite unknown, to each other, engaged in the same scheme. It is nothing more nor less than the acquisition of certain land and rights which carry with them the privilege of constructing a railway in the most promising part of South Africa—"
Sir Stephen leant forward, his head on his hands, his eyes fixed on the heavy, stolid face of the speaker, the face which the keen, hawk-like eyes flashed under the lowered lids with a gleam of power and triumph.
—"Your father had reason to hope that he would acquire those lands and rights; he did not know that I had been waiting for some years past to obtain them. If knowledge is power and money, ignorance is impotence and ruin. My knowledge against your father's ignorance has given me the victory. Last night I gained my point: the news to that effect is no doubt contained in that document. It was a question of price—it always is. I knew your father's bid, and—I went a few thousands higher and got the prize. That's the story in a nutshell. Of course there are a number of complications and details, but I spare you them; in fact, I don't suppose you understand them. It is a mere matter of business"
"No, of revenge!" said Sir Stephen's hollow voice. "Stafford, years ago I did this man a wrong. I—I have repented; I would have made atonement, reparation; but he put the offer aside. Here, in this house, he professed to have forgiven and forgotten—professed friendship. It was a piece of treachery and deceit; under that specious mask, behind that screen, he has worked my ruin!"
"Ruin!" said Stafford, in a low voice. "Surely you exaggerate, father! You mean that you will lose a lot of money—Oh, I can understand that, of course. But not ruin!"
"Yes,ruin!" said Sir Stephen, hoarsely. "If you doubt it, look at him!"
Falconer was standing with a sardonic smile in his eyes.
Stafford started.
"Is this true, Mr. Falconer?"
Falconer was silent for a moment, then he said, slowly, grimly:
"In a sense—yes. Your father's fate lies in my hands."
"In your hands!" echoed Stafford, with amazement.
Sir Stephen groaned and rose, supporting himself by the arm of the chair.
"It is true, Stafford. He—he has planned it with the skill of a general, a Napoleon! I see it all now, it is all plain to me. You held my shares and securities, of course, Falconer?"
Falconer nodded.
"Of course!" he said, drily.
"And you have run them down to meet this scheme of yours."
"Yes, of course!" said Falconer, again. "My dear Steve—Sir Stephen—pardon!—your fate, as I have said, is in my hands. It is simply a matter of tit-for-tat. You had your turn some years ago out there"—he waved his hand. "It is my turn now. You can't complain. Do you admit the justice of the thing?"
Sir Stephen sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands for a moment, then he looked up at Stafford.
"He's right. It was his turn. He has taken it—and with it every penny I possess. It means ruin—complete ruin! Worse even than the loss of every penny; for—for—I—God help me!—can't afford to go into court and have the past raked up—And he knows it—he knows it, Stafford!"
The sight of the old man's anguish almost drove Stafford mad.
"Have you no mercy, sir?" he said to Falconer. "Grant that my father had injured you—isn't this rather too awful a revenge to exact? I—I—I—don't understand all that I have heard; but—but"—an oath broke from his hot lips—"will nothing less than the ruin of my father satisfy you?"
Falconer looked from one to the other and moistened his lips, while his hands gripped each other behind his back.
"I think you have misunderstood me," he said, in a dry, harsh voice; "I have no intention of ruining your father or of depriving him of his good name. Mind! if I did I should only be taking my pound of flesh: and I may tell you that before I entered this house this afternoon I had resolved to have it. But I heard something that induced me to change my mind."
Sir Stephen leant forward, his eyes fixed eagerly on the speaker, and Stafford in his anxiety held his breath and pressed his father's shoulder encouragingly.
"You heard something, sir?" Stafford asked, as calmly as he could.
Mr. Falconer was silent for a moment, then he said:
"Yes. I heard that you were desirous of marrying my daughter, Maude,Mr. Orme; and I need not say that a man does not ruin his son-in-law!"
There was an intense silence. Stafford stood as if he were turned to stone, as if he were trying to persuade himself that he had misunderstood the meaning of Falconer's words. Marry Maude Falconer—he! Was he dreaming, or was this man, who stood regarding him with cold, glittering eyes, mad!
We do not, nowadays, strike attitudes, or ejaculate and swear when we are startled or shocked; Stafford stood perfectly still, still as a piece of Stonehenge, and gazed with an expressionless countenance at Mr. Falconer. That the man was indeed and in truth mad, occurred to him for a moment; then he thought there must be some mistake, that Mr. Falconer had made a blunder in the name, and that it was a case of mistaking his man.
But as the moments fled, and the two elder men gazed at him, as if expecting him to speak, he remembered Howard's warning. The colour rushed to his face and his eyes dropped. Merciful Heaven! was the man speaking the truth when he said that he, Stafford, was in love with Maude Falconer? His face was hot and scarlet for a moment, then it grew pale under the shame of the thought that he should have to correct the impression; decline, so to speak, the implied honour.
Sir Stephen was the first to speak. He had sunk back in his chair, but was now leaning forward again, his hands gripping the table. "Stafford!" he said, still thickly, but with the beginning of a note of relief in his voice. "I did not know this—you did not tell me!"
Stafford turned to him helplessly. What could he say—before Falconer, the girl's father?
"You did not tell me. But I don't complain, my boy," said Sir Stephen." You were right to choose your own time—young people like to keep their secret to themselves as long as possible."
Falconer looked from one to the other with an impassive countenance.
"I feel that I am ratherde trop," he said; "that I have spoken rather prematurely; but my hand was forced, Orme. I wanted to set your mind at rest, to show you that even if I hankered after revenge, it was impossible under the circumstances." He glanced at Stafford. "It's not the first time in history that the young people have played the part of peace-makers. This is a kind of Romeo and Juliet business, isn't it? I'll leave you and Mr. Stafford to talk it over!"
He moved to the door, but, with his hand upon it, paused and looked round at them again.
"I ought to aid that, like most modern fathers, I am entirely in the hands of my daughter. I can't go so far as to say, Orme, that if I had been permitted to choose, I should have chosen a son of yours for my son-in-law, but, you see, Maude doesn't give me the option. The young people have taken the bit between their teeth and bolted, and it seems to me that the only thing we have to do is to sit tight and look as cheerful as possible. Oh, one word more," he added, in a business-like tone. "Of course I make over this concession to you, Orme; just taking the share I should have received if you had won the game and I had only stood in as proposed. That is to say, you will be in exactly the same position as if you had won all along the line—as you thought you had." And with a nod, which included father and son, he went out.
Stafford unconsciously drew back a little, so that he was almost behind Sir Stephen, who had covered his eyes with his hands and sat perfectly motionless, like a half-stunned man looking back at some terrible danger from which he had only escaped by the skin of his teeth. Then he dropped his hands from his face and drew a long breath, the kind of breath a man draws who has been battling with the waves and finds himself on the shore, exhausted but still alive.
Stafford laid a hand on his shoulder, and Sir Stephen started and looked up at him as if he had forgotten his presence. A flush, as if of shame, came upon the great financier's face, and he frowned at the papers lying before him, where they had dropped from his hand.
"What an escape, Stafford!" he said, his voice still rather thick and with a tremour of excitement and even exhaustion in its usually clear and steady tone. "I am ashamed, my boy, that you should have been a witness to my defeat: it humiliates, mortifies me!"
"Don't let that worry you, father," said Stafford, scarcely knowing what he said, for the tumult in his brain, the dread at his heart.
"It is not the first defeat I have suffered in my life; like other successful men, I have known what it is to fall; and I have laughed and got up and shaken the dust off myself, so to speak, and gone at the fight again, all the harder and more determined because of the reverse. But this—this would have crushed me utterly and forever."
"Do you mean that it would have ruined you completely, father?" saidStafford.
"Completely!" replied Sir Stephen in a low voice, his head drooping. "I had staked everything on this venture, had staked even more than I possessed. I cannot explain all the details, the ramifications, of the scheme which I have been working. You could not understand them if I were to talk to you for a week. Suffice it, that if I had failed to get this concession, I should have been an utterly ruined man, should have had to go through the bankruptcy court, should have been left without a penny. And not only that: I should have dragged a great many of the men, of the friends who had trusted to my ability, who have believed in me, into the same pit; not only such men as Griffenberg and Wirsch and the Beltons, but the Plaistows, the Clansdales, and the Fitzharfords. They would have suffered with me, would have, considered themselves betrayed."
Stafford drew a long breath. There seemed to him still a chance of saving himself, the girl he loved, above all—his honour.
"But even if it were so, father," he said; "other men have failed, other men have been defeated, ruined, and left penniless, and yet have risen and shaken the dust from them and fought their way again to the heights. You're not an old man, you are strong and clever, and you are not alone." he said, in a lower voice. "I'm not much use, I know. But I'll try and help you all I can. I've often felt ashamed of myself for living such an idle, useless life; often felt that I ought to do something to justify my existence. There's a chance now; at any rate, there's an occasion, a necessity for my waking up and stepping into the ring to do a little fighting on my own account. We may be beaten by Mr. Falconer; but don't say we're utterly crushed. That doesn't sound like you, sir; and I don't understand why you should chuck up the sponge so quickly."
Sir Stephen raised his head and looked at Stafford with a curious expression of mingled surprise and apprehension.
"What is it you are saying, Stafford?" he asked. "What is it you mean? I don't understand. We're not beaten; Ralph Falconer has offered to make the concession over to me; and no one need know that I have failed, that he had stolen the march on me. You heard what he said: that you were in love with his daughter Maude, and that of course he could not injure his future son-in-law. Stafford!" He sprang to his feet and began to pace up and down the room. "I know that this has touched your pride—I can give a pretty good guess as to how proud you are—but, for God's sake! don't let your pride stand in the way of this arrangement."
"But—" Stafford began; for he felt that he could not longer keep back the truth, that his father must be told not only that there was nothing between Maude and himself, but that he loved Ida Heron.
But before he could utter another word Sir Stephen stopped before him, and with hands thrown out appealingly, and with a look of terror and agony in his face, cried in broken accents:
"If you going to raise any obstacle, Stafford, prompted by your pride, for God's sake, don't say the word! You don't know, you don't understand! You speak of ruin as if it meant only the loss of money, the loss of every penny." He laughed almost hysterically, and his lips twitched. "Do you think I should care for that, except for your sake? No, a thousand times, no! I'm young still, I could begin the world again! Yes, and conquer it as I have done before; but"—his voice sank, and he look round the room with a stealthy glance which shocked and startled Stafford—"the ruin Ralph Falconer threatens me with means more than the loss of money. It means the loss of everything! Of friends, of good name—of hope!"
Stafford started, and his face grew a trifle hard; and Sir Stephen saw it and made a despairing, appealing gesture with his hand.
"For God's sake don't turn away from me, my boy; don't judge me harshly. You can't judge me fairly from your standpoint; your life has been a totally different one from mine, has been lived under different circumstances. You have never known the temptations to which I have been subjected. Your life has been an easy one surrounded by honour, while mine has been spent half the time grubbing in the dust and the mire for gold, and the rest fighting—sometimes with one hand tied behind me!—against the men who would have robbed me of it. I have had to fight them with their own weapons—sometimes they haven't been clean—sometimes it has been necessary to do—to do things!—God! Stafford, don't turn away from me! I would have kept this from you if I could, but I am obliged to tell you now. Ralph Falconer knows all the details of my past, he knows of things which—which, if they were known to the world, would stain the name I have raised to honour, would make it necessary for me to hide my head in a suicide's grave."
A low cry burst from Stafford's lips, and he sank into a chair, and bowed his head upon his hands.
Sir Stephen stood a little way off and looked at him for a minute, then he advanced slowly, half timidly and ashamedly, and laid a trembling hand on Stafford's shoulder.
"Forgive me, Stafford!" he said, in a low, broken voice. "I was obliged to tell you. I'd have kept it from you—you would never have known—but Falconer has forced my hand; I was bound to show you how necessary it was that we should have him as friend instead of foe. You are not—ashamed of me, my boy; you won't go back on me?"
In the stress and strain of his emotion the old digger's slang came readily to his lips.
Stafford took one hand from his face and held it out, and his father grasped it, clinging to it as a drowning man clings to a rock.
"God bless you, my boy!" he said. "I might have known you wouldn't turn your back upon me; I might have known that you'd remember that I wasn't fighting for myself only, but for the son I'm so proud of."
"I know, I know, sir," said Stafford, almost inaudibly.
Sir Stephen hung his hand, released it, and paced up and down the room again, fighting for composure, and facing the situation after the manner of his kind. Like all successful adventurers, he was always ready to look on the bright side. He came back to Stafford and patted him gently on the shoulder.
"Try and forget what I said, about—about the past, Stafford," he said. "Let us look at the future—your future. After all, we're not beaten! It's a compromise, it's an alliance!" His voice grew more cheerful, his eyes began to brighten with something of their wonted fire. "And it's a bright future, Staff! You've chosen a beautiful girl, a singularly beautiful and distinguished-looking girl—it's true she's only Ralph Falconer's daughter, and that I'd loftier ideas for you, but let that pass! Maude is a young lady who can hold her own against the best and the highest. Falconer must be rich, or he would not have been able to have managed this thing, would not have been able to beat me. With your money and hers, you can go as far as you please!"
He took a turn up and down the room again, a flush on the face that had been pallid only a minute or two ago, his finely shaped head thrown back.
"Yes, Stafford, I should like you to have married into the nobility. In my eyes, there is no one too high in rank for you. But no matter! The title will come. They cannot do less than offer me a peerage. This railway will be of too much service to the government for them to pass me over. The peerage must come; there is no chance of my losing it. Why, yes! The future is as bright as the sunlight on a June morning! You will have the girl you love, I shall have the peerage to leave to you. I shall have not lived and struggled and fought in vain. I shall have left a name unstained, unsullied, to the son I love!"
There was a catch in his voice, and it broke as he turned suddenly with outstretched hand.
"Why, God forgive me, Stafford, my boy! I'm talking of what I've done for you and what I'm meaning to do as if I were forgetting what you are doing for me! Stafford, a father often finds that he has worked for his children only to meet with ingratitude and to be repaid by indifference; but you have returned my affection—Oh, I've seen it, felt it, my boy! And now, as fate would have it, you are actually saving my honour, shielding my good name, coming between me and utter ruin! God bless you, Stafford! God bless you and send you all the happiness you deserve and I wish you!"
A silence fell. Into the room there floated the soft, languorous strains of a waltz, the murmur of voices, the laughter of some of the people in the conservatory. Stafford sat, his head still upon his hands, as if her were half stupefied. And indeed he was. He felt like a man who has been seized by the tentacles of an octopus, unable to struggle, unable to move, dumb-stricken, and incapable even of protest. Sir Stephen had spoken of fate: Fate held Stafford under its iron heel, and the mockery of Fate's laughter mingled with the strains of the waltz, the murmur of voices. Unconsciously he rose and looked round as if half dazed, and Sir Stephen came to him and laid both hands on his shoulders.
"I must not keep you any longer, my dear boy!" he said, with a fond, proud look. "I must not forget I am keeping you from—her! She will be missing you—wanting you. You have kept your secret well, Stafford—though once or twice I have fancied, when I have seen you together—but it was only a fancy!—Are you going to announce the engagement tonight? It is rather a good opportunity, isn't it? It will make the night memorable."
The music danced madly through Stafford's brain as his father waited, looking at him smilingly. What should he say?
"Not to-night, sir!" he answered. "I should like to speak to MissFalconer first."
Sir Stephen nodded and smiled.
"I understand, my boy," he said. "This kind of thing is not done now as it was in my time. We used to take the girl of our choice by the hand and throw back our heads, and announce the fact that we have secured the prize, with all the pride imaginable. But that's all altered now. I suppose the new way is more delicate—more refined. At any rate, you belong to the new age and have a right to follow its manners and customs; so you shall say nothing to-night, unless you like. And, if I am asked why I look so happy, so free from care, I must say that it is because the great Railway Scheme is settled and that I have won all along the line."
As he said the last words there came a knock at the door, and Murray entered with an injured look.
"Mr. Griffenberg and Baron Wirsch, would like to see you, Sir Stephen," he said, significantly.
Sir Stephen sprang to the table almost with the alertness of a boy, and caught up the papers lying on his desk.
"All right, Murray!" he cried. "Sorry I'm late! Been having a talk withMr. Stafford. Come on!"
With a nod, a smile, a tender look of love and gratitude to Stafford, the brilliant adventurer, once more thrown by the buoyant wave upon the shore of safety and success, went out to communicate that success to his coadjutors.
Stafford sank into his father's chair, and with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and his chin upon his chest, tried to clear his brain, to free his mind from all side issues, and to face the fact that he had tacitly agreed, that by his silence he had consented to marry Maude Falconer.
But, oh, how hard it was to think clearly, with the vision of that girlish face floating before him! the exquisitely beautiful face with its violet eyes now arched and merry, now soft and pleading, now tender with the tenderness of a girl's first, true, divinely trusting love. He was looking at the book-case before him, but a mist rose between it and his eyes, and he saw the mountain-side and the darling of his heart riding down it, the sunlight on her face, the soft tendrils of hair blown rough by the wind, the red lips apart with a smile—the little grave smile which he had kissed away into deeper, still sweeter seriousness.
And he had lost her! Oh, God, how he loved her! And he had lost her forever! There was no hope for him. He must save his father—not his father's money. That counted for nothing—but his father's honour—his father's good name.
And even if he were not bound to make this sacrifice, to marry Maude Falconer, how could he go to Heron Hall and ask Godfrey Heron, the man of ancient lineage, of unsullied name, to give his daughter to the son of a man whose past was so black that his character was at the mercy of Ralph Falconer? Stafford rose and stretched out his arms as if to thrust from him a weight too grievous to be borne, a cup too bitter to be drained; then his arms fell to his sides and, with a hardening of the face, a tightening of the lips which made him look strangely like his father, he left the library, and crossing the hall, made his way to the ball-room.
The ball was at its height. Even the coldest and mostblaséof the guests had warmed up and caught fire at the blaze of excitement and enjoyment. The ball-room was dazzling in the beauty of its decorations and the soft effulgence of the shaded electric light, in which the magnificent jewels of the titled and wealthy women seemed to glow with a subdued and chastened fire. A dance was in progress, and Stafford, as he stood by the doorway and looked mechanically and dully at the whirling crowd, the kaleidoscope of colour formed by the rich dresses, the fluttering fans, and the dashes of black represented by the men's clothes, thought vaguely that he had never seen anything more magnificent, more elegant of wealth and success. But through it all, weird and ghost-like shone Ida's girlish face, with its love-lit eyes and sweetly curving lips.
He looked round, and presently he saw Maude Falconer in her strange and striking dress. She was dancing with Lord Fitzharford. There was not a touch of colour in her face, her lips were pensive, her lids lowered; she looked like an exquisite statue, exquisitely clothed, moving with the exquisite poetry of motion, but quite devoid of feeling. Suddenly, as if she felt his presence, she raised her eyes and looked at him. A light shot into them, glowed for a moment, her lips curved with the faintest of smiles, and a warm tint stole to her face.
It was an eloquent look, one that could not be mistaken by the least vain of men, and it went straight through Stafford's heart; for it forced him to realise that which he had not even yet quite realised—that he had tacitly pledged himself to her. Under other circumstances, the thought might have set his heart beating and sent the blood coursing hotly through his veins; but with his heart aching with love for Ida, and despair at the loss of her, Maude Falconer's love-glance only chilled him and made him shudder with apprehension of the future, with the thought of the cost of the sacrifice which he had taken upon himself. The music sounded like a funeral march in his ears, the glitter, the heat, the movement, seemed unendurable; and he threaded his way round the room to an ante-room which had been fitted up as a buffet.
"Give me some wine, please," he said to the butler, trying to speak in his ordinary tone; but he knew that his voice was harsh and strained, knew that the butler noticed it, though the well-trained servant did not move an eyelid, but opened a bottle of champagne with solemn alacrity and poured out a glass. Stafford signed to him to place the bottle near and drank a couple of glasses.
It pulled him together a bit, and he was going back to the ball-room when several men entered. They were Griffenberg, Baron Wirsch, the Beltons and the other financiers; they were all talking together and laughing, and their faces were flushed with triumph. Close behind them, but grave and taciturn as usual, came Mr. Falconer.
At sight of Stafford, Mr. Griffenberg turned from the man to whom he was talking and exclaimed, gleefully:
"Here is Mr. Orme! You have herd the good news, I suppose, Mr. Orme? Splendid isn't it? Wonderful man, you father, truly wonderful! He can give us all points, can't he, baron?" The baron nodded and smiled.
"Shir Stephen ish a goot man of pishness. You have a very glever fader,Mr. Orme!" he said, emphatically.
Efford caught Stafford's arm as he was passing on with a mechanical smile and an inclination of the head.
"We've come in for a drink, Orme," he said. "We're going to drink luck to the biggest thing Sir Stephen has ever done; you'll join us? Oh, come, we can't take a refusal! Dash it all! You're in the swim, Orme, if you haven't taken any active part in it."
Stafford glanced at Mr. Falconer, and noticed a grim smile pass over his face. If these exultant and flushed money-spinners only guessed how active a part he had taken, how amazed they would be! A wave of bitterness swept over him. At such a moment men, especially young men, become reckless; the strain is too great, and they fly to the nearest thing for relief.
He turned back to the buffet, and the butler and the couple of footmen opened several bottles of champagne—none of the men knew or cared how many; several others of the financial group joined the party; the wine went round rapidly; they were all talking and laughing except Stafford, who remained silent and grave and moody for some little time; then he too began to talk and laugh with the others, and his face grew flushed and his manner excited.
Falconer, who stood a little apart, apparently drinking with the others, but really with care and moderation, watched him under half-lowered lids; and presently he moved round to where Stafford leant against the table with his champagne-glass in his hand, and touching him on the arm, said:
"I hear them enquiring for you in the ball-room, Stafford."
It was the first time he had called Stafford by his Christian name, and it struck home, as Falconer had intended it should. Stafford set his glass down and looked round as a man does when the wine is creeping up to his head, and he is startled by an unexpected voice.
"All right—thanks!" he said.
He made his way through the group, who were too engrossed and excited to notice his desertion and went into the ball-room. As he did so, his father entered by an opposite door, and seeing him, came round to him, and taking Stafford's hand that hung at his side, pressed it significantly.
"I have told them!" he said. "They are almost off their heads with delight—you see, it's such a big thing, even for them, Staff! You have saved us all, my boy; but it is only I and Falconer who know it, only I who can show my gratitude!"
His voice was low and tremulous, his face flushed, like those of the men whom Stafford had just left, and his dark eyes flashing and restless.
"Where are they all?" he asked; and Stafford nodded over his shoulder towards the buffet.
Sir Stephen looked round the room with a smile of triumph, and his glance rested on Maude Falconer, standing by a marble column, her eyes downcast, her fan moving to and fro in front of her white bosom.
"She is beautiful, Staff!" he whispered. "The loveliest woman in the room! I am not surprised that you should have fallen in love with her."
Stafford laughed under his breath, a strangely wild and bitter laugh, which Sir Stephen could not have failed to notice if the music had not commenced a new waltz at that moment.
Stafford went straight across the room to Maude Falconer. She did not raise her eyes at his approach, but the colour flickered in her cheeks.
"This is our dance, I think," he said.
She looked up with a little air of surprise, and consulted her programme.
"No; I think this is mine, Miss Falconer," said the man at her side.
"No," she said, calmly; "the next is yours, Lord Bannerdale; this isMr. Orme's."
Though he knew she was wrong, of course Lord Bannerdale acquiesced with a bow and a smile, and Stafford led Maude away.
Wine has a trick of getting into some men's feet and promptly giving them away; but Stafford, though he was usually one of the most moderate of men, could drink a fairly large quantity and remain as steady as a rock. No one, watching him dance, would have known that he had drunk far too many glasses of champagne and that his head was burning, his heart thumping furiously; but though his step was as faultless as usual and he steered her dexterously through this crowd. Maude knew by his silence, by his flushed face and restless eyes, that something had happened, and that he was under the influence of some deep emotion. He was dancing quite perfectly, but mechanically, like a man in a dream, and though he must have heard the music, he did not hear her when she spoke to him, but looked straight before him as if he were entirely absorbed in some thought.
When they came, in the course of the dance, to one of the doors, she stopped suddenly.
"Do you mind? It is so hot," she murmured.
"N—o," he said, as if awaking suddenly. "Let us go outside."
He caught up a fur cloak that was lying on a bench, and disregarding her laughing remonstrance that the thing did not belong to her, he put it round her and led her on to the terrace. She looked up at him just as they were passing out of the stream of light, saw how set and hard his face was, how straight the lips and sombre the eyes, and her hand, as it rested lightly on his arm, quivered like a leaf in autumn. When they had got into the open air, he threw back his head and drew a long breath.
"Yes; it was hot in there," he said.
They walked slowly up and down for a minute, passing and repassing similar couples; then suddenly, as if the presence of others, the sound of their voices and laughter, jarred upon him, Stafford said:
"Shall we go into the garden? It is quiet there—and I want to speak to you."
"If you like," she said, in a low voice, which she tried to make as languid as usual; but her heart began to beat fiercely and her lips trembled, and he might have heard her breath coming quickly had he not been absorbed in his own reflections.
They went down the steps and into the semi-darkness of the beautiful garden. The silence was broken by the hum of the distant voices and the splashing of a fountain which reflected the electric light as the spray rose and fell with rhythmic regularity. Stafford stopped at this and looked at the reflection of the stars in the shallow water. Something in its simplicitude and the quiet, coming after the glitter and the noise of the ball-room, called up the remembrance of Herondale, and the quiet, love-laden hours he had spent there with Ida. The thought went through him with a sharp pain, and he thrust it away from him as one thrusts away a threatening weakness.
"What is it you wanted to say to me?" asked Maude, not coldly or indifferently as she would have asked the question of another man, but softly, dreamily.
He walked on with her a few paces, looking straight before him as if he were trying to find words suitable for the answer; then he turned his face to her and looked at her steadily, though his head was burning and the plash of the fountain sounded like the roar of the sea in his ears.
"I wonder whether you could guess?" he said, as he thought of her father's words, his assertion that Stafford was to be his son-in-law. "I suppose you must."
Her gaze was as steady as his, but her lips quivered slightly.
"I would rather you should tell me than that I should I guess," she said in a low voice. "I might be wrong."
He was not in a condition to notice the significance of her last words, and he went on with a kind of desperation.
"I brought you here into the garden, Miss Falconer, to ask you if you'd be my wife."
They had stopped just within the radius of an electric light, held aloft by a grinning satyr, and Stafford saw her face grow paler and paler in the seconds that followed the momentous question. He could see her bosom heaving under the half-open fur cloak, felt her hand close for an instant on his arm.
"Do you wish me to say 'Yes'?" she asked in a low voice.
The red flooded Stafford's face for a moment, and his eyes fell under her fixed regard.
"What answer does one generally hope for when one puts such a question?" he said, trying to smile. "I want you to be my wife, and I hope, with all my heart, that you will say 'Yes.'"
"'With all your heart,'" she echoed, slowly, almost inaudibly. "'With all your heart.' With all mine, I answer 'Yes.'"
As she murmured the words—and, like that of most cold women when they are intensely moved, her voice could be exquisitely sweet with its thrill of passion, all the sweeter for its rarity—she insensibly drew nearer to him and her hand stole to his shoulder. Her eyes were lifted to his, and they shone with the love that was coursing through her veins, almost stopping the beating of her heart. Love radiated from her as the light radiated from the lamp the mocking satyr held above them. Stafford was at his best and worst, a man and not a block of stone and wood, and touched, almost fired, by the passion so close to him, he put his arm round her waist and bent his head until his lips nearly touched hers.
Her eyes closed and she was surrendering herself to the kiss, when suddenly she drew her head back, and, keeping him from her, looked up at him. "Is it with all your heart?" she whispered. "You have never spoken to me of—love before. Is it with all your heart?"
His brow contracted in a frown, he set his teeth hard. If he were to lie, 'twere better that he lied thoroughly and well; better that his sacrifice should be complete and effectual. Scarcely knowing what he said, what he did, with the fumes of the champagne confusing his brain, the misery of his lost love racking his heart, he said, hoarsely:
"I did not know—till to-night. You can trust me. I ask you to be my wife—I will be true to you—it is with all my heart!"
If Jove laughs at lovers' perjuries, the angels must weep at such false oaths as this. Even as he spoke the words, Stafford remembered the "I love you?" he had cried to Ida as he knelt at her feet, and he shuddered as Maude drew his head down and his lips met hers.
* * * * *
Half an hour later they went slowly up the steps again. Stafford's head was still burning, he still felt confused, like a man moving in a dream. Since he had kissed her he had said very little; and the silences had been broken more often by Maude than by him. She had told him in a low voice, tremulous with love, and hesitating now and again, how she had fallen in love with him the day he had rowed her on the lake; how she had struggled and striven against the feeling, and how it had conquered her. How miserable she had been, though she had tried to hide her misery, lest he should never come to care for her, and she should have to suffer that most merciless of all miseries—unrequited love. She seemed as if she scarcely wanted him to speak, as if she took it for granted that he had spoken the truth, and that he loved her; and as if it were a joy to her to bare her heart, that he might see how devotedly it throbbed for him and for him alone. Every now and then Stafford spoke a few words in response. He scarcely knew what he said, he could not have told what they were ten minutes after they were said; he sat with his arm round her like a man playing a part mechanically.
In the same condition he moved beside her now as arm and arm they entered the house, he looking straight before him with a set face, a forced smile, she with now raised, now drooping eyes glowing with triumph, a flush on her usually pale face, her lips apart and tremulous. The ball was breaking up, some of the women had already gone to the drawing-room or their own apartments; a stream of men were making their way to the billiard-room from which came the popping of champagne-corks and the hissing of syphons.
As they entered the hall, Howard came lounging out, in his leisurely way, from the drawing-room, and at sight of him Stafford seemed to awake, to realise what he had done and how he stood. He looked from Howard to Maude, then, he said:
"Howard, I want you to congratulate me. Miss Falconer—Maude—has promised to be my wife."
Howard did not start, but he stared in silence for an instant, then his eyelids flickered, and forcing the astonishment from his face, he took Stafford's left hand and shook it, and bowed to Maude.
"I do congratulate you with all my heart, my dear Stafford, and I hope you'll both be as happy as the happiest pair in a fairy story."
She drew her arm from Stafford's.
"I will go up now," she said. "Good-night!"
Stafford stood until she had got as far as the bend of the stairs; then Howard, who had discreetly gone on, turned to go back to him. But as he came up with a word of wonder and repeated congratulations, he saw Stafford put his hand to his forehead, and, as it seemed to Howard, almost stagger.
There are moments when the part of even one's best friend is silence, blindness. Howard turned aside, and Stafford went on slowly, with a kind of enforced steadiness, to the billiard-room. While Howard, with dismay and apprehension, was looking after him, he heard "Mr. Howard!" called softly, mockingly, from the stairs, and looking up, saw Maude Falconer leaning over, with her arm extended, her hand open.
He understood in a moment, and, removing his ring as he ran up the stairs, put it in the soft, pink palm. She gave a little triumphant, mocking laugh, her hand closed over the ring, and then she glided away from him.
The smoking-room was crowded as Stafford made his way in. Through the clouds of smoke he saw his father standing at one end, surrounded by the money-spinning crew, Falconer seated in a chair near him with a black cigar between his lips. The group were laughing and talking loudly, and all had glasses in their hands. Some of the younger men, who had just come from the hall-room, were adding their laughter and chatter to the noise. Dazed and confused, half mad with rage and despair, with a sense that Fate was joining her mocking laughter with that of the men round him. Stafford took a glass of wine from the butler who advanced with it, and drinking it off, held it out to be refilled. The man refilled it twice, and Stafford, his eyes aflame, almost pushed his way through the various groups to where his father stood.
"I have come for your congratulation, sir," he said, in a voice which, though not loud, was so clear as to break through the row. "Miss Falconer has promised to be my wife!"
A silence, so sudden as to be startling, fell upon the hot and crowded room; then, as Sir Stephen grasped his son's hand, a din of voices arose, an excited buzz of congratulations and good wishes. Stafford faced them all, his face pale and set, his lips curved with a forced smile, his eyes flashing, but lit with a sombre fire. There was a smile on his lips, a false amiability in his eyes, but there was so much of madness in his heart that he was afraid lest at any moment he should dash the glass to the ground and break out into cursing.
An hour later he found himself in his room, and waving Measom away from him, he went to the window and flung it wide open, and stood there with his hands against his throbbing brow; and though no word came from his parched lips, his heart cried:
"Ida! Ida!" with all the agony of despair.