Frederic opened his eyes at the sound of a gentle, persistent tapping on the bedroom door. Resting on his elbow, he looked blankly, wonderingly, about the room, and—remembered. The sun streamed into the chamber, filling it with a radiance that almost dazzled him. He rubbed his eyes, and again, as in the night just gone, his thought absorbed the contents of the room.
He had not dreamed it, after all. He was there in Lydia's bed, attended by all the mute, inanimate sentinels that stood guard over her while she slept. The knocking continued. He dreamed on, his blinking eyes still seeking out the dainty, Lydia-like treasures in the enchanted room.
“Frederic!” called a voice outside the door.
He started guiltily.
“All right,” was his cheery response.
“Get up! It's nine o'clock. Or will you have your breakfast in bed, sir?” It was Lydia who spoke, assuming a fine Irish brogue in imitation of their little maid of all work.
“I'll have to, unless my clothes have come over!”
“They are here. Now do hurry.”
He sprang out of bed and bounded across the room. She passed the garments through the partly opened door.
“Morning!” he greeted, sticking his tousled head around the edge.
“Morning!” she responded as briefly.
“Don't wait breakfast for me. I'll skip over home———”
“It will be ready in fifteen minutes,” she said arbitrarily. “Don't dawdle.”
“How pretty, how sweet you are this morning,” he cried, his dark eyes dancing.
“Silly!” she scoffed, but with a radiant smile. Then, with a perfectly childish giggle, she slammed the door and scurried away as if in fear of pursuit.
He was artistic, temperamental. Such as he have not the capacity for haste when there is the slightest opportunity to dream and dawdle. He was a full quarter of an hour taking his tub, and another was consumed in getting into his clothes. At home he was always much longer than this, for he was delayed by the additional task of selecting shirts, ties, socks, and scarf-pins, and changing his mind and all of them three or four times before being satisfied with the effect. He sallied forth in great haste at nine thirty-five, and was extremely proud of himself, although unshaved.
His first act, after warmly greeting Mrs Desmond, was to sit down at the piano. Hurriedly he played a few jerky, broken snatches of the haunting air he had heard the night before.
“I've been wondering if I could remember it,” he apologised, as he followed them into the dining-room. “What's the matter, Lyddy? Didn't you sleep well? Poor old girl, I was a beast to deprive you of your bed.”
“I have a mean headache, that's all,” said the girl quickly. He noticed the dark circles under her eyes and the queer expression, as of trouble, in their depths. “It will go as soon as I've had my coffee.”
Night, with its wonderful sensations, was behind them. Day revealed the shadow that had fallen. They unconsciously shrank from it and drew back into the shelter of their own misgivings. The joyous abandon of the night before was dead. Over its grave stood the leering spectre of unrest.
When he took her in his arms later on, and kissed her, there was not the shadow of a doubt in the mind of either that the restraining influence of a condition over which they had no control was there to mock their endeavour to be natural. They were not to be deceived by the apparent earnestness of the embrace. Each knew that the other was asking a question, even as their lips met and clung in the rather pathetic attempt to confirm the fond dream of the night before. They kissed as through a veil. They were awake once more, and they were wary, unconvinced. The answer to their questions came in the kiss itself, and constraint fell upon them.
Drawn by an impulse that had been struggling within him, Frederic found himself standing at the sitting-room window. It was a sly, covert, though intensely eager look that he directed at another window far below. If he hoped for some sign of life in his father's study he was to be disappointed. The curtains hung straight and motionless. He would have denied the charge that he longed to see Yvonne sitting in the casement, waiting to waft a sign of greeting up to him; he would have denied that the thought was in his mind when he went to the window; and yet he was conscious of a feeling of disappointment, even annoyance.
With considerable adroitness Lydia engaged his attention at the piano. Keyed up as she was, his every emotion was plain to her perceptions. She had anticipated the motive that led him to the window. She knew that it would assert itself in spite of all that he could do to prevent. She waited humbly for the thing to happen, pain in her heart, and when her reading proved true she was prepared to combat its effect. Music was her only ally.
“How does it go, Freddy—the thing you were playing before breakfast?” She was trying to pick up the elusive air. “It is such a fascinating, adorable thing. Is this right?”
He looked at his watch. The few bars she had mastered in her eagerness fell upon inattentive ears at first. But she persisted. He came over and stood beside her. His long, slim fingers joined hers on the keyboard, and the sensuous strains of the waltz responded to his touch. He smiled patiently as she struggled to repeat what he had played. The fever of the thing took hold of him at last, as she had known it would. Leaning over her shoulder, his cheek quite close to hers, he played. Her hands dropped into her lap.
She retained her seat on the bench. Her cunning brain told her that it would be a mistake to relinquish her place at the keyboard. He would play it through a time or two, mechanically perhaps, and then his interest would be gone. He would have gratified her simple request, and that would have been the end. She led him on by interrupting time and again in her eagerness to grasp the lesson he was giving. Finally she moved over on the bench, and he sat down beside her. He was absorbed in the undertaking. His brow cleared. His smile was a happy, eager one.
“It's a tricky thing, Lyddy,” he said enthusiastically, “but you'll get it. Now listen.”
For an hour they sat there, master and pupil, sweetheart and lover. The fear was less in the heart of one when, tiring at last, the other contentedly abandoned the rôle of taskmaster and threw himself upon the couch, remarking, as he stretched himself in luxurious ease:
“I like this, Lyddy. I wish you didn't have to go over there and dig away at that confounded journal. I like this so well that, 'pon my soul, I'd enjoy loafing here with you the whole day long.”
Her heart leaped. “You shall have your wish, Freddy,” she said, barely able to conceal the note of eagerness in her voice. “I am not going to work to-day. I—my head, you know. Mother telephoned to Mr Brood this morning before you were up.”
“You're going to loaf?” he cried gladly. “Bully! And I may stay? But, gee, I forgot your headache. It will———” He was staring up from the couch when she hastily broke in, shaking her head vigorously.
“Lie still. My head is much better. I want you to stay, dear. I—I want to have you all to myself again. Oh, it will be so good—so good to while away an idle day with you!”
She was standing beside the couch. He reached forth and took her hand in his, laying it against his lips.
“It won't be an idle day,” said he seriously. “We shall be very busy.”
“Busy?” she inquired apprehensively.
“Talking things over,” he said briefly. “Of course, I ought to go home and face the music.”
“What do you mean?”
“It's something I can't talk about, Lyddy. Let's forget our troubles for to-day.”
“Better still, let us share them. Stay here with me. Don't go home to-day, Freddy. I———”
“Oh, I've got to have it out with father some time,” he said bitterly. “It may as well be now as later on. We've got to come to an understanding.”
Her heart was cold. She was afraid of what would come out of that “understanding.” All night long she had lain with wide-staring eyes, thinking of the horrid thing James Brood had said to her. Far in the night she aroused her mother from a sound sleep to put the question that had been torturing her for hours. Mrs Desmond confessed that her husband had told her that Brood had never considered Frederic to be his son, and then the two lay side by side for the remainder of the night without uttering a word, and yet keenly awake. They were thinking of the hour when Brood would serve notice on the intruder!
Lydia now realised that the hour was near. Frederic himself would challenge the wrath of all these bitter years, and it would fall upon his unsuspecting head with cruel, obliterating force.
The girl shivered as with a racking chill. “Have it out with father,” he had said in his ignorance. He was preparing to rush headlong to his doom. To prevent that catastrophe was the single, all-absorbing thought in Lydia's mind. Her only hope lay in keeping the men apart until she could extract from Brood a promise to be merciful, and this she intended to accomplish if she had to go down on her knees and grovel before the man.
“Oh, Freddy,” she cried earnestly, “why take the chance of making a bad matter worse?” Even as she uttered the words she realised how stupid, how ineffectual they were.
“It can't be much worse,” he said gloomily. “I am inclined to think he'd relish a straight-out, fair, and square talk, anyhow. Moreover, I mean to take Yvonne to task for the thing she said—or implied last night. About you, I mean. She———”
“Oh, I beg of you, don't!”
“It was—unspeakable. I don't see what could have come over her.”
“She was jealous. She admitted it, dear. If I don't mind, why should you incur———”
“Do you really believe she—she loves the governor enough to be as jealous as all that?” he exclaimed, a curious gleam in his eyes—an expression she did not like.
“Of course I think so!” she cried emphatically. “What a question! Have you any reason to suspect that she does not love your father?”
“No—certainly not,” he said in some confusion. Then, after a moment: “Are you quite sure this headache of yours is real, Lyddy?”
“What do you mean?”
“Isn't it an excuse to stay away from—from Yvonne, after what happened last night? Be honest, dear.”
She was silent for a long time, weighing her answer. Was it best to be honest with him?
“I confess that it has something to do with it,” she admitted. Lydia could not be anything but truthful.
“I thought so. It's—it's a rotten shame, Lyddy. That's why I want to talk to her. I want to reason with her. It's all so perfectly silly, this misunderstanding. You've just got to go on as you were before, Lyddy—just as if it hadn't happened. It———”
“I shall complete the work for your father, Freddy,” she said quietly. “Two or three days more will see the end. After that neither my services nor my presence will be required over there.”
“You don't mean to say——” he began, unbelievingly.
“It isn't likely I'd go there for pleasure, is it?” she interrupted dryly.
“But think of the old times, the———”
“I can think of them just as well here as anywhere else. No; I shan't annoy Mrs Brood, Freddy.” It was on the tip of her tongue to say more, but she thought better of it.
“They're going abroad soon,” he ventured. “At least, that's father's plan. Yvonne isn't so keen about it. She calls this being abroad, you know. Besides,” he hurried on in his eagerness to excuse Yvonne, “she's tremendously fond of you.”
Lydia was wise. “I would give a great deal to be able to really believe so, Freddy. I—I could be very fond of her.”
He warmed to the cause.
“No end of times she's said you were the finest———” Her smile—an odd one, such as he had never seen on her lips before—checked his eager speech. He bridled. “Of course, if you don't choose to believe me, there's nothing more to be said. She meant it, however.”
“I am sure she said it, Freddy,” she hastened to declare. “Will she be pleased with our—our marriage?”
It required a great deal of courage on her part to utter these words, but she was determined to bring the true situation home to him.
He did not even hesitate, and there was conviction in his voice as he replied:
“It doesn't matter whether she's pleased or displeased. We're pleasing ourselves, are we not? There's no one else to consider, dear.”
Her eyes were full upon his, and there was wonder in them.
“Thank you—thank you, Freddy,” she cried. “I—I knew you'd———” The sentence remained unfinished.
“Has there ever been a doubt in your mind?” he asked uneasily, after a moment. He knew there had been misgivings, and he was ready, in his self-abasement, to resent them if given the slightest opening. Guilt made him arrogant.
“No,” she answered simply.
The answer was not what he expected. He flushed painfully.
“I—I thought perhaps you'd—you'd get a notion in your head that———” He, too, stopped for want of the right words to express himself without committing the egregious error of letting her see that it had been in his thoughts to accuse her of jealousy.
She waited for a moment. “That I might have got the notion in my head you did not love me any longer? Is that what you started to say?”
“Yes,” he confessed, averting his eyes.
“I've been unhappy at times, Freddy, but that is all,” she said steadily. “You see, I know how honest you really are. I know it far better than you know it yourself.”
“I wonder just how honest I am,” he muttered. “I wonder what would happen if——— But nothing can happen. Nothing ever will happen. Thank you, old girl, for saying what you said just now. It's—it's bully of you.”
He got up and began pacing the floor. She leaned back in her chair, deliberately giving him time to straighten out his thoughts for himself. Wiser than she knew herself to be, she held back the warm, loving words of encouragement, of gratitude, of belief.
But she was not prepared for the impetuous appeal that followed. He threw himself down beside her and grasped her hands in his. His face seemed suddenly old and haggard, his eyes burned like coals of fire. Then, for the first time, she had an inkling of the great struggle that had been going on inside of him for weeks and weeks.
“Listen, Lyddy,” he began nervously; “will you marry me to-morrow? Are you willing to take the chance that I'll be able to support you, to earn enough———”
“Why, Freddy!” she cried, half starting up from the couch. She was dumbfounded.
“Will you? Will you? I mean it,” he went on, almost argumentatively.
He was very much in earnest, but alas! the fire, the passion of the importunate lover was missing. She shrank back into the corner of the couch, staring at him with puzzled eyes. Comprehension was slow in arriving. As he hurried on with his plea she began to see clearly, her sound brain grasped the significance of this sudden decision on his part.
“There's no use waiting, dear. I'll never be more capable of earning a living than I am right now. I can go into the office with Brooks any day, and I—I think I can make good. God knows, I can try hard enough. Brooks says he's got a place there for me in the bond department. It won't be much at first, but I can work into a pretty good—what's the matter? Don't you think I can do it? Have you no faith in me? Are you afraid to take a chance?”
She had smiled sadly—it seemed to him reprovingly. His cheek flushed.
“What has put all this into your head, Freddy dear?” she asked shrewdly.
“Why, good Lord, haven't we had this very thing in mind for years?” he cried. “Haven't we talked about my———”
“What put it into your head—just now?” she insisted.
“I don't know what you're driving at,” he floundered.
“Don't you think it would be safer—I mean wiser if you were to wait until you are quite certain of yourself, Freddy?”
“I am certain of myself,” he exploded. “What do you mean? What sort of talk is this you are———”
“Hush! Don't be angry, dear. Be honest now. Don't you understand just what I mean?” They looked squarely into each other's eyes.
“I want you to marry me at once,” said he doggedly. “You know I love you, Lyddy. Is there anything more to say than that?”
“Don't you want to tell me, Freddy?”
His eyes wavered. “I can't go on living as I have been for the past few months. I've just got to end it, Lyddy. You don't understand—you can't, and there isn't any use in trying to explain the——”
“I think I do understand, dear,” she said quietly, laying her hand on his. “I understand so completely that there isn't any use in your trying to explain. But don't you think you are a bit cowardly?”
“Cowardly?” he gasped, and then the blood rushed to his face.
“Is it quite fair to me—or to yourself?” He was silent. She waited for a moment and then went on resolutely. “I know just what it is that you are afraid of, Freddy. I shall marry you, of course. I love you more than anything else in all the world. But are you quite fair in asking me to marry you while you are still afraid, dear?”
“Before God, Lyddy, I love no one else but you!” he cried earnestly. “I know what it is you are thinking, and I—I don't blame you. But I want younow—you don't know how much I need you now! I want to begin a new life with you. I want to feel that you are with me—just you—strong and brave and enduring. I am adrift. I need you.”
“I know you love me, Frederic. I am absolutely certain of it,” she said slowly, weighing her words carefully. “But I cannot marry you to-morrow—nor for a long time after to-morrow. In a year—yes. But not now, dear; not just now. You—you understand, don't you? Say that you understand.”
His chin sank upon his breast. “Of course I understand,” he said in a very low voice.
“I shall never love you any more than I love you now, Freddy—never so much, perhaps, as at this moment.”
“I know, Lyddy; I know,” he said dully.
“If you insist, I will marry you to-morrow; but you cannot—you will not ask it of me, will you?”
“But you know I do love you,” he cried. “There isn't any doubt in your mind, Lyddy. There is no one else I tell you.”
“I think I am just beginning to understand men,” she remarked enigmatically.
“And to wonder why they call women the weaker sex, eh?”
“Yes,” she said, so seriously that the wry smile died on his lips. “I don't believe there are many women who would ask a man to be sorry for them. That's really what all this amounts to, isn't it, Freddy?”
“By Jove!” he exclaimed wonderingly.
“You are a strong, self-willed, chivalrous man, and yet you think nothing of asking a woman to protect you against yourself; You are afraid to stand alone. Wait! You need me because you are a strong man and are afraid that your very strength will lead you into ignoble warfare. You are afraid of your strength, not of your weakness. So you ask me to help you. Without thinking, you ask me to marry you to-morrow. The idea came to you like a flash of light in the darkness. Five minutes—yes, one minute before you asked it of me, Freddy dear, you were floundering in the darkness, uncertain which way to turn. You were afraid of the things you could not see. You looked for some place in which to hide. The flash of light revealed a haven of refuge. So you asked me to to marry you to-morrow.”
All through this indictment she had held his hand clasped tightly in both of hers. He was looking at her with a frank acknowledgment growing in his eyes.
“Are you ashamed of me, Lyddy?” he asked.
“No,” she said, meeting his gaze steadily. “I am a little disappointed, that's all. It is you who are ashamed.”
“I am,” said he simply. “It wasn't fair.”
“Love will endure. I am content to wait,” she said with a wistful smile.
“You will be my wife, no matter what happens? You won't let this make any difference?”
“You are not angry with me?”
“Angry? Why should I be angry with you, Lyddy? For shaking some sense into me? For seeing through me with that wonderful, far-sighted brain of yours? Why, I could go down on my knees to you. I could———”
“Let me think, Freddy,” she cried, suddenly confronted by her own declaration of the night before. She had told James Brood that she would marry this discredited son of his the instant he was ready to take her unto himself. She had flung that in the older man's face, and she had meant every word of it.
“I—I take back what I said, dear. I will marry you to-morrow.” She spoke rapidly, jerkily; her eyes were very dark and luminous.
“What has come over you?” He stared at her in astonishment. “What—oh, I see! You are not sure of me. You———”
“Yes, yes, I am! It isn't that. I did not know what I was saying when I refused to———”
“Oh, there you go, just like a woman!” he cried triumphantly. “Spoiling everything! You dear, lovable, inconsequent, regular girl! Hurray! Now we're back where we began, and I'm holding the whip. You bring me to my senses and then promptly lose your own.” He clasped her in his arms and held her close. “You dear, dear Lyddy!”
“I mean it, dear heart.” The whisper smothered in his embrace. “To-morrow—to-day, if you will. We will go away. We will———”
“No,” he said, quite resolutely; “you have shown me the way. I've just got to make good in your estimation before I can hold you to your promise. You're splendid, Lyddy; you're wonderful, but—well, I was unfair a while ago. I mean to be fair now. We'll wait. It's better so. I will come again and ask you, but it won't be as it was just now. It would not be right for me to take you at your word. We'll wait.”
Neither spoke for many minutes. It was she who broke the silence.
“You must promise one thing, Frederic. For my sake, avoid a quarrel with your father. I could not bear that. You will promise, dear? You must.”
“I don't intend to quarrel with him; but if I am to remain in his house there has got to be———” He paused, his jaw set stubbornly.
“Promise me you will wait. He is going away in two weeks. When he returns—later on—next fall———”
“Oh, if it really distresses you, Lyddy, I'll———”
“It does distress me. I want your promise.”
“I'll do my part,” he said resignedly, “and next fall will see us married, so———”
The telephone-bell in the hall was ringing. Frederic released Lydia's hand and sat up rather stiffly, as one who suddenly suspects that he is being spied upon. The significance of the movement did not escape Lydia. She laughed mirthlessly.
“I will see who it is,” she said, and arose. Two red spots appeared in his cheeks. Then it was that she realised he had been waiting all along for the bell to ring; he had been expecting a summons.
“If it's for me, please say—er—say I'll———” he began, somewhat disjointedly, but she interrupted him.
“Will you stay here for luncheon, Frederic? And this afternoon we will go to—oh, is there a concert or a recital———”
“Yes, I'll stay if you'll let me,” he said wistfully. “We'll find something to do.”
She went to the telephone. He heard the polite greetings, the polite assurances that she had not taken cold, two or three laughing rejoinders to what must have been amusing comments on the storm and its effect on timid creatures, and then:
“Yes, Mrs Brood, I will call him to the phone.”
Frederic had the feeling that he slunk to the telephone. The girl handed the receiver to him and he met her confident, untroubled gaze for a second. Instead of returning to the sitting-room where she could have heard everything that he said, she went into her own room down the hall and closed the door. He was not conscious of any intention to temporise, but it was significant that he did not speak until the door closed behind her. Afterward he realised and was ashamed.
Almost the first words that Yvonne uttered were of a nature to puzzle and irritate him, although they bore directly upon his own previously formed resolution. Her voice, husky and low, seemed strangely plaintive and lifeless to him.
“Have you and Lydia made any plans for the afternoon?” she inquired. He made haste to declare their intention to attend a concert. “I am glad you are going to do that,” she went on.
“Are you ill, Yvonne?” he queried suddenly. “I? Oh, no. I think I never felt better in my life than I do at this moment. The storm must have blown the cobwebs out of my brain. I believe I'm quite happy to-day, Frederic.”
“Aren't you always happy?” he cried chidingly. “What an odd thing to say.”
She did not respond to this.
“You will stay for luncheon with Lydia?”
“Yes. She's trying to pick up that thing of Feverelli's—the one we heard last night.” There was silence at the other end of the wire, “Are you there?”
“Yes.”
“I'm teaching it to her.”
“I see.”
“I will be home for dinner, of course. You—you don't need me for anything, do you?”
“No,” she said. Then, with a low laugh: “You may be excused for the day, my son.”
“What's wrong?” he demanded, lowering his voice.
“Wrong? Nothing is wrong. Everything seems right to me. Your father and I have been discussing the trip abroad.”
“Is—is it settled?”
“Yes. We are to sail on the twenty-fifth—in ten days.”
“Settled, eh?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you—you were opposed to going.”
“I've changed my mind. As a matter of fact, I've changed my heart.”
“You speak in riddles.”
“Your father has gone out to arrange for passage on theOlympic. He is lunching at the Lawyers' Club.”
“You will lunch alone, then?”
“Naturally.”
He suppressed an impulse.
“I'm sorry, Yvonne.”
She was silent for a long time.
“Frederic, I want you to do something for me.”
“I—I've promised Lydia to stay here———”
“Oh, it isn't that. Will you try to convince Lydia that I meant no offence last night when I———”
“She understands all that perfectly, Yvonne.”
“No, she doesn't. A womanwouldn'tunderstand.”
“I will square everything,” he said.
“It means a great deal to me,”
“In what way?”
There was a pause.
“No woman likes to be regarded as a fool,” she said at last, apparently after careful reflection. “Oh, yes; there is something else. We are dining out this evening.”
“You and I?” he asked, after a moment.
“Certainly not. Your father and I. I was about to suggest that you dine with Lydia—or, better still, ask her over here to share your dinner with you.”
He was scowling.
“Where are you going?”
“Going? Oh, dining. I see. Well,” slowly, deliberately, “we thought it would be great fun to dine alone at Delmonico's and see a play afterward.”
“Just—you and father?”
“We two—no more.”
“How cunning,” he sneered.
“Will you ask Lydia to dine with you?”
“No.”
“Perhaps you will go out somewhere?”
“I'll have dinner with Mr Dawes and———”
“That would be jolly. They will be pleased. A sort of—what do you call it—a sort of reunion, eh?”
“Are you making sport of me?” he demanded angrily.
“But no! It will be making sport for the old gentleman, though,aïe?And nowau revoir!You will surely convince Lydia that I love her? I am troubled. You will———”
“What play are you going to see?” he cut in. She mentioned a Belasco production. “Well, I hope you enjoy it, Yvonne. By the way, how is the governor to-day? In a good humour?”
There was no response. He waited for a moment and then called out: “Are you there?”.
“Good-bye,” came back over the wire.
He started, as if she had given him a slap in the face. Her voice was cold and forbidding.
When Lydia rejoined him in the sitting-room he was standing at the window, staring across the courtyard far below.
“Are you going?” she asked steadily.
He turned toward her, conscious of the tell-tale scowl that was passing from his brow. It did not occur to him to resent her abrupt, uncompromising question. As a matter of fact, it seemed quite natural that she should put the question in just that way, flatly, incisively. He considered himself, in a way, to be on trial.
“No, I'm not,” he replied. “You did not expect me to forget, did you?”
He was uncomfortable under her honest, inquiring gaze. A sullen anger against himself took possession of him. He despised himself for the feeling of loneliness and homesickness that suddenly came over him.
“I thought———” she began, and then her brow cleared. “I have been looking up the recitals in the morning paper. The same orchestra you heard last night is to appear again to-day at———”
“We will go there, Lydia,” he interrupted, and at once began to hum the gay little air that had so completely charmed him. “Try it again, Lyddy. You'll get it in no time.”
After luncheon, like two happy children they rushed off to the concert, and it was not until they were on their way home at five o'clock that his enthusiasm began to wane. She was quick to detect the change. He became moody, preoccupied; his part of the conversation was kept up with an effort that lacked all of the spontaneity of his earlier and more engaging flights.
They rode down town on the top of a Fifth Avenue stage, having it all to themselves. She found herself speculating on the change that had come over him, and soon lapsed into a reserve quite as pronounced as his own. By the time they were ready to get down at the corner above Brood's house there was no longer any pretence at conversation between them. The day's fire had burned out. Its glow had given way to the bleak, gray tone of dead coals.
Lydia went far back in her calculations and attributed his mood to the promise she had exacted in regard to his attitude toward his father. It occurred to her that he was smarting under the restraint that promise involved. She realised now, more than ever before, that there could be no delay, no faltering on her part. She would have to see James Brood at once; go down on her knees to him.
“I feel rather guilty, Freddy,” she said as they approached the house. “Mr Brood will think it strange that I should plead a headache and yet run off to a concert and enjoy myself when he is so eager to finish the journal—especially as he is to sail so soon. I ought to see him; don't you think so? Perhaps there is something I can do to-night that will make up for the lost time.” She was plainly nervous.
“He'd work you to death if he thought it would serve his purpose,” said Frederic gloomily. And back of that sentence lay the thought that made it absolutely imperative for her to act without delay.
“I will go in for a few minutes,” she said, at the foot of the steps. “Are you not coming, too?”
He had stopped. “Not just now, Lyddy. I think I'll run up to Tom's flat and smoke a pipe with him. Thanks, old girl, for the happy day we've had. You don't mind if I leave you here?”
Her heart gave a great throb of relief. It was best to have him out of the way for the time being.
“No, indeed,” she said. “Do go and see Tom. I shan't be here long. We have had a glorious day, haven't we?” There was something wistful in her smile as she held out her hand to him.
He searched her face with tired, yearning eyes.
“We have thousands of them ahead of us, Lyddy—days that will be all our own, with nothing else in them but ourselves. I—I wish we could begin them to-morrow, after all.”
A flush mounted to her cheek.
“Good-bye, Freddy.”
He seemed reluctant to release her hand; her hand was cold, but her eyes were shining with a glorious warmth.
“I—I may run in to see you this evening,” he said. “You won't mind?”
“Come, by all means.”
“Well—so-long,” he said diffidently. “So-long, Lyddy.”
“So-long,” she repeated, dropping into his manner of speech without thinking. There was a smothering sensation in her breast.
He looked back as he strode off in the direction from which they had come. She was at the top of the steps, her finger on the electric button. He wondered why her face was so white. He had always thought of it as being full of colour, rich, soft, and warm.
Inside the door Lydia experienced a strange sinking of the heart. Her limbs seemed curiously weak, and she was conscious of a feeling of utter loneliness, such as she had never known before. She looked about her in wonder, as if seeking an explanation for the extraordinary but fleeting impression that she was in a strange house. Never was she to find an interpretation of the queer fantasy that came and went almost in the span of a single breath.
“Is Mr Brood at———” she began nervously.
A voice at the top of the stairway interrupted the question she was putting to the footman.
“Is it you, Lydia? Come up to my room.”
The girl looked up and saw Mrs Brood leaning over the banister-rail. She was holding her pink dressing-gown closely about her throat, as if it had been hastily thrown about her shoulders. One bare arm was visible—completely so.
“I came to see Mr Brood. Is he———”
“He is busy. Come up to my room,” repeated Yvonne, somewhat imperiously.
As Lydia mounted the stairs she had a fair glimpse of the other's face. Always pallid—but of a healthy pallor—it was now almost ghastly. Perhaps it was the light from the window that caused it; Lydia was not sure, but a queer greenish hue overspread the lovely, smiling face. The lips were red, very red—redder than she had ever seen them. The girl suddenly recalled the face she had once seen of a woman who was addicted to the drug habit.
Mrs Brood met her at the top of the stairs. She was but half dressed. Her lovely neck and shoulders were now almost bare. Her hands were extended toward the visitor; the filmy lace gown hung loose and disregarded about her slim figure.
“Come in, dear. Shall we have tea? I have been so lonely. One cannot read the books they print nowadays. Such stupid things,aïe?”
She threw an arm about the tall girl, and Lydia was surprised to find that it was warm and full of a gentle strength. She felt her flesh tingle with the thrill of contact. Yes, it must have been the light from the window, for Yvonne's face was now aglow with the peculiar iridescence that was so peculiarly her own.
A door closed softly on the floor above them. Mrs Brood glanced over her shoulder and upward. Her arm tightened perceptibly about Lydia's waist.
“It was Ranjab,” said the girl, and instantly was filled with amazement. She had not seen the Hindu, had not even been thinking of him, and yet she was impelled by some mysterious intelligence to give utterance to a statement in which there was conviction, not conjecture.
“Did you see him?” asked the other, looking at her sharply.
“No,” admitted Lydia, still amazed. “I don't know why I said that.”
Mrs Brood closed her boudoir door behind them. For an instant she stood staring at the knob, as if expecting to see it turn.
“I know,” she said, “I know why you said it. Because itwasRanjab.” She shivered slightly. “I am afraid of that man, Lydia. He seems to be watching me all the time. Day and night his eyes seem to be upon me.”
“Why, should he be watching you?” asked Lydia bluntly.
Yvonne did not notice the question.
“Even when I am asleep in my bed, in the dead hour of night, he is looking at me. I can feel it. Oh, it is not a dream, for my dreams are of something or someone else—never of him. And yet he is there, looking at me. It—it is uncanny.”
“Imagination,” remarked Lydia quietly. “He never struck me as especially omnipresent.”
“Didn't youfeelhim a moment ago?” demanded Yvonne irritably.
The other hesitated, reflecting.
“I suppose it must have been something like that.” They were still facing the door, standing close together. “Why do you feel that he is watching you?”
“I don't know. I just feel it, that's all. Day and night. He can read my thoughts, Lydia, as he would read a book. Isn't—isn't it disgusting?” Her laugh was spiritless, obviously artificial.
“I shouldn't object to his reading my thoughts,” said Lydia.
“Ah, but you are Lydia. It's different. I have thoughts sometimes, my dear, that would not—but there! Let us speak of more agreeable things. Take off your coat—here, let me help you. What a lovely waist! You will pardon my costume, won't you, or rather the lack of one? I shan't dress until dinner-time. Sit down here beside me. No tea? A cigarette, then. No?”
“I never smoke, you remember,” said the other. She was looking at Yvonne now with a curious, new-found interest in her serious eyes. “I came to explain to Mr Brood how it happens that———”
“Poof! Never explain, my dear, never explain anything to a man!” cried Yvonne, lighting a cigarette. The flare of the match in the partially darkened room lit up her face with merciless candour. Lydia was conscious once more of the unusual pallor and a certain haggardness about the dark eyes.
“But he is so eager to complete the———”
“Do you forgive me for what I said to you last night?” demanded Yvonne, sitting down beside the girl on thechaise longue. The interruption was rude, perhaps, but it was impossible to resent it, so appealing was the expression in the offender's eyes.
“It was so absurd, Mrs Brood, that I have scarcely given it a moment's thought. Of course, I was hurt at the time. It was so unjust to Mr Brood. It was———”
“It is like you to say that!” cried Yvonne. “You are splendid, Lydia. Will you believe me when I tell you that I love you—that I love you very dearly?”
Lydia looked at her in some doubt, and not without misgivings.
“I should like to believe it,” she said noncommittally.
“Ah, but you doubt it. I see. Well, I do not blame you. I have given you much pain, much distress. When I am far away you will be glad—you will be happy. Is not that so?”
“But you are coming back,” said Lydia with a frank smile, not meant to be unfriendly.
Yvonne's face clouded.
“Yes, I shall probably come back. Nothing is sure in this queer world of ours.” She threw her cigarette away. “I don't like it to-day. Ugh! how it tastes in my mouth!” She drew closer to the girl's side. Lydia's nostrils filled with the strange, sweet perfume that she affected, so individually hers, so personally Yvonne. “Oh, yes; I shall come back. Why not? Is not this my home?”
“You may call it your home, Mrs Brood,” said Lydia, “but are you quite sure your thoughts always abide here? I mean in the United States, of course.”
Yvonne had looked up at her quickly.
“Oh, I see. No; I shall never be an American.” Then she abruptly changed the subject. “You have had a nice day with Frederic? You have been happy, both of you?”
“Yes—very happy, Mrs Brood,” said the girl simply.
“I am glad. You must always be happy, you two. It is my greatest wish.”
Lydia hesitated for a moment.
“Frederic asked me to be his wife—to-morrow,” she said, and her heart began to thump queerly. She felt that she was approaching a crisis of some sort.
“To-morrow?” fell from Yvonne's lips. The word was drawn out, as if in one long breath. Then, to Lydia's astonishment, an extraordinary change came over the speaker.
“Yes, yes; it should be—it must be to-morrow. Poor boy—poor, poor boy! You will marry, yes, and go way at once,aïe?” Her voice was almost shrill in its intensity, her eyes were wide and eager and—anxious.
“I——— Oh, Mrs Brood, is it for the best?” cried Lydia. “Is it the best thing for Frederic to do? I—I feared you might object. I am sure his father will refuse permission———”
“But you love each other—that is enough. Why ask the consent of anyone? Yes, yes, it is for the best. I know—oh, you cannot realise how well I know. You must not hesitate.” The woman was trembling in her eagerness. Lydia's astonishment gave way to perplexity.
“What do you mean? Why are you so serious—so intent on this———”
“Frederic has no money,” pursued Yvonne, as if she had not heard Lydia's words. “But that must not deter you—it must not stand in the way. I shall find a way; yes, I shall find a way. I———”
“Do you mean that you would provide for him for us?” exclaimed Lydia.
“There is a way, there is a way,” said the other, fixing her eyes appealingly on the girl's face, to which the flush of anger was slowly mounting.
“His father will not help him—if, that is what you are counting upon, Mrs Brood,” said the girl coldly.
“I know. He will not help him; no.”
Lydia started.
“What do you know about—what has Mr Brood said to you?” Her heart was cold with apprehension. “Why are you going away next week? What has happened?”
Brood's wife was regarding her with narrowing eyes.
“Are you attributing my motives to something that my husband has said to me? Am I expected to say that he has—what you call it—that he has put his foot down?”
“I am sorry you misunderstood my———”
“Oh, I see now. You think my husband suspects that Frederic is too deeply interested in his beautiful stepmother; is not that so? Poof! It has nothing to do with it.” Her eyes were sullen, full of resentment now. She was collecting herself.
The girl's eyes expressed the disdain that suddenly took the place of apprehension in her thoughts. A sharp retort leaped to her lips, but she suppressed it.
“Mr Brood does not like Frederic,” she said instead, and could have cut out her tongue the instant the words were uttered. Yvonne's eyes were glittering with a light that she had never seen in them before. Afterward she described it to herself as baleful.
“So! He has spoken ill—evil—of his son to you?” she said, almost in a monotone, “He has hated him for years—is not that so? I am not the original cause,aïe?It began long ago—long, long ago?”
“Oh, I beg of you, Mrs Brood———” began Lydia, shrinking back in dismay.
“You are free to speak your thoughts to me. I shall not be offended. What has he said to you about Frederic—and me?”
“Nothing, I swear to you; nothing!” cried the girl.
“But you have the power of observation. You do not have to be told in so many words. You have been with him a great deal, alone. His manner tells you what his lips hold back. Tell me.” Lydia resolved to take the plunge. Now was the time to speak plainly to this woman of the thing that was hurting her almost beyond the limits of endurance. Her voice was rather high-pitched. She had the fear that she would not be able to control it.
“I should be blind not to have observed the cruel position in which you are placing Frederic. Is it surprising that your husband has eyes as well as I? What must be his thoughts, Mrs Brood?”
She expected an outburst, a torrent of indignation, an angry storm of words, and was therefore unprepared for the piteous, hunted expression that came swiftly into the lovely eyes, bent so appealing upon her own, which were cold and accusing. Here was a new phase to this extraordinary creature's character. She was a coward, after all, and Lydia despised a coward. The look of scorn deepened in her eyes, and out from her heart rushed all that was soft and tender in her nature, leaving it barren of all compassion.
“I do not want to hurt Frederic,” murmured Yvonne. “I—I am sorry if———”
“You are hurting him dreadfully,” said Lydia, suddenly choking up with emotion.
“He is not—not in love with me,” declared Yvonne,
“No,” said the girl, regaining control of herself, “he is not in love with you. That is the whole trouble. He is in love with me. But—but can't you see?”
“You are a wise young woman to know men so well,” said the other enigmatically. “I have never believed in St Anthony.”
“Nor I,” said Lydia, and was surprised at herself.
“I prefer to put my faith in the women who tempted him,” said Yvonne, drawing a little closer to the girl.
“Perhaps you are right. They at least were not pretending.”
“I am not so sure of that. At any rate, they succeeded in making a saint of him eventually.”
“I suppose you are undertaking a similar office in—in Frederic's behalf,” said Lydia with fine irony.
“Do you consider me to be a bad woman, Lydia?” Her lips trembled. There was a suspicious quiver to her chin.
“No; I do not,” pronounced the girl flatly. “If I could only think that of you it would explain everything, and I should know just how to treat you. But I do not think it of you.”
With a long, deep sigh Yvonne crept closer and laid her head against Lydia's shoulder. The girl's body stiffened, her brow grew dark with annoyance.
“I am afraid you do not understand, Mrs Brood. The fact still remains that you have not considered Frederic's peace of mind.”
“Nor yours,” murmured the other.
“Nor mine,” confessed Lydia, after a moment.
“I did not know that you and Frederic were in love with each other until I had been here for some time,” Mrs Brood explained, suddenly fretful.
Lydia stared hard at the soft white cheek that lay exposed below the black crown of hair.
“What had that to do with it?”
“A great deal more than you can imagine,” said the other, looking up into Lydia's face with a curious gleam in her eyes.
“You admit, then, that you deliberately———”
“I admit nothing, except that I am sorry to have made you unhappy.”
“What kind of a woman are you?” burst out Lydia's indignant soul. “Have you no conception of the finer, nobler———”
Yvonne deliberately put her hand over the girl's lips, checking the fierce outburst. She smiled rather plaintively as Lydia tried to jerk her head to one side in order to continue her reckless indictment.
“You shall not say it, Lydia. I am not all that you think I am. No, no; a thousand times no. God pity me, I am more accursed than you may think with the finer and nobler instincts. If it were not so, do you think I should be where I am now—cringing here like a beaten child? No, you cannot understand—you never will understand. I shall say no more. It is ended. I swear on my soul that I did not know you were Frederic's sweetheart. I did not know———”
“But you knew almost immediately after you came here!” exclaimed Lydia harshly. “It is not myself I am thinking of, Mrs Brood, but of Frederic. Why have you done this abominable thing to him? Why?”
“I—I did not realise what it would mean to him,” said the other desperately. “I—I did not count all the cost. But, dearest Lydia, it will come out all right. Everything shall be made right again, I promise you. I have made a horrible, horrible mistake. I can say no more. Now let me lie here with my head upon your breast. I want to feel the beating of your pure, honest heart—the heart I have hurt. I can tell by its throbs whether it will ever soften toward me. Do not say anything now—let us be still.”
It would be difficult to describe the feelings of Lydia Desmond as she sat there with the despised, though to be adored, head pillowed upon her breast, where it now rested in a sort of confident repose, as if there was safety in the very strength of the young girl's disapproval. Yvonne had twisted her lithe body on thechaise longueso that she half faced Lydia. Her free arm, from which the loose sleeve had fallen, leaving it bare to the shoulder, was about the girl's neck.
For a long time Lydia stared straight before her, seeing nothing, positively dumb with wonder, and acknowledging a sense of dismay over her own disposition to submit to this extraordinary situation. She was asking herself why she did not cast the woman away, why she lacked the power to resent by deed as well as by thought.
At last she lowered her eyes, conquered by an impulse she had resisted for many minutes. Her now perplexed gaze rested upon the gleaming white arm, and then moved wonderingly to the smooth cheek and throat. She saw the pulse beating in that slender neck. Fascinated, she watched it for a long, long time.
Suddenly there ran through her heart a strange wave of tenderness. That faint, delicate throb in the throat of this woman represented the rush of life's blood—the warm, sweet flood of a lovely living thing. Yvonne's eyes were closed. The long, dark lashes lay feathery above the alabaster cheek; there were delicate blue lines in the lids. A faint, almost imperceptible depression as of pain appeared between the eyebrows. The black, glossy hair filled Lydia's nostrils with its living perfume.
Life—marvellous, adorable life rested there on her breast. This woman had hurt her—had hurt her wantonly—and yet there came stealing over her, subtly, the conviction that she could never hurt her in return. She could never bring herself to the point of hurting this wondrous living, breathing, throbbing creature who pleaded, not only with her lips and eyes, but with the gentle heart-beats that rose and fell in her throat.
Like velvet was the smooth, glossy skin of her arm and breast. Never had Lydia dreamed that flesh could be so soft and white and so aglow with vitality. There was a sheen to it, a soft sheen that seemed fairly to radiate light itself.
Still in a maze of wonder and something bordering on sheer delight, she fell to studying the perfections that the cheek and lips revealed.
Scarlet, pensively drooping were the lips, and almost opalescent the clear-cut cheek and chin. The delicate nostrils vibrated with the quickened breath that stirred the firm, full breast which rose and fell softly, gently; there were firm, hitherto invisible blue lines in the gleaming skin. Slowly, resistlessly Lydia's arm tightened about the slender, seductive body.
After a long time, in which there was conflict, she suddenly pressed her warm lips to Yvonne's in a kiss that thrilled through every nerve in her body—a kiss that lingered because it was returned with equal fervour and abandon. They were clasped tightly in each other's arms and their eyes were closed as with pain.
Then, in an abrupt revulsion of feeling, in a desperate awakening, Lydia relaxed. Her arms fell away from the warm, sweet body and her eyes widened with something that passed for confusion, but which was in reality shame. Almost roughly she pushed Yvonne away from her.
“I—I didn't mean to do that!” she gasped.
The other withdrew her arm and straightened up slowly, all the time regarding the girl with a strange, wondering look in her eyes—a look that quickly resolved itself into sadness so poignant that the girl, even in her confused state of mind, recognised it as such and was abashed.
“I knew that you would,” said Yvonne in a very low voice, and shook her head drearily.
“I am sorry,” murmured Lydia in great distress.
The other smiled, but it was a sad, plaintive effort on her part.
“I knew that you would,” she repeated.
Lydia sprang to her feet, her face suddenly flaming with embarrassment. She felt unaccountably guilty of—she knew not what.
“I must see Mr Brood. I stepped in to tell him that———” she began, trying to cover her confusion, but Yvonne interrupted.
“I know that you could not help it, my dear,” she said. Then, after a pause: “You will let me know what my husband has to say about it?”
“To—to say about it?”
“About your decision to marry Frederic in spite of his objections.”
Lydia felt a little shiver race over her as she looked toward the door.
“You will help us?” she said tremulously, turning to Yvonne. Again she saw the drawn, pained look about the dark eyes and was startled.
“You can do more with him than I,” was the response.