England, 16 cups & championships, 91 1st prizes.U. States 2 " " 14 "France -- " " 1 "Belgium -- " " 1 "Holland 1 " " -- "Canada -- " " 2 "
"And everyone thought the Belgian champions were going to sweep the board!" cried Gay. "After all, the foreigner by no means had it all his own way, for of the three champion cups awarded, two were secured by a Kentish man, the third going to America."
"It was a good show," said Rensslaer, looking very pleased, as well he might, but, though Gay did not know it, more on her account than his own; it was not to rejoice over his own triumphs, but to shareherhappiness that he had called thus early. But as she gave no sign, he offered no congratulations, and they chatted about the Show for awhile, agreeing that the keenest competitions, both from the international aspect, and that of individual merit, were undoubtedly the high jump, and the four-in-hands, and he told her that they hoped to persuade the Italians to come over to the next Horse Show, adding that they were the finest riders in the world.
Gay nodded.
"Captain Bulteel says that never before have so many high-class animals been on show in this or any other country. You must be awfully proud, Mr. Rensslaer. You were certainly one of the most popular of the exhibitors, and your successes were cheered to the echo."
"I will venture to offer you the pick of my horses for your wedding present," he said, and Gay coloured brilliantly; how on earth could he know already of her engagement?
"I am very glad," he said warmly, and got up and went over to her, kissing her little hand so beautifully that she felt sure hehadoften done it before.
"He is the best fellow in the world," said Rensslaer. "I never saw two people more exactly suited to each other. His giving up what is really a passion with him, is a proof not only of his great love for you, but a moral victory, revealing the real strength of his character."
"Oh, he never really cared for it," said Gay in some surprise, "and you see he had to give it up, whether he liked it or not."
Rensslaer was silent, a little chilled and disappointed. Surely this was not the Gay that he thought he knew....
"I think you will like the house," he said. "It is very quaint and old—some distance from Elsinore, but within the park—"
Gay looked at him, astonished.
"Has he spoken to you already about a new country place?" she said. "Carlton has several, you know, but no house in town.
"Carlton?"
"Why, who else are we talking about?" exclaimed Gay in astonishment, but she had gone rather pale.
"Of Chris Hannen, of course."
"Why of course?"
Gay's brows were raised; some of the hot anger that burned in her against Chris overnight, burned still.
"Because you love him," said Rensslaer quietly.
"Love him? Love a man who doesn't even see me if a horse is around—who is deaf, dumb as a stock-fish, blind to everything save an animal that can jump?"
Unconsciously Gay had put up two distracted hands to her face in the precise attitude of Rensslaer's "Little Mermaid," but it was indignation, not grief, that distorted her features.
"What has the boy done?" inquired Rensslaer in astonishment.
"Done? All the passion that isinhim goes into horses—and where doIcome in? Better a thousand times Carlton Mackrell's devotion! Oh, he wasn't afraid to sacrifice himself for my pleasure! There's a grain of romance in him somewhere, to do what he did—and Chris without a qualm, sacrificesme."
"But does he?" said Rensslaer, getting up from his chair, and walking, more perturbed than Gay had ever seen him, about the room.
"Doeshe?" said Gay witheringly. "Oh, it was bad enough right through the Show—there was thunder in the air all along—but things came to a head last night with the high jump competition." She paused to smile ruefully as the suitability of her comparison struck her. "He forgot my very existence—didn't evenhearwhen I spoke to him!"
Rensslaer shook his head, tried to get in a word edgeways, but failed; Gay was wound up, and meant to go on.
"Oh, I can speak to you!" she cried passionately. "You will understand, as some men can't, how last night in a sudden revulsion of feeling, I turned from selfish Chris to devoted Carlton, who was looking at me, thinking of me only, as always—he had never presented his little bill—well, I would honour it to the full, even before it was presented. If Chris had looked at me then ... but he did not. When I got up, and we went out to the stables, it was all over really, and outside one of those preposterous chiffon stalls Carlton asked me, and I said—'Yes.'"
"It's all right," said Rensslaer consolingly, "only you said 'Yes' to the wrong man. Now, if you had waited a little longer—"
"A little longer! Hasn't this Horse Show been going on for a week, and has Chris Hannen had one thought, one word, when jumping was on, for me?"
"He was charming to you whenever I saw you," said Rensslaer. "You seemed completely happy together, and admirably well suited, as always."
"So we are—were, I mean," said Gay.
"And I think St. Swithin's, with congenial work among my horses, would have suited Mr. Hannen very well," said Rensslaer quietly. "No steeplechasing, of course—that was in the bond—but plenty of legitimate riding."
"I don't understand," faltered Gay, but all the same she was beginning to do so, to realise what her mad fit of temper had cost her.
"He couldn't help being interested in the jumping right through—he has never seen anything like it before—and he rides magnificently himself—I believe could have done anything the others did. Naturally he didn't want to miss a single point of horsemanship, or any foreign wrinkle—and can you blame him? He was watching others do what he knew he would never have the chance to do—what he longed intensely to do only he loved you more."
"More?" said Gay faintly, and into the young face that he had first seen so careless and happy, came a look of misery that pierced Rensslaer's tender heart.
"Yes. I offered him a thousand a year, and a house at Elsinore, on condition he gave up steeplechasing, and he came to me last night after the Show, and said he accepted my offer, and was coming this morning to tell you, and ask you to marry him. You had left, or I feel sure he would have asked you then."
"Oh, poor Chris!" breathed the girl, her arms falling to her sides, her grey eyes looking straight before her.
"No—poor Mackrell," said Rensslaer quietly, "for you will be doing him a great wrong if you marry him, loving the other man as you do. And I don't wonder"—he smiled—"for Chris Hannen is the nicest boy I ever knew. Tell Mackrell it's all a mistake, and as a man of honour he must at once release you."
"I never break my word," said Gay. "A pretty rotten sportswoman I should be if I did. If Chris came straight to me on leaving Elsinore, and talked of nothing but your shooting, without saying a word of the splendid chance you had given him, he deserves to suffer for such criminal carelessness as regards his own welfare, and my happiness—"
"He will," said Rensslaer drily—"so will you, for I'm afraid the aimless sort of existence Mackrell lives, won't appeal to you at all, unless you live abroad, and he goes in seriously for Trotting."
"As if I would leave Frank like that!" cried Gay indignantly. "Of course it will be a long engagement—years and years!"
Rensslaer smiled. In that case Chris, who was no laggard in anything he undertook, might be trusted to readjust the position, but that there would be a stiff tussle over the girl there was no manner of doubt.
She looked worth any man's love in the short skirt, striped cambric shirt, and mannish tie that she affected of mornings, her eyes full of battle, and her heart of trouble. Then she made a great effort, and pulled herself together.
"I am very selfish," she said, "and have not half congratulated you on all your successes. It was very very wonderful, of course, but I'd rather have that afternoon at Elsinore over again—the peace, the loveliness—I was thinking of it the whole time at Olympia."
"It is waiting for you," said Rensslaer quietly, "and as often as you like, when you come to live at St. Swithin's Court—"
Gay turned aside, to hide the tears that rushed to her eyes at the thought of all she had thrown away, and at that moment the door opened to admit Lossie, who was deathly pale, waiting with ill-disguised impatience for Rensslaer to make his farewells, and depart. Left together, the two girls faced each other, but it was Lossie who spoke first.
"It isn't true?"
"What is not true?"
"That Carlton asked you last night, that you said 'Yes'—Oh! I saw it in his eyes—in yours—"
"It is true."
"Oh, my God!" cried Lossie, and beat her hands together. "You are doing a great wrong to yourself and Chris—ruining your own life, and breaking two men's hearts—you and Carlton are utterly unsuited to each other—and all for a bit of temper—because Chris paid more attention to the horses at the Show, than he did to you!"
"Well, it's done," said Gay, voice and eyes dull, "and it can't be undone."
"But it can! Do you suppose Carlton will take what has been flung to him in a moment of pique—like a bone to a dog? Doesn't he deserve to be loved just as much—and more—than Chris does? Oh! he could love a million times better—you have never troubled to sound the depths of his heart—and you are committing a cruel wrong—a crime even—if you go to him, knowing that you love Chris!"
"Come to my den," said Gay sharply. "Carlton may be here at any moment, and must not find us quarrelling over him," and she led the way, followed hastily by a woman who had lost all regard for appearances, and who in her godless selfishness recognised no rights but those of her passions.
"It is not a matter for your decision or mine," said Gay, when the door was shut, "but for Carlton. If he holds me to my promise, I shall keep it."
"But you'll tell him that you love Chris?" cried Lossie eagerly.
Gay shook her head. She was very angry with Chris, and his playing the laggard that morning, was the finishing stroke to his utter inconsiderateness and folly. She deeply resented his having spoken to Rensslaer first, accepting his offer, and thereby taking it for granted that she was ready to fall into his arms—Gay forgot that she had given him no chance of doing so, as she had left the building before the performance was over.
With a sudden womanly comprehension, born of her own pain, she turned to her cousin, no radiant apparition as of yesterday, but trembling, haggard, dishevelled almost in her excitement and agony, yet more beautiful than ever in that abandonment.
"I wish he loved you, Lossie," cried Gay breathlessly. "I do wish it with all my heart, and it is quite true what you say—that you are much better suited to him than I am."
"Give me the chance," cried Lossie, clasping her hands together in desperate entreaty. "He can't know how I love, how Iadorehim; if he did, and that just as I love him, you love Chris, he couldn't help lovingme."
"But I don't love Chris like that," protested Gay, shrinking a little from this woman whose eyes, lips, voice were passion incarnate; instinctively she knew that a man prefers to find most of the vehemence himself....
A servant knocked at the door, and announced that Mr. Mackrell was in the drawing-room, and the impulse, swift as a bird's homing flight, that took Lossie half-way across the room to go to him, startled Gay—just so would she have sped to Chris had all been well between them—and had not love his rights; was not Rensslaer only but now insisting on them?
"Lossie," she said, "if you can convince Carlton that your love will make him happier than my"—she hesitated—"affection can, go to him now."
But Lossie, turning even whiter, trembled, and shook her head.
"I daren't," she said in a whisper, "it must come from you. He would never forgive me—only if you were Chris's wife, I might have a chance.... Oh, Gay, I've been a beast to you often, but you've had all the luck, and I've had none"—she was like a passionate child clamouring for the toy that she coveted, thought her cousin, it was a bright, expensive toy that Gay did not want herself, she only wanted her dear old rag doll, for so she at that moment absurdly designated Chris.
"Carlton must decide," she said, and went with lagging steps to the drawing-room, where her lover very quicklydid, for he stepped up close, held her fast, and kissed her—kissed her like a man who had long starved for that moment, and could not take enough.
As she tore herself away, she could have wept to think that the first kiss of her lips was not for Chris, and the contrast of Carlton, supremely handsome and happy, with the girl she had just left, revolted her. Her voice was strange as she said,
"Will you go to my den? I will follow you there immediately," and turned aside that he might not see her face.
He coloured with disappointment and surprise, but of course there would be greater privacy there... Without a word he went.
As the door closed him in with Lossie, Chris came flying up the stairs, taking three steps at a time, a young god in his swiftness, strength and joy, bringing all the best gifts that life and love can bring to the beloved woman—too late.
It was not until Chris had caught Gay in those long, muscular arms of his, and lifted her clean off her feet, only to find her fiercely fighting his kisses, that he realised how completely his feelings had run away with him, how he had taken everything for granted, and he begged her forgiveness as he set her gently on the ground.
"Had a bother in the stable—one of my horses gone clean off his head," he said in his boyish way, "or I should have been here with the morning milk. I've got grand news, darling, Rensslaer has given me a berth and house at Elsinore—I'm giving up steeplechasing, and we're going to be happy ever after!"
"Are we?" she said; it did not sound like Gay's voice at all, and she was rubbing her lips with a tiny pocket-handkerchief as if she were trying to rub something out.
"What is the matter?" said Chris, suddenly sobered.
"Oh, nothing," cried Gay, reckless in her pain, "only that so far as I am concerned, you are welcome to go on steeplechasing for ever—it's no concern of mine."
"Dear little girl," said Chris remorsefully, "I did neglect you shamefully last night, but that wonderful jumping—you see those jumps represented all the most ingenious obstacles invented by Continental riders, and naturally it's intensely interesting to a man who 'chases—even if he doesn't do it like them, over trick fences. And then the riding," he burst out reminiscently, "such riding as you don't get in a century of good riders, at any rate, all assembled at the same time and place."
"Oh, spare me!" cried Gay, so angrily that his face fell, and she felt a brute as she saw how she had wiped all the brightness out of it.
"Anyway," he said pluckily, "we shall get plenty of hunting, Rensslaer says, and a stiff run is almost as good as a steeplechase. He has a horse that will carry you beautifully."
"I shan't be there," cried Gay, and stamped her foot. "How dare you take it for granted that I shall go where I have not even been asked?"
"Well," said Chris wrathfully, "didn't I ask you at the Ffolliott's dance—didn't I ask you again in this very room after my accident?"
"No, you didn't," said Gay. "It wasIwho said I'd give up Trotting, if you would racing, and you wouldn't!"
"But it was a perfectly understood thing," said Chris, "that if I dropped steeplechasing, you would marry me, and I have—and what more do you want?"
"Nothing," said Gay point-plank. "While you've been shilly-shallying, I've been making other plans—that's all."
"You have certainly been a little wretch to me," said Chris gravely, "and really, Gay, you must try to control your temper better, if we are going to hit it when we're married."
Gay gasped and sat down; so did Chris, though he kissed her first before she knew it—how fearfully quick he was in everything—but Carlton could be quick too.... She put her handkerchief away; she did not want to rub out that last kiss....
"My dear little girl," said Chris, and his young face, very near hers, was so handsome, and true, and tender, that she looked away from it, while a dreadful ache came into her heart, "I am doing for you what I would not for my mother, God bless her, and all we've got to think about now, is to be happy—" He alone knew at what immense cost to himself he had gained at last the victory, took it for granted that Gay would appreciate, and reward it accordingly.
"It's too late," she said miserably. "I am bound twice over to Carlton—once by a debt of honour—once by my word—"
"You are nothing of the sort," said Chris, who was far from realising the situation. "Mackrell played up well certainly about the Vase, but his motives were interested, and he'd be a rotter if he regarded you as being in his debt. I don't wish the poor chap any harm, but I'm afraid he'll have to put up with Lossie, unless she changes her mind."
"He—he is with Lossie just now," said Gay nervously, "but he may be here at any moment—"
"Not if he accepts her," said Chris, chuckling, "for I imagine there's something in the wind."
"Wouldn't you like to run down and see the Professor?" she cried eagerly. "He's always so delighted to see you!"
"I'm quite happy where I am," said Chris, smiling broadly. What a shy little thing she was, and what ridiculous ideas she got into her head; it was a relief to find she could be silly after all! "You are looking very pretty this morning," and he looked her over admiringly. Gay blushed—somehow she neverdidlook nice without wishing for Chris to be there, and see how nice she looked.
"I hear St. Swithin's Court is charming," he said—"the place where we're going to live, you know—and the work Rensslaer's giving me will suit me down to the ground. Just fancylivingin the midst of that paradise of horses! And he's giving me a thousand a year—rippin', ain't it?" and he kissed Gay again before she could stop him.
"Now, can't we be married early next month, go abroad for a bit, and be home in good time for the shooting? Morning, Mackrell!" as that gentleman came in, and Gay half rose, her heart beating wildly.... With a sick sense of despair, after one glance at his face, she knew that Lossie had failed.
"We were just talking about St. Swithin's, the little place that goes with the berth Rensslaer has given me," said Chris. "If the birds are all right, we'll be very pleased if you'll make one of the guns on the First—won't we, Gay?"
There was a queer silence for a moment, then Carlton said quietly:
"I'm afraid there's some mistake. Gay is engaged to me for the First—and for many other Firsts, I hope."
Chris's glance flashed from one to the other, even in that moment he lived up to his motto, "Never show when you're hit," but his jaws gritted together, as, with an upward jerk of his bright head, he said:
"A very serious mistake, as Miss Lawless is engaged to me."
Both men were standing, and at what Gay saw on their faces, she rose also, and stood between them.
"I am engaged to Carlton Mackrell," she said to Chris. "Will you please go away now?"
After one long look between her eyes, without a word Chris went, his proud young face impassive as Rensslaer's Indian; yet Gay felt as if there had been murder done, when the door closed, and involuntarily she stretched out her arms towards it.
"Oh, my God!" she whispered. "Come back, for I love you, Chris ... Iloveyou."
Carlton heard—but this scene was a mere anti-climax to the one he had just gone through, and as he had held to his purpose in that one, so was he resolute to hold to it in this, where so much more was at stake....
Even if she loved Chris Hannen, what then? Gay must be protected against herself—made happy in spite of herself—a man always thinks he can make a woman that, in spite of all observation and experience to the contrary.... All these weeks of his absence, Chris had had his chance, and lost it. That the boy liked Gay well enough, Carlton knew, butnot so much as horses. His behaviour throughout the Horse Show had proved that—and even if Rensslaer had given him a berth in his stables, where did Gay come in? The more superb the horses, the greater Chris's facilities for breaking his neck; anyway, there would be no comfort or peace of mind for the girl, and it was pure selfishness on Chris's part to want her to sacrifice herself to him.
In the few moments that Gay's fate trembled in the balance, she stole a glance at him, and saw his face pale, ravaged by the ordeal through which he had just passed, by this even fiercer one with scarce a breath between.
"You promised me, Gay," he said quietly, and she bowed her head, slipped to the door, and left him to the full bitterness of his triumph.
But when she had locked herself into her den, she glanced round the room as if the drama, lately enacted there, still palpitated, living in the air.... To a manly man there can be no hour more painful, than when his rights are invaded, and the impossibility demanded of him of a love where no love is; but it was of Lossie's passion and humiliation that Gay was thinking, of the uselessness of it, not Carlton's pain ... and then Chris's haggard, white, proud young face as it had looked just now, came—and stayed.
It was late October, and Chris was riding harder than ever, and on the principle, as he told himself grimly, of "lucky in horses, unlucky in love," was having success after success, not only as a jockey, but a trainer, and bid fair to have a good stable of his own before long.
Gay had gone abroad with indecent suddenness immediately after her engagement, dragging the Professor with her, and forbidding Carlton to accompany them, because "she wanted a little time with Frank, since she was so soon to leave him." Yet, when at last she came back, after three months' absence, and then only because her brother insisted on it, Carlton was never able to get a moment alone with her, try as he might.
The devices she had used to stave off his proposal she used with fourfold skill to avoid being alone with him, she who had detested society, surrounded herself at all hours with it; even when she had to choose the decorations for the house he had taken in Norfolk Street, she took Effie Bulteel with her; the jewels he gave her, she never wore.
She treated her new tie as a purely nominal one, appeared careless and fancy-free; but she meant to go through with her bargain all the same, and a date in December had been actually fixed for the wedding, when the Professor with his usual inconvenience, fell ill.
Gay always declared that the trouble began with his discovery of a wonderful new microbe, that after due blazonment in the medical press, turned out to be something quite different to what it pretended to be, and, as she expressed it, sat up on its squirmy tail, making insulting faces at its non-discoverer. Frank took the matter so much to heart as to be at first hesitatingly ailing, then with considerably less hesitation, and as it entailed no effort, really ill for some time.
Nature was exacting her toll for his unhealthy, sedentary life, with its late hours, and lack of exercise, and all the tenderness for which Gay in those days had no other outlet, expended itself on him. She was a most devoted nurse, but to Carlton it almost looked as if, like the little boys and old Sam Weller's coach, the Professor had done it "a-purpose," when he lingered so unconscionably long a time over his convalescence, and the beautiful house in Norfolk Street still lacked a mistress.
It would be a cold, practical mistress, who never gave its master a kiss, or word of love, or welcome, and who as wife might reasonably be expected to be still more the "woman with no nonsense about her," that Gay evidently nowadays aspired to be.
Some men like brilliant women, hard and bright, others prefer hearts warm and tender. Carlton was one of these last, for, as Lossie had divined, there was a great capacity for romantic love in the man. Sometimes when most starved for sympathy, for appreciation where he had the right to expect it, he remembered the hot flood of devotion, of passion, that Lossie had poured out on him, and shivered in the isolation to which Gay from the first had banished, and rigorously kept him.
The heart makes its own decisions—Gay's had made hers in that passionate cry, "Come back, for I love you, Chris," and Carlton had thought that he knew better than her heart what was good for her, and reaped his reward in an automaton that talked, and smiled, and conducted itself with perfect grace and decorum, but that was not Gay.
It was the other Gay he wanted—the girl so full of life, and charm, and sparkle—the girl who could give brave kisses, and love with the thoroughness she put into everything that she did, the delicious comrade, the trusty counsellor, the dear household fairy who had the knack of creating a home wherever she might be, and that he had not hitherto found.
Well, he would not find it now—"for without hearts, there is no home"—and his town and country houses would be well ordered by a capable house-mistress, cold and uninterested, when the Professor, who seemed to be in no hurry, set her free to assume her duties as wife.
Oddly enough, Lossie seemed the happiest of the three, and having made her supreme appeal to Carlton, had apparently forgotten all about it. She met him without embarrassment, was friendly without effort—sometimes he rubbed his eyes, and thought he must have dreamed that vivid scene with her in Gay's den; yet he found himself thinking of it more often as time went on, and sometimes searched her intensely blue eyes for even a trace of the memory of it. But he found none—if Lossie, indeed, were playing a game, she played it magnificently well.
She neither sought nor avoided him, was quite pleasant, but profoundly indifferent, when they met at Connaught Square or elsewhere, and, most damning proof of all that she had ceased to value his opinion, permitted herself slight lapses in manner, and carelessnesses in dress before him. She even yawned occasionally in his face, treating him, as he said angrily to himself, like some damned old woman rather than the man whom she most wished to please—but did she?
He came to the conclusion that her outbreak had been a fit of nerves, combined with an interested desire to share his very handsome fortune, and that having failed, she thought no more about him, but decided to turn her attention elsewhere, the opportunity for doing so occurring very shortly after his own engagement.
For the unexpected had happened. Mrs. Elkins was being dressed by her maid to go to her lawyers, there to sign a fresh will she had made, by which she left everything to her favourite of the moment, and away from George Conant, who had annoyed her, when in the mirror, the woman saw the old lady's face contorted, terrible, with the most ghastly look of fear in her eyes, and though she struggled and fought dumbly for hours, she never spoke again.
George flew to Lossie the moment he was certain of what he had to offer her, and she accepted him on the spot, to his intense joy, while Gay so warmly encouraged the pair at her house, that Carlton one day complained bitterly of the ubiquity of that "grinning idiot," George Conant, who certainly since his accession to fortune, was more than ever like a Cheshire cat.
"He is an excellent match," said Gay coldly, "and what is better, he adores Lossie—I don't see why they should not be very happy. She will be the prettiest woman in his regiment, and have no end of a good time."
Could this be Gay speaking—Gay who at one time had been all heart and no head, who was now all head and no heart?
"I should have thought," he said, "that love might have some voice in the matter. No woman, surely, could love George Conant—
"Oh," said Gay bitterly, "when a girl can't marry the man she loves, she may just as well marry the man who loves her"—and Carlton winced.
He knew that he had taken a mean advantage of Gay, and was deeply humiliated, not only in his honour, but his pride, for by way of being a vain man, the simultaneous and utter indifference of both girls, hit him hard. Lossie had only wanted him for his fortune, going to extremest lengths to obtain it—Gay had wanted neither him nor his money, and accepted him only in a fit of passionate anger against Chris, of which she had instantly repented. Yet there was a tenacity of purpose, as of love, about the man, that forbade his throwing up the game.
As at every turn Lossie and Captain Conant seemed to cross his path, the one all beauty and (affected) happiness, the other all grin and possessiveness, a sombre rage, with more of heartache in it than he imagined, seized him. For many a man only misses a slighted love when, barred from his own hearth-fires, he turns in his extremity to it, only to find cold ashes, and Carlton in those days felt very chilly and lonely indeed.
Aunt Lavinia had been anything but well lately. One day, speaking to Gay of the Professor, who, like most doctors, was very nervous about himself, she said:
"Ah, my dear, when we are young, we onlyfearwe have complaints, when we are old, we hope so."
Gay looked at her, startled.
"Do you find life such a grind, auntie?" she said, rather falteringly, knowing whose fault it was that "Laddie" was riding more recklessly than ever, and how Lavinia suffered over it, for he was the dearest thing in the whole world to her, as perhapsnowshe was the dearest thing to him.
"Well, my dear," said Lavinia quaintly, "life goes on with ups and downs, with long oases of worry, stagnation, and brief thrills of pleasure, until one day, we suddenly awaken to find people packing up in all directions—some have gone without our noting it, or saying farewell, others are in too great a hurry to think of us. Then in a panic, we decide to call together our friends of long ago, to come and make merry with us, and half the invitations come back to us, with 'gone away' scrawled across them. Then we rub our eyes, and realise that our going away time is near also, and henceforth we don't trouble much about the affairs of life, only how to get ourselves off decently, and in order."
Gay stooped and kissed the sweet little face, but was far from understandingthen.
Rensslaer had been away during the autumn, hunting at Spa, then he had been shooting grizzlies in one place, and lions in another, but with late November, he was back again, and the first thing he did was to persuade Gay and the fairly convalescent Professor, to come and stay with him at Elsinore, where Frank spent his whole time in the library, save when dragged out for a drive.
Gay was abroad all day, either hunting with Rensslaer, or about those stables of whose inmates she never wearied, and once she found her way alone to St. Swithin's Court, going soft-footed over the house that was to have been hers—hers and Chris's....
It was very quaint, and old, and beautiful, and she peopled it with happy folk, and happy voices, not all grown up. Standing in the empty rooms, with doors hanging melancholy on their hinges, she saw it a nest of warmth, and love, and laughter, heard the cheery voice, the ringing tread that made the sweetest music in all the world to her—felt with a passion of longing, Chris's arm round her shoulder, and his hard, lean young face pressed close to hers....
She came to herself with a start, and there rushed over her the memory of a big house in town, all swept and garnished, waiting for her to walk in, and take possession.... She covered her eyes with her hands as if to shut out the face of the man who would share it with her.... strange that what held all Heaven to Lossie, should be so hateful to herself ... for both would have regarded the world well lost for the man they loved, yet the world, not that particular man, was to be their portion.
The girls were better friends now than they had ever been, greatly to the delight of Lavinia (who held a brief for unsatisfactory people), for generous Gay had come to understand Lossie better now, discovered how much worse her bark was than her bite.
Selfish she undoubtedly was, and in some things unprincipled, but, like many other idle, clever women, who have no hobby to occupy their time, no great love, no real work to sweeten their lives, she had turned her unused energies into mischief, talked scandal, done spiteful things, mainly for want of something better to do.
Certainly she had many things to embitter her that Gay had not, for by her own recent experiences, Gay knew that suffering of a certain kind does not ennoble, on the contrary, it tends to deteriorate the character, and ruin the temper. With the ease of mind that wealth brings, Lossie might develop into a very different woman—and yet—and yet—now and again would come to Gay flashes of insight, in which she seemed to see poor blundering George Conant, a mere hopeless pawn in the game that Lossie was playing with such consummate audacity and skill.
Rensslaer never spoke of Chris, but one night, when Carlton had gone back to town after spending the day at Elsinore, he said:
"Mr. Mackrell seems to dislike Captain Conant very much."
"Yes."
"Then he had better cut out Captain Conant, and marry Miss Lossie himself," said Rensslaer quietly.
Gay laughed.
These two always understand one another, almost as well, Gay thought, only differently, as she and Chris did. And Gay knew his story now, shyly suggested rather than told, a story of self-denial, of self-abnegation for the sake of one loved only too truly and well.
"They are admirably well suited to each other," said Rensslaer. "She adoreshim, and your coldness, and his male dislike of Captain Conant, are impelling him naturally towards her—a little push, and the thing is done."
Then they both laughed again, and Gay's spirits rose enormously.
"I will ask them down without Captain Conant," said Rensslaer, and he did, and somehow he and Gay managed to lose them in the park, and as it was some miles in length, and Carlton especially absent-minded that afternoon, this was not difficult.
"Gay looks ill," Carlton said abruptly, revealing the direction his thoughts had taken, when they turned to find their companions vanished.
"Of course," said Lossie, and shrugged her shoulders.
"Why of course?"
He spoke sharply, with an intense feeling of humiliation. Lossie, turning to look at him, thought a little cruelly ofherbitter hour; it was his turn now.
"Can't you see that she is utterly wretched," she said, "and thinks it her fault that Chris Hannen is trying to kill himself harder than ever?"
"It's the behaviour of a moral coward," said Carlton sternly; "but he was never half good enough for her."
"Oh," said Lossie, "it isn't what is good enough for us, but what wewant, that matters!"
He turned to look at her—eyes, lips, hair, every bit of her, warm with—what? And he was cold, so cold, bleeding in his pride and self-esteem, it was Gay he wanted, but she had gone far to freeze out all the love that was in him....
"And is it George Conant you want so badly?" he said quietly, but with a sensation of stealing warmth in his veins to which they were of late unaccustomed.
"I am going to marry him," she said contemptuously, "and there will be five miserable people more in the world, including Chris!"
"Why should you be miserable?" he said, but his voice was not very steady, and his eyes were trying to force hers to meet them. "I'm sure Conant will not be."
"It is nothishappiness or mine, that counts with you, but only Gay's," said Lossie, quietly.
He did not deny it, and a pang ran through the girl. He would never love anyone but Gay; still, did that matter? Lossie had enough love for both—through suffering she had come to know that the fulness of joy is in loving, not in being loved.
Involuntarily both had stopped, and in the wintry afternoon, with skeleton trees all about them, they were looking in each other's faces—in that moment Carlton saw his way clear, saw the road that led to Gay's happiness, if not his own—and took it.
* * * * * * *
Lossie had never looked so lovely in her life, or Carlton so manly, if frightfully pale, than when, after an hour's absence, they came in, and Gay got Lossie up into her bedroom, shut the door, and turned round to remark:
"PoorConant!"
That she did not say "Poor Carlton!" was part of the tragedy of the whole thing—for him.
"Oh, Gay," cried Lossie, "I didn't ask him this time"—she blushed warmly—"but I've been doing pretty much the same thing in a different way."
"Poor Conant!" said Gay again. "As Chris would say, he'll be all top-boots and no grin!"
"Oh, he is young—he will get over it," said Lossie. "I never pretended to care for him, and as to suffering, haven'tIgone through enough?"
"And pray," said Gay, who felt a great desire to turn head over heels a great many times in rapid succession, just as she had done when she was a child, "when is Carlton going to tell me that he has—has"—she pretended to weep—"jilted me?"
For a moment Lossie turned away; already she was a better woman as she said:
"Gay, he knew that you loved Chris too much for there to be the smallest scrap of love in your heart left over forhim. He said that life without love was like the sky without sun—that he had been a selfish brute to think he could make you happier than Chris could."
"He's quite right," said Gay, who had recovered all her good looks in a moment, and with them the old charm andgaieté de cÅ“urthat had so distinguished her, "and if you'll get Mr. Rensslaer to show you his sculpture and medals presently, and leave Carlton and me together, I'll just tell him that he's a dear—and that I love him."
Gay never told Chris, nor Carlton Lossie, what was said during that brief interview in the Elsinore drawing-room; but Gay, to her shame, realised then, how consistently Carlton had played the game of love, how if he had been greedy once, he had sacrificed himself twice over for her, and tears fell from her eyes that night, before she dropped into the first dreamless slumber she had known for months.
The Professor was delighted that her home with him was to remain her home still, and everyone was happy except George Conant and Chris. The latter knew nothing of the change of partners, and went slogging away at his failures and successes, seemingly quite unable to break his neck, though he took every opportunity of trying to do so. Even when hedidhear the news, he made no comment, lowered his proud shield of reserve to no man or woman either. It was no affair of his, when Gay had "chucked" him; she had done it for once and all, and he did not go near her.
There was not an ounce of vice in Chris, but she had sent him further on the road to the devil than anyone but himself, and perhaps Mrs. Summers knew, and the devoted old woman waxed more bitter against Gay day by day. It did not require the removal of certain photographs from his rooms, to indicate who was responsible for the change in him.
"As if, knowing how he misses his mother, she oughtn't to stand by him through everything," said Mrs. Summers indignantly to herself, and tried hard to make it up to her dear Mr. Chris in extra attention. But it did not seem to do him much good; he was beginning to think that there was a curse upon him, and that is a fatal thing for a man, making him sometimes reckless, sometimes bad, but seldom mentally, morally, or physically better.
But he turned up at Mackrell's wedding in December, and if each man surprised in the other's eyes, a look that told how to both there might be many women, but only one Gay, and Chris suspected a supreme renunciation in Carlton's taking Lossie as the only way to Gay's happiness, he had no idea of screwing himself up a second time to the sacrifice of all he held most dear.
Gay made a delightful bridesmaid, and Chris was the smartest, most sought after man there. He had always the air, the gay address, the charm of one of Charles Lever's adventurous heroes, belonged more to past times than present ones, and Gay, defiantly flirting on her own account, was appalled to see how easily and naturally he could flirt also—with one very lovely young married woman in particular, who had long tried to annex him. If he took a savage delight in paying Gay back in her own coin, inflicting a little of the pain on her that she had inflicted on him, was it not very natural—though not natural to Chris?
The most lovable nature is the easiest ruined, the most unmalleable, when it has once turned against what it loves. Whether it were that having made his one grand renunciation in vain, Chris felt himself incapable of rising again to such heights of self-sacrifice, or that the capacity to love, as he had once loved, was forever scourged out of him by Gay's failure to him at a supreme moment, the fact remained that he could not, and never meant to forgive her. She had belonged to Carlton first; it was Carlton who had had the first kiss from her soft young lips, and many others. Chris could not know that all the kissing had been on one side only, and very little of that—the tactics Gay had practised when she desired to ward off Carlton's proposals, were equally successful in preventing his enjoying the privileges of an accepted suitor.
The world, looking on at the meeting between Chris and Gay, said that between two stools she had fallen to the ground, that she had been a fool to be cut out by her cousin, and what was worse, it pitied her....
She had made a complete failure of Trotting, (her horses were sold, and the sport was quite given up), of matrimony, of everything, said that same world, but Min Toplady rejoiced to see the light come back to her darling's eyes, the spring to her step, and the merry ring to her laugh, to know her prettier, happier than she had been for months past, her perpetual anxiety about Chris's precious neck notwithstanding.
Rensslaer too was satisfied. St. Swithin's still waited, the post he had offered Chris was open still—so was Gay's heart, and all would come right in time....
But months ran by, and it did not.
The Professor was still made exquisitely comfortable by his sister, and pursued the selfish tenor of his way. Lossie reigned,quitegood, andquitehappy, the triumphantly lovely mistress of the house in Norfolk Street, and divers other places, and Carlton, if not happy, was at least resigned, and very proud of her.
Rensslaer pursued his various hobbies with his usual quiet persistence, George Conant had started a racing stable, and was squandering the Elkins' thousands at a great rate, but all that Gay ever heard of Chris now, was gleaned from the papers. He had been devoted to Lavinia, as usual, when they met at the wedding, but had not since been near her, and she thought his keeping away a good sign, and a proof that he was ashamed of his own stiff-neckedness. But Gay knew that by her failure in courage at a critical moment of her life she had lost him, and that he would give her no second chance.
Oh, what was honour, what was duty, compared with love, when love had called her with Chris's voice as it had done that morning? There must be some coward blot in her, some bad strain of blood that prevented her being true to herself ... in pluck, in love, in loyalty alike, she had failed ... she had only to say to Carlton, "It is all a mistake; I accepted you in a fit of pique—under a misunderstanding," but she had humiliated Chris alike as a man and a lover in the presence of his rival, and a man of the most sensitive pride, he could not forgive her.
He had not turned his back on her when she committed her mad escapade, got herself talked about; angry as he was with her, he had not shown it, only remonstrated quietly with her, and in vain. He had put up with all her tempers without a murmur; his lovely disposition had never once been at fault, or broken down under the strain. Finally, he had been prepared to give up for her sake the profession he so deeply loved, and she had thrown his renunciation back in his face; if he met with a fatal accident, she alone would be responsible for it.
She held her head as high as ever, and only Carlton and Lavinia guessed what she suffered, but with the end of the steeplechase season, relief came, and she drew a free breath. For six months at least, Chris would be safe, and as in the nature of things, he was bound to be oftener in town, it was inevitable that sooner or later they must meet.
And at last they did. One day they passed each other close in Piccadilly, Gay driving herself, and Chris in a hansom with the Mrs. Guest who had been at Lossie's wedding. They produced a flashing impression of youth, gaiety, and good looks, and so completely wrapped up in each other were they, that they did not even see Gay, who drove on with the furies in her heart.
Sothatwas the reason that he could not forgive her, because another woman had taken her place in his heart... Jealousy, overpowering, terrible, racked poor Gay from then onwards—never had she loved Chris so much, never was it more impossible by look or word to try to call him back to her.
It was equally certain that Chris was resolute not to put himself within reach of such calling. In proportion to a man's love for a woman, is her power to influence him for good or evil, and Chris owed her a secret grudge for inflicting on him an injury that had done him no more good, morally, than Carlton's rejection of Lossie's love had once done her. The Mrs. Guest episode brought him little pleasure, and was not precisely of his own seeking—considerably to his surprise, too, his present existence did not satisfy him as it had done, and at odd times he thought of that other life which he could so pleasantly have lived at St. Swithin's.
He felt a brute to keep away from Lavinia, but in the frame of mind he then was, knew himself to be no fit company for her. Yet in the event, just as her life had been one long occasion of making opportunities for others, so by her death were the two hopelessly alienated people she loved best in the world, to be at last brought together.
In June came the cruel, mercifully brief illness that had threatened her so long, and Gay was constantly at hand to help her bear it, but it was to Chris she clung, who on his part plainly dreaded to be parted from her, realising too late, how lonely he would be, when the one woman who had so good an influence over him was gone. Had he been her own, the son that Lavinia had coveted, he could not have been more to her than he was, displaying qualities that made Gay admire and love him more with every hour. Watchful and devoted, the full tenderness and manliness of his nature were revealed with a fulness that only made the more marked his attitude towards Gay, to whom he remained cold, courteous, and completely indifferent always.
Once it half broke her heart to hear him, when he thought her absent, give Lavinia a message for his mother. Gay loved the simplicity of belief that never doubted the old friends would meet, suspected Chris's longing—who knows?—to be going himself to the one he so loved, and had never ceased to want.
"It will please her better that I can tell her you are very happy, Laddie," said Lavinia, who by a light invisible, saw what he did not. "And, you know, after all there is only one thing that matters, one first, last word—Love"—but he did not seem to hear her; there was a hard little kernel of bitterness in his heart against Gay, that nothing seemed able to remove.
* * * * * * *
Chris was standing in the sunny blue dining-room, staring straight before him, seeing nothing, when a slight sound at hand made him wheel suddenly, it was only a tired girl, weeping with bowed head on her hands ... how many nights and days had she been watching, and now needed to watch no more....
Something in his heart gave way, and with it all his fierce pride and unforgivingness towards her, as he uttered her name, she looked up...
Haggard they were, and sad and worn, as their eyes drew them together, with little of comeliness in their young faces, till love broke through, and flooded them with beauty ... perhaps it was of the message to his mother that Gay was thinking, as timidly she framed his face in her hands, and softly, as if she feared to bruise his lips, kissed him.
THE END
Miller, Son, & Compy., Ltd., Finsbury Circus Buildings, London, E.C.