Thesalonwas a blaze of lights and many shifting colours. The fantastic crowd that trooped thither from thesalle-à-mangerwas like a host of tropical flowers. The talking and laughter nearly drowned the efforts of the string band in the far corner.
Scott in ordinary evening-dress stood near the door talking to an immense Roman Emperor, looking by contrast even smaller and more insignificant than usual. Yet a closer observation would have shown that the same instinctive dignity of bearing characterized them both. Utterly unlike though they were, yet in this respect it was not difficult to trace their brotherhood. Though moulded upon lines so completely dissimilar, they bore the same indelible stamp—the stamp of good birth which can never be attained by such as have it not. Sir Eustace Studley was the handsomest man in the room. His imperial costume suited his somewhat arrogant carriage. He looked like a man born to command. His keen eyes glanced hither and thither with an eagle-like intensity that missed nothing. He seemed to be on the watch for someone.
"Who is it?" asked Scott, with a smile. "The lady of the rink?"
The black brows went up haughtily for a moment, then descended in an answering smile. "She is the only woman I've seen here yet that's worth looking at," he observed.
"Don't you be too sure of that!" said Scott. "I can show you a little Italian peasant girl who is well worth your august consideration. I think you ought to bestow a little favour on her as you have each chosen to assume the same nationality."
Sir Eustace laughed. "Aprotégéeof yours, eh? That little brown girl, I suppose? Charming no doubt, my dear fellow; but ordinary—distinctly ordinary."
"You haven't seen her yet," said Scott. "You had your back to her in thesalle-à-manger."
"Where is she then? You had better find her before the beautiful Miss de Vigne makes her appearance. I don't mind giving her a dance or two, but you must take her off my hands if we don't get on."
"I will certainly do that," said Scott in his quiet voice that seemed to veil a touch of irony. "I believe she is in the vestibule now. No, here she is!"
Dinah, with laughing lips and sparkling eyes, had just ventured to the door with Billy. "We'll just peep," she said to her brother in the gay young tones that penetrated so much further than she realized. "But I shall never dare to dance. Why, I've never even seen the inside of a ballroom before. And as to dancing with a real live man—" She broke off as she caught sight of the two brothers standing together near the entrance.
Eustace turned his restless eyes upon her, gave her a swift, critical glance and muttered something to Scott.
The latter at once stepped forward, receiving a smile so radiant that even Eustace was momentarily dazzled. The little brown girl certainly had points.
"May I introduce my brother?" said Scott. "Sir Eustace Studley—Miss—I am afraid I don't know your surname."
"Sketchy," murmured Eustace, as he bowed.
But Dinah only laughed her ringing, merry laugh. "Of course you don't know. How could you? Our name is Bathurst. I'm Dinah and this is Billy. I am years older than he is, of course." She gave Eustace a shy glance. "How do you do?"
"She's just thirty," announced Billy, in shrill, cracked tones. "She's just pretending to be young to-night, but she ain't young really. You should see her without her warpaint."
The music became somewhat more audible at this point. Eustace bent slightly, looking down at the girl with eyes that were suddenly soft as velvet. "They are beginning to dance," he said. "May I have the pleasure? It's a pity to lose time."
Her red lips smiled delighted assent. She laid her hand with a feathery touch upon the arm he offered. "Oh, how lovely!" she said, and slid into his hold like a giddy little water-fowl taking to its own beloved element.
"Well, I'm jiggered!" said Billy. "And she's never danced with a man—except of course me—before!"
"Live and learn!" said Scott.
He watched the couple go up the great room, and he saw that, as he had suspected, Dinah was an exquisite dancer. Her whole being was merged in movement. She was as an instrument in the hand of a skilled player.
Sir Eustace Studley was an excellent dancer too, though he did not often trouble himself to dance as perfectly as he was dancing now. It was not often that he had a partner worthy of his best, and it was a semi-conscious habit of his never voluntarily to give better than he received.
But this little gipsy-girl of Scott's discovery called forth all his talent. She did not want to talk. She only wanted to dance, to spend herself in a passion of dancing that was an ecstasy beyond all speech. She was as sensitive as a harp-string to his touch; she was music, she was poetry, she was charm. The witchery of her began to possess him. Her instant response to his mood, her almost uncanny interpretation thereof, became like a spell to his senses. From wonder he passed to delight, and from delight to an almost feverish desire for more. He swayed her to his will with a well-nigh savage exultation, and she gave herself up to it so completely, so freely, so unerringly, that it was as if her very individuality had melted in some subtle fashion and become part of his. And to the man there came a moment of sheer intoxication, as though he drank and drank of a sparkling, inspiriting wine that lured him, that thrilled him, that enslaved him.
It was just when the sensation had reached its height that the music suddenly quickened for the finish. That brought him very effectually to earth. He ceased to dance and led her aside.
She turned her bright face to him for a moment, in her eyes the dazed, incredulous look of one awaking from an enthralling dream. "Oh, can't we dance it out?" she said, as if she pleaded against being aroused.
He shook his head. "I never dance to a finish. It's too much like the clown's turn after the transformation scene. It is bathos on the top of the superb. At least it would be in this case. Who in wonder taught you to dance like that?"
Dinah opened her eyes a little wider and gave him the Homage of shy admiration; but she met a look in return that amazed her, that sent the blood in a wild unreasoning race to her heart. For those eyes of burning, ardent blue had suddenly told her something, something that no eyes had ever told her before. It was incredible but true. Homage had met homage, aye, and more than homage. There was mastery in his look; but there was also wonder and a curious species of half-grudging reverence. She had amazed him, this witch with the sparkling eyes that shone so alluringly under the scarlet kerchief. She had swept him as it were with a fan of flame. She had made him live. And he had pronounced her ordinary!
"I have always loved to dance," she said in answer to his almost involuntary question. "Do you like my dancing? I'm so glad."
"Like it!" He laughed with an odd shamefacedness. "I could dance with you the whole evening. But I should probably end by making a fool of myself like a man who has had too much champagne."
Dinah laughed. She had an exhilarating sense of having achieved a conquest undreamed of. She also was feeling a little giddy, a little uncertain of the ground under her feet.
"Do you know," she said, dropping her eyes instinctively before the fiery intensity of his, "I've never danced with a man before? I—I was a little afraid just at first lest you should find me—gawky."
"Ye gods!" said Sir Eustace. "And you have really never danced with a man before! Tell me! How did you like it?"
"It was—heavenly!" said Dinah, drawing a deep breath.
"Will you dance with me again?" he asked.
She nodded. "Yes."
"The very next dance?"
She nodded again. "Yes."
"And again after that?" said Sir Eustace.
She threw him a glance half-shy, half-daring. "Don't you think it might be too much for you?"
He laughed. "I'll risk it if you will."
She turned towards him with a small, confidential gesture. "What aboutRose de Vigne?" she said. "Don't you want to dance with her?"
"Oh, presently," he said. "She'll keep."
Dinah broke into her high, sweet laugh. "And what about—all my other partners?" she said, with more assurance.
He bent to her. "They must keep too. Seriously, you don't want to dance with any other fellow, do you?"
"I'm not a bit serious," said Dinah.
"Do you?" he insisted.
She lifted her eyes momentarily.
"You don't?" he insinuated.
She surrendered without conditions. "Of course I don't."
"Then you mustn't," he said. "Consider yourself booked to me for to-night, and when you're not dancing with me, you can rest. Sit out with Scott if you like! Will you do that?"
"Why?" whispered Dinah.
Again her heart was beating very fast; she wondered why.
He answered her with an impetuosity that seemed to carry her along with it. "Because your dancing is superb, magnificent, and I want to keep it for myself. It may not be the same when you've danced with another man. A flower fresh plucked is always sweeter than one that someone else has worn."
Dinah's hands clasped each other unconsciously. She had never dreamed that Apollo could so stoop to favour her.
"I will do as you like," she murmured after a moment. "But I don't suppose for an instant that anyone else would want to dance with me. I don't know anyone else."
He smiled. "I'm glad of that. It would be sheer sacrilege for you to dance with a young oaf who didn't know how. It's a bargain then. I'll give you all I can. You mustn't tell, of course."
"Oh, I won't tell," laughed Dinah.
He gave her his arm. "They are tuning up. We won't lose a minute. I always like a clear floor, before the rabble begin."
He led her to the top of the room, stood for a moment; then, as the music began, caught her to him, and they floated once more into the shining, enchanted mazes of their dreamland.
And Dinah danced as one inspired, for it seemed to her that her feet moved upon air as though winged. Apollo had drawn her up to Olympus, and she drifted in his arm in spheres unknown, far above the clouds.
"Come and sit down!" said Scott.
Dinah gave a little start. She was standing close to him, but she had not seen him. She looked at him for a second with far-away eyes, as if she did not know him.
Then recognition flashed into them. She smiled an eager greeting. "Oh, Mr. Studley, I want to thank you for the very happiest evening of my life."
He smiled also as he sat down beside her. "You are enjoying yourself?"
"Oh yes, indeed I am!" she assured him. "Thank you a hundred million times!"
"Why thank me?" questioned Scott.
She drew a long, long breath. "Because you were the magician who pulled the strings. I should never have got dressed in the first place but for you."
He gave a laugh of amused protest. "Oh, surely! I don't feel I deserve that!"
She laughed with him. "You did it anyhow. And in the second place you got me out of a villainous bad temper and turned an ugly goblin into a very happy butterfly. I'm downright ashamed of myself for being so horrid about Rose de Vigne. She isn't at all a bad sort though she is so impossibly beautiful. Your brother is going to dance with her now. See! There they go!"
She looked after them with a smile of complete content.
"You're feeling generous," remarked Scott.
She turned to him again, flushed and radiant. "I can afford to—though it's for the first time in my life. I've never had such a happy time,—never, never, never! Isn't your brother wonderful? His dancing is—" Words failed her. She raised her hands and let them fall with a gesture expressive of unbounded admiration.
"You mustn't let him monopolize you," said Scott. "He has plenty to choose from, you know. Others haven't."
She laughed. "He says—I wonder if it's true!—he says I am the best dancer he has ever met!"
Scott smiled at her beaming face. "That is very nice—for him," he observed. "I thought you seemed to be getting on very well."
Her eyes travelled across the room again to her late partner and the beautiful Miss de Vigne. She watched them intently for a few seconds.
"Poor Rose!" she said suddenly.
Scott was watching her. "Isn't she a good dancer?" he asked.
She turned back to him. "Oh yes, I believe she is. She always has plenty of partners anyway. At least I've always heard so. Is your sister dancing? I don't think I can have seen her yet."
"No. She is in her sitting-room upstairs. I wanted her to come down, but she wouldn't be persuaded. She—" Scott hesitated a moment—"is not fond of gaiety."
"Then I shan't see her!" said Dinah in tones of genuine disappointment."I did so want to thank her for lending me these lovely things."
"I can take you to her if you'll come," said Scott.
"Oh, can you? Yes, I'll come. I can come now. But are you sure she will like it?" Dinah's bright eyes met his with frank directness. "I don't want to intrude on her, you know," she said.
He smiled a little. "I am sure you won't intrude. Shall we go then? Are you sure there is no one else you want to dance with here?"
"Oh, quite sure." Again momentarily Dinah's look sought her late partner; then briskly she stood up.
Scott rose also, and gave her his arm. She bestowed a small, friendly squeeze upon it. "I've never enjoyed myself so much before," she said. "And it's all your doing."
"Oh, not really!" he said.
She nodded vigorously. "But it is! I should never have been presentable but for you. And I should certainly never have danced with your brother. He has actually promised to help me with my skating to-morrow. Isn't it kind of him?"
"I wonder," said Scott.
"What do you wonder?" Dinah looked at him curiously.
But he only smiled a baffling smile, and turned the subject. "Wouldn't you like something to drink before we go up?"
Dinah declined. She was not in the least thirsty. She did not feel as if she would ever want to eat or drink again.
"Only to dance!" said Scott. "Well, I mustn't keep you long then. Who is that lady making signs to you? Hadn't you better go and speak to her?"
"Oh, bother!" said Dinah. "You come too, then. It's only LadyGrace—Rose's mother. I'm sure it can't be anything important."
Scott piloted her across the vestibule to the couch on which Lady Grace sat. She was a large, fair woman with limpid eyes and drawling speech. She extended a plump white hand to the girl.
"Dinah, my dear, I think you have had almost enough for to-night. And they were so very behind time in starting. Your mother would not like you to stay up late, I feel sure. You had better go to bed when this dance is over. You are not accustomed to dissipation, remember."
A swift cloud came over Dinah's bright face. "Oh, but, Lady Grace, I'm not in the least tired. And I'm not a baby, you know. I'm nearly twenty. I really couldn't go yet."
"You will have plenty more opportunities, dear," said Lady Grace, quite unruffled. "Rose has decided to retire after this dance, and I shall do the same. The Colonel is suffering with dyspepsia, and he does not wish us to be late."
Dinah bit her lip. "Oh, very well," she said somewhat shortly; and toScott, "We had better go at once then."
He led her away obediently. They ascended the stairs together.
As they reached the top of the flight Dinah's indignation burst itsbounds. "Isn't it too bad? Why should I go to bed just because theColonel's got dyspepsia? I don't believe it's that at all really. It'sRose who can't bear to think that I am having as good a time—orBetter—than she is."
"May I say what I think?" asked Scott politely.
She stopped, facing him. "Yes, do!"
He was smiling somewhat whimsically. "I think that—like Cinderella—you may break the spell if you stay too long."
"But isn't it too bad?" protested Dinah. "Your brother too—I can't disappoint him."
Scott's smile became a laugh. "Oh, believe me, it would do him good, MissBathurst. He gets his own way much too often."
She smiled, but not very willingly. "It does seem such a shame. He has been—so awfully nice to me."
"That's nothing," said Scott airily. "We can all be nice when we are enjoying ourselves."
Dinah looked at him with sudden attention. "Are you pointing a moral?" she asked severely.
"Trying to," said Scott.
She tried to frown upon him, but very abruptly and completely failed. Her pointed chin went up in a gay laugh. "You do it very nicely," she said. "Thank you, Mr. Studley. I won't be grumpy any more. It would be a pity to break the spell, as you say. Will you explain to the prince?"
"Certainly," he said, leading her on again. "I shall make it quite clear to him that Cinderella was not to blame. Here is our sitting-room at the end of this passage!"
He stopped at the door and would have opened it, but Dinah, smitten with sudden shyness, drew back.
"Hadn't you better go in first and—and explain?" she said.
"Oh no, quite unnecessary," he said, and turned the handle.
At once a woman's voice accosted him. "For the Lord's sake, Master Stumpy, come in quick and shut the door behind ye! The racket downstairs is sending Miss Isabel nearly crazy, poor lamb. And it's meself that's wondering what we'll do to-night, for there's no peace at all in this wooden shanty of a place."
"Be quiet, Biddy!" Scott's voice made calm, undaunted answer. "You can go if you like. I've come to sit with Miss Isabel for a while. And I've brought her a visitor. Isabel, my dear, I've brought you a visitor."
Dinah moved forward in response to his gentle insistence, but her shyness went with her. She was aware of something intangible in the atmosphere that startled, that almost frightened, her.
The gaunt figure of a woman clad in a long, white robe sat at a table in the middle of the room with a sheaf of letters littered before her. Her emaciated arms were flung wide over them, her white head was bowed.
But at Scott's quiet announcement, it was raised with the suddenness of eager expectancy. For the fraction of a second Dinah saw dark, sunken eyes ablaze with a hope that was almost terrible in its intensity.
It was gone on the instant. They looked at her with a species of dull wonder. "Are you a friend of Scott's? I am very pleased to meet you," a hollow voice said.
A thin hand was extended to her, and as Dinah clasped it a sudden great pity surged through her, dispelling her doubt. Something in her responded swiftly, even passionately, to the hunger of those eyes. The moment's shock passed from her like a cloud.
"My sister Mrs. Everard," said Scott's voice at her shoulder. "Isabel, this is Miss Bathurst of whom I was telling you."
"You lent me your jewels," said Dinah, looking into the wasted face with a sympathy at her heart that was almost too poignant to be borne. "Thank you so very, very much for them! It was so very kind of you to lend them to a total stranger like me."
The strange eyes were gazing at her with a curious, growing interest. A faint, faint smile was in their depths. "Are we strangers, child?" the low voice asked. "I feel as if we had met before. Why do you look at me so kindly? Most people only stare."
Dinah was suddenly conscious of a hot sensation at the throat that made her want to cry. "It is you who have been kind," she said, and her little hand closed with confidence upon the limp, cold fingers. "I am wearing your things still, and I have had such a lovely time. Thank you again for letting me have them. I am going to return them now."
"You need not do that." Isabel spoke with her eyes still fixed upon the girlish face. "Keep them if you like them! I shall never wear them again. They tell me—they tell me—I am a widow."
"Miss Isabel darlint!" Biddy spoke sibilantly from the background. "Don't be talking to the young lady of such things! Won't ye sit down then, miss? And maybe I can get ye a cup o' tay."
"Ah, do, Biddy!" Scott put in his quiet word. "There is no tea like yours. Isabel, Miss Bathurst is a keen dancer. She and Eustace have been most energetic. It was a pity you couldn't come down and see the fun."
"Oh! Did you enjoy it?" Isabel still looked into the brown, piquant face as though loth to turn her eyes away.
"I loved it," said Dinah.
"Was Eustace kind to you?"
"Oh, most kind." Dinah spoke with candid enthusiasm.
"I am glad of that," Isabel's voice held a note of satisfaction. "But I should think everyone is kind to you, child," she said, with her faint, glimmering smile. "How beautiful you are!"
"Me!" Dinah opened her eyes in genuine astonishment. "Oh you wouldn't think so if you saw me in my ordinary dress," she said. "I'm nothing at all to look at really. It's just a case of 'Fine feathers,'—nothing else."
"My dear," Isabel said, "I am not looking at your dress. I seldom notice outer things. I am looking through your eyes into your soul. It is that that makes you beautiful. I think it is the loveliest thing that I have ever seen."
"Oh, you wouldn't say so if you knew me!" cried Dinah, conscience-stricken. "I have horrid thoughts often—very often."
The dark, watching eyes still smiled in their far-off way. "I should like to know you, dear child," Isabel said. "You have helped me—you could help me in a way that probably you will never understand. Won't you sit down? I will put my letters away, and we will talk."
She began to collect the litter before her, laying the letters together one by one with reverent care.
"Can I help?" asked Dinah timidly.
But she shook her head. "No, child, your hands must not touch them. They are the ashes of my life."
An open box stood on the table. She drew it to her, and laid the letters within it. Then she rose, and drew her guest to a lounge.
"We will sit here," she said. "Stumpy, why don't you smoke? Ah, the music has stopped at last. It has been racking me all the evening. Yes, you love it, of course. That is natural. I loved it once. It is always sweet to those who dance. But to those who sit out—those who sit out—" Her voice sank, and she said no more.
Dinah's hand slipped softly into hers. "I like sitting out too sometimes," she said. "At least I like it now."
Isabel's eyes were upon her again. They looked at her with a kind of incredulous wonder. After a moment she sighed.
"You would not like it for long, child. I am a prisoner. I sit in chains while the world goes by. They are all hurrying forward so eager to get on. But there is never any going on for me. I sit and watch—and watch."
"Surely we must all go forward somehow," said Dinah shyly.
"Surely," said Scott.
But Isabel only shook her head with dreary conviction. "Not the prisoners," she said. "They die by the wayside."
There fell a brief silence, then impetuously Dinah spoke, urged by the fulness of her heart. "I think we all feel like that sometimes. I know at home it's just like being in a cage. Nothing ever happens worth mentioning. And then quite suddenly the door is opened and out we come. That's partly why I am enjoying everything so much," she explained. "But it won't be a bit nice going back."
"What about your mother?" said Scott.
Dinah's bright face clouded again. "Yes, of course, there's Mother," she agreed.
She looked across at Scott as if she would say more; but he passed quietly on. "Where is your home, Miss Bathurst?"
"Right in the very heart of the Midlands. It is pretty country, but oh, so dull. The de Vignes are the rich people of the place. They belong to the County. We don't," said Dinah, with a sigh.
Scott laughed, and she looked momentarily hurt.
"I don't see what there is funny in that. The County people and the shop people are the only ones that get any fun. It's horrid to be between the two."
"Forgive me!" Scott said. "I quite see your point. But if you only knew it, the people who call themselves County are often the dullest of the dull."
"You say that because you belong to them, I expect," retorted Dinah. "But if you were me, and lived always under the shadow of the de Vignes, you wouldn't think it a bit funny."
"Who are the de Vignes?" asked Isabel suddenly.
Dinah turned to her. "We are staying here with them, Billy and I. My father persuaded the Colonel to have us. He knew how dreadfully we wanted to go. The Colonel is rather good-natured over some things, and he and Dad are friends. But I don't think Lady Grace wanted us much. You see, she and Rose are so very smart."
"I see," said Scott.
"Rose has been presented at Court," pursued Dinah. "They always go up for the season. They have a house in town. We always say that Rose is waiting to marry a marquis; but he hasn't turned up yet. You see, she really is much too beautiful to marry an ordinary person, isn't she?"
"Oh, much," said Scott.
Dinah heaved another little sigh; then suddenly she laughed. "But your brother has promised to help me with my skating to-morrow anyhow," she said. "So she won't have him all the time."
"Perhaps the marquis will come along to-morrow," suggested Scott.
"I wish he would," said Dinah, with fervour.
Biddy was in the act of handing round the tea when there came the sound of a step outside, and an impatient hand thrust open the door.
"Hullo, Stumpy!" said a voice. "Are you here? What have you done withMiss Bathurst? She's engaged to me for the next dance." Eustace enteredwith the words, but stopped short on the threshold. "Hullo! You are here!I thought you had given me the slip."
Dinah looked up at him with merry eyes. "So I have—practically. I am on my way to bed."
"Oh, nonsense!" he said, with his easy imperiousness. "I can't spare you yet. I must have one more dance just to soothe my nerves. I've been dancing with a faultless automaton who didn't understand me in the least. Now I want the real thing again."
"Have some tea!" said Scott.
"Thanks!" Sir Eustace sat down on the edge of the table, facing his sister and Dinah. "You're not going to let me down, now are you?" he said. "I'm counting on that dance, and I haven't enjoyed myself at all since I saw you last. That girl is machine-made. There isn't a flaw in her. She's been turned out of a mould; I'm certain of it. Miss Bathurst, why are you laughing?"
"Because I'm pleased," said Dinah.
"Pleased? I thought you'd be sorry for me. You're going to take pity on me anyway, I hope. The beautiful automaton has gone back to her band-box for the night, so we can enjoy ourselves quite unhindered. Is that for me? Thanks, Biddy! I'm needing refreshment badly."
"You would have preferred coffee," observed Isabel.
It was the first time she had spoken since his entrance. He gave her a keen, intent look. "Oh, this'll do, thanks," he said. "It is all nectar to-night. Why haven't you been down to the ballroom, Isabel? You would have enjoyed it."
Her lips twisted a little. "I have been listening to the music upstairs," she said.
"You ought to have come down," he said imperiously. "I shall expect you next time." His hand inadvertently touched the box on the table and he looked sharply downwards. "Here, Biddy! Take this thing away!" he ordered with a frown.
Isabel leaned swiftly forward. "Give it to me!" she said.
His hand closed upon it. "No. Let Biddy take it!"
"Let me!" said Dinah suddenly, and sprang to her feet.
She took it from him before he had time to protest, and gave it forthwith into Isabel's outstretched hands.
Eustace took up his cup in heavy silence, and drained it.
Then he rose. "Come along, Miss Bathurst!"
But Dinah remained seated. "I am very sorry," she said. "But I can't."
"Oh, nonsense!" He smiled very suddenly and winningly upon her. "Surely you won't disappoint me!"
She shook her head. Her eyes were wistful. "I'm disappointing myself quite as much. But I mustn't. The Colonel has gone to bed with dyspepsia, and Lady Grace and Rose have gone too by this time. I can't come down again."
"Nonsense!" he said again. "You want to. You know you do. No one pays any attention to Mrs. Grundy out here. She simply doesn't exist. Scott can come and play propriety. He's staid enough to chaperon a whole girls' school."
"Thanks, old chap," said Scott. "But I'm not coming down again, either."
Eustace looked over his head. "Then you must, Isabel. Come along! Just to oblige Miss Bathurst! It won't hurt you to sit in a safe corner for one dance."
Isabel looked up at him with a startled expression, as of one trapped."Oh, don't ask me!" she said. "I couldn't!"
"No, don't!" said Dinah. "It isn't, fair to bother anyone else on my account! I'm dreadfully sorry to have to refuse. But—in any case—I ought not to come."
"What of that?" said Eustace lightly. "Do you always do what you ought?What a dull programme!"
Dinah flushed. "Dull but respectable," she said, with a touch of spirit.
He laughed. "But I'm not asking you to do anything very outrageous, and I shouldn't ask it at all if I didn't know you wanted to do it. Besides, you promised. It's generally considered the respectable thing to do to keep one's promises."
That reached Dinah. She wavered perceptibly. "Lady Grace will be so vexed," she murmured.
He snapped his fingers in careless disdain.
She turned appealingly to Scott. "I think I might go—just for one dance, don't you?"
Scott's pale eyes met hers with steady comradeship. "I think I shouldn't," he said.
Eustace turned as if he had not heard and strolled to the door. He opened it, and at once the room was filled with the plaintive alluring strains of waltz-music. He stood and looked back. Dinah met the look, and suddenly she was on her feet.
He held out his hand to her with a smile half-mocking, half-persuasive. The music swung on with a subtle enchantment. Dinah uttered a little quivering laugh, and went to him.
In another moment the door closed, and they stood alone in the passage.
"I knew you wanted to," said Eustace, smiling down into her eyes with the arrogance of the conqueror.
Dinah was panting a little as one who had suffered a sudden strain. "Of course I wanted to," she returned. "But that doesn't make it right."
He pressed her hand to his heart for a moment, and she caught again a glimpse of that fire in his eyes that had so thrilled her. She could not meet it. She stood in palpitating silence.
"Where is the use of fighting against fate?" he asked her softly. "A gift of the gods is never offered twice."
She did not understand him, but her heart was beating wildly, tumultuously, and an inner voice urged her to be gone.
She slipped her hand free. "Aren't we—wasting time?" she whispered.
He laughed again in that subtle, half-mocking note, but he met her wish instantly. They went downstairs to thesalon.
There were not so many dancers now. The de Vignes had evidently retired. One rapid glance told Dinah this, and she dismissed them therewith from her mind. The rhythm and lure of the music caught her. She slid into the dance with delicious abandonment. The wonder and romance of it had got into her veins. No stolen pleasure was ever more keenly enjoyed than was that last perfect dance. Her very blood was a-fire with the strange, intoxicating joy of life. She wanted to go on for ever.
But it ended at length. She came to earth after her rapturous flight, and found herself standing with her partner in a curtained recess of the ballroom from which a glass door led on to the verandah that ran round the hotel.
"Just a glimpse of the moonlight on the mountains," he said, "before we say good-night!"
She went with him without a moment's thought. She was as one caught in the meshes of a great enchantment. He opened the door, and she passed through on to the verandah.
The music throbbed into silence behind them. Before them lay a fairy-world of dazzling silver and deepest, darkest sapphire. The mountains stood in solemn grandeur, domes of white mystery. The great vault of the sky was alight with stars, and a wonderful moon hung like a silver shield almost in the zenith.
"How—beautiful!" breathed Dinah.
The air was crystal clear, cold but not piercing. The absolute stillness held her spell-bound.
"It is like a dream-world," she whispered.
"In which you reign supreme," he murmured back.
She glanced at him with uncomprehending eyes. Her veins were still throbbing with the ecstasy of the dance.
"Oh, how I wish I had wings!" she suddenly said. "To swim through that glorious ether right above the mountain-tops as one swims through the sea! Don't you think flying must be very like swimming?"
"With variations," said Eustace.
His eyes dwelt upon her. They were fierily blue in that great flood of moonlight. His hand still rested upon her waist.
"But what a mistake to want the impossible!" he said, after a moment.
"I always do," said Dinah. "At least," she glanced up at him again, "I always have—until to-night."
"And to-night?" he questioned, dropping his voice.
"Oh, I am quite happy to-night," she said, with a little laugh, "even without the wings. If I hadn't thought of them, I should have nothing left to wish for."
"I wish I could say the same," said Sir Eustace, with the faint mocking smile at the corners of his lips.
"What can you want more?" asked Dinah innocently.
He leaned to her. "A big thing—a small thing! Would you give it to me, my elf of the mountains, if I dared to tell you what it was?"
Her eyes fluttered and fell before the flaming ardour of his. "I—I don't know," she faltered, in sudden confusion. "I expect so—if I could."
His arm slipped round her. "Would you?" he whispered. "Would you?"
She gave a little gasp, caught unawares like a butterfly on the wing. All the magic of the night seemed suddenly to be concentrated upon her like fairy batteries. Her first feeling was dismay, followed instantly by the wonder if she could be dreaming. And then, as she felt the drawing of his arm, something vehement, something almost fierce, awoke within her, clamouring wildly for freedom.
It was a blind instinct, but she obeyed it without question. She had no choice.
"Oh no!" she cried. "Oh no! I couldn't!" and wrested herself from him in a panic.
He let her go, and she heard him laugh as she broke away. But she did not wait for more. To linger was unthinkable. Urged by that imperative, inner prompting she turned and fled, not pausing for a moment's thought.
The glass door closed behind her. She burst impetuously into the deserted ballroom. And here, on the point of entering the small recess from which she was escaping, she came suddenly face to face with Scott.
So headlong was her flight that she actually ran into him. He put out a steadying hand.
"I was just coming to look for you," he said in his quiet, composed fashion.
She stopped unwillingly. "Oh, were you? How kind! I—I think I ought to go up now. It's getting late, isn't it? Good-night!"
He did not seek to detain her. She wondered with a burning sense of shame what he could have thought of her wild rush. But she was too agitated to attempt any excuse, too agitated to check her retreat. Without a backward glance she hastened away like Cinderella overtaken by fate; the spell was broken, the glamour gone.
It was a very meek and subdued Dinah who made her appearance in thesalle-à-mangeron the following morning.
She and Billy were generally in the best of spirits, and the room usually rang with their young laughter. But that morning even Billy was decorously quiet, and his sister scarcely spoke or raised her eyes.
Colonel de Vigne, white-moustached and martial, sat at the table with them, but neither Lady Grace nor Rose was present. The Colonel's face was stern. He occupied himself with letters with scarcely so much as a glance for the boy and girl on either side of him.
There was a letter by Dinah's plate also, but she had not opened it. Her downcast face was very pale. She ate but little, and that little only when urged thereto by Billy, whose appetite was rampant notwithstanding the decorum of his behaviour.
Scott, breakfasting with his brother at a table only a few yards distant, observed the trio with unobtrusive interest.
He had made acquaintance with the Colonel on the previous evening, and after a time the latter caught his eye and threw him a brief greeting. Most people were polite to Scott. But the Colonel's whole aspect was forbidding that morning, and his courtesy went no further.
Sir Eustace did not display the smallest interest in anyone. His black brows were drawn, and he looked even more haughtily unapproachable than the Colonel.
He conversed with his brother in low tones on the subject of the morning's mail which lay at Scott's elbow and which he was investigating while he ate. Now and then he gave concise and somewhat peremptory instructions, which Scott jotted down in a note-book with business-like rapidity. No casual observer would have taken them for brothers that morning. They were employer and secretary.
Only when the last letter had been discussed and laid aside did the elder abruptly abandon his aloof attitude to ask a question upon a more intimate matter.
"Did Isabel go without a sleeping-draught last night?"
Scott shook his head.
Eustace's frown became even more pronounced. "Did Biddy administer it on her own?"
"No. I authorized it." Scott's voice was low. He met his brother's look with level directness.
Eustace leaned towards him across the table. "I won't have it, Stumpy," he said very decidedly. "I told you so yesterday."
"I know." Very steadily Scott made answer. "But last night there was no alternative. It is impossible to do the thing suddenly. She has hardly got over the journey yet."
"Rubbish!" said Eustace curtly.
Scott slightly raised his shoulders, and said no more.
"It comes to this," Eustace said, speaking with stern insistence. "If you can't—or won't—assert your authority, I shall assert mine. It is all a question of influence."
"Or forcible persuasion," said Scott, with a touch of irony.
"Very well. Call it that! It is in a good cause. If you haven't the strength of mind, I have; and I shall exercise it. These drugs must be taken away. Can't you see it's the only possible thing to do?"
"Not yet," Scott said. He was still facing his brother's grim regard very gravely and unflinchingly. "I tell you, man, it is too soon. She is better than she used to be. She is calmer, more reasonable. We must do the thing gradually, if at all. To interfere forcibly would do infinitely more harm than good. I know what I am saying. I know her far better than you do now. I am in closer touch with her. You are out of sympathy. You only startle her when you try to persuade her to anything. You must leave her to me. I understand her. I know how to help her."
"You haven't achieved much in the last seven years," Eustace observed.
"But I have achieved something." Scott's answer was wholly free from resentment. He spoke with quiet confidence. "I know it's a slow process. But she is moving in the right direction. Give her time, old chap! I firmly believe that she will come back to us by slow degrees."
"Damnably slow," commented Eustace. "You're so infernally deliberate always. You talk as if it were your life-work."
Scott's eyes shone with a whimsical light. "I begin to think it is," he said. "Have you finished? Suppose we go." He gathered up the sheaf of papers at his elbow and rose. "I will attend to these at once."
Eustace strode down the long room looking neither to right nor left, moving with a free, British arrogance that served to emphasize somewhat cruelly the meagreness and infirmity of the man behind him. Yet it was upon the latter's slight, halting figure that Dinah's eyes dwelt till it finally limped out of sight, and in her look were wonder and a vagrant admiration. There was an undeniable attraction about Scott that affected her very curiously, but wherein it lay she could not possibly have said. She was furious when a murmured comment and laugh from some girls at the next table reached her.
"What a dear little lap-dog!" said one.
"Yes, I've been wanting to pat its head for a long time," said another.
"Warranted not to bite," laughed a third. "Can it really be full-grown?"
"Oh, no doubt, my dear! Look at its pretty little whiskers! It's just a toy, you know, nothing but a toy."
Dinah turned in her chair, and gazed scathingly upon the group of critics. Then, aware of the Colonel's eyes upon her, she turned back and gave him a swift look of apology.
He shook his head at her repressively, his whole air magisterial and condemnatory. "You may go if you wish," he said, in the tone of one dismissing an offender. "But be good enough to bear in mind what I have said to you!"
Billy leapt to his feet. "Can I go too, sir?" he asked eagerly.
The Colonel signified majestic assent. His mood was very far from genial that morning, and he had not the smallest desire to detain either of them. In fact, if he could have dismissed his two young charges altogether, he would have done so with alacrity. But that unfortunately was out of the question—unless by their behaviour they provoked him to fulfil the very definite threat that he had pronounced to Dinah in the privacy of his wife's room an hour before.
He was very seriously displeased with Dinah, more displeased than he had been with anyone since his soldiering days, and he had expressed himself with corresponding severity. If she could not conduct herself becomingly and obediently, he would take them both straight home again and thus put a summary end to temptation. His own daughter had never given him any cause for uneasiness, and he did not see why he should be burdened with the escapades of anyone else's troublesome offspring. It was too much to expect at his time of life.
So a severe reprimand had been Dinah's portion, to which she, very meek and crestfallen, shorn of all the previous evening's glories, had listened with a humility that had slightly mollified her judge though he had been careful not to let her know it. She had been wild and flighty, and he was determined that she should feel the rod of discipline pretty smartly.
But when he finally rose from the table and stalked out of the room, it was a little disconcerting to find the culprit awaiting him in the vestibule to slip a shy hand inside his arm and whisper, "Do forgive me! I'm so sorry."
He looked down into her quivering face, saw the pleading eyes swimming in tears, and abruptly found that his displeasure had evaporated so completely that he could not even pretend to be angry any longer. He had never taken much notice of Dinah before, treating her, as did his wife and daughter, as a mere child and of no account. But now he suddenly realized that she was an engaging minx after all.
"Ashamed of yourself?" he asked gruffly, his white moustache twitching a little.
Dinah nodded mutely.
"Then don't do it again!" he said, and grasped the little brown hand for a moment with quite unwonted kindness.
It was a tacit forgiveness, and as such Dinah treated it. She smiled thankfully through her tears, and slipped away to recover her composure.
Nearly an hour later, Scott, having finished his letters, came upon her sitting somewhat disconsolately in the verandah. He paused on his way out.
"Good morning, Miss Bathurst! Aren't you going to skate this morning?"
She turned to him with a little movement of pleasure. "Good morning, Mr. Studley! I have been waiting here for you. I have brought down your sister's trinkets. Here they are!" She held out a neat little paper parcel to him. "Please will you thank her again for them very, very much? I do hope she didn't think me very rude last night,—though I'm afraid I was."
Her look was wistful. He took the packet from her with a smile.
"Of course she didn't. She was delighted with you. When are you coming to see her again?"
"I don't know," said Dinah.
"Come to tea!" suggested Scott.
Dinah hesitated, flushing.
"You've something else to do?" he asked in his cheery way. "Well, come another time if it won't bore you!"
"Oh, it isn't that!" said Dinah, and her flush deepened. "I—I would love to come. Only—" She glanced round at an elderly couple who had just come out, and stopped.
"I'm going down to the village with my letters," said Scott. "Will you come too?"
She welcomed the idea. "Oh yes, I should like to. It's such a glorious morning again, isn't it? It's a shame not to go out."
"Sure you're not wanting to skate?" he questioned.
"Yes, quite sure. I—I'm rather tired this morning, but a walk will do me good."
They passed the rink without pausing, though Scott glanced across to see his brother skimming along in the distance with a red-clad figure beside him. He made no comment upon the sight, and Dinah was silent also. Her gay animation that morning was wholly a minus quantity.
They went on down the hill, talking but little. Speech in Scott's society was never a necessity. His silences were so obviously friendly. He had a shrewd suspicion on this occasion that the girl beside him had something to say, and he waited for it with a courteous patience, abstaining from interrupting her very evident preoccupation.
They walked between fields of snow, all glistening in the sunshine. The blue of the sky was no longer sapphire but glorious turquoise. The very air sparkled, diamond-clear in the crystal splendour of the day.
Suddenly Dinah spoke. "I suppose one always feels horrid the next morning."
"Are you feeling the reaction?" asked Scott.
"Oh, it isn't only that, I'm feeling—ashamed," said Dinah, blushing very deeply.
He did not look at her. "I don't see why," he said gently, after a moment.
"Oh, but you do!" she said impatiently. "At least you can if you try. You knew I was wrong to go down again for that last dance, just as well as I did. Why, you tried to stop me!"
"Which was very presumptuous of me," said Scott.
"No, it wasn't. It was kind. And I—I was a perfect pig not to listen. I want you to know that, Mr. Studley. I want you to know that I'm very, very sorry I didn't listen." She spoke with trembling vehemence.
Scott smiled a little. He was looking tired that morning. There were weary lines about his eyes. "I don't know why you should be so very penitent, Miss Bathurst," he said. "It was quite a small thing."
"It got me into bad trouble anyway," said Dinah. "I've had a tremendous wigging from the Colonel this morning, and if—if I ever do anything so bad again, we're to be sent home."
"I call that unreasonable," said Scott with decision. "It was not such a serious matter as all that. If you want my opinion, I think it was a mistake—a small mistake—on your part; nothing more."
"But that wasn't all," said Dinah, looking away from him and quickening her pace, "I—I have offended your brother too."
"Good heavens!" said Scott. "And is that serious too?"
"Don't laugh!" protested Dinah. "Of course it's serious. He—he won't even look at me this morning." The sound of tears came suddenly into her voice. "I was waiting for you on the verandah a little while ago, and—and he went by with Rose and never glanced my way. All because—because—oh, I am a little fool!" she declared, with an angry stamp of the foot as she walked.
"He's the fool!" said Scott rather shortly. "I shouldn't bother myself over that if I were you."
"I can't help it," said Dinah, her voice squeaking on a note half-indignant, half-piteous. "I—I behaved so idiotically, just like a raw schoolgirl. And I hate myself for it now!"
Scott looked at her for the first time since the beginning of her confidences. "Do you know, Miss Bathurst," he said, "I have a suspicion that you are much too hard on yourself. Of course I don't know what happened, but I do know that my brother is much more likely to have been in the wrong than you were. The best thing you can do is simply to dismiss the matter from your mind. Behave as if nothing had happened! Cut him next time! It's far the best way of treating him."
Dinah smiled woefully. "And he will spread himself at Rose's feet like all the rest, and never come near me again."
Scott frowned a little. "Miss de Vigne won't have the monopoly, I can assure you."
"She will," protested Dinah. "She knows how to flirt without being caught. I don't."
"Thank the gods for that!" said Scott with fervour. "So he tried to flirt, did he? And you objected. Was that it?"
"Something like that," murmured Dinah, with hot face averted.
"Then in heaven's name, continue to object!" he said, with unusual vehemence. "You did the right thing, child. Don't be drawn into doing what others do! Strike out a straight line for yourself, and stick to it! Above all, don't be ashamed of sticking to it! No woman was ever yet the better or the more attractive for cultivating her talent for flirting. Don't you know that it is your very genuineness and straightforwardness that is your charm?"
Dinah looked at him in sheer surprise. "I haven't got any charm," she said. "That's just the trouble. It was only my dancing that made your brother fancy I had last night."
Scott's frown deepened, became almost formidable, then suddenly vanished in a laugh. "That's just your point of view," he said. "Perhaps it's a pity to open your eyes. But whatever you do, don't try to humour my brother's whims! It would be very bad for him, and you certainly wouldn't gain anything by it. Put up with me for a change, and come to tea instead!"
A flash of gaiety gleamed for a moment in Dinah's eyes. It was the first he had seen that morning. "I'll come," she said, "if Lady Grace will let me. But I think I had better ask first, don't you?"
"Perhaps it would be safer," agreed Scott. "Tell her my sister is an invalid! I don't think she will object. I made the acquaintance of the doughty Colonel last night."
"You know he isn't a bad sort," said Dinah. "He is much nicer than Lady Grace or Rose. Of course he's rather stuck up, but that's only natural. He's lived so long in India, and now he's a J.P. into the bargain. It would be rather wonderful if he were anything else. Billy can't bear him, but then Billy's a boy."
"I like Billy," observed Scott.
"Yes, and Billy likes you," she answered warmly. "He's quite an intelligent boy."
"Evidently," agreed Scott, with a smile. "Now here is the village! Where do I post my letters?"
Dinah directed him with cheerful alacrity. She was feeling much happier; her tottering self-respect was almost restored.
"He is a dear little man!" she said to herself with enthusiasm, as she waited for him to purchase some stamps.
"You've done me no end of good," she said frankly to the man himself as they turned back.
"I am very pleased to hear it," said Scott. "And it is extremely kind of you to say so."
"It's the truth," she maintained. "And, oh, you haven't been smoking all this time. Don't you want to?"
He stopped at once, and took out his cigarette-case. "Now you mention it,I think I do. But I mustn't dawdle. I have got to get back to Isabel."
Dinah waited while the cigarette kindled. Then, with a touch of shyness, she spoke.
"Mr. Studley, has—has your sister been an invalid for long?"
He looked at her. "Do you want to hear about her?"
"Yes, please," said Dinah. "If you don't mind."
He began to walk on. It was evident that the hill was something of a difficulty to him. He moved slowly, and his limp became more pronounced. "No, I should like to tell you about her," he said. "You were so good yesterday, and I hadn't prepared you in the least. I hope it didn't give you a shock."
"Of course it didn't," Dinah answered. "I'm not such a donkey as that. I was only very, very sorry."
"Thank you," he said, as if she had expressed direct sympathy with himself. "It's hard to believe, isn't it, that seven years ago she was—even lovelier than the beautiful Miss de Vigne, only in a very different style?"
"Not in the least," Dinah assured him. "She is far lovelier than Rose now. She must have been—beautiful."
"She was," said Scott. "She was like Eustace, except that she was always much softer than he is. You would scarcely believe either that she is three years younger than he is, would you?"
"I certainly shouldn't," Dinah admitted. "But then, she must have come through years of suffering."
"Yes," Scott spoke with slight constraint, as though he could not bear to dwell on the subject. "She was a girl of intensely vivid feelings, very passionate and warmhearted. She and Eustace were inseparable in the old days. They did everything together. He thought more of her than of anyone else in the world. He does still."
"He wasn't very nice to her last night," Dinah ventured.
"No. He is often like that, and she is afraid of him. But the reason of it is that he feels her trouble so horribly, and whenever he sees her in that mood it hurts him intolerably. He is quite a good chap underneath, Miss Bathurst. Like Isabel, he feels certain things intensely. Of course he is five years older than I am, and we have never been pals in the sense that he and she were pals. I was always a slow-goer, and they went like the wind. But I know him. I know what his feelings are, and what this thing has been to him. And though I am now much more to Isabel than he will probably ever be again, he has never resented it or been anything but generous and willing to give place to me. That, you know, indicates greatness. With all his faults, he is great."
"He shouldn't make her afraid of him," Dinah said.
"I am afraid that is inevitable. He is strong, and she has lost her strength. Her marriage too alienated them in the first place. She had refused so many before Basil Everard came along, and I suppose he had begun to think that she was not the marrying sort. But Everard caught her almost in a day. They met in India. Eustace and she were touring there one winter. Everard was a senior subaltern in a Ghurka regiment—an awfully taking chap evidently. They practically fell in love with one another at sight. Poor old Eustace!" Scott paused, faintly smiling. "He meant her to marry well if she married at all, and Basil was no more than the son of a country parson without a penny to his name. However, the thing was past remedy. I saw that when they came home, and Isabel told me about it. I was at Oxford then. She came down alone for a night, and begged me to try and talk Eustace over. It was the beginning of a barrier between them even then. It has grown high since. Eustace is a difficult man to move, you know. I did my level best with him, but I wasn't very successful. In the end of course the inevitable happened. Isabel lost patience and broke away. She was on her way out again before either of us knew. Eustace—of course Eustace was furious." Scott paused again.
Dinah's silence denoted keen interest. Her expression was absorbed.
He went on, the touch of constraint again apparent in his manner. It was evident that the narration stirred up deep feelings. "We three had always hung together. The family tie meant a good deal to us for the simple reason that we were practically the only Studleys left. My father had died six years before, my mother at my birth. Eustace was the head of the family, and he and Isabel had been all in all to each other. He felt her going more than I can possibly tell you, and scarcely a week after the news came he got his things together and went off in the yacht to South America to get over it by himself. I stayed on at Oxford, but I made up my mind to go out to her in the vacation. A few days after his going, I had a cable to say they were married. A week after that, there came another cable to say that Everard was dead."
"Oh!" Dinah drew a short, hard breath. "Poor Isabel!" she whispered.
"Yes." Scott's pale eyes were gazing straight ahead. "He was killed two days after the marriage. They had gone up to the Hills, to a place he knew of right in the wilds on the side of a mountain, and pitched camp there. There were only themselves, a handful of Pathan coolies with mules, and ashikari. The day after they got there, he took her up the mountain to show her some of the beauties of the place, and they lunched on a ledge about a couple of hundred feet above a great lonely tarn. It was a wonderful place but very savage, horribly desolate. They rested after the meal, and then, Isabel being still tired, he left her to bask in the sunshine while he went a little further. He told her to wait for him. He was only going round the corner. There was a great bastion of rock jutting on to the ledge. He wanted to have a look round the other side of it. He went,—and he never came back."
"He fell?" Dinah turned a shocked face upon him. "Oh, how dreadful!"
"He must have fallen. The ledge dwindled on the other side of the rock to little more than four feet in width for about six yards. There was a sheer drop below into the pool. A man of steady nerve, accustomed to mountaineering, would make nothing of it; and, from what Isabel has told me of him, I gather he was that sort of man. But on that particular afternoon something must have happened. Perhaps his happiness had unsteadied him a bit, for they were absolutely happy together. Or it may have been the heat. Anyhow he fell, he must have fallen. And no one ever knew any more than that."
"How dreadful!" Dinah whispered again. "And she was left—all alone?"
"Quite alone except for the natives, and they didn't find her till the day after. She was pacing up and down the ledge then, up and down, up and down eternally, and she refused—flatly refused—to leave it till he should come back. She had spent the whole night there alone, waiting, getting more and more distraught, and they could do nothing with her. They were afraid of her. Never from that day to this has she admitted for a moment that he must have been killed, though in her heart she knows it, poor girl, just as she knew it from the very beginning."
"But what happened?" breathed Dinah. "What did they do? They couldn't leave her there."
"They didn't know what to do. Theshikariwas the only one with any ideas among them, and he wasn't especially brilliant. But after another day and night he hit on the notion of sending one of the coolies back with the news while he and the other men waited and watched. They kept her supplied with food. She must have eaten almost mechanically. But she never left that ledge. And yet—and yet—she was kept from taking the one step that would have ended it all. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't have been better—more merciful—" He broke off.
"Perhaps God was watching her," murmured Dinah shyly.
"Yes, I tell myself that. But even so, I can't help wondering sometimes." Scott's voice was very sad. "She was left so terribly desolate," he said. "Those letters that you saw last night are all she has of him. He has gone, and taken the mainspring of her life with him. I hate to think of what followed. They sent up a doctor from the nearest station, and she was taken away,—taken by force. When I got to her three weeks later, she was mad, raving mad, with brain fever. I had the old nurse Biddy with me. We nursed her between us. We brought her back to what she is now. Some day, please God, we shall get her quite back again; but whether it will be for her happiness He only knows."
Scott ceased to speak. His brows were drawn as the brows of a man in pain.
Dinah's eyes were full of tears. "Oh, thank you for telling me! Thank you!" she murmured. "I do hope you will get her quite back, as you say."
He looked at her, saw her tears, and put out a gentle hand that rested for a moment upon her arm. "I am afraid I have made you unhappy. Forgive me! You are so sympathetic, and I have taken advantage of it. I think we shall get her back. She is coming very, very gradually. She has never before taken such an interest in anyone as she took in you last night. She was talking of you again this morning. She has taken a fancy to you. I hope you don't mind."
"Mind!" Dinah choked a little and smiled a quivering smile. "I am proud—very proud. I only wish I deserved it. What—what made you bring her here?"