"Love is abroad to-night; his wingsBeat softly at Heaven's gate!"
"Love is abroad to-night; his wingsBeat softly at Heaven's gate!"
Murmuring the musical lines, she passed to the quay, and leaping lightly onto the beach, made her way to the breakwater.
At nine o'clock Portmaris, as a rule, goes to bed.
No one was stirring; the street, the quay, were empty. The tide was far out now, and the sands lay a golden beat between sea and beach, unbroken save where at the very margin of the lapping wavelets a boat lay at anchor.
Not even a greater enthusiast than Francis Lisle could have desired a more delicious picture than she made flitting slowly yet lightly over the beach, her graceful figure casting a long shadow behind her. "Night is youth's season," says the poet, and Leslie's heart was beating to-night with a strange pulsation.
She reached the spot where she had sat with Ralph Duncombe's ring in her hand, and going down on one knee searched carefully. The bright light revealed every pebble, and, convinced at last that it was not there, but that she must have held it until she had run some way down the sands, before she dropped it, she rose from her knees with a sigh, and was going back when she saw a man's form lying full length on the top of the breakwater.
It was a young fisherman apparently, for he was clad in the tight-fitting blue jersey and long sea boots, and wore the red woolen cap common to men and boys in Portmaris. He was stretched out full length with his head resting on his arms, his face upturned, perfectly still and motionless.
It occurred to Leslie that he might have picked up the ring, and, well aware that his class was as honest as the day she went up to him, saying:
"Have you found a ring on the beach, just here?"
The man did not answer nor move, and when she got quite up to him she saw that he was asleep.
She saw, too, something else; that it was not a Portmaris fisherman, but the young man whom Mr. Temple had called "Yorke."
With a sudden rush of crimson to her face she was about to beat a retreat when Yorke started slightly, opened his eyes, and stared up at her.
The next instant he was off the breakwater and on his feet.
"By George!" he exclaimed, with a bated breath. "It is you, Miss Lisle!"
"Yes, it is I," said Leslie as calmly and composedly as she could, and from the effort for composure her voice sounded rather cold.
"I beg your pardon. Of course it is. But——," he hesitated a moment. "Well, the fact is, I was dreaming about you——." He stopped, as if he were afraid he had given offense.
But Leslie smiled.
"It must have been an uncomfortable dream," she said, glancing at the breakwater.
"No," he said. "I was never more comfortable in my life. I'm more used to roughing it than you'd think. I suppose it was the beauty of the night that tempted you as it tempted me?" he went on, with his frank eyes on her face.
Leslie looked down. She could not ask him the question she had put to the supposed fisherman—if he had found her ring, of course, he would give it to her.
"Yes," she said.
"I told Dolph it was too good to sit indoors," he went on. "That's my cousin, the man you saw to-day, you know."
"Mr. Temple?" said Leslie.
"Mr.—yes, Mr. Temple," he assented, after a moment's hesitation. "And I tried to lure him out; but he doesn't care about stirring after dinner, poor old chap——," he broke off with a laugh. "You are looking at my get-up?" he said.
Leslie smiled.
"I suppose you took me for one of the marine monsters who abound here. Fact is, I found my things wetter than I supposed——."
"I knew you would!" said Leslie, with an air of gentle triumph.
"Yes, and as I hadn't a change with me I borrowed a suit from the landlady's boy; a 'boy' about six feet high. I fancy I rather upset my cousin's man sitting down to dinner in 'em; but they're astonishingly comfortable. I'm half inclined to take to them as a regular thing. After all, one might be worse than a fisherman, Miss Lisle."
"Very much," said Leslie, with a smile.
"Oh, you're surely not going!" he said, as she half turned toward the quay. "It's far better out here than indoors; and it's early, too. Won't you walk across the sand to the edge of the sea? It's quite dry."
He moved in that direction as he spoke, and Leslie, with a twinge of conscience, moved also.
"It's a pity all life can't be a moonlight night," he said, after a pause, and with a faint sigh. "By George, it would be grand on the water to-night. There's just enough wind to keep a boat going—and there's a boat!" he exclaimed, pointing to the boat lying at anchor at the edge of the water as if he had made a discovery which was to render this weary world happy for evermore. "What do you say to going for a little sail, Miss Lisle?"
He put the question very much as one truant from school might put it to another, only a little more timorously.
"It would be splendid, a thing to be remembered. Oh, don't say no! I've set my heart upon it——."
"Why should you not go?" said Leslie, trying to smile, and to keep from her eyes the wistful longing which his audacious suggestion had aroused.
"By myself!" he said, reproachfully, and with a kind of high-minded wonder. "I wouldn't be so selfish. Come, Miss Lisle—I—I mean we—may never have another chance like this. You don't get such nights as this in England often. And you need not be nervous. I can manage a boat in half a gale. But never mind if you think you wouldn't be safe."
This may have been a stroke of artfulness or pure ingenuousness; it settled the matter.
"I have never been afraid in my life—that I remember," said Leslie, conscientiously.
"Then that settles it!" he said, in that tone of free joyousness which appeals to a woman more than any tone a man can use. "Here we are—and by Jove, here's a real sea-monster asleep in the boat. Hallo, there!" he called out to an old man who lay curled up in the bottom of the boat.
Leslie laughed softly.
"It is of no use calling to him," she said. "He is stone deaf. It is old Will, and he is waiting for the turn of the tide."
"Like a good many more of us," said Yorke, cheerfully, and he was about to shake the man, but Leslie put her hand on his arm and stayed him.
"I—I think I had better wake him," she said. "He is old, and not very good-tempered, and——."
"I see. All right," said Yorke. "I'll keep here in the background. If he refuses to go tell him we'll take his boat and do without him."
Leslie bent over the gunwale, and touched the old man gently. He stirred after a moment or two, and got up on his elbow, frowning at her.
Leslie indicated by expressive pantomime that they wanted to go for a sail, and, after glancing at the sky and at Yorke, the old fellow nodded surlily, and got out of the boat.
Yorke helped him to push the boat into the water.
"And now how are you going to get in?" he said to Leslie, but before she could answer the question old Will took her in his arms and carried her bodily into the boat.
Leslie smiled.
"He is a very self-willed old man, and no one in Portmaris interferes with or contradicts him, perhaps because he is deaf."
"I see," said Yorke. "I never realized until to-night the great advantages of that affliction."
He went forward as he spoke to assist with the sail, but the old man surlily waved him back into the stern.
"All right, William, I'll steer then," he said; but he had no sooner got hold of the tiller than Will angrily signed to him to release it, and pointed to Leslie.
"I think he wants me to steer," she said, with a faint blush. "I am often out sailing with him."
"He evidently regards me as a land lubber, whatever that is," said Yorke. "But, right! the password for to-night is, 'Don't cross old William!'"
He dropped down at her feet and leaned his head upon his hand, and sighed with supreme, unboundedcontent, and there was silence for a few minutes as the boat glided out to sea; then he said:
"Do you think old William would fly into a paroxysm of rage if I offered him a pipe of tobacco, Miss Lisle?"
"You might try," said Leslie, and the tone of her voice was like an echo of his. The two truants were enjoying themselves, and had no thought of the schoolmaster—just then.
Yorke took out his pouch, and flung it with dextrous aim into the old man's lap. He took it up, glowered at the donor for a moment, then nodded surlily, and, filling his pipe, pitched the pouch back.
"We still live!" said Yorke, and he was about to fill his own pipe, but remembered himself and stopped.
"Please smoke if you wish to," said Leslie, "I do not mind. We must not go far," she added.
"Not farther than Quebec or, say, Boulogne," said Yorke. "All right, Miss Lisle, we'll turn directly you say so. How delightful this is! I may have been happier in the course of an ill-spent life, but I don't remember it. Are you sorry you came? Please answer truthfully, and don't mind my feelings."
But Leslie did not answer. The strange feeling which had haunted her as she left the house was growing more distinct and defiant, stronger and more aggressive. Was it really she, Leslie Lisle, who was sailing over the moonlit sea with this careless and light-hearted young man, or should she wake presently in her tiny room in Sea View and find it all a dream?
Happy? Was this novel sensation, as of some vague undefined joy, happiness or what?
She was wise to leave the question unanswered!
Yorke smoked in silence for a minute or two, then he turned on his elbow so that he could look up at her.
"Miss Lisle," he said, "were you looking for something when you came down the beach justnow? I ask because I thought you looked rather troubled——."
"But you were asleep!" said Leslie.
He colored, and his eyes dropped.
"I've given myself away," he said, penitently. "No, Miss Lisle, I wasn't asleep. But I thought it better to pretend, as the children say, lest you should take fright and run away."
Leslie looked away from him.
"You are angry? Well, it serves me right. But don't think of it. Try and forgive me if you can, for I was half asleep, and I was dreaming of you—there, I've offended you again! But don't you know how you can dream though you are wide awake? I was wondering whether I should see you again—there was no harm in that, was there?—wondering whether I should have seen you or spoken to you at all if it hadn't been for Dick——. By the way, how is Dick?"
"He is all right," she said, the tension caused by his former words suddenly relieved, "but I do not think he will ever forgive you for saving his life."
"I'm afraid not," he said. "But you have not answered my question yet."
"Which one?" asked Leslie, with a smile.
"Whether you had lost anything," he said.
"Yes, I had," she replied, in a low voice.
He put his hand in his waistcoat-pocket, and took out the ring and held it up.
"Is this it?" he said, and his voice was suddenly grave and serious.
Leslie took it from his fingers.
"Thank you. Yes," she said. "Where did you find it?"
He was silent a moment as if lost in thought, then he said, as if with an effort:
"On the beach; just where you had been sitting this afternoon. You dropped it, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Leslie.
There was a pause.
"You are glad to get it back?"
"Yes," she said, looking straight in front of her.
"An old favorite, Miss Lisle?" his eyes fixed onthe beautiful face over which the moonbeams fell lovingly.
"N-o," she said, the faint color creeping into her cheeks.
"No! But you were glad to get it back. You didn't seem so very glad, you know."
"No, I was not so very glad," she said, almost inaudibly.
He seemed relieved, and yet rather doubtful still.
"It's singular," he said. "But this is the second thing of yours I have found to-day."
"Yes."
"And they say that if you find two things in one day you are sure to lose something yourself," he murmured, a serious, intent look coming into his dark eyes.
"But the day has gone, and you have not lost anything!" said Leslie, with a smile.
His eyes dropped from his intense regard of her face.
"I am not so sure!" he said.
Did she hear him?
The boat sails on. Leslie has no mother to watch over her and warn her of sinning against the great goddess Propriety; and as there is no harm to him who thinks none, Leslie is not troubled by conscience because she is out sailing on this Heaven sent evening with a young man and only deaf William for chaperon.
Perhaps this is because of the peculiar nature of the young man. There is no shyness about Yorke, and his manner is just of that kind to inspire confidence; he treats Leslie with a mixture of frankness and respect which could not be greater if he had known her for years instead of a few hours only; and it is but fair to add that his manner toward a duchess would be just the same.
He is happy, is enjoying himself to the utmost, and he assuredly does not trouble his head about the proprieties. But all the same, he is silent after that last remark of his, which Leslie may or may not have heard.
He is lying across the boat, so that without much effort he can see her face. What a lovely face it is, he thinks, and how thoughtful. Is she thinking of that letter he gave her, or of the ring? And who gave her that? It ought not to matter to him, and yet the question worries him not a little. He dismisses it with a half audible "Heigh-ho!"
"I suppose these are what are called dancing waves?" he says at last. "Are you fond of dancing, Miss Leslie? But of course you are."
Leslie lets her dark gray eyes fall on his handsome upturned face as if she had been recalled to earth.
"Oh, yes," she says. "All women are, are they not? But I do not get much dancing. It is years since I was at a party. My father is not strong, and dislikes going out, and—well, there is no one else to go with me; besides, I should not leave him."
He nods thoughtfully, and some idea of what her life must be dawns upon him.
"You must lead a very quiet life," he says.
Leslie smiles.
"Yes, very, very quiet," she assents.
"What do you do to amuse yourself?" he asks.
Leslie thinks a moment.
"Oh," she says, cheerfully, and without a shadow of discontent in her voice or in her face, "I take walks, when my father does not want me, but he usually likes me to stay with him while he is painting; and sometimes William takes me for a sail, and there is the piano. My father likes me to play while he is at work; but when he does not I read."
"And is that all?" he says, raising himself on his elbow that he may better see her face.
"All?" she repeats. "What else is there? It seems a great deal."
He does not answer, but he thinks of the women he knows, the idle women who are always restlessand discontented unless they are deep in some excitement, riding, driving, ball and theater going; and as he thinks of the difference between their lives and this girl's, there rises in his breast a longing to brighten her life if only for a few hours a day.
"Well," he says, "it sounds rather slow. And—and have you led this kind of life long?"
"As long as I can remember," replies Leslie. "Papa and I have been alone together ever since I was a little mite, and—yes, it has always been the same."
"And you never go to a theater, a dance, a concert?"
Leslie laughs softly.
"Never is a big word," she says. "Oh, yes, when we are in London my father sometimes but very seldom takes me to a theater, and now and again there are dances at the boarding houses we stay at."
Yorke almost groans. How delightful it would be to take this beautiful young creature for a whole round of theaters, to see her dressed in full war paint, to watch those dark gray eyes light up with pleasant and girlish joy.
"And which are you most fond of?" he asks. "Walking, sailing, playing, reading?"
She thinks again.
"I don't know. I'm very fond of the country, and enjoy my walks, but then I am also fond of sailing, and music, and reading. Do you know the country round here?"
He shakes his head.
"No, I only came to-day, you know."
"Ah, yes," she says, and she says it with a faint feeling of surprise; it seems to her as if he had been here at Portmaris for a week at least. "There is a very lovely place called St. Martin; it is about twelve miles out. There is an old castle, or the remains of one, and from the top of it you can see—well, nearly all the world, it seems."
"That must be worth going to," he says, and an idea strikes him. "My cousin—I mean Mr. Temple, you know—would like to see that."
"Yes," says Leslie. "But he could not walk so far."
"No. Do you mean to say you can?"
Leslie laughs softly.
"Oh, yes; I have walked there and back several times."
"You must be very strong!"
"Yes, I think I am. I am always well; yes, I suppose I am strong."
He still sighs at her; the graceful figure is so slight that he finds it difficult to realize her doing twenty-four miles. The women he knows would have a fit at the mere thought of such an undertaking.
"I think to-morrow is going to be a fine day," he says, looking up at the cloudless sky with a business-like air.
"Yes," says Leslie, as if she were first cousin to the clerk of the weather. "It's going to be fine to-morrow."
"Well, then," he says, "I'll try and get something and drive my cousin over to—what's the name of the place with the castle?"
"St. Martin."
"Yes. The worst of it is that he—I mean my cousin, and not St. Martin—so soon gets bored if he hasn't some one more amusing than I am to keep him company; you see, he's an invalid, and crotchety."
"Poor fellow!" murmurs Leslie. "And yet he is so kind and generous," she adds as she thinks of the fifty pounds he has given for the "picture."
"Yes, indeed!" he assents. "The best fellow that ever drew breath, for all his whims and fancies; and he can't help having those, you know. He would like to go to St. Martin to-morrow, especially if you—do you think we could persuade you and Mr. Lisle to accompany us?"
Leslie looks at him almost startled, then the color comes into her face, and her eyes brighten.
"It would be awfully good-natured of you if you would," he goes on, quickly, and as if he knew hewas demanding a great sacrifice of her "awfully good nature."
"My father——." Leslie shakes her head. "I am afraid he would not go; he will want to paint if the day is fine."
"He can paint at St. Martin," he breaks in, eagerly. "There must be no end of sketches, studies, whatever you call it, there, you know. I wish you'd ask him! It would do my cousin so much good, and—and," the arch hypocrite falters as he meets the innocent, eagerly wistful eyes, "though I dare say you won't care for the dusty drive, and have seen quite enough of the place, still, you'd be doing a good action, don't you know, and—all that. It will cheer my cousin up sooner than anything."
"Very well," says Leslie. "I will ask my father. But it will not matter if we do not go. You must persuade Mr. Temple."
"Mr. ——. Oh, my cousin, yes," he says, with sudden embarrassment. "Yes, of course. Thank you! It is awfully good of you."
Leslie looks at him, her color deepening; then she laughs softly.
"Why, I want to go, too!" she says. "There is no goodness in it."
Yorke Auchester's glance falls before her guileless eyes.
"Then that settles it," he says, confidently. "What point is that out there, Miss Lisle?"
Leslie starts.
"That is Ragged Points!" she replies. "I had no idea we had come so far; please tell him I am going to put the boat round; it must be very late!"
"No, it isn't," he says. "I can tell by the moon. Can't we go a little farther?"
But she ports the helm, and old William, without a word, swings the sail over, and the boat's nose is pointing to land.
Yorke looks at Portmaris, asleep in the moonlight, regretfully.
"That's the worst of being thoroughly happy and comfortable," he says. "It always comes to an end and you have to come back. What a pace we aregoing, too!" he adds, almost in a tone of complaint.
"The wind is with us," says Leslie.
"I should like to stay at Portmaris and buy a boat," he says, after a moment or two. "It would be very jolly."
Leslie smiles.
"It is not always fine even at Portmaris," she says. "Sometimes the waves are mountain high, and the sea runs up over the quay as if it meant to wash the village away."
"Well, I shouldn't mind that," he remarks. "I wonder why one lives in London? One is always grunting at and slanging it, and yet one hangs on there." He sighs inaudibly as he thinks of what it must be to-night, with its feverish crowd, its glaring lights, its yelling cabmen and struggling horses; thinks of the folly, and, alas! the wickedness, and glances at the lovely, peaceful face above him with a great yearning—and regret.
"I like London," says Leslie. "But then I go there so seldom, that it is a holiday place to me."
"I know," he responds. "Yes, I can understand that. And I like Portmaris because it is a holiday place to me, I suppose."
Leslie smiles.
"I hope you will not catch cold and be all the worse for this holiday," she says.
He laughs.
"There is no fear of that. I never felt better in my life."
"You must sit firm now," she warns him. "I am going to drive the boat on to the sand."
"Here already!" he remarks, as the keel of the boat touches bottom, and the sails run down with a musical thud; and he steps over the side, and so suddenly that the boat lurches over after him.
He puts out his strong arm to stay her from falling, while old William curses the "land lubber" in accents low but deep.
"I'm about as awkward in a small boat as a hippopotamus," he says, remorsefully. "Will you let me help you ashore?"
He means "carry you," and he holds out hisarms, but Leslie shrinks back ever so slightly, and old William comes to the side of the boat and picks her up as a matter of course.
Yorke slips a sovereign into the old man's horny palm, and William, who is not dumb as well as deaf, would probably open his lips now, but for astonishment and amazed delight. He does, however, grin.
As the two walk up the beach Yorke looks behind him at the moonlit sea and the boats, and shakes his head.
"It was a shame to come in," he says, "but never mind, perhaps——." He stops, not daring to finish the sentence, but he feels as if he would cheerfully give half the amount of the check in his pocket for such another sail in the same company.
The quay is empty, the street silent, but as they go up it they see the crippled "Mr. Temple" leaning against the door of Marine Villa.
His keen eyes rest upon them both good-naturedly.
"Where have you been?" he asks.
"Where you ought to have been, Dolph," replies Yorke. "On the water. You can't imagine what it is like."
"Oh, yes, I can," says the duke. "But I am—too old for moonlight sails. I am a day-bird. Have you enjoyed it, Miss Lisle?"
Leslie smiles for answer.
"Look here, Dolph," says Yorke, with affected carelessness. "What do you say to driving out to a place called St. Martin to-morrow? I'm going to try and persuade Miss Lisle and her father to show us the way."
The duke looks at her.
"I shall be very glad," he says. "Will you come, Miss Lisle?"
"If my father——," begins Leslie, and the duke interrupts her.
"We ought to send a formal invitation," he says, with a smile. "Will you give Mr. Lisle our compliments, Miss Lisle, and tell him how much the Duke of Rothbury and Mr. Temple will be indebtedto him if you and he will accompany them on a drive to-morrow."
Leslie looks from one to the other for a moment as if she did not understand. The Duke of Rothbury! Can he be jesting?
The duke struggles with a smile as he sees her astonishment, then he says, casually:
"I hope you found the duke a good sailor, Miss Lisle."
Leslie glances at Yorke, who stands staring at his fishermen's boots, with a moody and not well pleased expression on his face.
"I nearly upset the boat," he says, as if to account for his change of countenance.
"It did not matter," she says. "We were on the sands. Yes, I will tell my father, and—thank you very much."
If the duke expected her to be overwhelmed by the announcement of the title he is doomed to disappointment. The first sensation of surprise over, Leslie is as calm and self-possessed as before.
"Good-night," she says, in her sweet, low voice, and a moment afterward the door of Sea View is closed upon her.
The duke looked at his cousin's downcast face with a whimsical smile.
"How well she took it!" he said. "A London girl of the most accomplished type could not have concealed her flutters with greater ease."
"She had nothing to conceal," said Yorke, with averted eyes. "It didn't matter to her that—that you called me a duke. Why should it?"
"Why should it! My dear Yorke, you have grown simple during your moonlight sail. Oh, she was confused and flustered, believe me; but all her sex are actresses from the cradle. Give me your hand, and let us go in."
Yorke helped him up the stairs and into his chair, then stood gazing moodily out of the window.
"Your outing seems to have made you melancholy, Yorke," said the duke. "And yet you looked as if you enjoyed it just now."
"So I did, but——Dolph, I wish to Heaven you hadn't told her that infer—that nonsense!"
The duke leaned back, and looked at him with real or simulated surprise.
"Why not?" he asked. "Have you forgotten our bargain, agreement?"
"Yes, I had forgotten it," replied Yorke, grimly.
"So soon! Why are you so put out? What does it matter? You are going to-morrow——."
"You forget the drive—the appointment; but the best thing I can do is to go, as you say," said Yorke. "You can make some excuse——."
"Nonsense! If you care for this outing, stay and go. It will only mean one more day, and London will not fall to pieces because of your absence for twenty-four hours."
"It is not that——."
"Well, what is it, then? Are you thinking of this girl?"
Yorke flushed, and turned to the window again.
"What does it matter?" went on the duke. "She is a nice girl, but, my dear Yorke," and his voice grew grave, "even if we had not made this little arrangement about the title, she would be nothing more to you than just a pleasant young lady whom you chanced to meet at an outlandish place on the West Coast."
Yorke thrust his hands deep into his pockets—or rather young Whiting's—and the flush on his face grew deeper!
"I know that!" he said, as grimly as before.
"Very well, then! I repeat—what does it matter? If you are annoyed because, in accordance with an arrangement, I introduced you as the duke, why on earth did you consent? It is too late now! Even if I hadn't told her, Grey, or the woman of the house here, or some one else would have done so to-morrow morning——."
"It is too late, I suppose!" broke in Yorke, moodily.
"Quite too late," retorts the duke, decisively. "To tell the truth now would create a sensation and fuss which would be unendurable." He put hishand to his head as he spoke, and moaned faintly as if in pain. "Give me that small vial off the table, will you, please?" he said.
One of his periodical attacks of nervous neuralgia was coming on; and at such times he was wont to grow irritable.
Yorke poured out some of the medicine, and gave it to him.
"Thanks. Yes, it would make a hideous fuss. We should have it in the papers headed, 'A Ducal Hoax,' or something of that kind. But I don't want to force you into anything against your will. I can leave here the first thing to-morrow; I certainly should go if you departed from our arrangement. I came down here for rest and quiet, and I should get none if it were known who I am. Yes, we'd better go to-morrow."
"No, no," said Yorke. "After all, as you say, it does not matter. Besides—besides, I shouldn't care to deprive her of the little bit of pleasure I'd planned for her; I fancy she doesn't get too much of it."
"I dare say not. Very well, then, you'll stay till after to-morrow? For goodness sake try and look a little less funereal. You had no objection to assuming the role till you met this girl. What difference does she make? You think she will make love to you, eh? I should have thought from what I know of you, Yorke, that you would have no very great objection to that."
Yorke swung round almost angrily.
"Look here, Dolph," he said, grimly. "You are altogether mistaken about her. I tell you that she does not care, and will not care, whether I or you are the duke; she is not that sort of girl at all."
The duke was in a paroxysm of pain, intense enough to turn a saint cynical; he sneered:
"I know them all, root and branch," he said, his thin voice rendered shrill and cutting by his agony. "I tell you that she will make love to you; that, thinking you are the duke, she will try and marry you as she would try and marry me if she knew the truth."
"No!" said Yorke, shortly, almost fiercely. "I say that she would not care."
"You seem to have learned her nature very quickly," retorted the duke, with another sneer.
Yorke colored and turned away.
"I tell you that she will turn out like the rest. You deny it, doubt it; very well. Play the part you have assumed, and if I am wrong I will admit I have done her an injustice."
"You do her a cruel injustice!" said Yorke, in a low voice.
"Very well, then!" shouted the duke. "Try her, try her. And then own that I was right. Ah, you're afraid. You know, in your heart, that she would not stand the test! Your innocent, high-minded girl would prove like the rest! Come, you are beaten! Better spare her the disappointment of setting her cap at a false duke; better go to-morrow, my dear Yorke!"
Yorke swung round, his face pale, an angry light in his eyes.
"No, I'll stay!" he said.
When Leslie wakes next morning she wonders what it is that sends a thrill of happiness through her; then, as with dazed eyes she looks through the sunny window, she remembers the proposed expedition to St. Martin; but she remembers also that the companion of last evening is a duke, and her spirits droop suddenly.
It is difficult to persuade her father to join in the mildest of excursions; it will be very difficult, indeed, to induce him to accept an invitation to drive with a duke. Some women would have experienced an added joy at the thought that they had been honored with civility from a person of such high rank; but the fact rather lessens Leslie's pleasure.
Yorke did her justice; she is not elated nor awed by the ducal title.
When she comes down to breakfast she finds her father posing in front of his picture, his thin hands clasped behind his back, his head bent; and as she kisses him he sighs rather querulously.
"Is anything the matter, dear?" she asks.
"I've got a headache," he replies. "I—I do not feel up to work, and I am so anxious to get on. How do you think it looks?"
Leslie draws him away from the easel to the table, and forces him gently into his chair.
"We will not look at it this morning, at any rate until we have had breakfast, dear," she says. "It is wonderful how much better and brighter this world and everything in it looks after a cup of coffee. But, papa, you must not work to-day, you must take a rest——."
"A rest!" he begins, impatiently.
"Yes; you know how often you say that working against the grain is time and energy wasted. And there is another reason, dear," she goes on, brightly. "We have an invitation for to-day!"
"A what?" he asks, querulously.
"An invitation, dear. We have been asked to drive to St. Martin. Last night," a faint blush rises to her face, "I ran down to the beach to—to find something I had lost, and I saw Mr. Temple's friend, and we went for a sail with old William; and afterward I saw Mr. Temple outside Marine Villa, and they have been kind enough to ask us to go with them to St. Martin. It was the duke who asked us," she adds, candidly; "but Mr. Temple was just as kind and pressing. I hope you will go, dear."
He puts the thin, straggling hair from his forehead with a nervous gesture.
"What are you talking about, Leslie? what duke?"
Leslie laughs softly.
"It appears that the young man who went in for Dick yesterday, Mr. Temple's friend, is a duke, the Duke of Rothbury," she replies.
Like herself, he is neither elated nor awed, but he lisps a distinct refusal of the invitation.
"The Duke of Rothbury?" he says. "I—I think I've heard the title somewhere. Why do they ask us to go with them? I don't want to go; and I suppose you don't care for it. They are strangers, perfect strangers to us."
"He has already proved himself a very kind friend," says Leslie, gently.
He flushes.
"You mean in buying the picture? Yes, yes. But you know how I dislike strangers, and—and—excursions of this kind. And if you don't want to go very much I'd rather not. Besides, I don't particularly care about making the acquaintance of a duke; I am an artist, a professional man, and I do not believe in associating with persons so far above me in rank. No, we had better decline. I dare say my head will be all right presently, and I shall be able to work, and you can come with me and mix the colors, and so on."
"Very well, dear," she says, struggling to suppress a sigh. "You shall do just as you like. I should have liked to have gone, and the drive would have done you good."
"I am quite well, and I hate long drives," he responds, emphatically, "especially in the company of dukes. What is he doing down here?" he asks, testily. "Did you say you went for a sail with him last evening?"
"Yes," says Leslie, with a sigh that will not be suppressed as she thinks of the moonlit sea, and the pleasant companion who unfortunately has turned out to be a duke. "Yes, and he was very kind and nice, and not a bit like so grand a personage," she adds, with a smile. "He looked exactly like a—fisherman last night, and talked like a young man fresh from school or college. He is not my idea of a duke at all; I fancy I must have thought that dukes talked in blank verse, and habitually wore their coronets and robes."
He waves the subject aside with nervous impatience.
"I don't know anything about them, and I don't want to," he says, getting up and fidgeting round the picture. "I've got this sky too deep, I think, and——." He continues in an inaudible mutter.
Leslie knows that it is useless to say any more, and is silent, and when her breakfast things are cleared away she gets out her plain little desk to write a refusal.
But at the outset she finds herself in a difficulty. "Mr. and Miss Lisle regret," etc., sounds too formal after that eminently informal sail last night, and yet she does not know how to begin her note in the first person. Should she address him as "Dear duke," or "Your grace," or "My lord," or how?
"Did you ever write to a duke, papa?" she asks at last, playing a tattoo with the pen-holder upon her white, even teeth.
"Never, thank Heaven," he says, absently.
"Then you cannot help me?" she says, with a sigh, and ultimately she puts the note in the formal method.
"Miss Lisle presents her compliments to the Duke of Rothbury, and regrets that she and Mr. Lisle are unable to accept his kind invitation for to-day."
"It looks dreadfully stilted and ungrateful," she says to herself; "but it will certainly remove any risk of further acquaintance, and papa will not be worried into knowing such a great personage."
She sends the note over by Mrs. Merrick's small servant, and in five minutes that diminutive maid comes back open-eyed and mouthed with awe and importance.
"If you please, miss, I gave the note to the gentleman what wheels the other gentleman's chair, and he says the duke has gone to Northcliffe, but he'll give him the note when he comes back."
Leslie laughs rather ruefully.
"We need not have worried about the drive to St. Martin, papa," she says. "The duke has forgotten all about it."
But the artist is painting away vigorously, and apparently does not hear her, and with a feeling of disappointment which it is useless to struggleagainst, she gets out some work and seats herself at the open window.
She has proved more reliable than the usual run of weather prophets, and the day is all she prognosticated. The street is bathed in sunlight, the sea is sparkling as if it had been sprinkled with amethysts; there is a soft breeze laden with the perfume of the early summer flowers in the cottage gardens; a thrush perched on a tree close by is singing with all its might and main. It would have been very pleasant, that proposed drive to St. Martin.
The morning passes slowly onward; the artist, too absorbed by his work to notice the sunlight, or the sea, or the birds, is still painting when, with the striking of the midday hour there mingles the click clack of horses' hoofs on the stony street, and Leslie looking up with a start—for she has been thinking of all she has lost—sees a wagonette and a pair of stylish bays draw up to the door.
On the box is Yorke, no longer in the fisherman's jersey, but clad in Harris tweed, his handsome face bright and cheerful, his whole "get up" and manner suggesting pleasure and a holiday.
After quieting the spirited horses with words and a touch of the whip, he looks down from his high perch, and seeing the startled eyes looking up at him, raises his hat and smiles.
"Are you ready?" he inquires, just as he inquired last night.
Leslie shakes her head, and tries to smile, but the effort is a failure, and putting down her work, she comes to the open door.
"Oh, I am so sorry," she says. "Did you not get my note?"
"What note?" he asks. "Stand still, will you! No, I haven't seen any note. What was it about?"
"We cannot come," she says, with a look at the horses which is more wistful even than she knows.
His face clouds instantly.
"Not come! Oh, I say! Has anything happened? Why not? It's the loveliest day——."
"Yes, isn't it?" she assents, shading her eyes andlooking round. "But my father is not well. He has a headache, and——."
"Why, that's all the more reason he should go!" he responds, promptly. "The drive would set him straight!" he urges, remonstratively. "Look here, I'll go and speak to him."
"And while you do the horses will run away straight into the sea," she says, with a smile.
"No, they won't. If you don't mind just standing by this one, the near one. If he moves growl at him like this, 'Stand still!' He'll stop directly."
"Well, I'll try," she says, laughing in spite of herself; and he goes straight into the room.
Lisle looks up at him with impatient surprise and half-dazed; it is as if the young fellow had brought the brilliant sunlight in with him.
"Mr. Lisle, you don't mean to say you aren't coming?" says Yorke.
"Coming? Where?" He has forgotten all about the invitation.
"Why, to St. somewhere or other," says Yorke. "It never entered my head that you'd refuse. Why should you? If you don't care about it yourself, you ought to go for Miss Leslie's sake. She wants a change, an outing; any one can see that. Perhaps you haven't noticed how pale she looks this morning."
Oh, Yorke!
"Leslie is all right," says Lisle, irritably; "she is always strong and well. I'm sorry we cannot accompany you, but I beg your pardon, you are standing in my light. Thank you."
Yorke looks from the pale, livid face of the dreamer to the impossible picture on the easel, and bites his lips. He is sorely tempted to catch up the artist, easel and all, and bundle them into the carriage. Then a far better and more feasible idea strikes him.
"I'm sorry you can't go, Mr. Lisle," he says as indifferently as he can, "because I thought of asking you to make a rough sketch of the castle for me. Want it for my own room, you know. I'm awfully mad on water colors."
Mr. Lisle looks up with awakened interest.
"There is a good sketch to be got out of the west end, the turret," he murmurs, absently.
"That's just what I wanted," Yorke strikes in promptly. "That's the bit I was going to ask you to paint. Come along, sir; allow me," and he catches up the portable easel and paint box and carries them out before Lisle can realize what is being done.
"All right!" Yorke cries to the astonished Leslie: "he is coming. Run in and put your things on, and don't give him time to think."
"But," falters Leslie, a smile beginning to break on the lovely face.
"But nothing!" he cuts in. "Please be quick, or he'll have time to change his mind."
Leslie runs in, laughing, and Yorke, stowing the easel under the seat, shouts out for Grey.
"Tell the—Mr. Temple we're ready," he says quickly. "Got that hamper?"
"Yes, your grace," says Grey.
"Confound——all right then. Get your master down as soon as possible; and Grey, bring me out a glass of ale. Heigh-ho, that was a narrow squeak," and he draws a long breath. "What, let him deprive her of her outing? Not if I had to take the house as well!"
Presently the duke and Grey come out, and Grey helps him into his seat. They have not long to wait for the other two, and Yorke looks approvingly at the slim, graceful figure, which plainly dressed though it may be, is unmistakably that of a lady.
Mr. Lisle, scarcely knowing what they are doing with him, is bundled in; and Yorke, as a matter of course, stands by to assist Leslie to the seat on the box beside him.
"But would not some one else like to sit there?" she says, hesitatingly.
"I am sure Mr. Lisle would be more comfortable inside," he says. "And we mustn't keep the horses waiting longer than we can help, please," he says,and he puts his hand under her elbow and hoists her up carefully.
Then he springs into his place, touches the horses with the whip, and away they go.
Leslie draws a long breath. It is not until they have got to the open country that she can believe that they have actually started.
"It was a near thing," he says, as if he were reading her thoughts.
"Yes," and she smiles; "I don't know how you managed it."
He laughs light-heartedly.
"It was done by force of arms. I meant you—I mean Mr. Lisle—to go, and when I mean a thing I'm hard to obstruct."
"This is rather a grand turn-out, Yorke," remarks the duke. "May one ask where and how you got it? It doesn't look like a hired affair."
"It isn't," he replies. "When I got to Northcliffe I ran against little Vinson, who appears to be staying there. The wagon was standing outside and he asked me if I would like to go for a drive. I said I should if he'd let me have the horses and not ask to go with me. He stared for a minute, then he took off his gloves, and—here you are, you know."
"Wasn't that rather cool?" asks the duke.
Yorke laughs.
"Oh, he's a good-natured little chap, and didn't seem to mind. Said he'd go for a sail instead."
"He must be very good-natured," said Leslie, smiling in spite of herself.
"So he ought to be. He's as rich as Crœsus, and hasn't a care in the world. His father, Lord Eastford, you know, bought up a lot of nursery gardens just outside what was then London, and they've turned out a gold mine. The part got fashionable, you know."
The mention of a lord reminds Leslie—she had forgotten it until now—that the young man beside her is a duke, and she wonders whether she ought to have addressed him as "your grace."
"Now, Miss Lisle," he says, "you've got to playthe part of guide, you know. Is it straight on, or how?"
"Straight on, your grace," she says, thinking she will try how it sounds. It doesn't sound very well in her own ears, nor, apparently, in his, for he stops in the act of flicking a fly off the horse's harness and looks at her; but he does not make any remark.
The roads are good, the day heavenly, and as they bowl along Leslie leans back, wrapped in a supreme content. Her father's voice discoursing of "art" floats now and again toward her, the thud, thud of the horses' hoofs makes pleasant music; and if she should tire of the pretty scenery, there is the handsome face of a good-tempered young man beside her to look at for a change.
Leslie does not know very much about driving; but she knows that he is driving well, that the horses, fresh and high-mettled as they are, are thoroughly under his control; and, half-unconsciously, she finds herself admiring the way in which he handles the whip and the reins.
"May one ask what you are thinking of, Miss Leslie?" he says, glancing at her, after a long silence.
"I was wondering which I liked best—sailing or driving," she replies.
"But you haven't driven yet," he says. "Would you like to drive?"
Leslie shakes her head.
"I should drive them into a ditch, or they would run away with me," she says, smiling.
"Not a bit of it," he retorts; "and I know you are not afraid, because you said last night that you never were afraid."
"Did I say that?" she says. "What wonderful things one says in the moonlight!"
"See here," he says. "I'll show you how to hold the reins."
"If I am not afraid, they will be, if they think you are going to transfer these wild animals to my guidance," and she glances over her shoulder.
"Oh, they're all right," he says, carelessly. "Give me your hand. No, the left one. That's it."
He takes it and opens the slim fingers, and inserts the reins in their proper places; and as he does so notices, if he did not notice last night, how beautifully shaped and refined the small hand is.
"That's right. Now take the whip in your right hand, and—how do you feel?"
"As if I were chained to two romping lions, and they were dragging me off the box."
He laughs, the frank, free laugh which Leslie thinks the pleasantest she ever heard.
"You'll make a splendid whip!" he says, encouragingly. "Hold 'em tight, and don't be afraid of them. Directly you begin to think they are getting too many for you, set your teeth hard, hold 'em like a vise, and give 'em each a flick. So! See? They know you're master then."
The ivory white of Leslie's face is delicately tinted with rose, her eyes are shining brightly, her heart beating to the old tune, "Happiness."
"There is a cart coming, and there isn't room. Oh, dear!" and she begins to get flurried.
"Plenty of room," he says, coolly. "You should shout to the man! But I'll do that for you," and he wakes the sleeping wagoner with a shout that causes the man to spring up and drag his horses aside as if Juggernaut were coming down upon him. "See? That's the way! Oh, you'll do splendidly, and I shall be quite proud of you. I'm fond of driving. Do you know, I've often thought if the worst came to the worst that I'd take to a hansom cab."
Leslie stares at him.
"A duke driving a hansom cab would be rather a novelty, wouldn't it?" she says, with a smile.
To her surprise, his face flushes, and he turns his head away. What has she said? At this moment, fortunately for Yorke's embarrassment, the duke remarks with intentional distinctness:
"Are you insured against accidents, Miss Lisle?"
Leslie holds out the reins.
"You see," she says, "they are getting frightened; and not without cause."
But he will not take the reins from her.
"I know you are enjoying it," he says, just as a schoolboy would speak. "You're all right; I'll help you if you come to a fix. Give that off one a cut, he is letting the other do all the work."
"Which is the off one?" she asks, innocently.
He points to it.
"That's the one. So called because you don't let him off."
It is a feeble joke, but Leslie rewards it with a laugh far and away beyond its merits, and he laughs in harmony.
"You seem to be enjoying yourselves up there," says the duke. "Pray hand any joke down."
"It is Miss Leslie making puns," responds Yorke.
"Now you are getting tired," he says, after a mile or two.
"How do you know?" she asks, curiously.
"Because I can see your hands trembling," he replies. "Give me the reins now, and if you are a good girl you shall drive all the way home."
It is a little thing that he should have such regard for her comfort, but it does not pass unnoticed by Leslie, as she resigns the reins with a "Thank you, your grace."
His face clouds again, however, and he bestows an altogether unnecessary cut on the horses, who plunge forward.
"There is St. Martin, and there is the castle," she says, presently. "Is it not pretty?"
"Very," he assents, but he looks round inquiringly. "I'm looking for some place in which to put the cattle up," he explains. "Horses don't care much for ruins, unless there are hay and oats."
"There is a small inn at the foot of the castle," says Leslie.
"That's all right then," he rejoins, cheerfully. "Hurry up now, my beauties, and let's show them what Vinson's nags can do."
They dash up the road to the inn at a clinking pace, and pull up in masterly style.
The landlord and a stable boy come running out and Yorke flings them the reins. Then he helpsLeslie down, and goes round to the back to assist the duke.
"I suppose we shall be able to get some lunch here Yorke?" he says, as he leans on his sticks.
"Lunch indoors on a day like this? Not much!" retorts Yorke, scornfully. "Out with that hamper, Grey, and get this yokel to help you carry it to the tower. You can walk as far as that, Dolph? Miss Lisle will show you the way."
At the sound of her name Leslie turns from the rustic window into which she had been mechanically looking.
"Oh, yes. There has been another party here this morning," she adds.
"How do you know that?" asks Yorke.
"Because I can see the remains of their luncheon on the table," she says, laughing.
"Yes, sir," says the landlord. "Party of three, sir; two gentlemen and a lady."
"Thank goodness they have gone!" says Yorke. "You go on. I'll go and see that the horses are rubbed down and fed; I owe that to Vinson, anyhow."
He is not long in following them, but by the time he has reached the tower, Grey has unpacked the basket, and laid out a tempting lunch. There is a fowl, a ham, an eatable-looking fruit tart, cream, some jelly, the crispiest of loaves, and firmest of butter, and a couple of bottles with golden tops.
"Where did you get this gorgeous spread, Yorke?" inquires the duke.
"Oh, I was out foraging early this morning," he says, carelessly. "Now, Miss Leslie, you are the presiding genius. Of course the salt has been forgotten; it always is."
"No, it has not!" says Leslie, holding it up triumphantly. "Nothing has been forgotten. You have brought everything."
"Including an appetite," he says, brightly, and as he opens a bottle of champagne, he sings: