"Yes, Mr.—Mr. Temple," he mutters.
"And what will he say?" she asks, with a smile.
"He? Oh——." He stops. Yes, what will the duke say when he hears that Leslie "has made love," as he will put it, to the supposed duke?
"Look here, dearest," he says, after a pause.
"Why should you or I care a brass farthing what any one thinks or says! The only one I care about is your father."
"Ah, papa!" she murmurs; and she pictures to herself Mr. Lisle's amazement and distress at whathe will regard as a "fuss" and disturbance of his placid "artistic" life.
"Are you afraid, Leslie?" Yorke asks.
"I—I don't know. I am all in all to him; and—I do not know what he will say. He will not be pleased; I mean he will see more plainly than I do that I am not fit to be your wife, that I am not suitable for a duchess. And he will say it is so sudden—and it is, is it not? If he had had a little time to—to get used to it——."
"Let us give him time," he says. "I was going to him now straight away to ask him to give you to me; but if you think it better, if you wish it, it shall be exactly as you think and wish, dearest. I will wait for a little while, until he knows me better, and has got used to me. I suppose it would startle and upset him if I were to go now."
"Oh, yes, yes!" she says. "You do not know how nervous he is, and how easily upset."
"I think I can guess," he responds, thoughtfully.
As he has said, it was his intention to go straight to Mr. Lisle and tell him to go to the duke and announce the engagement; but if Leslie wishes the announcement delayed—well, it will be as well! Will it not be better that he should clear up sundry matters in London before the world hears of his betrothal? Besides, how can he go to Mr. Lisle without confessing that he has been masquerading as a duke and explaining why? Before he can do that he must get the duke to release him from this foolish agreement, which, foolish as it is, still binds him.
"What shall we do, dearest?" he asks, looking down at her.
"Let us wait," she murmurs. "Let us wait for a day or two, till my father knows you better, and—and you have had time to think whether it is well that you should stoop so low——." Her voice dies away. The mere thought of losing him is an agony.
"Yes," he says, almost solemnly, "we will wait, but not for that reason, Leslie. I don't want to think about anything of that kind. As to stooping—well, you will learn some day how I love you, andhow infinitely above me you are. God grant you will not repent having stooped to me, dearest! Yes, we will wait. After all, it may seem sudden to them, and we will give them a little time to get used to it."
"And meanwhile," she says, with a smile, which is half a sigh of regret, "I will try and realize that I am to be a great lady. It will seem rather hard at first. There ought to be a school at which one could learn how to behave. They used to teach girls how to enter a room, and bow, and courtesy, so that they might not disgrace their belongings."
He holds her at arm's length, and laughs at her, his eyes alight with admiration, and love, and worship.
"I've seen you walk down the street and cross the beach, Leslie," he says. "You don't want any lessons in deportment. I'm thinking you'll give some of 'em points, and beat them easily. Don't you ever look in the glass? Don't you know that you are the loveliest, sweetest woman man ever went mad over?"
"Oh, hush, hush!" she says, putting her finger lightly on his lips, and hiding her crimson face against his breast. "You must be blind! But—oh, stay so, dearest, and never, never see me as I really am!"
Two mornings later there rode into the Row at Hyde Park a young lady whose appearance always attracted a great deal of attention. In the first place, she was one of the handsomest, if not the handsomest woman there; in the next, she rode her horse as perfectly as it is possible for a girl to ride; and, lastly, wherever she went, on horseback or on foot, this lady was well known; in fact a celebrity. For she was Miss Finetta.
As she rode in at a brisk canter in the superbly-fitting habit, which seemed an outer skin of thelithe, supple figure, and followed by her correctly clad groom, mounted on a horse as good as that of his mistress, the hats of the men flew off, and the eyeglasses of the women went up, or their owners looked another way. But to smiles or frowns, pleasant nods, or icy stares, Finetta returned the same cool, good-humored smile, the flash of her white teeth and black eyes.
Every now and then London has a fit. Sometimes it takes the shape of hero worship, and down the mob go on their knees to some celebrity, male or female; at others it goes black in the face with hooting and mud-flinging at some object which it has suddenly taken it into its head to hate.
At present all London—all fashionable male London—was in fits of admiration of Finetta; and, strange to say, it had rather more than the usual excuse for its enthusiasm. For she was a remarkable young woman.
Not very long ago she had been playing in company with other girls in the alley in which her father's small coal store was situated; and was perfectly happy when the organ man came into the alley, and she and her playmates danced round that popular instrument.
Her mother wanted her to go to school, or at any rate to help her in the green grocer shop, which was run in conjunction with the coal store; but Finetta—her name at that time was Sarah Ann, by the way—declined to go to school, and confined her ministrations in the shop to stealing the oranges and apples.
Her mother alternately scolded and beat her; her father declared with emphatic and descriptive language, that she would come to no good. And Sarah Ann, taking the scoldings, and the beatings, and the prophecies of a bad end, with infinite good-humor, went on playing hop-scotch, and dancing round the organ, quite happy in her ragged skirts and her black tousled hair, and almost as black face and hands.
But the gods, they say, delight in surprises, and one day an individual happened to come down thatalley who was fated to have an immense influence on Sarah Ann's career.
He was a well-known dancing-master, a first-rate one, and a respectable man whose whole life had been devoted to his art and nothing else.
He saw the group of girls dancing round the organ, stood and watched them with an absent, reflective smile, and then, suddenly, his face lit up and his eyes brightened.
Sarah Ann had run out from the green grocer's shop with an orange she had stolen, and as she tore off the peel with her white teeth, set to dancing with the rest.
The dancing-master drew aside a little, and kept his eyes on the lank, angular girl whose dark orbs glowed under the excitement of the dance, which, unlike that of her companions, was in perfect time with the "music," and full of a grace which was as natural as a young Indian's.
Monsieur Faber, he was a Frenchman, went up to her.
"Are you fond of dancing?" he asked.
"Am I! Ain't I?" she retorted, flashing her teeth upon him. "Why, of course I am! Who ain't?"
"So am I," he said. "Would you like to learn to dance properly?"
"Learn! I can dance already!" she retorted, with a toss of her head.
"Ah, you think so!" he said, smiling, with a kind of good-natured pity.
He looked round; the alley was empty, excepting for the children; and he signed to the organ man to go on playing, and as he played, the thin, dapper little Frenchman began to dance. We won't try and describe it. All the world has seen him, and knows what is meant when it is said that it was Monsieur Faber at his best.
He seemed to be made of springs, India rubber springs, to be as light as a thistle down, to tread, float, on air, and to possess the wind and speed of a dervish.
The black-eyed slip of a girl watched him in breathless amazement and delight; and when hefinished and came on his toe points as if he had just floated down from the grimy house-tops, she uttered a long-drawn sigh of envy and admiration.
"I couldn't do that," she said, looking at him sullenly but wistfully.
"No, not yet," he said. "And why, my child? Because you have not been taught. One does not know how to dance till one learns. Would you like to learn?"
"Shouldn't I, just!" she responded.
"Take me to your mother, and we will see," he said.
She ran, sprang into the shop.
"Mother, here's a man as dances like—like—an angel," (she said "a hangel",) "and he's going to teach me."
The poor woman "went for her" with a stick that lay handy, but M. Faber interposed, and entered on an explanation and a proposal.
He would take Sarah Ann as a pupil, teach her to dance, get her an engagement at one of the theaters, and in return, she was to be bound to him as a kind of apprentice, and give him a certain percentage—it was a fair one—of all she might earn for the next five years.
Sarah Ann's parents hesitated, but Sarah Ann cut the negotiation short by coolly announcing her determination, in the event of their refusing, to accept the offer, to "cut and run," and, knowing that she was quite capable of carrying out her threat the couple consented.
M. Faber christened her Finetta, and commenced the lessons at once. He had two daughters of his own, but though they worked hard, neither they nor any of the other pupils were half so quick at the enchanting science as Sarah Ann—pardon! Finetta—the daughter of the small coal man.
She worked hard, almost day and night; it might be said that she danced in her dreams. She had a good ear for music; "if you only had a voice, my dear child," M. Faber would murmur, throwing up his hands, and when she danced it was like a human instrument playing, moving, in accord andharmony with the mechanical one, the violin or the piano.
She would do nothing at home in the alley; would not serve in the shop, or keep the small coal accounts, or wash her face or brush her hair; but she obeyed M. Faber with an eager alacrity which was almost pathetic.
"I want to dance better than any one in the world!" she would say, and her master encouraged her by remarking that it was not unlikely she would attain her wish.
The months passed on. The angular girl—all legs and wings, like a pullet—grew into a graceful young woman, with a face, which, if not beautiful in the regulation way, was singularly striking, with flashing eyes, and rather large but mobile lips.
"There is a great future before that girl," M. Faber would remark to his wife, a good-natured woman, who treated all the pupils as if they were her own children. But he did not hurry. "One does not learn to dance in a day," he would say, when Finetta begged him to get her an engagement, even if it were ever so small a one. "Patience, my good child; and when the time comes,voila, you shall see!"
The time came, and Finetta appeared among the ladies of the ballet at a small provincial theater. He kept her in the ranks for two years, then gave her a "solo" part, and lastly obtained an engagement for her at the Diadem.
To dance at the Diadem was the height of Finetta's ambition. Her heart beat that night as it had never beat before, not even on her first appearance at the provincial theater; but it did not deafen the music, or drive her steps out of her mind, and when she had finished, the roar of delight that rose in the theater proclaimed the fact that Finetta had scored a triumph, and that M. Faber had not labored in vain.
This was three years ago. Her popularity had steadily increased. She was now the rage. Her salary exceeded that of a cabinet minister; thepercentage alone was a good income for the patient, persevering M. Faber.
When she appeared at night the house roared a welcome, and rewarded her efforts with thunders of applause.
Her photographs were placed among the other celebrities in the shop windows, next those of the Royal Family, the great poets, the eminent statesmen, and sold as well as, if not better than, the rest. Outside the theater hung a huge transparency, showing Finetta in her Spanish dancing-dress; the tobacconists sold a cigarette bearing her name.
All this ought to have turned her head. It did a little, but only a little. To tell the truth, she was a good-hearted girl, and in her prosperity did not forget those near to her. She set her father up in the wholesale coal trade, and put her mother into a nice house in Islington; sent her brother to school, and had her sister to live with her in the pretty house in St. John's Wood, and though the world said hard things of her, she was unjustly accused and calumniated.
Her manners were not those of Lady Clara Vere de Vere. She gave supper parties at which only gentlemen and ladies of the ballet were present; she talked and laughed loudly; she knew nothing, and cared less, for the proprieties; was fond of champagne, and enjoyed a cigarette; delighted in riding, and driving tandem, and did both surpassingly well; but scandal could find no chink in her armor through which to shoot its poisoned darts, and the worst the world could, with truth, call her was "Finetta, the dancer!"
The men who thronged round her called her "a good fellow!" and when a woman of her class has earned that title, depend upon it, she is not so black as the virtuous paint her.
She knew half the peerage—the male side—but she was as friendly and pleasant to a struggling young journalist as to my Lord Vinson. Men sent her letters, telling her they adored her; she lit her cigarettes with them, and told the writers, when next she saw them, not to waste ink and paperupon her, but to make up a party to take her for a drive and a dinner at Richmond.
Sometimes, very often, they sent her presents—diamond rings, bracelets, pendants, lockets, with their portraits (which she always took out), and she accepted them with a carelesssang froid, which was amusing—to all but the donors. The horses she and her groom rode were a gift from a well-known turf lord. It was said that the lease of the house at John's Wood had been given to her; but that was not true.
"Why shouldn't I take 'em?" she said to her sister. "They'll only give 'em to some one else who wouldn't look half so well on them, and wouldn't know how to ride 'em."
So that she often danced at the Diadem wearing gems which made the ladies in the stalls envious, and appeared in the row riding a horse which was a better-looking and going one than even Lady Harkaway's, the famous sportswoman.
Sometimes one of the young men who paid her court, fell in love with her—genuine, honest love—and offered to make her his wife. She might have been a countess, had she chosen; but she did not choose.
"No, thank you," she said to one young peer, who implored her, with something like tears in his eyes to marry him. "What would be the use? You'd find out that you'd made a mistake before a month was out; and so should I. Then people would cut me, and I shouldn't like that. Besides, you'd want me to give up dancing and live what you call respectable, and I'm certain I shouldn't like that! No, you go and marry one of your own set, and take a box for my next benefit and bring her, and you'll be able to say: 'See what you saved me from!' You wouldn't? Oh, yes, you would! I know your sort of people too well. You won't take an answer? Well, then the truth is, I've made up my mind not to marry till I come across a man I can really care for, and I've not tumbled on any one yet, thank you."
She knew the world very well, did Finetta.
She sent them away when they got too "foolish," as she said, and wanted to marry her; dismissing them good-temperedly enough. In fact she was not a bad-tempered woman, and it was only at times that her passionate nature revealed itself. At such times, when she let out, it was a revelation indeed. It was almost as safe to brave the tigress in her den at the Zoological Gardens as to affront Finetta; and they who had done it once were satisfied with the attempt, and did not repeat it.
Now, one day, or rather one night, there came Yorke Auchester, and with him a change in the life of Finetta. They were friends at once. She amused and interested him; he liked to see her dance, liked to hear her talk in her cynical, good-tempered way; liked to drop in at the little house in St. John's Wood after the theater, at the little suppers over which she presided with a light-hearted gayety which made them extremely pleasant.
He admired her on horseback, admired her pluck, her coolness, her readiness to give and take in the game of repartee; and so it came about that of all the men, none were so often in her company as Yorke.
We are the slaves of habit. This is by no means a new saying, but it is a painfully true one.
Yorke got into the habit of dropping in at the Diadem for Finetta's great dance; got into the habit of dropping in at St. John's Wood, of driving her down to Richmond, of riding with her in the park or into the country.
And although he seldom gave her presents, never told her that she was the most beautiful, the cleverest, the best of her sex, as most of the other men did, Finetta liked him better than all the rest put together. And so the chain began to be forged.
When she went on the stage her dark eyes would scan the stalls, and if she saw his handsome, careless face and long figure there, a little smile would curve her lips, and she would dance her best.
At the little supper parties she managed, somehowor other, that he would sit beside her. If she were dull before he came, she brightened up when he made his appearance. If she had made an engagement, she would break it if Yorke asked her to ride and drive with him.
He didn't see this marked preference for some time, but the others did. Her quiet little sister who ran the house, once said:
"Fin, you're going soft on that big Lord Yorke," and the next moment had sufficient cause for being sorry that she had spoken.
But it was the truth. Finetta, who had laughed love to scorn, and broken, or cracked, so many hearts, was in a fair way to discover that she had a heart of her own.
Often when he had left her, she would sit perfectly motionless and silent, thinking hard; then she would start up with a laugh, and burst into a music-hall song. But it often ended with a sigh.
She was angry with herself, and she fought hard against the thralldom that was creeping over her; but she could no more help feeling happy when he was present, and miserable when he was absent, than she could help dancing in time, or dropping her 'H's' when she was excited.
Nothing stands still in this world; love grows or decreases. Finetta's love for Lord Yorke grew day by day, until it had reached such a pass that when he went off she needs must throw up her part for the night and follow him, and failing to find him, come back wretched at heart, though outwardly as cool and debonair as usual.
That morning as she was putting on her habit, her sister Polly had ventured to say a few more words of warning.
"That Lord Yorke will make your heart ache, Fin," she said, as she buttoned her sister's boots.
"Oh, will he?" she retorted, with a dash of color coming into her cheeks.
"Yes, he will. And what's the good? He won't ask you to marry him."
"Oh, won't he? How do you know?"
"I've heard them talk about him. He's as poor as a rat."
"But I'm not!"
"No, I dare say; but that won't help you. Besides, he's a good as engaged to that Lady Eleanor Dallas."
Finetta jerked her foot away, and her eyes began to glow dangerously.
"Her? Why she's like a wax doll."
"Oh, no, she isn't," said Polly. "She's as good-looking as most of the swells, and more so; besides, she's rolling in money, and it's money he wants. Take my advice, Fin, and don't let him hang about you any longer."
"And you take my advice, and hold your tongue!" retorted Finetta. "He shall hang about me as much as he likes. Who said I wanted to marry him, or—or that I would if he asked me?"
"I do; if he'd give you the chance," said Polly.
Finetta drew her foot away.
"I'll button the other myself," she said, passionately. But when her sister had gone she sat with the other boot unbuttoned, and kept the groom and the horses waiting for a good half-hour; and when she did go down and mount and ride off, her handsome face was clouded and thoughtful.
But at the sight of the green park and the people, she chased the melancholy brooding out of her dark eyes, and touching the magnificent horse with her golden spur, sent him into the row in her well-known style.
"If he were only here," she thought, and a sigh came to her lips. "Somehow I feel tired and bored without him, and lost if he's away for a day or two. Going to marry Lady Eleanor, is he?"
Almost before the muttered words had left her lips her eyes fell upon a stalwart figure standing against the rails, and the color flew to her face as she brought the horse up beside him.
It was Yorke—Yorke leaning against the rail, with his usually careless face grave and thoughtful, his eyes absent and staring vacantly at the ground, and yet with a strange look in them, whichshe, with a woman's quickness, noticed in an instant.
"Yorke," she said, bending down.
He started, and looked up, and her name came to his lips, but without the friendly smile which usually accompanied it.
"Why, when did you come back?" she asked, her face, her eyes all alight with life and happiness.
"To-day," he said. "Sultan's looking well——."
"Where have you been?" she demanded, noticing a change in his voice. "Did you get any fishing?
"Not much," he said, and his eyes were fixed on the horse.
"No? Then why didn't you come back? It's been awfully slow without you. Did you know that I had a day off and run down to the country? I was near you, I believe. Why didn't you leave word where you were going? What's the matter with you?" she broke off sharply, her color coming and going, for there had come into his face, into his eyes, a look almost of pity—newly born pity.
He knew now that he himself loved, that this woman loved him, and how she would suffer presently.
"I'll come in after the theater to-night," he said.
"Ride on now, or we shall have a crowd."
Several men had stopped, but waited, as if recognizing Yorke's right to monopolize her.
"Very well," she said, and she turned the horse. "It has come at last!" she murmured, "at last! He is going to be married. I know it! I know!" Her breath came painfully, and her hand stole up to her heart.
At that moment a lady came riding in the opposite direction. She was fair as a lily, and as beautiful, with soft brown eyes that looked dreamily about her; but as they met the dark ones of Finetta they seemed to awake, and the softness instantly vanished and gave place to an expression that in a man would be called hard and calculating.
Finetta's face, pale a moment before, grew white.
"That's her," she muttered. "And he is going to marry her. Polly's right; she's beautiful. Beautiful,and different to me. He'll marry and love her."
Her head drooped and her lips set tightly, and then she rode on. But suddenly she stopped the horse under some trees and looked back.
The beautiful girl with the soft brown eyes had stopped beside the rail, and Yorke and she were shaking hands.
Finetta could see their faces distinctly, and she watched, scanned his eagerly.
A singular expression came into her bold, handsome face.
"It's not her he's thinking of," she said; "not her. There's the same look in his eyes as when he looked up at me. What is it? I'll find out to-night." Her white teeth came together with a click. "I feel like fighting to-day. Going to marry Lady Eleanor, is he? We'll see! Oh, Yorke, if—if——." She looked round at the aristocrats riding past. "There isn't one that could love you as I do."
Lady Eleanor pulled her horse up beside the railing, as Finetta had done, and smiled down upon Yorke. She had a beautiful smile which, beginning in her brown eyes, spread over her face to her lips, the well-formed, cleanly cut lips, which more than anything else gave her countenance the patrician look for which Finetta—and others—hated her. And she did not smile too often.
"Well, Yorke," she said, and her voice was low and clear, and sweet, with just a touch of languid hauteur in it that was also aristocratic. "What a lovely day. Why aren't you riding?"
She didn't ask him, as Finetta had done, where he had been. That would have been a mistake which Lady Eleanor was far too wise to make.
"Horse is lame," he said.
"Oh, what a pity!" she exclaimed, nodding tosome friends who were passing. "Just when you want him, too."
"Yes," he said, "though I am going to sell him."
She turned her eyes upon him, and raised her brown eyes with a faint surprise.
"Going to sell Peter! I thought he suited you so well."
He nodded, and laughed rather uneasily. The announcement that he intended to sell his horse had been a slip of the tongue.
"Oh, he suits me well enough, but I shall sell him all the same. What a lot of people there are here to-day."
"Aren't there!" she said, bowing and smiling to one and another of the men who saluted her. "Nearly everybody one knows. By the way, I haven't seen the duke this morning."
"Dolph's down in the country," he said.
"Oh!"
She would not have asked where, even had she not known; that would have been another mistake of which she would not have been guilty for worlds, but her "oh" gave him a chance to tell her if he chose. Apparently he did not choose, for he changed the subject.
"How did the Spelham's dance go off last night?"
"Very well," she replied. "But it was terribly crowded. The princess was there. I saved a couple of dances for you as long as I could."
"I'm sorry," he said. "I couldn't get back."
She looked quite satisfied with the explanation, or rather want of one, quite satisfied and serenely placid.
"You missed a very pleasant ball," was all she said. "I must go on now. Will you come in to luncheon? Aunt will be very pleased to see you."
"And you too?" he said, as a matter of course.
He always had a good supply of such small change about him.
She smiled.
"And I too, certainly," she said, and with a nod rode on.
Yorke looked after her thoughtfully, and gnawed his mustache.
The last two days had been the happiest in his life. He had spent them with Leslie, had walked with her through the lanes and on the beach, and had driven her to Northcliffe, and every moment of the delicious time his love had increased; it had seemed to him that he had not really loved till now, and that his past existence had been a sheer waste; and he had been happy notwithstanding that he was still deceiving her, that she still thought him the Duke of Rothbury, and that he had come to town to break off with two women who loved him.
It is well to be off with the old love before you are on with the new, even when there is only one old love; but when there are two!
It had cost him a great deal to tear himself away from Leslie, even for a few days, but he had done so. And all the way up to town he had been hard at work forming most excellent resolutions.
He would reform, and reform altogether. He would sell his horse, send in his resignation to two or three of his most expensive clubs, would give up cards and betting, especially betting. He didn't see why he shouldn't do without a man-servant. Fleming, his valet, had been a faithful fellow, and suited him down to the ground; but, yes, Fleming must go.
And then—well, then he would go to Mr. Lisle and ask for that pearl of great price, his daughter,—and marry!
His heart leaps at the thought. Marry Leslie! He pictured her as a bride, drew delightful mental sketches of the time they would have. He would take her to the Continent for their wedding-trip, and then they'd settle down in a cottage. It would have to be a cottage.
"Love in a cottage!" Great goodness, how often he had laughed at the idea, how he had pitied the poor devils who had committed matrimony and gone out of the world to live in respectable poverty with cold mutton and cheap sherry for luncheon!
But cold mutton and cheap sherry didn't seem so bad with Leslie to share them.
He would have to give up a great deal of course, and live within the small income left of his mother's dower. What a fearful lot of money he had spent! He had never thought of it before, but now he went through a little mental arithmetic, and was quite startled. Would anybody believe that gloves, button-holes, stalls at the Diadem, cigars, dinners at Richmond, could run up to such a sum?
What would he give for some of the money now? He took out the duke's check and looked at it. It was a large sum; but he owed all that and a great deal more.
Then he put dull care behind him, and gave himself up to thinking of Leslie, her beautiful face ten times more lovely than when he had first seen it, how that her love for him was shining in her eyes. What eyes they were! Eleanor's were nice ones, Finetta's were handsome ones—but Leslie's!
And her voice, too! He could hear it now calling him, half-shyly, "Yorke!"
He reached town, and went to his rooms in Bury Street, and Fleming had got his London clothes, the well-fitting frock coat and flawless hat, all ready as if he had expected him. And Yorke's heart smote him as he thought that he would have to give that faithful servant notice.
Then he went out, still thinking of Leslie and the dark gray eyes which had grown moist and tender as she said "Good-by!" and then had come Finetta and Lady Eleanor!
Yes, he had got his work cut out for him! But he would do it! He would devote his life to the dear, sweet girl down at Portmaris, whose pure, unstained heart he had won; he would reform, cut London, and go and be happy in a cottage for the rest of his life.
Meanwhile he had promised to lunch with Lady Eleanor, the woman whom the duke and the world at large had decided that he was going to marry;and he had promised to sup with Finetta, who doubtless thought that he should marry her.
He had made love to both these women. It was so easy for him, with his handsome face and light-hearted smile. He had only been half in earnest! if so much had meant—well, what had he meant—by soft speeches just murmured, by tender glances, by eloquent pressures of the hand? But they? How had they taken this easy love-making of his? He knew too well.
"Oh, lord, what a mess I'm in!" he muttered, as he made his way slowly toward Lady Eleanor's house in Palace Gardens.
Lady Eleanor rode home rather quickly, and as she entered the morning-room in which her aunt, Lady Denby, was sitting, there was a brightness in her soft eyes and a color in her cheeks which caused the elder lady to regard her curiously.
"Yorke is coming to luncheon," she said, and Lady Denby at once knew the cause of her niece's vivacity. "I wonder whether they can send up some lobster cutlets; he is so fond of them, you know. At any rate, will you see that they put on the claret he likes, the '73 it is, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes, we will serve up the fatted calf," said Lady Denby, with a smile. "So his gracious majesty has come back?"
"Yes," said Lady Eleanor, moving about the room restlessly, and flicking her habit-skirt with her whip. "Yes, and he looks very well, but——."
"But what?"
"Well, I scarcely know how to put it. He seemed grave and more serious than usual this morning. It isn't often Yorke is serious, you know."
"He has been up to something more reckless and desperate than usual, perhaps," suggested Lady Denby.
"Perhaps," assented Lady Eleanor, coolly.
"You say that with delicioussang froid," remarked Lady Denby. "I suppose if he had been committing murder or treason it would make no difference to you."
"Not one atom," said the girl, her color deepening.
"The only crime that would ruin him in your eyes would be matrimony with some one other than yourself."
Lady Eleanor started, and bit her lip, then she forced a laugh.
"I don't know whether even that would cure me," she said. "I should hate his wife, hate her with an active hatred which would embitter all my days; but I would go on caring for him and hoping that his wife might die, and that I might marry him after all."
Lady Denby shrugged her shoulders, and looked at the proud face, with its tightly drawn lips, and now brooding eyes.
"Yours is about the worst case I think I have ever met with, Eleanor," she said.
"Oh, no, it isn't," responded Lady Eleanor. "Only I'm not ashamed to admit how it is with me, and other women are. But you needn't be afraid on my account. I only wear my heart on my sleeve for you to peck at. I keep my secret from the rest of the world."
"Or think you do," said Lady Denby. "And how is it going to end?"
"God knows!" exclaimed Lady Eleanor, with an infinite and pathetic wistfulness. "Sometimes I wish I were dead, or he were——."
"What?"
"Yes! I'd rather see him dead than the husband of another woman!"
"My dear Nell!"
"You are shocked. Well, you must be so. It's the truth. Sometimes I wake in the night from a dream that he has married, and that I am standing by and see him put the ring on, and I feel——," she stopped, and laughed with a mixture of bitterness and self-scorn. "What weak, miserable fools we women are! There is not a man in the whole world worth one hundredth part of the suffering we undergo."
"Certainly Yorke Auchester does not!"
Lady Eleanor swung round on her with a kind of subdued fierceness.
"What have you to say against him? I thought he was a favorite of yours!"
"So he is; but I'm not blind to his faults——."
"His faults! What are they?"
"He is selfish, for one thing——."
"Selfish. He would give away his last penny——."
"I dare say; he hates coppers——."
"Would go to the end of the earth to save a friend. Is truth itself. And where is there a braver man than Yorke Auchester?"
Her voice softened and faltered as she spoke his name.
"Or a more foolish and infatuated girl than Eleanor Dallas," said her aunt. "There!" and she stroked the golden head which Eleanor had let fall on her hands; "you can't help it, I suppose, and we must make the best of it. I'll see that he has what he likes for luncheon. Thank Heaven, if we know nothing more about men, we know the nearest way to their hearts."
Lady Eleanor put out her hand to stop her aunt for a moment.
"I—I saw that woman this morning," she said, in a low voice.
"You mean Finetta?"
"Yes, she had come into the park to meet him, I believe, I saw them talking together. She is a beautiful woman—very."
"She is that."
"I don't wonder at his being—fond of her and liking to be with her."
"I hear they are seldom apart," said Lady Denby, gravely. "That ought to cure you, if anything would, Eleanor."
Lady Eleanor shook her head.
"It only makes it worse," she said, with her face hidden. "Jealousy doesn't kill love——."
"But wounded pride should do so!"
"No, no! It's true I'm proud enough to the rest of the world, but it all goes, slips away from me when—when I am near him! Oh, dear! Why,this morning when I saw him my heart——! And he looked up at me as if he had seen me only an hour or two ago! But there, what is the use of talking! I hope they will have some of these cutlets!"
Lady Denby shrugged her shoulders, and shook her head.
"It's a pity that Yorke does not know what is good for him. He could have lobster cutlets and '73 claret for the rest of his life, and all manner of good things, if he would only throw his handkerchief in the right direction."
Lady Eleanor smiled up at her almost defiantly.
"It is of no use your taunting me," she said. "You are right; if he threw his handkerchief, as you put it, I should be only too glad to go on my knees to pick it up."
A servant came to the door, with a card on a salver.
Lady Denby took it, and glanced at it.
"It is Mr. Ralph Duncombe," she said.
"I cannot see him this morning. Say that I am not at home."
Lady Denby signed to the footman to wait.
"Ought you not to see him?" she said in a low voice. "It may be important business."
"Oh, very well. Show Mr. Duncombe into the library."
"That's right," said Lady Denby, approvingly, "You can't afford to offend such a man as this Mr. Duncombe. There are not too many men who are willing to work for you for nothing. I suppose he has come about those mines?"
"I suppose so," assented Lady Eleanor, bitterly.
"I will go and see."
Ralph Duncombe had been a friend of Lady Eleanor's father. The late earl had been fond of dabbling in the city and had met the successful young merchant there and found him extremely useful. It had been chiefly owing to Ralph Duncombe's advice and counsel that the late earl had made the fifty thousand pounds which he had left to Lady Eleanor. He had done nothing for someyears before his death without consulting the keen man of business, and Lady Eleanor had followed her father's example.
She would not have been a particularly rich woman with fifty thousand at three per cent., but Ralph Duncombe had invested it for her in such a way that it had brought in sometimes ten and fifteen. He had bought shares and sold them again at a big profit; had dealt with her money as if it had been his own, and had been as lucky with it. The greatest and latest piece of good fortune had only just turned up. He had purchased some land on the coast, calculating to dispose of it to a building company, but while negotiating with them discovered traces of copper; and it was on the cards that he had by one of those flukes which seemed to come so often to Ralph Duncombe, found a large fortune for her.
"How do you do, Mr. Duncombe?" she said. "What a shame that you should have to come all this way from the city."
"It does not take long by the Underground," he said, in his grave voice, as he shook hands; "and I have some important news for you."
"Yes," she said, and she motioned him to a chair.
As he sat down she noticed that he looked graver than usual, and that there was a tired and rather sad expression in his eyes.
"Is it bad news?" she said.
"Bad?" He looked at her with faint surprise.
"I thought you looked graver than usual, and rather disappointed," she explained.
He flushed slightly and forced a smile.
"We business men seldom look elated," he said, with something like a sigh. "Money making is not an exhilarating pursuit, Lady Eleanor."
"I should have thought otherwise," she said; "but I don't know much about it. I only know that it is very kind of you to take so much trouble over my affairs."
"Not at all. It comes natural to me," he said, with a slight smile. "I was your father's adviser—if I may put it so—for so long and so intimatelythat it seems a matter of course that I should continue to be his daughter's. But about this copper, Lady Eleanor. We were not mistaken; the indications are particularly distinct, and there is every reason to believe that the land contains a vast quantity."
"Yes," she said; "that is good news. I suppose it will make me very rich?"
He nodded.
"Yes, immensely so. The thing to decide now is how to work it. I have a plan which I should like you to consider," and he went on to explain it to her.
She listened not very attentively.
"I leave it all to you," she said, when he had finished. "I suppose you will think that is very cool of me; but I don't know what else I could do. That is, if you will undertake the business for me."
He nodded.
"I will do so, and not altogether disinterestedly, for I shall ask your permission to take some shares in the company."
"Why, yes, of course," she said at once. "I consider that it belongs as much to you as to me; you found it."
He shook his head, with a smile.
"Scarcely that," he said; "but I shall have an interest in it. We shall get to work at once, and I think I may say, positively, that you will be, as you put it, very rich, before many months are out."
"Very rich," she murmured; "thank you."
It was rather a strange way of accepting the information, but she was thinking of how little use the money would be if a certain person refused to share it with her.
Ralph Duncombe glanced at his watch and got up.
"You will stay to lunch?" she said....
"Thank you, Lady Eleanor, not this morning.
"I have to attend a board meeting, and shall be late as it is."
"I am sorry."
She gave him her hand, and as he held it she said, as if at a sudden thought:
"Did you—did you get those bills I asked you about?"
"Lord Auchester's?" he said, and he noticed that her hand quivered. "Yes, I bought them up." He looked at her gravely. "It cost rather a larger sum than I expected."
"You mean that he was very much in debt?" she said, in a low voice, and with downcast eyes.
"Yes, very much," he replied, laconically.
She bit her lip softly, and still evaded his keen gaze.
"Tell me," she said. "You know I do not understand such matters; but—but, supposing that you were to compel him to pay these bills, what would be the result?"
"You mean try to compel him?" he said, with a smile. "You cannot get water from a dry well, Lady Eleanor, and from what I hear, Lord Auchester is a very dry well. If you forced him to take up those bills, you would ruin him."
"Ruin him!"
"Yes. That means that you would make a kind of outcast of him. A man who cannot meet his engagements is dishonored; he would have to give up his clubs and leave London. I don't know where such men go now; to some corner of Spain, I believe. Any way, he would be ruined and thoroughly finished."
She drew a long breath.
"And I—and I could do that?" she said, in a very low voice.
"You could do that, as I hold the bills for you, certainly," he replied.
"Thank you," she said, with a laugh that sounded forced and unnatural; "I only wanted to know. I'm afraid you must think me sublimely ignorant."
"Not more so than a lady should be of business matters," he replied, politely.
There was a moment's pause. He took up his hat and gloves. Then, suddenly, Lady Eleanor said:
"Do you know a place called Portmaris, Mr. Duncombe?"
The carefully brushed, exquisitely shining, and glossy hat—the city man's god, as it has been called—fell from his hands, and he flushed and then turned pale; but that, perhaps, was at his clumsiness. At any rate, whatever the cause, he was able to look Lady Eleanor steadily in the face when he recovered his hat.
"Portmaris?" he said, smoothing it with his sleeve. "Yes, I know it. It is a small fishing village on the west coast. Why do you ask?" and his keen eyes grew to her face.
"Oh, I only heard of it the other day," she said.
"A friend of mine, the Duke of Rothbury, has gone down there, and——," she paused a moment—"and Lord Auchester has been there."
"Lord Auchester?" he said, and his brows knit thoughtfully. "It is a strange place for a man about town, like Lord Auchester, to stay at."
"He has been fishing."
"There is no fishing there," he remarked, and he put one glove on, and took it off again, the frown still on his face.
"He has been to see the duke. You may know that the duke and he are great friends. They are cousins."
He shook his head, with an impatience strange and unusual with him—the cool, self-possessed, city man.
"I know very little about such persons, Lady Eleanor," he said, gravely. "Your father, the late earl, was the only nobleman I ever knew, and—I don't mean to be offensive—I ever wanted to know."
Lady Eleanor looked at him with faint, well-bred surprise; then she smiled.
"If reports speak truly, you are likely to be anobleman yourself some day, Mr. Duncombe. You have only to enter Parliament——."
He shook his head by way of stopping her.
"I have no ambition in that direction, Lady Eleanor," he said, almost gloomily. "I am a man of business, and care nothing for titles. I was going to say and for little else; but I suppose that wouldn't be true. I do care for money; I've been bred to that. Is there anything else you would like to say to me?" he broke off abruptly.
His manner was so singular, so unlike his usual one, that Lady Eleanor was startled.
"Thank you, no," she said; "except—except that I should be glad if you could get any other bills or debts of Lord Auchester's."
He nodded.
"Certainly." He brushed his hat slowly, then added, "Excuse me, Lady Eleanor, but will you allow me to ask why you are purchasing—and at a heavy price—Lord Auchester's liabilities? I am aware that I have no right to ask you the question——."
"Yes, you have," she said, quickly, and struggling with the color that would mount to her face. "You were my father's friend, and have been and are mine; and you have every right to ask such questions. But I find it difficult to answer. Well, Lord Auchester is a friend of mine, and I would rather that he owed me the money than a lot of Jews and people of that kind."
Ralph Duncombe inclined his head with an air of, "You know your own business better than any one else."
"Good-morning, Lady Eleanor," he said; "I will do as you wish. And please, say nothing about this mining scheme of ours."
He got outside the house, and drew a long breath.
The mere mention of the word "Portmaris" had stirred his heart to its depths, and recalled Leslie and his parting scene with her.
He might aspire to nobility, might he? What would be the good of a title to him, when the only title he longed for was that of Leslie Lisle's husband?And so this Lord Auchester had been at Portmaris. Had he seen Leslie? Had he spoken to her? It was not unlikely! Such men as this Lord Yorke Auchester would be sure to discover a beautiful girl like Leslie, and make acquaintance with her.
Ralph Duncombe spent a very bad half-hour on the Underground on his way back to the city; very bad!
Five minutes after the man of business had left Palace Gardens, Yorke, the man of pleasure, arrived there, and was welcomed as if he were the great Lama of Thibet.
"I haven't had time to change my habit, Yorke," said Lady Eleanor.
"You couldn't put on anything prettier," he said, with that fatal facility of his, and he looked at her admiringly.
Lady Eleanor never appeared to greater advantage than in the dark green habit, upon which Redfern had bestowed his most finished art.
"Come in to luncheon at once," she said; "it is the only way of stopping your compliments. Here is Aunt Denby in a complete quandary as to whether there is anything fit to eat. You know we women don't care what we get, but it is different with you men."
But the luncheon was perfect in its way. Clear soup, a fish pie, salmi of fowl, and—oh, wonderful cook! lobster cutlets; and the famous '73 claret.
Yorke did full justice to the good fare, and rattled away for the amusement of the two women. He talked of the opera, of the next meeting at Sandown, of anything and everything which would interest two women moving in the ultra-fashionable circles, and made himself so pleasant that Lady Denby—who always suspected, while she liked him—relaxed into a smile, and Lady Eleanor was beaming.
"Never get cutlets like these anywhere else," he said, helping himself to a second serve with a contented sigh.
"Not at Portmaris?" asked Lady Eleanor.
He held his fork aloft, and looked at her with sudden gravity.
"Eh! Oh, Portmaris. No. No lobster cutlets down there. I rather think they eat the lobsters raw."
"What an outlandish place it must be!" said Lady Eleanor. "I wonder how you could stay there, you and Dolph."
"Oh, anything for a change," he said, carelessly, but with his mind apparently fixed on his plate, at the bottom of which he could see Leslie's face as plainly as if she were standing before him.
The lunch was over at last. It had seemed interminable to Lady Eleanor, and Lady Denby had, with a half-audible murmur of an afternoon drive, taken herself away and left the coast clear.
"You want to smoke?" said Lady Eleanor. "Come into the conservatory. Aunt doesn't mind it there, as it kills the insects."
He lit a cigar, and lounged against the doorway, and she sank into a seat and absently picked the blossoms nearest to her.
"Now is the time," he thought, "to tell her everything," but at the moment he remembered the bracelet which the duke had given him for her, and he put his hand in his pocket and drew it out.
"By the way, Eleanor," he said, carelessly, "you had a birthday the other day."
"Yes, I think I had," she said, smiling up at him. "Do you remember it?"
"Well, I shouldn't, if it hadn't been for Dolph," he said, honestly. "Dolph always remembers, you know."
"Yes, I know."
"And so—so——." He took the morocco case from his pocket and opened it. "And so—well, I know it isn't worth your acceptance, but if you care to take it, here's a trifle—Dolph gave me," he added, honestly and he held out the bracelet.
She took it, and her face brightened, brightened with a soft glow which made it look inexpressibly tender and grateful.
"How good of you! How pretty it is! And it isjust the size, see," and she unbuttoned the habit sleeve and slipped the bracelet on. "How does it fasten?"
"Eh?" he said. "Oh, like this, I expect," and he closed the spring and fastened it over her slender, milk-white wrist, and the touch of his hand sent a thrill through her, though he performed the operation in a most business-like way.
"How very good of you!"
"Say, rather of Dolph," he said. "It was he who gave it to me for you."
"But it was you who gave it to me," she said, in a low voice.
"I told him you wouldn't care for it," he said. "You who have no end of presents."
"But none I value more than this," she said, her voice singing, so to speak. "I will always wear it."
"Don't," he said. "Better wear the bracelet that goes with your diamond set. That's more suitable to a rich person than this—though that's hard on Dolph, who chose it and paid for it, isn't it?"
She was silent a moment, then she said:
"That reminds me, Yorke. Do you know that I am likely to be richer even than you think?"
"Oh? Well, I'm very glad," he said, with friendly interest and pleasure. "What will you do with so much coin; roll in it?"
She sighed softly, and lifted her eyes to his for a moment, with a look that said, "I would like to give it to you, and you can roll in it, or fling it in the Thames, or play ducks and drakes with it, or anything." But he was not looking at her, and did not see the appeal of the soft brown eyes.
"There is one thing I can do with it," she said. "I can buy your horse, if you really mean selling it, Yorke. But you don't?"
"But I do," he said, quickly, and with a touch of red showing through his tan. "I'm going to cut down my establishment—big word 'establishment,' isn't it?—as low as it can be cut, and the horse has got to go."
"Then I will buy it," she said, her face flushing, and then going pale.
Why was he selling it? What was he going to do? Surely nothing rash; he was not going to marry. No! she drew a long breath—that was impossible. He couldn't marry with those debts hanging round his neck, and those awful bills which she held, unless he married an heiress, and in that case he would not want to sell his horse, an old and loving favorite.
"You?" he said. "Why should you buy it? You've got enough already. Besides, he's not altogether safe."
"Thank you," she said, laughing a little tremulously. "It is the first time my horsemanship has been called in question. I'm not afraid of Peter. Besides, I—I should like to have him."
"To put under a glass case?"
"Yes, that I might look at him and recall the many jolly rides we have had together. No, no one shall have Peter but me. You can't prevent my buying him, you know!"
"No," he said. "And I'd rather you had him than any one else. I should see him occasionally, and I think I could make him quiet enough for you. Perhaps," he laughed, "you might feel good-natured enough sometimes to lend him to a poor chap who can't afford a nag of his own."
"Yes," she said. "I could do that. Is there anything I wouldn't lend or give you, Yorke?" and her voice was almost inaudible.
He started and looked at his watch. How was he to tell this beautiful woman, whose eyes were melting with love, whose voice rang with it, that he had no love to return, that he had indeed given his whole heart to another woman? And yet, that was what he meant doing this morning!
"I—I must be off," he said, almost nervously.
She rose, and as she did so the bracelet, which he must have fastened insecurely, fell to the ground. He stooped and picked it up, and she held out her arm.
"That's a bad omen, isn't it?" she said, with a wistful smile.
"Oh, no," he replied, as lightly as he could."That kind of thing only applies to rings; wedding ones in particular. Let's see, how does this clasp go, once more?"
She put her disengaged hand to show him, and their fingers met, touched and got entangled, and he laughed; but the laugh died away as he saw her lips quiver as if with pain, and her soft eyes fill with tears.
He got outside and took off his hat, and drew a long breath.
"I could as soon have struck her as told her," he muttered.
And that was how he was 'off with the old love' No. 1.
He went down to the club, and sauntered from reading-room to reception-room, and at last consented to play a game at billiards with a man with whom he had often played, and always at an advantage.
Yorke was good at most games of strength or skill, and the men, hearing that he was playing, dropped in and sat round to while away the tedious hour before dinner.
But that afternoon Yorke could not play a bit.
"Completely off color," remarked a young fellow, in tones of almost personal resentment. "Never saw such a thing, don't-yer-know. There! That's the second easy hazard he's missed, and bang goes my sovereign."
"And why on earth does he keep on smoking like that?" inquired another in an undertone. "Looks as if he were mooning about something. He can't be—be——."
The first young fellow shook his head.
"No, Yorke Auchester doesn't drink, if that's what you mean; it isn't that, but hang me if I know what it is. Yorke!" he called out, "you can't play."
Yorke gave a little start in the middle of one of the reflective smiles.
"Eh? No. I'm making a fool of myself, I know."
"You must have been to bed early wherever you've been for the last week," suggested one ofthe men, and they were all surprised to see him flush, "like a great girl, by Jingo!"
"Yes, I have, and it hasn't agreed with me in a billiard sense," he said, good temperedly, as he put on his coat and sauntered out. He went to his chambers and dressed, and the faithful Fleming also noticed the singular fit of abstraction which had fallen upon his beloved master.
"Seems to have something on his mind," was his mental reflection. "And it doesn't look as if it was bills or anything unpleasant of that kind."
"Shall I wait up to-night, my lord?" he asked, as he put on the perfectly cut dress overcoat, and handed the speckless, flawless hat.
He had to put the question twice, and even then Yorke did not seem to catch the sense of it immediately.
"Eh? No, don't sit up; I may be late. And, by the way, I may be off to the country to-morrow morning, so have some things packed."
"Something up at that outlandish place he's been staying at," was Fleming's mental comment, and he watched his master go slowly down the stairs with the faint flicker of a smile on his handsome face.
Yorke dined at the club and for once seemed quite indifferent as to what he ate, and when the footman brought the wrong claret, took it without a word of reproach. Some of his friends watched him from an adjacent table, and shook their heads.
"Somebody's gone and died and left him a hatful of coin, or else he's won a big wager. Never saw Yorke Auchester go dreaming over his dinner in his life before," was the remark.
About nine o'clock he lit a cigar, and walked down to the Diadem.
The attendants, box-keepers, even the men in the orchestra knew him, and people pointed him out to each other as his stalwart figure made its way to his stall; and when Finetta sprang onto the stage in her dainty page's dress of scarlet and black satin, the man who always "knows everything" about the actors and actresses whispered to acountry cousin, "That's Finetta. Look! You'll see her glance toward him and perhaps give a little nod. They say he's spent every penny of an enormous fortune in diamonds for her; got some of 'em on to-night," etc.
As a matter of fact, Finetta saw him without any direct glance, and saw nothing else.
It was said that she danced her best that night, and the house stamped and cheered with delight.
But as Yorke looked at her, and clapped, he thought:
"Poor Fin. It won't be hard to leave her."
And the remembrance of the laugh he had heard at St. Martin's Tower rose, and made him shudder. He lit a cigar after the theater, and set out to walk to St. John's Wood.
As the page opened the door—Finetta had two men-servants, both as well appointed and trained as any of Lady Eleanor's—Yorke heard the sound of laughter and music in the dining-room; and above it all, Finetta's laugh; it made him shudder once more.
Supper was nearly over—a dainty supper with ice puddings and the best brands of champagne and some one at the piano was dashing out with the true artistic touch, the popular song from the late comic opera, and some of the guests were singing it.
There were three or four men—Lord Vinson was among them and—and as many ladies. At the head of the table sat Finetta. She was magnificently dressed in a cream silk, soft and undulating.
A crimson rose was her only ornament, and that worn in the thick, glossy hair; she knew Yorke's taste too well to smother herself in diamonds, and she knew also that the soft cream and the rich red rose showed up her dark, Spanish complexion as no other colors could do.
Her eyes lit up as he entered, and she signed to him to take a chair next her.
"I knew you'd come," she said, in a low voice. "You never break a promise. Polly, give Lord Auchester some gelatine—or what will you have?"
He took a biscuit and a glass of wine, and joined in with the talk.
It was not very witty, but it was not dull. The men talked of the theater, the turf, and talked a great deal better and more fluently than they did at "respectable" dinner parties, and every now and then one of them was asked to sing, and did so cheerfully and willingly, and as a rule sang well, and the rest made a chorus if it was needed.
With the exception that no one looked or was bored, and all tried to make themselves pleasant and agreeable, it differed very little from the dinners and suppers which we, the most respectable of readers, so often yawn over.
Finetta said but little, sang one song only, and was so silent and quiet and subdued, that Lord Vinson, as he rose to take his leave, whispered to Yorke on passing:
"Look out for squalls, old fellow! She's most dangerous when she's like this, don't you know."
When they had all gone but Yorke, and Polly had retired to a corner of the inner room, and taken out some lace of her sister's to mend, Finetta lit a cigarette for Yorke, and then, going to the piano, began to play—she had learned to play a little—the air to which she danced her great dance. Then she moved way and as if she were thinking of anything but the silent young man with the far-away look on his face, and humming the air musically enough, glided into the dance itself.
Surely since Taglioni there has been no more graceful dancer than Finetta, and even Yorke, with his heart soaring miles away to the flower-faced girl who owned it, could not but look and admire.
"Bravo, Fin," he said, almost involuntarily. "No wonder they encore that every night! Don't leave off," for she had stopped suddenly right in front of him, her dark eyes flashing into his, her lips apart.
"Yes," she said. "I am not going to dance any more to-night. I am going to sit here and listen while you tell me everything! Now Yorke!"