"Now tell me everything," repeated Finetta, and she drew an amber satin cushion from the sofa, and seated herself at his feet, her hands clasped round her knees, her dark eyes turned up to him.
Now here was the way ready made for him; but what man ever answered such an appeal at once and fully? Yorke took the cigarette from his lips and looked down at her with a troubled surprise.
"What do you mean?" he said. "How do you know there is anything to tell?"
She laughed, almost contemptuously.
"How do you know when it's going to rain? By the clouds, don't you? Do you think I'm blind, Yorke? I'm not clever like some of your swell friends, but I'm not a fool. I've got eyes like other women, and perhaps they're sharper than some, and I can see something is the matter. I saw it the moment I rode up to you in the park to-day, and I've been watching you all the evening."
"You'd make a decent detective, Fin," he said, trying to speak banteringly.
"I dare say," she assented. "Most women would, especially if they knew the man they were after as well as I know you."
"Yes, we are old friends, Fin," he said.
"That's it," she said. "And that's why I ask you what's the matter, what's happened? Some men would push me off or give me the lie, but you aren't like that sort."
"Thanks," and he laughed.
"No, you always go straight, and that's one of the reasons why—I like you, don't you see?"
"I see," he said. "And so you thought I looked this morning as if I'd got something on my mind?"
She nodded.
"Yes, when I came up you were leaning against the rail, looking at nothing, as if you were dreaming; and while you were speaking to Lady Eleanor——."
He moved slightly.
"You don't like me to speak of her?" she said, with a woman's quickness. "All right, I sha'n't hurt her by mentioning her name."
"Don't be foolish, Fin," he said, coloring at the truth of her insight; he did not like to hear her mention Lady Eleanor's name.
"Oh, I'm not foolish. I was saying that you looked at her ladyship just as you looked at me, as if you didn't see either of us, as if you were looking right away beyond us, and it's been the same to-night. You haven't heard half that was going on, but have just been mooning and dreaming, and so I ask you what it is? Wait a minute. If you're going to tell me that it's money matters, you needn't, for I shouldn't believe you. If the bailiffs were in the house you wouldn't let it trouble you, you know."
He laughed.
"I am afraid I shouldn't," he admitted.
"Very well," she said, "then it isn't that—though you are hard up, and pretty deep in debt, eh, Yorke?"
"Of course," he said. "Always have been, and shall be; everybody knows that."
"And so you're used to it, and don't mind it," she went on. "It isn't that then. What is it?"
He was silent, struggling hard for courage to tell her.
"You don't like making a clean breast of it," she said, slowly. "And you think it's like my cheek to ask you. But I'm an old friend, am I not? I'm only Finetta, the girl that dances at the Diadem, but I've got a feeling that I'm a better friend to you than many of your swell ones. I dare say they think I'm a bad lot, and that I've done you no end of harm. Perhaps I have. I've let you come here when you liked, and take me about riding and driving, when you ought to have been with them; butI don't know, after all, that I've hurt you much. I dare say I could if I liked. You'd have given me things like Charlie Farquhar, if I'd let you; but I didn't. I was a fool, perhaps, sometimes I think I am. But—but, you see, I liked you. I didn't care for the others, they were nothing to me and it wouldn't have mattered if they'd spent their last shilling in rings and flowers and things. But with you it was different. I don't know quite why," and her eyes sank thoughtfully. "Perhaps it was because you always treated me like a lady, and didn't bother me to run off with you or—or marry you."
Her voice softened, and a dash of color came into her olive cheeks.
"You'd have made a poor bargain if I had and you consented, Fin," he said, gravely.
"I dare say," she assented. "Anyhow, you didn't and don't mean to. Don't deny it. I know how you've always thought of me. I've been just Finetta, of the Diadem, and it's been pleasant and amusing to take me about and come and have supper, and—and that's all."
She raised her eyes to his face with a smile, a brave smile that did not hide her aching heart from him.
"And we've been such very good friends," she went on after a pause, "that I speak out straight and plain when I see that something is the matter, and I ask you what it is, and if you take my advice, you'll tell me. Who knows, I might be able to help you, if you want any help. Don't laugh. What's that story about the lion and the mouse? I'm only a mouse I know, and you are no end of a lion, but you may find yourself in a net some day, don't you know."
Her tone was slangy, but there was an earnestness in it, and in her dark eyes, which touched Yorke.
He was silent for a moment or two, then he said in a voice inaudible to Polly, who stolidly stitched and stitched in the inner room:
"You are right, Fin. Something has happened——."
"I knew it," she said, quietly.
He screwed his courage up.
"The fact is, Fin, I am—going to be married," he said, almost in a whisper.
She did not start, did not move a muscle for a moment, then she got up.
"Wait a minute, I want a cigarette."
She crossed the room to an inlaid cabinet, and took out a silver box—of course a present—and got a cigarette from it, and her hand shook so that for a moment she could not hold the match straight.
But when she glided back to her place at his feet her hand was steady, and seeing that his face was rather pale, she showed no sign of emotion, either of surprise, or anger, or resentment.
"Going to be married?" she said, leaning back. "To Lady Eleanor, I suppose?"
"No," said Yorke, emphatically. "Why should you think that?"
He was relieved, greatly relieved by the quiet way in which she had taken the announcement, and, man like, was completely deceived.
"Oh, I don't know. Everybody said you were going to marry her. She has plenty of money and is a swell. So, it's not her?" she said, slowly, her eyes downcast.
"No, it is not," he responded. "And there's no reason why people should say——." He stopped, conscience-smitten.
"Oh, they say it because you and she are so much together, and you've made love to her; but that means nothing with you, does it?" she said, shooting a glance up at him.
Yorke colored.
"If a man's to marry every girl he flirts with——," he said, half-angrily.
"All right, I don't mind. You've flirted with me and I haven't asked you to marry me. And so it's not her ladyship." A faint smile curved her lips, which looked drawn and constrained. "What other swell is it? I know 'em all—by sight."
"She is not a 'swell' at all," he said. "And youdo not know her. I only saw her the other day down in the country."
"Where you have been this last week?" she said, in a low voice, perfectly steady and under control.
"Yes, I saw her, met her, by chance, quite by chance."
"And—and you fell in love with her right off?" she said.
"Yes," he said, looking straight before him and speaking as if in a dream. "I loved her at first sight."
"She must be very good-looking."
He smiled, absently. "Good-looking" was so poor a phrase by which to describe his Leslie.
"Yes, she is good-looking, as you call it, Fin," he said.
"What is she like? Is she tall and fair—I suppose so, that's the style that fetches most men."
"N-o," he said. "She is not fair—not what one would call fair."
"Dark?" and she flashed her brilliant eyes up at him, and then at a mirror opposite her.
"N-o, not dark, I think; I can't tell. Her hair is dark."
"As mine?" she asked.
He looked down at her as if he had forgotten the color of her hair, and she felt the look like a dagger stab.
"Yes, but she has blue or gray eyes."
She nodded.
"I knew," she said, shortly, as if it cost her something to speak. "I know the sort of girl. I've seen 'em. Dark hair and bluish-gray eyes. Yes! And you fell in love with her at first sight. And—why don't you go on? I want to know all about her," and she laughed.
In his abstraction he did not detect the tone of agony, of jealousy, in the laugh, and only thought how well Finetta was behaving, and what a brick she was.
"There's not much more to tell," he said. "I—I told her that I loved her, and—and——." He paused, recalling the tender, the precious confession of hisdarling. "Well, we're to be married, Fin, as soon as we can. I'm as poor as a church mouse, and we sha'n't have much to live upon; but I dare say we shall get on somehow or other. Anyhow, I've made up my mind, and——." He stopped.
"No one, not the devil himself, could stop you," she finished, not passionately, but in a slow, steady voice. "And so you've come to me and told me like—like a man, Yorke."
"We are old friends, Fin," he said, "and I felt you ought to know."
"I see," she said. "It will make a difference to us, won't it? Good-by to our acquaintance now. No more dinners at Richmond, or suppers at the little house in St. John's Wood. It wouldn't do for a man who is going to be married to be friends with Finetta, eh? Oh, I understand, and I'm much obliged to you——."
"Fin——."
"Wait. I'm speaking the truth. I am much obliged to you. Some men would have kept it to themselves; would have cut me straight away without a word, and left me to find out the reason by reading the accounts of the wedding in the newspapers. But you aren't that sort, are you, Yorke—or I suppose I ought to say Lord Auchester now?"
He colored and bit his lip.
"Hit away, Fin," he said. "I deserve it."
"No," she said. "I won't hit you, though I dare say Lady Eleanor and the heaps of other ladies you've made love to will, and pretty hard. But I am not a lady, you see, and that makes a difference. And this—this young lady? You say she's not a swell?"
He laughed.
"Not what you call a swell, Fin," he said. "She is the daughter of an artist, and not a first-rate one at that."
"An artist?" The full lips writhed into an expression of amazement and contempt which he did not see. "An artist, one of those fellows who paint pictures."
"And awfully bad ones," said Yorke, with a rueful laugh.
"And they're poor?"
"They are certainly not rich," he said.
"And you'll be poor, too, you and she, when—when you're married?"
He laughed rather ruefully again.
"I know the sort of thing," she said, with all the scorn of one who has passed from squalid poverty to luxury and wealth. "You'll have to live in a small house with one or two servants, you won't be able to afford a valet or a horse——."
"Excepting a clothes-horse."
"Well, you'll want that, as I dare say she—your wife—will have to do the washing, and you'll have to dine like a workman, in the middle of the day, and drink cheap ale, and wear shabby clothes. I should like to see you in seedy clothes, Yorke; you'd look funny," and she laughed bitterly. "And she'd wear cheap things, turned dresses, and that sort of thing, and she'd get dowdy and ill-tempered, and you'd ask yourself what on earth you ever saw in her that you should go and ruin yourself by marrying her. Oh, I know!" and she leaned back and puffed at her cigarette with a contempt that was almost imperial.
Yorke colored.
"A good deal of what you say is true, but not all, Fin," he said, almost gently. It would be base ingratitude to be angry with her after the admirable way in which she had received the news. "For one thing, Leslie would never be dowdy. You'd understand that if you knew her, had seen her. I suppose she wears cheap clothes, now. If so, all I can say is that she looks as well, as refined and lady-like, as—as anybody I know."
"As Lady Eleanor?" she put in, with a flash of her dark eyes.
"Well, yes," he assented; "and for another thing, she wouldn't get ill-tempered; it isn't possible."
"Oh, isn't it?" with another curl of the lip.
"No," he said, quietly, earnestly; "I'll go bailfor that much. And I'll stake my life I shall never ask myself why I married her! But you're right about a great deal of it, Fin; and we shall have to put up with it. After all, you know, you can't have everything you want in this world. Did you ever notice that the rich people, the people with hatfuls of money, generally look the most wretched? I have. They want something they haven't got, you may depend upon it; something they value ever so much higher than their coin. Well, we shall want money, but we shall have a good many other things——."
She laughed, a dry, harsh laugh.
"Don't mind me," she said; "I can't help smiling. It's as good as a play to hear you talking like the leading juvenile in a sentimental piece. Love, love, love! That's what you're thinking of. Well, perhaps you're right. God knows! I dare say you're right."
She was silent a moment, then she said:
"And when's the wedding to be?"
"Soon," he said, dreamily; "as soon as possible. It's a secret. I mean our engagement."
She looked up sharply.
"Oh, it isn't in the papers or known yet?"
He shook his head.
"No, no. We've reasons for keeping it quiet for a little while."
"But you came and told me," she said, broodingly. "Well, it was straight and kind of you, as I said, and—and I'm much obliged."
He put out his hand to her in acknowledgment. She looked at it for a moment as if she doubted whether she would take it; then she put her own into it, and hers burned like a red-hot coal.
She took it away instantly, and rose and walked slowly up to the table, poured out a couple of glasses of champagne, and brought him one and raised the other to her lips.
"Here's luck to you—both!" she said, with a laugh. "May you be happy ever afterward, as they say in the story books," and she looked overthe rim of the glass at him, with her dark eyes flashing under the thick brows.
"Thanks, Fin," he said. "You are a good sort, and——." He rose.
"But you don't want to know any more of me," she broke in. "I understand. Oh, don't apologize. I'm cute enough to see why you've told me, why you've come to me first of all. There's to be an end to our friendship——." Her voice broke for a moment, then she hurried on with forced gayety and indifference. "And you're quite right. A man who's going to settle down, doesn't want such acquaintances as me. Well, good-by."
She held out her hand.
Yorke, feeling as a man must feel under such circumstances, when he cannot contradict and would like to do so, hung his head for a moment, then he took her hand, and holding it, said:
"I'm not much loss, Fin. As I told her, I'm a bad lot, and dear at any price, and—there, good-by!"
Then he did a foolish thing. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
She quivered, almost as if he had struck her; her eyes closed, and she leaned heavily against the edge of the table.
Yorke, feeling unutterably miserable, dropped her hand and left the room. He gave the page who helped him on with his coat a sovereign, and got outside.
"Poor Fin!" he muttered, standing on the pavement and staring about him. "Poor Fin!"
And so he got off with the old love number two.
Finetta stood where he had left her for a second, then sprang forward with her magnificent arms stretched out.
"Yorke, Yorke!" broke from her white lips. But the door had closed, and he did not hear her.
She stood erect for a moment, then staggered and fell face downward upon the sofa.
Polly ran to her—locking the door on her way—and raised her head. She had fainted.
Polly poured some wine through the clenched teeth and bathed the set face, and presently Finettacame to; but it was to pass from a swoon into an awful torrent of weeping.
"He's gone! He's gone! Forever!" she moaned. "I shall never see him again! Why did I let him go like that? Why didn't I ask him on my knees to let us be friends still? I should have seen him now and again, and that would have been something; to speak to him, hear him laugh and talk, and call me 'Fin;' but it's all over now. He'll never come back! Oh, I wish I were dead, dead, dead!"
"Hush, hush," implored Polly, trying to soothe her. "He's better gone. There was no good in his staying."
"No, no! I know that! He never cared for me. I only amused him, and directly he left me he forgot me. They're all alike. No, he was different. Look how he came and told me—like a man! Oh, Yorke, Yorke! Oh, he little guesses how I——." Her lips shook, and she hid her face even from her sister.
"Where's your pride, Fin?" whispered Polly, almost as Lady Denby had said to Lady Eleanor.
"My pride!" retorted Finetta. "Ah, you can talk like that, you who don't know what I feel! I haven't any. I'd have followed him round the world like a dog, grateful for a kind word—or a blow! I'd have worked for him like a slave. Poor! He needn't have been poor if he'd married me. He should have had every penny, and I'd have been content to go in rags so long as he had the best of everything; and I'd have made him happy, or die in the trying."
"You'd most likely have died," remarked Polly, with a woman's insight.
"I dare say. Well, I could have died. But it's all over."
She hid her face in her hands and shook like a leaf for a full minute, then suddenly her mood changed, and she started up—in a fury.
The tears dried up in her burning eyes, her face became white, her lips rigid; and as she stood with clenched hands and heaving bosom she looked like an outraged goddess, a tigress robbed of her cub, awoman despised and deserted—and that is a more terrible thing than the outraged goddess or the bereaved tigress, by the way.
"He's a fool!" she panted. "A fool! To leave me for such as her! Says she's pretty!" She strode to the glass and stood erect before it. "Is she better looking than I am? I don't believe it. And what else is she? Nothing. She's poor—she isn't a swell even. And he's left me and that other, that Lady Eleanor, for her! Yes; I could have borne it better if it had been Lady Eleanor; if it had been one of her sort it would be more natural; but a mere nobody, the daughter of an artist!"
In her ignorance poor Finetta regarded the painters of pictures and gate posts as equals.
"A common painter! Why, he'd better have married me!" and she drew a long breath. "I'm as good as she is, and she'll be a lady. I'd make as good a lady as she would."
"You never saw her," ventured Polly, timidly.
The tigress swung round upon her, dashing the wine glasses to the ground in the movement.
"Saw her! I don't want to see her, to know what she's like! I can guess. A dowdy, simpering, doll-faced chit of a girl that caught his fancy! And she'll be his wife, while I——." She raised her clenched hands above her head, and laughed a wild, discordant laugh. "It makes me mad!"
She fell to pacing the room. Her hair had become unfastened, and fell in a black torrent over the creamy satin. Her lithe figure, erect and quivering, looked six feet high. A magnificent spectacle for a painter or sculptor, but not for the man or woman who had offended her.
"I'm flung aside as not fit for him to know, and she'll be his wife. I wish she were here now; I'd kill her! Oh, if I could only do something to separate them! If I could only come between them!"
She flung herself on the sofa, and hid her face on the cushion.
Polly went up to her.
"You're wearing yourself out, Fin," she said. "You'll suffer for this to-morrow. Better come tobed. Besides, what's the use of it? You can't bring him back, or stop his marrying the other girl."
Finetta raised her head, and looked at her as if she did not see her.
"Can't I?" she muttered between her closed teeth. "Can't I? I don't know! Such things have been done. Sometimes there's a way." She put her hand to her brow, and drew a labored sigh. "I can't think; my head's like lead and on fire, and my heart's aching. When did he say the wedding was to be?"
"Soon," said Polly. "What's the use——."
Finetta held up her hand to silence her.
"Go to bed," she said, hoarsely.
"You come too——."
"Go to bed; get out of my sight. I want to be alone, to think. To think! There must be some way to stop it, and—and I'll find it out. Go away——," with a flash of her somber eyes—"Go away and leave me. I'm best alone."
Polly, awed and frightened, crept to the door; but as she paused a moment and looked back she heard the hoarse, broken voice still muttering:
"There must be some way!"
Yorke walked all the way from St. John's Wood to Bury Street, and it was not altogether a pleasant walk.
There is a popular parlor game called "Consequences," and, after a fashion, he was playing that game as he strode along smoking vigorously.
It is an easy and pleasant amusement running into debt; but there are consequences. It is also an easy and pleasant matter to make love to two women; but the consequences have to be reckoned with, and the reckoning, whether it come sooner or later, is a serious matter.
He had never loved Lady Eleanor, but he respectedand liked her. He had certainly never loved Finetta, but he had liked her—liked her very much; and as he made his way through the silent streets his heart—it was by no means a hard one—was filled with pity and remorse.
"It was playing it very rough to go and tell her that I should have to cut her, that she wasn't fit company for me any longer, but what else could I do? I couldn't cut her without a word, without saying 'Good-by,'" he mused. "And how well she took it. No scene! no fuss! no reproaches!" It was well that he was unable to see Finetta at that moment; or perhaps it would have been better for him if he could. "She bore it like a brick. She is a brick! Most women of her class would have raised a duse of a row, and made it hot for me all round. Yes, Fin's behaved well. What a fool I have been! What fools we men all are! Why did I want to strike up a friendship with Finetta of the Diadem? And yet that's scarcely the fair way to look at it, for in a way she's as good as I am. And she'd have gone a hundred miles to do me a service; yes, and have shared her last penny with me. I know that! Poor Fin! Thank Heaven, it's over! I'll begin a new life from to-night, please God. A life devoted to my darling. My darling! Heaven! It scarcely seems true that she is mine. I wonder whether she is asleep. Perhaps she is looking up at these small stars, and——. Yes, I hope she is thinking of me. Jove! It's like having a guardian angel all to one's self to be loved by such a woman as Leslie. I wish I were more worthy of her. I wish I'd met her years ago! What a time I seem to have wasted!"
He had forgotten Finetta long before he reached home, and was wrapped up heart and soul in Leslie, and looking with impatience toward the hour when he could return to Portmaris.
He would have gone back the next day, but the duke had asked him to do one or two things for him; and he, Yorke, was anxious to pay some bills.
He went out after breakfast, and his first call was at a grimy office in a dark and dingy courtleading out of Lombard Street. This was the parlor of a certain money-lending spider called Levison, and Lord Yorke was not the first fly that had found its way into it.
Mr. Levison was a grimy man with a hooked nose and thick lips, an unctuous smile, and decidedly Israelite accent. He was dressed in the height of fashion, wore a scarlet necktie in which shone an enormous diamond horse-shoe pin, a thick gold cable albert across his waistcoat, and innumerable rings upon his fingers, which called unkind attention to the fact that the latter were dirty.
This young gentleman greeted Lord Yorke with a mixture of respect and familiarity which made Yorke—and most other persons—feel an almost irresistible longing to kick him.
"And 'ow's your lordship?" said Mr. Levison, with a smile that stretched his flexible lips from ear to ear. "It ain't often we see you in the city, my lord; more's the pity for the city!" And he laughed and rubbed his hands. "What can I have the pleasure of doin' for your lordship? A little accommodation, I s'pose, eh?"
Yorke shook his head.
"Thanks, no, Mr. Levison," he said.
Mr. Levison appeared to be surprised.
"No? Oh, come now, my lord! Not want a little money? You're joking!"
"Strange as it may seem, I am serious," said Yorke as pleasantly as he could. "I don't want any money; in fact, I've come to take up that bill for two hundred and fifty pounds."
And he took out his pocket-book, in which were lying snugly the bank-notes for which he had cashed the duke's check.
Now, it is generally and not erroneously supposed that a Jew is always ready and glad to receive money; but Mr. Levison, singular to relate, looked neither ready nor glad. He stared at Yorke with widely opened eyes, and his face grew first red and then pale.
"You don't mean to say that you want to pay offthat two hundred and fifty, my lord?" he said at last and in a tone almost of dismay.
"Startles you, doesn't it?" said Yorke, with a smile, for the Jew's consternation amused him. "It is rather an unexpected and extraordinary proceeding on my part, I'll admit; but——. Get the bill, Levison," and he began to separate the notes.
The Jew gazed at them, and then up at the handsome, careless face, and lastly at the ground.
"Look here, my lord," he said, thickly. "There really ain't any neshesity for you to go and inconvenience yourself, there ain't, indeed! Besides," he had turned to the grimy desk and consulted a grimy account book, "the bill ain't due! There's no call to pay it for some time yet."
"I know, at least I thought so," said Yorke, carelessly; "but I've got some money, and I thought I'd like to clear off something of what I owe you. Why!" and he laughed, "you don't seem inclined to take it. What's the matter? You haven't—" his face grew grave, "you haven't parted with the bills to any one else, Levison?"
Mr. Levison's oily face grew almost pale—say yellow.
"What! Me go and part with the bills of a customer like you! Not me, my lord! 'Tain't likely! I know better what's due to a swell like your lordship."
"Very well, then," said Yorke. "Take my money, and let me have it, please."
"Yesh, yesh, certainly. If your lordship insists; but upon my sacred honor, I'd rather lend you another two-fifty than——. Well, well!" And he went to a safe and fumbled in his pocket.
"Tut, tut!" he exclaimed. "Blessed if I haven't left my keys at my brother's. Excuse me half a minute, will you, my lord? 'Ave a glass of sherry and a smoke while you're waiting——."
"No, no, thanks," said Yorke, who had once been prevailed upon to taste Mr. Levison's sherry, and had smelled the cigars while Mr. Levison had been smoking them. "Look sharp, my cab is waiting."
"Not more than 'arf a minute," said Mr. Levison,and he darted out, down the street, and full pelt into Messrs. Rawlings and Duncombe.
Ralph Duncombe, cool, grave, collected, a contrast to the flurried Israelite, looked up from his writing-table.
"Mishter Dunkombe, sir!" gasped Levison. "Here's Lord Horchester come to take up that bill of two-fifty. Wonderful, ain't it? Let's have it sharp. Moses! I wouldn't have him know I'd sold it to you for twice the money, and he 'arf suspects something a'ready."
Ralph Duncombe looked down at the letter he was writing; finished it, as if he had scarcely heard, then drew a book toward him, looked at it, and said:
"The bill isn't due. Why should Lord Auchester want to pay money before it is wanted?"
"'Ow do I know? Mad, p'raps! Anyhow, he does!"
Ralph Duncombe thought a moment, then he pushed the book from him, and looked straight at the anxious face before him.
"He cannot have the bill," he said.
Levison gasped.
"What?"
"He cannot have it. It suits me to stick by it till it is due."
"Oh, Mishter Dunkombe, sir! What's the meaning of that? What am I to say to him?"
"A mere whim on my part—perhaps," said Ralph Duncombe, coolly, impassively. "What are you to say? Say anything. Offer to lend him more money. I will take any bill he gives you. Good-morning."
He struck the gong standing at his elbow, and Levison, feeling too bewildered to expostulate or argue, was shown out.
He went back slowly, wiping the perspiration from his face. If it were known that he had parted with Lord Auchester's bills he would probably get a bad name with the other 'swells,' and lose half of them as customers; his business would be ruined!
He forced a grin as he entered the office, andthrew up his hands with a beautiful gesture of amazement.
"Heresh a go, my lord!" he exclaimed. "Brother's gone off to see a client in the country, and took them confounded keys of mine with him. But there, it don't matter for a day or two, does it? I'll send the bill, or call on your lordship——."
Yorke put his pocket-book back.
"Very well," he said. "Mind, I want to pay the money—while I've got it. You see?"
The Jew grinned.
"I see; before it melts; eh, my lord? But there, as I said, why pay at all? Why not let me lend you——."
Yorke shook his head and laughed.
"No, thanks, Mr. Levison. I don't mean to trouble you in that way again, if I can help it. Good-morning." And with a pleasant nod he went out of the grimy parlor, leaving the spider staring after him with unfeigned surprise.
"Don't want to borrow any more money!" he gasped. "Why, what in the name of Moses has come to him. He—he must be going off his 'ead!"
Yorke dismissed the little incident from his mind, guessing nothing of its significance, or the effect it would have on his future, and had himself driven to Bond Street.
He had commenced the morning by doing his duty—or trying to do it—and now he was going to reward himself by buying a present for Leslie.
He had pondered over what he should get, and had at first, naturally, thought of a ring; but he had remembered that she could not wear it without attracting notice and question, and had decided on a locket.
The man showed him some, and Yorke selected a plain one with the initial 'Y' prettily worked in bas-relief.
While he was paying for it, the shopman, who knew him quite well, brought forward a tray of diamond ornaments.
"The newest designs, my lord," he said.
Yorke shook his head, but even as he did soFinetta flashed across his mind. He looked at the bundle of notes; he had plenty of money; she had behaved remarkably well; she deserved a present, a parting gift; he would give her one.
He knew Finetta's passion for diamonds, and comforted himself with the reflection—a wrong one, as we know—that they would console her for the loss of him.
He was not long in choosing—not half as long as he had been in selecting Leslie's simple locket—and purchased a pendant. It cost him a hundred and thirty pounds.
"Shall I send them, my lord?" asked the man.
"No," said York. "I'll take 'em. Put them up, singly, in a box. I'm going to send them through the post."
The man inclosed them in a couple of wooden boxes, and bowed Lord Auchester out.
York went home, and straight to a drawer in which he kept odd things, and after some amount of rummaging found acarte de visiteportrait of himself. He sat down, lit a cigar, and, as neatly as he could, cut out the head of the portrait and fitted it in the locket; wrote on a slip of paper, "From Yorke," and laid them aside.
Then he took a sheet of paper, and dashed off in the charming scrawl which boys acquire at Eton—and never lose—the following note:
"Dear Fin.—Will you accept the inclosed and wear it for the sender's sake, and in remembrance of the many delightful times we have spent together? I thought of you nearly all the way home last night—it was awfully late!—and shall never forget how good you have always been to me. Think of me sometimes when you wear this trifle, and don't think too unkindly!"
"Yours,
"Yorke."
It was a foolish note. But he would be a wise man who could write a wise one under such circumstances. Of course, a wise one wouldn't have written at all; but Yorke was not famous for prudence.
He laid this note beside the beautiful diamond pendant, wrapped, like the locket, in tissue paper, and was putting them in their respective boxes when Fleming came in.
"Lord Vinson, my lord," he said.
Yorke looked up with a shade of annoyance on his face.
"Oh——. Ask Lord Vinson to wait a moment," he said, hurriedly. "There's a midday post for the country, isn't there?"
"Yes, my lord," said Fleming. "Can I help your lordship?" for Yorke was hunting about for string and sealing wax.
"No! Yes. Here, wrap these boxes up in thickish paper, and seal the string. Mind! This, No. 1, goes in this one, and that, No. 2, in that! Understand?"
"Yes, my lord," said Fleming, and no doubt he thought he did. But when he brought them back from the side table at which he had been packing them, and Lord Yorke asked him which was No. 1, Fleming, the usually careful and correct, handed him No. 2!
And so it happened that when, a few minutes later, Fleming walked off with them to the post-office, the locket with the portrait, but with Finetta's letter, was directed to Finetta, and the diamond pendant to Leslie!
To Leslie the days seemed to go by like a dream during Yorke's absence. She thought of him every hour, but she had yet scarcely realized all that had happened to her.
If Francis Lisle had not been utterly unlike the ordinary run of parents, he would not have failed to see the change that had come over her; but he was too absorbed in his painting to notice the difference; and, indeed, if Leslie had appeared at breakfast in a domino and mask, or sat during the meal with an umbrella up, he would very likely have failed to see anything extraordinary in theoccurrence; and it rather suited him than otherwise that Leslie should sit beside him perfectly silent, with her hands folded in her lap, eyes fixed on vacancy, with a dreamy smile on her lips.
But if Francis Lisle was blind, the duke was not.
His keen eyes noted the change in the expression of the lovely face, the soft light of a newly born joy in the gray eyes, and he guessed the cause.
"Like the rest!" he thought, with the bitter cynicism produced by his pain. "Like the rest! Well, it will afford me a little amusement; it will be apetite comedieplayed for my special benefit."
And yet at times, when he was free from pain, and he looked up at Leslie as she stood beside his chair, he felt doubtful and uncertain as to the accuracy of his judgment of her.
"She has the eyes of an angel," he muttered, when they were together one morning, the second after Yorke's departure for London. "One would say that they were the clear windows of a soul as pure as a child's."
His muttering was almost audible, and Leslie, awakened by it from a dream, bent down to him, and asked:
"What did you say, Mr. Temple?"
"I was saying—and thinking—that you are very good-natured to keep a crusty, irritable invalid company on such a delightful morning."
"Did you say all that?" she said, with a soft laugh.
"Well, if I didn't say it, I thought it," he responded. "You must find it dull work, but you are used to sacrificing yourself for others, are you not?" and he glanced at the painter who was at work at a little distance on the beach.
"It is not much of a sacrifice to stay with those one likes," she said, half absently.
The duke looked up at her sharply, and yet with a touch of color on his face.
"Thank you. I am to take it that you rather like me than otherwise, Miss Leslie?"
She blushed, and eyed him with sweet gravity.
"I should be very ungrateful if I did not," shesaid. And mentally she added, "And how could I help liking you; you are his friend?"
"I see," he said. "Well, it is very kind of you to keep me company. I should have missed my cousin—the duke—very much, if you had not been here. I am afraid mine is dull society after his, and that you miss the pleasant drives and sails."
"They were very pleasant, yes," she admitted, a little confusedly.
How hard it was that she should be obliged to deceive this kind-hearted friend of Yorke's, and how she longed for the time when he and her father should know her and Yorke's blissful secrets, when all concealment should be at an end, and her great happiness proclaimed. And yet it was sweet, this secret of theirs; it seemed to make their love more precious and sacred.
"Yes," said the duke. "Yorke is capital company. He is a great favorite wherever he goes."
"Yes," she murmured.
"He's so light-hearted," went on the duke. "And light-hearted people are extremely rare nowadays; but after all it isn't very much to his credit; I mean that it is easy to be joyous when you are young, in perfect health, and are——," he paused a second, "a duke."
"Are dukes so much happier than other people?" she said, with a faint smile.
He winced. She had unconsciously struck home.
"No," he said, laconically. "Most of those I know are very much less happy than the rest of mankind, but it is different with the Duke of Rothbury. He is, as I say, young and in splendid health——," his lips moved and he sighed cynically, "but if he weren't he would still be very popular and always welcome everywhere."
"Why?" said Leslie, looking at him with her guileless eyes.
He met their glance for a moment, then lowered his keen, suspicious ones.
"Is it acting?" he asked himself, and he gnawed at his lip.
"Why? Because he is a duke. If he were oldand ugly, and—and twisted as I am, he would still be run after by all sorts and conditions of men—and women," he added, but in a lower voice, as if he were half ashamed of his cynicism.
Leslie understood, and her face flushed for a moment; but it was not with guilt, but the indignation of a pure-hearted girl.
"You mean that they—women—would pretend to like him because of his rank?" she said, quietly, but with gentle gravity.
"That's what I meant," he assented, eyeing her attentively. "There isn't a woman in the world whose heart doesn't leap at the thought of becoming a duchess."
"It is not true!" she said, her eyes flashing down at him with purest indignation. "It is—but you are only speaking in jest, Mr. Temple," and she smiled at the warmth she had been hurried into.
He looked hard at her.
"I am not jesting," he said; "but stating the solemn, shameful fact."
She gazed down at him almost pityingly.
"Ah, you do not know women at all," she said. "No," with a shake of her head, as he opened his lips. "You may know a great many, and they may be very great ladies, and a few of them may be as worldly as you say they are, but not many. I will not believe that."
He fingered his chin with restless fingers, and looked from right to left.
"If she is not acting then—then she is on the brink of a great misery," he thought. "If I could only believe her!"
"You mean that it would make no difference to you whether a man were a duke or not?" he said.
Her face went rather pale.
"Yes, it would make a difference," she said in a low voice. "I would rather not make the acquaintance of a duke, or any one so far above me in rank; and there are thousands of women who feel the same."
"Oh," he says, curtly. "I never was fortunate enough to meet any. Seeing that that is your feeling,it was very kind of you to honor me—I mean my cousin," he corrected himself sharply, "with your friendship, Miss Leslie," and he smiled.
Leslie's cheek burned, and she turned her face from his keen eyes.
"An actress," he muttered. "And yet I'll give her a word of warning, though she doesn't deserve it."
"Did the duke happen to say when he was coming back, Miss Leslie?"
"No," she said. "He said that he might be two or three days."
He laughed.
"I shouldn't be surprised if Portmaris never saw him again."
He saw Leslie start slightly, then a faint smile flashed over her face, a smile of perfect faith. Yorke not come back! She remembered his last word to her. I shall count every moment while I'm away from you, dearest, every moment till I am back with you.
"My cousin is rather erratic," said the duke, casually and indifferently. "He is a very nice fellow, good-hearted and the rest of it; but—well, a little fickle; at least, that's the character the ladies give him."
"Fickle," she said, smiling still.
"Y-es," he said, languidly. "What's that song in 'The Grand Duchess,' 'A butterfly flits from flower to flower?' One mustn't blame the butterfly, you know. 'It's its nature to,' as Dr. Watts says; and, like the butterfly, Yorke is what is called very susceptible. He is always falling in love——."
She moved slightly, and the smile died away from her lips; but the clear eyes met his steadily, unflinchingly.
"And, fortunately, falling out of it again. He's like the man in the play who was in the habit of proposing to some woman every day; and if she accepted him he rode off, and she saw him no more, and if she refused him he asked her to be a sister, an aunt, or something of that kind, and rode off just as easily."
She opened her lips slowly.
"I thought you were a friend of the Duke of Rothbury's, Mr. Temple?" she said, in a very low voice.
The duke flushed.
"Eh? Oh, I see. You think it very base of me to speak ill of him behind his back?"
"That's what I meant," she assented, gravely.
"Oh, but the world wouldn't consider that I had spoken at all ill of him."
"The world!" she said. "How wicked and heartless it must be, this world of yours, Mr. Temple!"
"It is," he said, curtly. "As heartless as a flint."
"Or as the Duke of Rothbury, if he were what you have painted him," she said very softly.
"You don't believe me, then?" he asked, looking up at her from under his thick brows.
She shook her head.
"Not the very least!" she said, actually smiling.
"You forget that I have known him all his life, and that you have only known him five minutes!"
She still smiled.
"But in five minutes one may know——." She stopped, and her face flushed, and the tears arose to her eyes. "No, I don't believe it," she said, her voice tremulous. "There may be some men who are as false and heartless as you say, but not the Duke of Rothbury."
He looked at her gravely, almost pityingly.
"Don't be too sure of that, Miss Leslie!" he said, with a touch of warning in his tone. "He is a good fellow, a charming companion, but——." He was stopped by the expression of pain which shone in her eyes.
"Oh, please let us talk of something else!" she said, quickly. "See, here is the postman."
"I hope he has brought my medicine," said the duke. But the postman, tugging at his cap, handed a small parcel to Leslie.
"For me!" she said, with surprise. "Why, what can it be? Are you sure it is for me and not papa? It is like one of the boxes they send the colors in."
"A sample of a new scent or pearl powder," said the duke, leaning back languidly.
"Why should they send it to me?" she said, laughingly.
She tore off the outer paper as she spoke, and with the pleasant excitement which is always produced by the receipt of a parcel whose contents are unknown, she opened the little wooden box.
The duke heard an exclamation, a cry of amazement, of admiration, of delight, and looked up sharply.
"Is it scent or pearl powder?" he asked, with an amused smile.
She looked at him as if she scarcely heard him. Her eyes were shining, her lips apart.
"It is neither," she said, and without another word, with the little box fast clasped in her hand, ran toward the house.
She ran up the street and into the house, and up the stairs to her own room, her heart beating fast. Locking the door first, she opened the little wooden box, and took out the pendant, a glimpse of which she had caught as she stood beside the duke.
But though the glitter of the diamonds pleased her as it will every woman, the few words in his handwriting were more precious to her than the costly gems.
Can any one ever tell what her first love letter means to a young girl who is in love with the writer?
Leslie gazed at one line in Yorke's awful scrawl as a Moslem might regard a verse from the Koran, and not once or twice only did her sweet lips kiss the scrap of paper. Then she examined the pendant more minutely, and though her experience of jewelry was of a very limited character, she knew that the gift was an expensive one.
"It is too good, too grand for me," she said, and yet with a sensation of pleasure in its worth. "I should have been as pleased if he had sent me a bunch of flowers bought in the London streets. But, oh, how good of him! And, after all, it is not too grand for his wife. He would think nothing too rare, too costly for her. Oh, my love, my love! If I were only more worthy of you!"
She found a piece of ribbon and put the pendant on it, and hung it around her white throat, and the fire and glitter of the diamonds almost startled her.
"It is just as well that I may not wear it openly—yet," she said to herself with a soft, shy laugh. "I should feel as if every one was staring at me. I wonder whether I shall ever get used to wearing beautiful things like this? He would say 'Yes,' but I feel now as if I never should be able to do so without being conscious of my splendor. But I must hide you for the present, you beautiful thing," and she arranged the pendant so that it nestled over her heart, and buttoned her dress over it, and there it seemed to glow with a soft, consuming fire, as if it knew that it had come from the hand of the man she loved.
Several times during the day she stole up to her room and drew the pendant from its hiding-place, and looked at it with glistening eyes; and if Francis Lisle had not been blind to everything but his awful pictures, he could not but have been startled by the expression on her face after one of these visits.
But if her father was blind the children were not, and as they clustered around her they looked up at her, frank wonder in their wide-open orbs, and one mite lisped:
"What makth 'oo sthmile so, Mith Lethlie. Have 'oo been a dood girl, and got a penny diven 'oo?"
"Yes, I've got a penny given to me, Trottie," said Leslie, taking the child up in her lap and kissing it. "Such a beautiful shining penny."
"Thow it me," said the little one.
But Leslie put her hand on her bosom with a jealous smile.
"No, no; I can't show it even to you, Trottie,"she said; "not to any one. And I am not going to buy anything with it, but going to keep it as long as ever I live."
She did not see Mr. Temple again that day, and did not even think of him or the hard, unjust things he had said of Yorke; and if she had, it would only have been to laugh at them. Yorke fickle and false! With that gift of his rising and falling on her heart, she would not have believed an angel if he had come to tell her anything against her beloved.
The duke missed her all that afternoon, missed her very much. He had got used to having her standing or sitting by his chair, and her sweet, low-pitched voice had been as a soothing balm in his moments of pain. And yet he could not wholly trust her, or believe that she was better and less mercenary and self-seeking than the rest of her sex.
His keen eyes had seen the change in her face when he had spoken of Yorke, and he had told himself that what he had prophesied was coming true; this artless-looking girl with the clear, guileless eyes was already aiming at a ducal coronet. It did not occur to him that she might love Yorke for himself alone; or, if it did, he put the thought away from him and hugged his old cynical mistrust of her sex.
The next day passed and no Yorke appeared, but on the morning of the following one he got into the train at Paddington on his way to Portmaris.
As he did so, with a sigh of relief and expectant happiness, he noticed a tall lady dressed in black with a veil over her face pass his carriage and enter the next, and he was struck in an absent kind of way by the grace of her figure; but she disappeared from his mind the moment she passed the window, and he gave himself up to picturing his meeting with Leslie.
A few hours, and then——. He lit a cigar, and stretched his long legs on to the opposite seat and thought.
The few days he had been absent from her had taught this young man how very completely hewas in love, and he was actually asking himself why they should not be married at once!
"What's the use of waiting?" he mused; "I shall never be better off. We might just as well be married now——." Then a reflection cut across his roseate visions, and, as Hamlet says, 'gave him pause;' he was fearfully in debt, and though Mr. Levison hadn't turned up with the bill, and seemed more inclined to lend him more money than take any from him, he, Yorke, knew the reason. The money lenders all depended upon his marrying an heiress, and he knew—and his face flushed as he thought of it—that they one and all expected him to marry Lady Eleanor Dallas, and relied upon it.
The moment they heard that he had married what they and the rest of the world, in its language of contempt, would call a pauper, they would swoop down upon him like a flock of kites, and——.
He sat up in the railway carriage and rubbed his forehead.
Couldn't he ask Dolph to lend—give—him the money to pay his debts? Well, he could ask him, and no doubt the duke would do it—if he approved of Yorke's marrying Leslie. But would he approve? Somehow Yorke felt doubtful.
"I might try him," he thought, and he pondered over it until the train reached Northcliffe, and then suddenly an alternative course occurred to him, an idea which flashed upon him suddenly, and sent the blood rushing to his face.
Why shouldn't he and Leslie be married secretly? They might go away, leave England, and settle down in some Continental place quietly until he had screwed enough money out of his income to pay his debts, and then they might proclaim their marriage to the whole world.
His heart beat hopefully, and he was so absorbed in his plans and schemes that he did not notice that the tall lady in black got out at Northcliffe; indeed, he could not have seen her unless he had looked back—which he did not do—for she did not get out until the rest of the passengers had alighted, andthen kept in the background until the station was clear.
Yorke got a fly at once and had himself driven to Portmaris, and as the ancient vehicle rattled down the street he looked eagerly at the windows of Sea View. But Leslie was out, and with a little pang of disappointment Yorke ran up the stairs of Marine Villa.
The duke was sitting in his chair, his head resting on his hands, and Yorke saw at once that it was a 'bad afternoon' with the invalid. The duke raised his head, with a transient smile of welcome on his pale face.
"Well, Yorke, back again," he said, holding out his hand. "I was just on the point of telling Grey to pack up."
Yorke started.
"What, tired of Portmaris already, Dolph?" he said.
The duke sighed.
"About five minutes is long enough for me anywhere. There is only one place I shall not get weary of—the grave. But this isn't a very cheerful greeting, Yorke. What's the news?"
"Oh, nothing! I saw Lang"—this was the duke's agent—"and told him what you wanted done, and——."
"Oh, thanks!" said the duke, indifferently; "and you have had a pleasant time, I hope? Did you see Eleanor?"
Yorke nodded.
"Yes, oh, yes; had luncheon there. She's very well. What a lovely sunset to-night! 'Pon my word, this is a jolly little place."
"Jolly, is it?" said the duke, eyeing him keenly.
"Hem! Well, perhaps it's jollier when you are here. It's been dull enough without you, any way. As I said, we have missed you very much, young man."
"'We'? Meaning you and Grey?" said Yorke, standing at the window and watching the opposite ones anxiously.
The duke smiled grimly.
"Well, I dare say Grey has missed you; but I was thinking, when I spoke, of—Miss Lisle."
"Oh, Miss Lisle," said Yorke, flushing like a schoolgirl. "I—I hope she is all right."
"Yes, I think so. The fact is, I have not seen very much of her since yesterday morning, when in the course of conversation I ventured to hint that your grace——."
Yorke started.
"Your grace was not quite perfect."
Yorke laughed uneasily, and kept his back carefully turned to the duke.
"She seemed to think that you were more divine than human, and put out her claws in your defense like a woman—and a cat."
A spasm of pain shot through him and he groaned faintly, and so, though all Yorke's soul arose in horror at hearing his beloved likened to a cat, he held his tongue.
"In short," continued the duke, wearily, "I was quite correct in my surmise as to what would take place. The girl is dying to marry your grace and become a duchess."
Yorke bit his lip.
"It's time that bit of nonsense came to an end," he said, with angry impatience. "I didn't like it from the first, Dolph, and I like it now less than ever."
The duke waved his hand with tired indifference.
"It was an idiotic idea," he said; "but it has served my purpose. I have been left alone here, and the rest and quiet have done me good. You can tell the Lisles, and whom else you like, at once if you choose. Stay," he said; "wait till to-morrow evening. I shall have gone by that time."
"Gone?" said Yorke. "You mean going?"
"Yes," said the duke, impatiently; "I am tired of it. I'll go and hide myself at Rothbury, I think; and I think you had better go, too."
"Why?" asked Yorke, but his voice faltered slightly.
"Well," responded the duke, grimly, "I've an idea—don't trouble to contradict me, it isn't worthwhile—that Miss Leslie has succeeded in making an impression on your grace——."
"And that would be such an awful calamity, wouldn't it?" said Yorke, feeling his way.
The duke laughed cynically.
"No, I suppose not. You would ride away, like the man in the ballad, and leave her weeping. Not that the youngest and most unsophisticated girls weep much now, I believe; they dry their tears and look out for the next man."
"Dolph, for a man who loves and respects women—and I know you do——."
"Oh, do you?" snarled the duke, or, rather, the demon of pain that had got possession of him.
"Yes," said Yorke. "For one who loves and respects them, you talk strangely."
"Well, well. We don't want to squabble about women in general or this young woman in particular. All I mean to say is that, though usually I think they are well punished for their mercenary scheming, I've a sneaking fondness and pity for Leslie Lisle, and I don't want you to let her think that she has a chance of being a duchess. In short—well, of course, you have been flirting with her; you always do, you know. Well, leave her alone, and go back to London." He sighed. "That's good advice. We'll let her off this time."
Yorke stood motionless, with stern face.
"If I were the duke I have been masquerading as," he said, "I could not find a better woman or one——."
"More fitted by nature to adorn, etc. I know," interrupted the duke with peevish irritation. "But, unfortunately, you aren't the duke—I wish to Heaven you were, or anybody were but I!—and as you are not, and only Yorke Auchester, with not enough to keep yourself upon, to say nothing of a wife, you can't afford to do more than flirt with her. There! The subject is played out. You have got to marry Eleanor Dallas, my dear fellow. She is made for you, and you will be as happy as a man ever can be in this beastliest of all beastly worlds."
"You dispose of me very easily," said Yorke, histhroat dry, his eyes flashing, but his back still turned.
"Yes, because I care for you, and am anxious for your future and happiness."
"Thanks," said Yorke, in a softer voice. "But—well, we are arguing. Suppose I do not care for Eleanor?"
The duke laughed quietly.
"My dear Yorke, no man could be loved by such a beautiful creature as Eleanor and, marrying her, help falling in love with her within the first fortnight. Oh, how tired I am! Don't let us spoil the pleasure I get out of your return by wrangling. Do as I say; leave this little girl with the gray eyes and dark hair—what eyes they are, by the way!"—and he sighed—"leave her alone. You can't marry her, and though you could punish her for wanting to marry you by flirting with her—well, I don't somehow want to see her punished. Seriously, Yorke, I ask you to do this as—as a favor."
Yorke left the window.
"You release me from my promise, from our arrangement regarding the title?" he said, quietly, and with a tone of decision in his voice which the duke would have remarked if he had not been in such intense pain.
"To-morrow—not till to-morrow," he said. "I'll tell Grey we are going to-morrow, and then, just before we go, you can tell the Lisles, explain the reason—anything. I care nothing. I shall be out of reach of the fuss the story will make even in this outlandish place."
"Good," said Yorke, and he drew a long breath. "I'm going out for a stroll—dinner as usual, I suppose?" And the duke heard him going down the stairs two steps at a time.
The duke's few decided, querulous words had fired Yorke. He was to marry Lady Eleanor, was he? Ha-ha! He laughed almost grimly. There was only one woman in the world he would marry, and, if she would have him, he would make her his wife at once.
He strode down the street, and on to the quay,and at a little distance on the beach saw Mr. Lisle, painting as usual.
He looked up impatiently as Yorke came crashing over the stones, and accosted him.
"Oh, how do you do—how do you do, your grace?" he said, in his thin voice, and with a hasty glance at him as if he begrudged every moment from his picture.
"Is—is Miss Lisle out with you?" said Yorke, trying to speak with nothing warmer in his voice than conventional politeness.
"Leslie?" looking around absently. "Yes, she was here a moment ago; but she has wandered off somewhere." And his manner and tone plainly added:
"And I wish to goodness you'd wander off, too."
"How is the picture getting on?" asked Yorke, looking at the daub which Lisle had painted over and over again, making it worse at each stroke.
"Very well—very well, I think," was the reply. "You like it?" and a faint red came into the pale thin cheeks. Somehow Yorke fancied that they had grown thinner and paler during the last few days. "I am going to make a masterpiece of it. I am working hard, very hard. Isn't it very hot and close this morning? I have a stupid headache——. Yes. Would you mind standing out of the light? Thank you."
Yorke left him; he knew it would be of no use to ask the dreamer in which direction Leslie had gone.
"Poor old fellow," he thought. "We'll take him with us, and look after him together. Give him his painting tools, and he'll be happy enough!"
He walked along the beach and on to the cliffs and suddenly he came upon Leslie. She was sitting in a cleft of the rocks, a book on her lap, but it was lying face downward, and she was looking out to sea. He stole behind her, and bent down and kissed her. She started, but not violently, and the blood rushed to her face.
"Yorke!" was all she said, but all her love, her joy on his return breathed in the single word.