“You think so?”
“I am sure of it. I believe the influence of an honest man’s love to be stronger than that of all the mesmerists that ever hid pins or learned secrets.”
“You believe it, even after the proof I gave you! Will you hold to your belief in the face of this? I now, at this moment, by the force I hold over her, command her to leave her room up stairs and come down here to us.”
There was a long silence: the Asiatic held the stem of his hookah in his hand and sat like a statue, his lips tightly compressed, his eyes brilliant and fixed. Lauriston also left off smoking, listening and watching the door with intense excitement which made him sick and cold. For some minutes there was not a sound to be heard but the faint night-cries and noises that came through the open window. At last a board creaked in the hall outside, a knock was heard on the door of the front-room, then the turning of the handle, and a voice called weakly:
“Rahas, are you there?”
Lauriston started up; the merchant never moved. The door of the room they were in was drawn softly ajar, and Nouna’s voice almost in a whisper asked:
“Has Mr. Lauriston been here? Tell me, hasn’t he been here?”
The young Englishman crossed the room with two strides, and pushed the door gently open with a shaking hand. The little weak voice thrilled him to the heart. She peeped in round the door, all in clinging white, with a laugh in her eyes at sight of him, but with a rather subdued and dreamy manner.
“I fancied you were here. I seemed to hear you call me,” she said sleepily, as she came in and very composedly leaned upon his arm.
In the midst of the glow and the glamour cast upon him by the girl’s entrance, Lauriston was startled by the voice of Rahas close to his ear:
“Will you not acknowledge now that it was my influence over her which brought her down?”
“No,” answered the young Englishman in a husky voice, “her own words prove that it was mine.”
The merchant shrugged his shoulders, and with a bow to the lady, who was too much occupied with her companion to notice it, retreated behind the screen into the curtained room.
George Lauristonwas very much in love; but all the circumstances of his love adventure were so strange, so mysterious, that at this moment, when the supernatural appeared to have come to the aid of the simply marvellous, the chill of some uncanny horror seemed to check his passion, and he looked down at the girl by his side rather as on some fairy changeling than as on the beautiful woman who had lately usurped such an undue share of his inmost thoughts. After a short silence Nouna looked up, half timidly, half saucily:
“Have you then nothing to say to me? Is a week so long a time that you have forgotten I speak your language?”
“I have forgotten nothing about you,” said he, not encouraging her clinging pressure on his arm, but standing up stiff and straight, with his eyes fixed on the screen and the curtains behind it. “I will come and see you and Mrs. Ellis to-morrow, Nouna, it is too late for me to stay now.”
She followed the glance of his eyes, and suddenly dropping his arm made a cat-like bound to the screen, and pulled it down. A figure was seen to move away quickly, like a shadow, from behind the curtains, and the next moment Rahas came through them.
“Who is in that room?” asked Nouna imperiously.
“My uncle, Nouna. Why are you so excited?”
“Your uncle Fanah? No one else?”
“No one.”
He stepped back and opening the curtains again, said a few words in a language strange to Lauriston. A little old man with a grey beard and a dried-up, wrinkled face, wearing a crimson turban and a very simple Eastern dress, came slowly in and bowed to the stranger.
“Are you satisfied now?” asked Rahas.
“Ye—es,” said the girl doubtfully, passing her hand over her eyes and shivering, “I suppose so.” Then, turning to Lauriston, she continued, with the tone of a child playing at royalty, “You will honour me by coming up stairs to my apartments for a few minutes. I will not detain you long.”
She curtseyed to the two merchants, and led the way back through the front room with a gesture to the young Englishman to follow her, as Lauriston did, after taking a hasty leave of his host. The girl seemed to be in such a subdued, sleepy mood that he was prepared for her to behave in a more conventional manner than usual. He was quite off his guard therefore when, having reached the top of the staircase, she suddenly swept round, her white garments swirling after her, and threw herself like a panther upon him, with such electric suddenness and force that, if his hand had not been upon the stair-rail, he would have fallen down the stairs. She was curled about him, her feet off the ground, her arms round his neck, her breast against his. It was such an altogether unlooked for and bewildering proceeding that Lauriston, after a moment’s choking sensation, put his arms round her, carried her to the door of her smaller sitting-room, and attempted to put her down on her feet. As she resisted and refused to stand, he looked round him, and seeing a chair against the wall, placed her, still limp and apparently helpless, very gently upon it, and laid his fingers on the handle of the sitting-room door. The little lady sprang back into vigorous life immediately.
“You are not going in!” she said in a hissing whisper, her face full of alarm and disappointment; “Mrs. Ellis is in there!”
“That is why I’m going in. I came to see Mrs. Ellis, not you.”
For a moment the girl looked ready to burst into tears, but with another change of mood she slid off her chair and came up to him, laughing.
“Are all Englishmen like you, all stone and steel? or has poor little Nouna fallen upon the very hardest?” she asked, her tone changing from playful to plaintive before she had finished speaking. And she folded her small hands one in the other and looked up with a face so doleful that Lauriston wanted to laugh. “Mamma says Englishmen are noble and brave and good, and so I thought—when I saw you, and you were kind and sweet to me—that you were perhaps sent to me—coming so suddenly in the midst of my sleep—the great Rajah mamma said I was to wait for and obey and humble myself to, as a woman should to her lord. She said he would come certainly if I was very good, and I had been good for nearly three weeks, and had given Mrs. Ellis hardly any trouble at all; so I thought, you see,” she said, looking up into his face naïvely, “that you were the Rajah. Well, I was wrong, that’s all. You prefer Mrs. Ellis.”
George Lauriston listened to this harangue with every feeling of tenderness that can move a man, from that of a father for a wayward child to that of a lover for a beautiful woman. He saw in her alternately bold and ingenuous words, in the wondering child looks that came into her eyes between passionate ebullitions of love, of anger, and of pride, in the utter absence of a grown woman’s modest reticence, that the little creature before him was now, whatever time and her fellow-men might hereafter make of her, nothing but a wild, untrained, half-grown young thing, with the good and bad impulses of a savage, and a thousand fascinations which would be so many desperate dangers to her ill-guarded womanhood.
In those few moments Lauriston made up his mind. The girl had for him an irresistible attraction which made every other woman insipid and inane. In spite of her mysterious antecedents, of her equivocal surroundings, he believed most firmly in her native innocence and goodness. Her odd sense of her own dignity, her passionate love for her mother, her plaintive account of her impression of the first meeting with himself, all tended to confirm this opinion, and also to give some weight to the shadowy legends which seemed to form her personal history. He would write to the mother, if possible go and see her, ask her consent to his engagement to her daughter, and himself choose some home where the girl might spend a couple of years in good hands, while he on his side would strain every nerve and save every penny that he might be able, at the end of that time, to make her his wife. He had no doubts about the success of his suit; everything pointed to the fact that this shadowy adored and adoring mother would be glad to get the half-spoilt, half-neglected, wholly ill-brought-up girl, off her hands.
He looked down again on the little creature as she, in a fit of petulance at her inability to pique him, leant against the wall and, like a mischievous monkey, tore one of the loose muslin sleeves of her dress into strips. Observing this suggestive occupation, George felt suddenly appalled by the enormous hardihood of the undertaking to which he was inwardly pledging himself. She glanced up, saw the look of consternation on his face, and fell into convulsions of stifled laughter. The set expression on his features broke up, as he laid his hand very tenderly upon her shoulder.
“Hush, you mustn’t laugh like that. You will make yourself ill.”
Sensitive to every change of feeling as an Eolian harp is to every breath of air, she was quiet at once, and putting both her own hands on his to keep it on her shoulders, she said in a very soft voice, with earnest eyes that seemed to draw out from his the emotion she knew how to excite in him:
“Ah, I like to hear you speak to me like that. You must always speak like that to me, and then I will always be like this.”
She folded her little hands, still with one of his clasped between them, madonna-like against her breast, and bowed her head low in token of deep, devoted humility. It was the passionate human warmth within her, glowing in her impulses of love and hate, and freezing in her bursts of pride, which had melted so quickly the heart of the reserved young Englishman, and made her irresistible to him.
In a burst of most deep, most loyal tenderness, he lifted her up in his arms, and curled her slender limbs about him, and held her like a cherished pet lamb against his breast.
“My darling,” he whispered in her ear—a little shell-like ear of rose and ivory tints—“I shall speak to you always as a man speaks to the creature that lives in his heart, whom he loves, whom he trusts, whom he worships. And you, Nouna, must be good and gentle, and grow up into a sweet, noble woman for me, so that my love for you may make me better. I can never give you a palace, Nouna, or elephants with golden trappings; if I can ever buy you diamonds it will not be till you are too old to care for them; and you will only have one slave. But you will be a queen to me, my darling, as long as our lives last; and I will get on and make my name famous, so that you shall not envy the proudest maharanee in India, you shall be so happy as the good true wife of a plain English gentleman.”
“Wife!” repeated Nouna wonderingly, raising her head from his shoulder to peer into his eyes. “That is what mamma always says. I must be good and be the wife of an English gentleman, and then I shall be happy! Are all the wives of English gentlemen so happy?”
George felt hot. Those gleaming black eyes, though they could not read thoughts half so quickly and surely as they did feelings, had a steadiness and persistency that made it hard to look into them and tell a lie.
“All those that are beautiful and good like you are happy, unless they marry bad men.”
“How can they tell they’re bad before they’ve married them? You might be bad, and I shouldn’t know.”
“You will have time to find out in the two years that must pass before I can marry you.”
“Two years!” She began writhing and wriggling in his arms like an electric eel. “Put me down, put me down at once!” She enforced her command with such agile movements that he had to comply. “I’m not going to wait two years!” And she readjusted her crumpled draperies with an injured manner. “I shall marry you at once, or else I shall not marry you at all. I shall have Rahas; he has changed to-day, and says he only desires my happiness; but he shall change back again and desire me for a wife. I will not wait two years. You do not love me. Love is for now, not for two years!”
He has changed to-day! Those words struck Lauriston, and reminded him again of the strangeness of the circumstances which surrounded the girl he loved, and of the impossibility of settling anything until he had heard from her mother.
“Very well, Nouna,” he said gently, “I won’t quarrel with you for wanting to have me before I am well off. I must leave you now, my darling, and I will write to your mother in the morning. Tell me her address.”
“She is in Spain, now travelling about; we always write to her lawyers.”
“Well, I will write through them.”
He took a note-book from his pocket, and at her dictation wrote down the name and address of a firm of solicitors in Lincoln’s Inn. During the slight pause in their talk as he did this, Lauriston heard a sound upon the stairs, and looked up suddenly, convinced that some one had been listening.
“What is it?” asked Nouna.
“Somebody on the stairs,” whispered he.
As he spoke, they both heard another light sound lower down; but when they looked into the dimly-lighted hall the eavesdropper had disappeared.
“It was not Rahas; he treads so that you can hear him,” said Nouna.
“It was a woman, I am sure,” said Lauriston.
“A woman,” repeated Nouna. “And it was the end of a woman’s dress, a long black dress, I saw in Fanah’s room. I thought it must be a fancy, for when Rahas sent me to sleep to-day and made me see mamma she wore a long black dress.”
“Rahas sent you to sleep! Why didn’t you tell me?” asked Lauriston rather sharply.
“I had no time; I forgot about it.”
“Tell me now all about it—at least, not here; come into the room.”
Nouna stopped him, requiring to be kissed first. Then she let him open the sitting-room door, and the reason why Mrs. Ellis had not been disturbed by the proceedings outside was made manifest: the good lady was dozing in an armchair. She looked up with a start when they entered, and listened to Lauriston’s explanations and apologies for appearing so late in a rather apathetic and somnolent manner. She awoke, however, into the fullest life of which her vegetable nature was capable, when Nouna began to describe to her visitor the adventure of the afternoon.
“You know,” she said, “that Rahas has been teasing me to marry him. He wanted me to keep all the bracelets out of his warehouse that he lent me to wear, and I told him I could buy some for myself if I wanted them. And at last yesterday I told him I would stay no longer in the same house with him, and I went out with Mrs. Ellis and we engaged new apartments.”
“I’m sure I had no wish to go away,” broke in the elder lady plaintively. “The people here are most obliging, the rooms are clean, and nobody could be more civil or more respectful than Mr. Rahas and his uncle, Monsieur Fanah.” As the elder merchant spoke with a strong foreign accent, Mrs. Ellis thought him entitled to a French prefix to his name. “But there’s no doing anything with Nouna when she’s made up her mind, I regret to say.”
At this point Nouna put her hand over her governess’s mouth, and went on with her story.
“When Rahas learnt last night that I had taken this decisive step,” she said with pompous, old-fashioned deliberateness, “he entreated me to change my determination. I said no, I would not be persecuted, and I should leave this house to-day. He declared that my mother would be much annoyed, to which I replied that he could not tell, as he did not know her. He then asked if I would stay if I could receive some sign from my mother that she wished me to remain. I answered that my mother’s will was law to me, but that what he spoke of was impossible. And he smiled, and asked me if I would wait until this evening before leaving the house. I consented, and at eight o’clock he asked me to go down into his sitting-room, where I found you just now.”
“You ought not to have gone,” broke in Lauriston, in great excitement and irritation.
“I did not want to. I made Mammy Ellis go too. Didn’t I, Mammy?”
“Mr. Lauriston must think me a very imperfect guardian for a young girl, if he imagines I would allow my charge to visit a gentleman’s rooms alone,” said Mrs. Ellis, drawing out the creases of her plump figure in a slow and impressive manner.
“Certainly, of course, I did not for a moment doubt——” murmured Lauriston, much relieved.
“Well,” continued Nouna, “we went in, and the room was dark, with only one light, just as you saw it, and the screen was there, as it was just now. As Rahas talked to me, very slow and faint his voice seemed to grow, and then his eyes to grow very large and bright, so that they seemed like two great lamps, and I could see nothing else. And I got drowsy, and tried to put up my hands and to cry out that I was stifling—dying. But I could not; my hands were heavy and my voice would not come.”
“And as for me,” chimed in poor Mrs. Ellis, whose grey eyes grew round at the ghastly recollection, “when I turned round—for I was talking to Monsieur Fanah, little thinking of the heathenish doings which were taking place in my very presence—and heard the child cry ‘Oh!’ and saw her fall back on the cushions of the ottoman, I was so thunderstruck that for the first moment I couldn’t have uttered one word if you had paid me for it. I was going to throw some water over her when that man Rahas said: ‘She is not fainting; I have cast her down into a land of dreams.’ And I said: ‘Then, Mr. Rahas, you will please to cast her up again.’ And when he looked at me, and saw the expression of my face,” finished Mrs. Ellis triumphantly, “why he did so.”
“And what did you dream?” Lauriston asked the girl.
“When the eyes of Rahas grew larger and larger they seemed to fade away and to leave a great light. And standing up against the light was my mother, with her own sweet smile upon her face and her grand bearing. (My mother is like an empress in her walk, in her movements, Mr. Lauriston.) And she put out her hand towards me and I thought she said ‘Stay.’ And then, before I could speak to her she faded away, and I felt a weight at my heart, and tried to sigh, and could not. And then a blank came, and next I heard the voice of Mammy Ellis, and I opened my eyes and saw her and Rahas.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Lauriston, who was by no means ready to acknowledge that another man had an influence, mesmeric or otherwise, over the girl he loved, “perhaps you really did see a figure that you took for that of your mother.”
Nouna laughed scornfully at the notion. “As if I could mistake her! I heard her voice, I saw her smile. It was my mother.”
Lauriston turned to Mrs. Ellis. “Was there no possibility of any one entering the room and leaving it quickly without your seeing her?”
“Oh no,” said she at once. “Besides, Nouna fell with her head buried among the cushions, and her eyes were closed the whole time.”
“Nouna,” said Lauriston abruptly, after a pause, “you must not speak to that man again. The whole proceeding was a most disgraceful piece of trickery, such as no girl ought to be subjected to. Mrs. Ellis, I am writing to-night to the Countess di Valdestillas, to ask her to permit my engagement with her daughter. Now that you know the interest I take in her, you will forgive my urging you to be careful that she obeys my earnest wish in this. I shall not wait for a letter to inform her that her daughter is not in a safe home: I shall go to-morrow to the Countess’s solicitors, learn her address, and telegraph. And now I will say good-night, and I hope, Mrs. Ellis, you will forgive me this second nocturnal visit.”
He shook hands with both ladies, and disregarding Nouna’s undisguised anxiety to accompany him to the door, asked the elder lady if he could speak with her a few moments alone. With as much jealous indignation as if Mrs. Ellis had been eighteen and beautiful, Nouna flung herself into her American chair in a passion of tears as they left the room.
Lauriston opened his subject in a very low voice as soon as he and the governess were outside the door.
“You will need no assurance from me, madam,” he began, “of the perfect loyalty of my motives, now you know that I intend to marry Nouna. But you will not be surprised at my anxiety to know something more about the family to which she belongs. As a matter of fact I have not even heard her surname. Have you any objection to tell me what you know?”
“Not the least,” answered Mrs. Ellis, with perfect openness. “Her name is Nouna Weston. Her father I never knew, as he died when she was a little child. Her mother, now the Condesa di Valdestillas, is my ideal of a perfect gentlewoman. She is religious, perhaps a little bigoted even, very beautiful, and she has that distinction of manner which is more uncommon than beauty, to my idea. She is very generous and impulsive, and dotes upon her daughter. The Count, to whom she is devoted, I have only seen once; he accompanied his wife on a visit to the school. He is a small, thin, rather sallow gentleman, with very courteous manners, who gives one the idea of being rather selfish and domineering. The Countess dresses very quietly, almost perhaps what some people would call dowdily, as you know our Englishwomen of high rank so often do. But she must be well off, I think, for I know the principal of the school used to say she wished the parents of her other pupils were all as punctual in their payments as the Countess; and I must say, though she doesn’t allow much pocket-money to Nouna, yet her treatment of me is most generous. It is really good-natured of me to wish the child happily married, for the income of an officer’s widow who has no friends at court is by no means magnificent, as I dare say you know.”
Nothing could be more satisfactory than this, as far as it went, and the authority was unimpeachable; Mrs. Ellis being one of those simple, honest, unimaginative creatures who can neither invent a story nor tell an improbable one so as to make it appear probable. But of course the narrative offered no explanation of the puzzling events of the evening.
“And you believe the Countess to be still abroad?” he asked.
“Oh yes, if she were in England she would have been to see her daughter. She only pays flying visits to this country for that purpose.”
“Oh yes.” He could not get out of his head the idea that the woman of whom he had caught a glimpse at the window, whose dress Nouna had seen in the inner room down stairs, and who had certainly listened to their conversation on the landing, was Nouna’s mother. But what on earth, if Mrs. Ellis’s account were true, should she be doing paying secret visits to the house where her daughter was staying, and conspiring with a man of real or pretended mesmeric powers to play tricks on her?
It was very puzzling, but no suggestion Mrs. Ellis could offer was likely to throw light on the subject. He however asked her one or two more questions.
“Are there any ladies in this house besides yourselves? Or have you noticed any lady-visitors to the other inmates?”
“There is an old Frenchwoman who gives music lessons who has a room on the top-floor; but I have never seen any other ladies go in or out,” said Mrs. Ellis, rather surprised by the questions.
“And the gentlemen down stairs, Rahas and Fanah, are not married?”
“I have never heard that they were, and I’m sure I hope Mr. Rahas would never have the conscience to make up to Nouna if he had another wife in his own country. I have always set my face against that, and have kept Madame di Valdestillas informed of his pretensions. For I’ve heard of these Mahometan gentlemen, that when they take a fancy to a European wife, they send all their other wives away, and have them back again within a month. So that I really feel quite thankful to you for appearing and sending all thoughts of Rahas out of the girl’s flighty head.”
“She never appeared to care for this black fellow, did she?” asked Lauriston jealously.
“Well, no, not in that way. Though she’s a born coquette, Mr. Lauriston, I must warn you, and the man who marries her need have Job’s virtues as well as his own.”
“But she has a good heart,” urged Lauriston, who felt that there was a measure of truth in the lady’s warning.
“Oh yes, her heart’s good enough. The only thing is that it must be for ever shifting its place. However, she may grow more like her mother in time.”
“Good-night, Mrs. Ellis, it is very good of you to be so patient with me and my questions,” said Lauriston, feeling that he was in no present need of further discouragement.
And he left her and ran down stairs. At the front door he was met by Rahas, who came with bland, unprepossessing smiles and courteous gestures, from his own apartments, to bid his guest good-night. Lauriston, who could scarcely treat him civilly since Nouna’s story of the trick he had played on her, was suddenly struck with an idea. He turned to the young merchant in a more conciliatory manner.
“By the by,” he said, “in your interesting account of your strange powers, which you attribute to the planets and I vaguely call mesmeric, you did not tell me one thing: can you call up in the mind of a person over whom you have that influence the image of anything with which that person is acquainted, or can you only raise the images which are familiar to yourself? In other words: is the picture you wish to present so strongly present to your own mind that by the mere force of will you can transfer it to the mind of another? or can you make the other mind work independently of yours?”
“I cannot do that,” said Rahas, shaking his head. “I think I can explain my effect by saying that by the exercise of my will I deaden the forces of the mind I am at work upon, and leave it like the wet cloth before a magic lantern ready to receive any picture I may choose to throw upon it.”
“That is very interesting. I understand perfectly,” said Lauriston heartily.
And after an exchange of lip-courtesies concerning their enjoyment of each other’s society, Lauriston took his leave and started on his way back to Hounslow.
One thing was quite clear to him now. Rahas, on his own showing, had seen Nouna’s mother at some time or other, or he would not have been able to call up her image in her daughter’s mind. Was there some mysterious understanding between her and Rahas, who had, however, come in Nouna’s path by the merest accident? George Lauriston’s romantic love had certainly all the stimulus of mystery, and this stimulus was rendered considerably stronger by a discovery he made, walking quickly through Hyde Park, on his way to Victoria Station. He had been followed by a woman.
Just before he reached the gates at Hyde Park Corner he glanced back along the path and noticed a figure he had seen once or twice on his way. He made one quick step back towards her; but the woman, who was not very near, disappeared at once among the trees.
“I think I’ve had about adventures enough for one evening,” said he to himself as he went through the gates instead of pursuing her. “I can find out what I must know through the lawyer to-morrow.”
But when he left the train at Hounslow Barracks, he was almost sure that, among the alighting crowd of passengers, he saw the woman again.
Nextday, in the cruel but wholesome light of the morning, Lauriston took a grand review of all the circumstances of his short acquaintance with Nouna, and felt a growing conviction that he had made an astonishingly complete fool of himself. He had been foolish to visit the girl a second time, when he knew the effect her picturesque beauty and wayward charm had had on a first interview. He had been worse than foolish, he had been selfish, wicked, to make that wild confession, that abrupt offer of marriage to good little Ella, when he felt himself too weak to struggle unaided with the passion that possessed him. He had crowned his folly last night, when he pledged himself to marriage with a little wild girl, of somewhat mysterious parentage, passionate, capricious, in all probability madly extravagant, whom he hardly knew, whom he scarcely trusted, and who was certainly as deficient in every quality which goes to the making of the typical wife for an English gentleman as it is possible for a girl to be. And yet, in spite of all this, Lauriston felt no faintest pang of regret; amazement, disgust with himself undoubtedly, but of repentance no trace.
For the tide of a first passionate love in a young, vigorous nature is strong enough to tear up scruples by the roots, to bear along prejudices in its waters like straws, to wash away the old landmarks in an onrush which is all fierce triumph and tempestuous joy.
To Lauriston, who had been accustomed, from a lofty standpoint of ambition and devotion to duty, to look down upon love as a gentle pastime which would amuse and occupy him when the first pangs of his hungry desire for distinction should be satisfied, the sudden revelation of some of its keen delights was an experience full of novel excitement and charm. True at least to one principle while so much was suffered to go by the board, he did not for one moment waver in his resolution to marry Nouna. No staid English girl, whose mild passions would not develop until years after she had attained a full measure of self-control and self-restraint, would ever have for him the charm and the fascination of this little barbarian. Who pleased him best, and no other he would possess.
Having resolved therefore with open eyes upon doing a rash and hazardous thing, he gave a touch of heroism to his folly by setting about it as promptly and thoroughly as if it had been a wise one. As soon as parade was over he started for Lincoln’s Inn, determined to find out what he could from the lawyers concerning Nouna’s relations, and to write at once to her mother for the consent which he guessed would be readily accorded.
Messrs. Smith and Angelo, solicitors, had old-fashioned offices on a first floor, and there was a reassuring air of steady-going respectability about their whole surroundings, from the grim bare orderliness of their outer office to the cut of the coat of the middle-aged head clerk who courteously asked Lauriston which of the partners he wished to see. On learning that the visitor had no choice, the head clerk’s opinion of him seemed to go down a little, and he said, with the air of a man who is not going to cast his pearls before swine—
“Then perhaps you had better see Mr. Smith.”
The visitor’s name having been taken in to Mr. Smith, Lauriston heard it repeated in a happy, caressing voice, as if the announcement had been that of an old friend; and the next moment he was bowed into the presence of a tall, genial, jolly-looking man of about five-and-thirty, with black eyes, curly black hair, and a beautiful smile, who rose, came forward a step, shook his hand, and pressed him to take a chair with a warmth and good-humour which seemed to cast quite a radiance over the tiers of deed-boxes that lined the walls, with their victims’ names inscribed on them in neat white letters.
“Well, I suppose it is nothing very serious that you want us to do for you,” said the lawyer, glancing from the card to his visitor’s handsome face, and mentally deciding that there was a woman in it.
“It is very serious,” said Lauriston. “It is about a lady.”
The lawyer’s smile became broader than ever, and his attitude a shade more confidential.
“Her name,” continued Lauriston, “is Nouna Weston.”
Mr. Smith’s manner instantly changed; he drew himself up in his chair, and touched a hand-bell.
“I think, Mr. Lauriston,” he said, with the smile very much reduced, “that you had better see Mr. Angelo.” He told the boy who entered at this point to request Mr. Angelo to spare him a few minutes, and turned again to his visitor. “You see,” he said, “Miss Weston’s mother, the Countess di Valdestillas, is one of our oldest clients, so that to any business connected with her we like to give the entire collective wisdom of the firm.”
At that moment a side-door, the upper part of which was of ground glass, opened, and an old gentleman, of rather impressive appearance and manner, came slowly in. He was of the middle height, slight and spare, with a face and head strikingly like those of the great Duke of Wellington, a resemblance which his old-fashioned built-up collar and stock proved to be carefully cultivated. He carried a gold-rimmed double eyeglass, which he constantly rubbed, during which process his grey short-sighted eyes would travel steadily round, seeing nothing but the subject which occupied his mind, helping to put the barrier of a stately reticence between him and his client. He bowed to Lauriston, with the air of a man who was entitled to be offended by this intrusion, but who would graciously consent to listen to a reasonable excuse; and Mr. Smith, with great deference, placed a chair for the great man, waited till he was seated, and explained the object of the young officer’s visit.
“This gentleman, Mr. Angelo, has come to speak to us on some matter concerning Miss Nouna Weston.”
The old lawyer stopped for a moment in the action of rubbing his glasses, and then bowed his head slowly. The younger partner glanced at Lauriston as a sign for him to speak.
“I am here, sir, to-day,” began the young officer, feeling his confidence rise in this atmosphere of steady, reassuring, middle-class respectability, “as a suitor for the hand of Miss Nouna Weston. I have been referred by her guardian, Mrs. Ellis, to you, as I am told that it is only through you that I can communicate with her mother. I am anxious to make my wishes known to that lady with as little delay as possible.”
Mr. Angelo put on his glasses and gave the young fellow a straight, piercing look. Mr. Smith, who seemed to be swallowed up, smile and all, in the more imposing presence of his partner, examined the features, not of his visitor, but of Mr. Angelo.
“You have not known the young lady long, I understand?” said the elder lawyer, in a mellow though somewhat feeble voice. “When Mrs. Ellis was last here she made no mention of you as, we being partly guardians to the young lady, she would certainly have done had you already appeared in the capacity of suitor.”
“I have not known her three weeks,” said the young man, blushing; “but if you know how she’s living, in a lodging-house full of other people, where anybody can meet her on the stairs, you can’t wonder I want to have a claim over her, so that I can get her into a better home.”
“Then I understand—you see, Mr. Lauriston, I speak as a person of some authority in this matter—you have a home for her to which you wish to take her as quickly as possible.”
“I am sorry to say I have not, sir. I am only a lieutenant now in the —th Hussars.”
Mr. Angelo gave him a sudden, keen look. “Lord Florencecourt’s regiment!” he said, as if struck by the circumstance.
Lauriston scarcely noticed the interruption. “Yes,” continued he, “with scarcely anything but my pay. But I hope to get my step next year, or the year after at latest, when I could marry at once.”
“Pray do not think me impertinent; this is to me a matter of business, and must be discussed plainly. Miss Weston has some extravagant notions, and may have given you the idea that her mother would continue to be indulgent should she marry. It is right to inform you that this is not the case. The Countess’s income has suffered during the recent depression in rents, and—”
“I should never marry unless I could keep my wife,” interrupted Lauriston abruptly. “I have been offered work on two military papers whenever I care to take it up, so that I shall not only be able to save, but to pay for Nouna’s maintenance and education in some good school on the understanding that she is to marry me on leaving it. Anything that you or the Countess can wish to know about my family—”
The old lawyer raised his hand slowly. “—is easily known. You are a relation, I suppose, of the late Captain Lauriston of the — Dragoon Guards?”
“I am his son.”
“Ah! Your great-uncle, Sir Gordon Lauriston, was a client of my father’s. You wish, I understand, to communicate with Madame di Valdestillas? Any letter that you leave in our care will be forwarded at once to her.”
These words re-awoke Lauriston’s remembrance of the mysterious lady who had followed him to his quarters the night before.
“As Madame di Valdestillas is now in England,” he said quietly, “why should I not have her address?”
The old lawyer remained as unmoved as a mummy by this dashing stroke, but a sudden movement on the part of the less sophisticated Mr. Smith did not escape the young man’s notice.
“If she is in England—which is very possible, as her movements are as uncertain as the winds—she has only just arrived, as we have not yet seen her. But if you will write to her under cover to me, I can promise you the letter will soon be delivered to her, as her first visit on coming to England is always to us.”
“But she was at her daughter’s house last night!”
“Indeed! Then why did you not speak to her yourself?”
Lauriston was disconcerted. The manner and voice of the old lawyer expressed such bland surprise, that he began to think he had discovered a mare’s nest, and answered in a far less bold tone.
“I saw a lady whom I believed to be the Countess. I may have been mistaken—”
“You must have been mistaken,” said the lawyer imperturbably. “The Countess di Valdestillas is not a person whose individuality admits of doubt. I will write to her, inform her of your visit, tell her that you would prefer to communicate directly with her, and ask her if she will authorise us to give you her address. We are forced to take this course, as, the Countess’s business affairs being all in our hands, we are empowered to sift all her correspondence from England, that nothing but what is of real importance should come to her hands. The Countess has a dash of Eastern blood, like her daughter, and is, well, shall I say—not madly energetic.”
There was nothing for Lauriston to do but to acquiesce in this arrangement and to take his leave, scarcely yet knowing whether he was satisfied or dissatisfied with his interview. As he passed out, however, condescended to by the senior, made much of by the junior partner as before, a clerk took in a telegram to the former. Lauriston had hardly gone two steps from the door of the outer office, when he heard the soft voice of the old gentleman calling to him from the door of his private room. He turned back, and with some appearance of mystery, and a rather less condescending tone than before, Mr. Angelo ushered him in, and offered him a chair before uttering a word.
“I thought I should like to say a few words to you in my private capacity, Mr. Lauriston,” said he, when he had softly closed the door. “As a lawyer, speaking in the presence of my partner, as a member of the firm, I may have seemed to you somewhat dry and unsympathetic; as a man, believe me, I should be glad to further an alliance between a member of such an honourable family as yours, and a young lady in whose welfare I take an interest.”
Lauriston bowed in acknowledgment, with the conviction that it was the telegram he had just received which had produced such a softening effect on Mr. Angelo. He hastened to take advantage of it.
“You are very kind, sir. I love Nouna with all my heart, and my dearest wish is to make her my wife. But I should be glad if you would answer one question. The answer you give will make no difference to my course of action; but it is right and necessary that I should understand Nouna’s position. Am I right in supposing, as circumstances suggest, that Madame di Valdestillas had a secret in her past life, that—Nouna’s father was not her husband?”
Mr. Angelo’s eyes wandered round the room in a reflective manner.
“May I ask what leads you to this supposition?”
“The strange way in which she has been brought up, spoilt and yet neglected, the daughter of a woman of rank allowed to live in a lodging-house with a paid companion; it is not the usual education of a lady, English or foreign.”
“You are right. The circumstances are strange. You are an officer, the son of a man of known honour. You will of course regard any communication I make to you on this subject as strictly and inviolably secret.”
“I hope you have no doubt of that.”
“I have not. You understand that the information I am about to give you, you are bound in honour never to use, you are to regard as never having been heard?”
“I understand that perfectly.”
“Well then, Nouna is the legitimately born daughter of an English gentleman. That, I think, is all you wish to know.”
As his tone said very decidedly that this was all he meant to tell, Lauriston professed his entire contentment, and once more took his leave. Upon the whole he was not dissatisfied with the result of his visit to the lawyers. Nothing he had heard there was inconsistent with what he had already been told about the Condesa di Valdestillas, and he began to think that the romantic circumstances in which he had met Nouna had perhaps inclined him to make mountains of mystery out of molehills of eccentricity. The only thing which now seemed to baffle all attempts at explanation was the remarkable way in which Mr. Angelo had made the simple statement concerning Nouna’s birth. As, however, it was impossible to learn the reason of this, Lauriston gave up trying to guess it, and assured of the prosperity of his suit, fell into a lover’s dream, picturing to himself the joys of moulding this passionate pliable young creature, under the influence of his love, into an ideal wife, good as an English woman, fascinating as a French one, free from the narrowmindedness of the one and the frivolity of the other, and with a passionate warmth of feeling unknown to either. But as he recalled the grace of her movements, the delicate beauty of her face and form, her cooing voice and caressing gestures, the intoxication of his passion grew stronger than his efforts of reason and imagination. Why should he not marry her now, as she wished, as he longed to do? He could then educate her himself, guard her, as no schoolmistress, or guardian other than a husband could do, from all influences that were not noble, and pure, and good; whatever she might have done in imagination, in reality she had not lived in anything more like a palace than that one room, used for a few weeks, avowedly fitted up as a show-room, and furnished with treasures that were only borrowed. True, if he married her now, she would have to live in London lodgings still, and without the alleviations afforded by painted ceilings and silk-hung walls. But he would find for her head a softer pillow than any embroidered cushion, and soothe her with a lullaby sweeter than the sound of any fountain that ever flowed.
And then in the midst of this fine frenzy, dull common sense put in a word, and showed him the reverse side of the medal; a young husband with ambition checked, and study made impossible by growing debt and premature responsibility; a young wife ill-dressed, ill-amused, with no companions of her own sex, perhaps a mother before she had left off being a child, her warm nature chilled by poverty and disappointment, her love for her husband changing into contempt or hatred. No, it was not to be thought of. He must find her a home where he could see her constantly, and keep her under the influence of his own thoughts, and of his own love, until the day when he could bring her to a little home such as an English lady of simple tastes could be happy in.
With an inspiration born of these thoughts, he remembered with a shock that he might have come westward third class on the underground, instead of in the well-appointed Forder hansom which he had chosen so carefully. He thrust up his umbrella, told the driver to stop, jumped out, paid him, and continued on foot from Chancery Lane, along Fleet Street, till he came to the office of a military paper the editor of whom, with the friendliness of editors to such writers as are not dependent upon writing, had asked him to contribute certain articles on a subject in which Lauriston was well-known to be proficient. He had sufficient acumen to let the editor think, when he expressed his readiness to undertake the work at once, that his object was fame rather than coin; and having settled by what date the first instalment was to be ready, and ignored the matter of terms with a handsome indifference he did not feel, Lauriston left the office and returned to the West End on foot.
He dined that evening at his club with a couple of friends one of whom gave a rather startling turn to his beatific thoughts by an allusion to Clarence Massey’s mad infatuation for some girl whom he had “picked up in a curiosity shop somewhere in the slums.”
Lauriston made no comment, and did not betray by a look that the remark had an interest for him. The little Irishman had taken care not to indulge in his ravings over his unknown beauty in the presence of the comrade whom he had tricked. But the words of Rahas, on the preceding evening, had given Lauriston a clue to his own visit to 36 Mary Street, and this startling reference to Massey’s share in the matter strengthened his resolution to give that amorous and artful young gentleman a lesson.
Lauriston went home early, with the fixed intention of settling up this matter with as little delay as possible, and on arriving at his quarters he found his intention strengthened and the means of carrying it out provided, in a very unexpected manner.
As he was going up the stairs to his rooms, he was met by his soldier-servant, who told him that a lady had been waiting to see him for the last two hours. Lauriston hurried on in great excitement. Neither Nouna nor Mrs. Ellis knew his address, his sisters were in Scotland, and he had not, like some of his comrades, a circle of lively and easy-mannered feminine acquaintances. His thoughts flew directly to the woman who had followed him home the night before: perhaps the mystery was going to be solved after all; perhaps he should indeed see Nouna’s mother.
Before he reached his rooms he heard voices; a few steps more and he could distinguish that of Clarence Massey; arrived at the door of the sitting-room, the soft tones of Nouna herself struck his ears.
“No,” she was saying, “I shall not kiss you; Mr. Lauriston would be very angry with you for asking me.”
“Bless you, you little beauty, no, he wouldn’t. He’d be delighted to know you were enjoying yourself,” answered Massey confidently.
Lauriston threw open the door just as Massey, who had been sitting on a stool a few paces from the sofa where Nouna half-sat, half-reclined, sprang up and seized the hand with which she was wearily supporting her head.
Nouna jumped up, clapping her hands with joy like a child, and ran towards Lauriston, who, livid, wet, and trembling, did not even look at her, but striding across to Massey without a word, lifted him up in his arms with the sullen fury of an enraged bear, and carrying him to the door, which he opened with a kick, flung him pell-mell, anyhow, like a heap of soiled clothes against the wall, as far along the corridor as he could throw him. Then slamming the door to work off the remains of his rage, he turned to the frightened girl, who had fallen on her knees and was clinging about his feet.
WhenGeorge Lauriston, having relieved his feelings by his summary treatment of Massey and closed the door upon the young Irishman’s groans and voluble remonstrances, turned his attention to Nouna, he was seized with remorse at having given such free rein to his anger, when he saw what a strong effect it had upon the girl. She persisted in crouching on the ground at his feet like a dog that has been whipped, and when he stooped down and laid his hands upon her, gently telling her to get up and speak to him, she only murmured, “Don’t hurt me. I haven’t done anything wrong,” and tied herself up with extraordinary suppleness into a sort of knot, which George surveyed helplessly, not knowing well how to handle this extraordinary phenomenon. At last it occurred to him that this exaggerated fear could be nothing but one of her elfish tricks, and he began to laugh uneasily in the hope that this would afford a key to the situation.
On hearing his puzzled “Ha, ha!” Nouna did indeed uncurl herself and look up at him; but it was with a timid and bewildered expression. He, however, seizing his opportunity, swooped down, passed his arms under her, and lifting her bodily from the floor, carried her over to the sofa, placed her upon it, and sat down beside her.
“And now, little one, tell me what is the matter with you, and why and how you came here.”
Instead of answering, she looked at him steadily, with a solemn and penetrating expression. Angry as he still felt, anxious as he was to know the reason of her unexpected coming, her appearance was so comical that George could not help smiling as he looked at her. She wore again the shot silk frock in which he had seen her on his second visit to Mary Street; a deep, purple embroidered fez made a Romeo-like covering for her short and curly dark hair; while a sop thrown to conventionality in the shape of a small black-beaded mantle only brought into greater prominence the eccentricity it was meant to disguise. She had either forgotten or not thought it necessary to exchange her open-work pink silk stockings and embroidered scarlet morocco slippers for foot-gear less startling and picturesque; her gloves, if she had worn any, she had long ago thrown aside, and George could not help acknowledging, as he looked at her, that it would need an intelligence stronger than poor Massey’s to discover in this remarkable guise the carefully brought-up young English lady whom alone his code taught him to respect. As this thought came into his mind, George’s expression changed, and grew gloomy and sad. The young girl was still watching him narrowly.
“Are you often—so?” she asked, with a pause before the last word, and a mysterious emphasis upon it.
“What do you mean, Nouna?”
“So full of anger that your face grows all white and grey, and your mouth like a straight line, and you look as if you would kill the person that offends you.”
And she shuddered and drew away from him again. George took one of her hands very gently in his.
“No, Nouna, I am very seldom angry like that. It is only when any one does something which seems to me very wrong.”
“Oh.” This explanation did not seem so re-assuring to the young lady as it ought to have been. “You were listening at the door all the time then?” she said, after a pause, not so much in fear as in timid respect.
“No,” said he vehemently, growing hot at the suggestion. “Gentlemen don’t listen at doors.”
“Don’t they?” said she incredulously. “Why not?”
“It is mean, sneaking, bad form altogether.”
“Is it? Then how do you find out things? Ah, you would pay a servant, perhaps, to do all that for you?”
George grew scarlet and drew his hands away from her, half in indignation, half in horror.
“Nouna!” he exclaimed, “where on earth did you pick up these awful ideas? To pay a servant to play the spy is the most rascally thing a man could do! A man who did it would deserve to be kicked.”
“Would he? Then what would he do if he thought his wife deceived him? Wouldn’t he mind?”
George sprang up to his feet, and took a few turns about the room. He was appalled by this fearful perversion of mind, by this terrible candour, and he thought with a shudder of Rahas’ statement that the women of the East have no souls. How should he set to work to make her see things with his eyes? He glanced at her, and saw that she had changed her attitude; curling her feet up under her, and leaning her head on her hand, she sat quite still, nothing moving but her eyes, watching him. He came back, knelt before her, and looked into her face.
“In England, Nouna,” he said very gently, “when a man wants a wife, he chooses a girl whom he believes to be so good, so true, so noble that he couldn’t possibly think she would do anything that wasn’t right. And he loves her with all his heart, and never thinks of anybody but her, and spends all his time trying to make her happy. So he never thinks about such a dreadful thing as her deceiving him, because, you see, she couldn’t, unless she was very wicked, treat a man badly when he was so good to her.”
“Then what Sundran says is all wrong.”
“Who is Sundran?”
“My servant, my ayah. She says that Englishmen love other women besides their wife, who is only like the chief wife in our country, and that Englishwomen are not so good as Indian ladies, because they are not shut up.”
“Sundran must be sent away. She tells you falsehoods,” said George indignantly.
“She shall not be sent away,” retorted Nouna, flashing out at once into passion. “She loves me. It is she who tells me of the land where I was born, who sings me my Indian songs, and tells me the tales of my own country. She shall not go.”
George did not press the point, though he made an inward vow to remove this most noxious influence as soon as he had authority over the wayward creature before him.
“And doesn’t some one else love you, Nouna?” he asked reproachfully, looking into her flashing eyes; “some one whom you are treating very cruelly this evening?”
The appeal melted her at once, or rather it turned the passion of anger into a passion of affection. She threw her arms round his neck and fervently kissed his mouth, nestling her red lips under his moustache, and scratching his left ear fearfully with the beadwork on her mantle.
“I am not cruel, I love you,” she said earnestly. “I came here to-night because I could not live without seeing you again; only I will not marry you; I have made up my mind to that.”
“But why, Nouna, why?” asked poor George in consternation.
“We are not of the same race; we should not be happy; Rahas is right. If I made you angry, you would look as you did to-night, and you would kill me.”
“But, Nouna, I am not a savage; I don’t get angry over little things. And I should never be angry with you.”
“I don’t know. You say you would not have me watched, you would trust me. Well, I would rather be watched, then I should feel safe. But if I always did just as I felt, I should some day make you angry, I know. I am not like your English girls—the girls at the school, who always know what they are going to do. Something comes up here,”—and she put her hands over her heart—“and then it mounts up there,”—joining her fingers over her head—“and says, ‘Nouna, love; Nouna, hate; Nouna, be sweet and gentle;’ or ‘Nouna, be proud and distant.’ And I go just as the little voice guides. Well, that is not English!”
“You are impulsive, darling, that’s all. If you love me truly, the little voice will always tell you to do what I wish.”
“Will it? But I am afraid. I tell you I would rather kill myself than have you look at me as you looked at the little curly-haired man to-night. Why did you hate him so?”
“When I came in he was trying to kiss you.”
“But I would not have let him.”
“No, of course not. That is because you are good and true to me, whom you love.”
“Is it? I did not know it was that. I only knew that he was small and ugly, and I did not like him.”
“No; you must not like any man but me.”
“Ah, then you had better shut me up.”
“Well, so I will, my darling. I will shut you up in my heart so close that you shall have no eyes for any one but me.”
And with a great impulse of tenderness for the little dark-eyed thing who was drinking in new impressions of life and morals with so much solemn perplexity, he flung his arm round her and buried his head in the folds of her dress.
“You will scratch your beautiful face,” said she solicitously, removing the beaded mantle, and ruffling up his hair with light fingers. “How can Rahas say you are not handsome? You are like Brahma himself when he rides in his sun-chariot!” she said with loyal intention if with confused lore.
The name of Rahas, used thus for the second time, roused George from the intoxicating oblivion of outside things into which this unexpected interview with the girl he loved had thrown him.
“Rahas!” he repeated, raising his head sharply. “You haven’t seen him again to-day?”
“Now you are going to be angry,” exclaimed the girl shrinking.
“No, my darling, I am not,” said George in a most gentle tone. “But if I am to watch over and protect you, I must keep you out of the way of men like Rahas. When did you see him? What did he say to you?”
“Well, I saw him this evening, just before I came here. Mrs. Ellis and I had just finished dinner. I had been very quiet and good all day, writing a long letter to mamma, telling her how handsome you were, and how I would never look with love on the face of any other man, if only she would give me her permission to love you. And I was tired of sitting still, and the air was hot, and Mammy Ellis was sleepy. So I opened the door, and she said there was a draught, and I must shut it. And I could not bear the heat, so I did shut it, with myself outside. And I went into the next room—the one where I had pulled down the hangings; and I was so lonely and sad and weary that I was sorry I had pulled them down, and I began to cry and tried to nail up the long trails of silk to the wall again; and when I found I could not, I sat down and cried again; and then I looked up and I saw Rahas in the room watching me like a tiger. And I sprang up; but he came to me with his eyes shining, and fell at my feet and told me a lot of strange things that I forget.”
“What things? What did he tell you?” asked George, trying to keep calm.
“Must I remember them? He frightened me; I do not want to remember them.”
“Try, my darling.”
“He said he loved me, and that I must love him, for the planets said so, and had given him an influence over me which I could not resist. He said he had tried to conquer himself, and had consented to give me up; but his love was too strong, and I must forget you—that you were hard and cold. When he said that I flew into a passion, and told him I hated him and should marry you. And I threw open the window and told him if he came near me I would shriek with all my strength. And so he had to grow quieter; and then he said he knew strange things about me I myself did not know, and that you never meant to marry me, that you looked upon me as a little girl to play with, and would marry a staid English lady. And I burst out crying again, and said that would make no difference to him, for I should go away and perhaps drown myself. Then he was very quiet for a long time, and he presently spoke in oh! such a low voice, with a smile on his face that was not sweet and kind, but horrible. He told me if I wanted you to marry me I had better go to your rooms at once and tell you not to forget I loved you, or else that you would see some other lady and perhaps marry her before I could see you again. So I sprang up at once, and he told me where you lived, and I slipped into my own room and put on my mantle, and told Sundran not to say where I was gone, and I would be back soon. Then Rahas put me into a cab, and told me at the last to be sure and wait till I saw you. And I thanked him and said, ‘Be sure I will.’ And so I came; and it was a long way, and I am tired. Why do you look like that? Why are you angry? Did you not want me to come? Rahas said you would be glad.”
“The infernal scoundrel!” burst out George, who had been listening to this recital in almost incredulous horror.
Nouna got on to her feet, and looked at him with a puzzled inquiring face.
“Did he know you would be angry then?” she asked in a low voice. “I remember he said I should be less proud when I came back.”
With a strong effort George controlled himself, lest an incautious word should give any inkling of the rascal’s meaning to the girl’s mind. He drew forward an arm-chair and invited her to take it with the manner he would have used to a princess. In seating herself she held up her arms towards him, but he would not touch her. He sat down gravely a little way off as he said:
“You will not go back to Mary Street at all, Nouna.”
“No? Shall I stay here with you?”
“Not here, dear. These are bachelor’s quarters. But you will stay after Friday in apartments that I shall take for you.”
“Why after Friday?”
“Because I cannot marry you before then.”
“Marry me! You said you were not going to marry me for two years!”
“You see I’ve changed my mind.”
“Since last night?”
“Since an hour ago, since I found you here.”
She sprang up and flung her arms about him, with kisses, and caresses, and incoherent words.
“Then you are not angry with me for coming. Oh, I’m so glad, I’m so glad I came. I don’t know what to do, I’m so happy. It seemed so dreadful to have to wait two years, two years always away from you. For I never felt like this before, as if my heart would break, or would burn my breast if I was away from you. That is love, isn’t it? Kiss me, kiss me, don’t be so cold. Don’t you love me? Why are you going to marry me if you do not love me?”
She pushed herself suddenly away from him, keeping her hands on his shoulders and devouring his face with an eager scrutiny. His dark eyes were very bright, and his skin, burnt red and brown like that of most young Englishmen in summer time, was a deeper colour than ever with excitement. But his forehead was puckered into lines and wrinkles, and his mouth was closed in a firm straight line, a fact which Nouna discovered for herself by brushing up his moustache with a quick and unexpected movement.
“You are thinking!” she cried indignantly. “When I tell you of my love you are full of nothing but your thoughts. When I am your wife I will not let you think.”
This last passionate sentence struck George with the ominous force of a prophecy. He got up and lifted the girl playfully right above his head, however, while he spoke in grave tones, the tenderness of which was unmistakable. “When two people love each other, little one, one of the two at least always has to think. And when you are my wife you will have to let me do as I please, just as now you have to let me hold you in the air until it is my good pleasure to put you down.”
But as he spoke the little creature, who had been trying in vain with her weak fingers to undo the clasp of his strong ones on her waist, suddenly ceased to struggle and lay limp and heavy on his hands, her head and limbs hanging loose, and her cap falling to the ground. George let her down and placed her on the sofa in consternation, blaming himself for ignoring the fragility of the tiny thing. There she lay just as he placed her, as still as the dead. No sooner, however, had he rushed into his bedroom, returning with a glass of water which he began nervously to sprinkle on her still face, than she opened her eyes with a sly and elfish delight, and began to curl up with mischievous laughter. George fell back with a sick feeling which was not all relief at finding she was less fragile than he had supposed. He had challenged her to take his playful action as an allegory, and she had had the wit to accept and continue it. When their two wills should clash she would obtain by fraud what she could not get by force. It was at least a fair warning. He was angry with her and he got up from his knees without speaking, without looking at the laughing girl. Nouna understood, and in a moment all merriment had died from her face; she was clinging to his arm, entreating him passionately to forgive her; she was a wicked, ungrateful girl; she had only meant to tease him, to see if he would mind if she were ill; she would obey him, she would do whatever he wished her to do; she would throw herself out of the window if he would not turn and kiss her.
So he turned, of course, and the kiss of peace was given; but George had had a chill in the height of his passion, and even while he passed his hand over her soft hair and made her pretty, low-voiced love-speeches, his mind was full of practical matters concerning her lodging for the three nights to be passed before he could possibly marry her, and other details connected with this step.
“Where was this school you lived at before you came to London with Mrs. Ellis, Nouna?” he asked suddenly.
“School! It wasn’t quite a school. There was only six of us, and we all had rooms apart and our own servants,” said Nouna.
“Well, but where was it?”
“It was at Clifton. But why—”
“Clifton! That’s no use,” said George to himself. Then he continued aloud, “Now, Nouna, will you be a good child and stay quietly where I take you to-night?”
“Yes,” said she, nodding like a child, “if you come too.”
“I’ll take you there to-night, and I’ll come and see you quite early in the morning. It is to the house of an old servant in our family who now lets part of her house in apartments. She will be very kind to you, I know.”
“But you won’t leave me there all alone—without Sundran or anybody?”
“I won’t leave you until I see you are quite happy and comfortable there, and if you don’t like the place and the people I won’t leave you there at all.”
Without giving her time for further objections, George brought her a comb, which she kissed because it was his and proceeded to pass through her short, thick hair in a very helpless and unaccustomed fashion; at last, coming to a decided knot, she stamped her foot and, leaving the comb in her hair, presented her head to George, who placed her again in the armchair and reverently and laboriously set to work on the soft curly tangle. He grew very hot over the occupation, which was new to him, and began to understand why hairdressers are generally of the abler sex. By the time he had reduced the pretty wavy hair to order, and admired its soft silkiness by the light of the candle he had set burning, Nouna had added to his difficulties by falling, like a tired kitten, fast asleep. He called to her gently two or three times, and was at last forced to come to the conclusion that she did not mean to wake up. After a moment’s reflection he resolved to take advantage of the circumstance. It was getting very late, and if he were to insist on rousing her, she might have another little scene in store for him before she would consent to go. So he put on her cap, picked up her gloves and put them in his pocket, and lifting her in his arms, wrapped the beaded mantle about her and carried her down stairs, during which proceeding she patted his cheek sleepily but really seemed only half awake. He passed nobody but the sentry, who could scarcely conceal his surprise on finding which of the young officers it was who was engaged in such an evident “lark.” He was just in time to catch a train to Victoria, and until they arrived there Nouna declined to wake up. Outside the station, George got with his sleepy charge into a hansom and, after giving the driver an address in a street at Brompton, occupied himself, as his companion remained motionless except that as he propped her in the corner she promptly fell back against him, in getting her little hands into her gloves. He was very tenderly busy with the first, when a voice from the depths of his shoulders surprised him.
“Wrong hand!”
“Hallo! So you’re awake, are you, little one? Come, lift up your head; I want to put you to rights before we get there.”
“No, no, I don’t want to get there,” said she, stretching up her arm across his breast, “I want to drive about like this all night with you.”
“But we can’t do that, Nouna.”
“Why not?”
“Well, you’d catch cold—”
“No, I shouldn’t; I’m quite warm; feel me.”
“And—and it wouldn’t be considered right.”
“Now you’re not going to talk as Mrs. Somers used to talk, are you?” asked Nouna warningly. “Because if you do I shall hate you just as I used to hate her, and I shall want to get away from you just as I used from her.”
“But, Nouna, some one must tell you what’s right and what’s wrong, and who is to do it if you won’t let me whom you say you love?”
“Don’t say I onlysayit,” cried she, nestling up to him with pleading reproach. “Go on, go on lecturing me; but keep your hand so on my shoulder all the time.”