The next morning, and while I was still in bed drinking a cup of chocolate, came Elmscott's servant to me, and under his guidance I set forth to purchase such apparel as would enable me to cut a more passable figure in the eyes of Countess Lukstein. Seldom, I think, had the shopkeepers a customer so nice and difficult to please. Here the wares were too plain and insignificant; there too gaudy and pretentious, for while I was resolved to go no longer dressed like a Quaker, I was in no way minded to ape the extravagance of my lord Culverton. At last I determined upon a dozen suits, rich but of a sober colour, and being measured for them, went from the tailor's to the hosier's, shoemaker's, lace-merchant's, and I know not what other tradesmen. Muslin jabots, Holland shirts, ruffles of Mechlin and point de Venise, silk stockings, shoes with high red heels, which I needed particularly, for I was of no great stature, laced gloves--I bought enough, in truth, to make fine gentlemen of a company of soldiers.
Needless to say, when once my purchases were delivered at my lodging, I let no long time slip by before I repeated my visit to the house in Pall Mall. The Countess welcomed me with the same kindliness, so that I returned again and again. She distinguished me besides by displaying an especial interest not merely in my present comings and goings, but in the past history of my uneventful days. Surely there is no flattery in the world so potent and bewitching as the questions which a woman puts to a man concerning those years of his life which were spent before their paths had crossed. And if the history be dull as mine was, a trivial, homely record of common acts and thoughts, why, then the flattery is doubled. I know that it intoxicated me like a heady wine, and I almost dared to hope that she grudged the time during which we had been strangers.
Her bearing, indeed, towards me struck me as little short of wonderful, for I observed that she evinced to the rest of her courtiers and friends a certain pride and stateliness which, while it sat gracefully upon her, tempered her courtesy with an unmistakable reserve.
The summer was now at its height, and the Countess--or Ilga, as I had come to style her in my thoughts--would be ever planning some new excursion. One day it would be a water-party to view the orangery and myrtelum of Sir Henry Capel at Kew; on another we would visit the new camp at Hounslow, which in truth, with its mountebanks and booths, resembled more nearly a country fair than a garrison of armed men; or again on a third we would attend a coursing match in the fields behind Montague House. In short, seldom a day passed but I saw her and had talk with her; and if it was but for five minutes, well, the remaining hours went by to the lilt of her voice like songs to the sweet accompaniment of a viol.
One afternoon Elmscott walked down to my lodging, and carried me with him to see a famous comedy by Mr. Farquhar which was that day repeated by the Duke's players. The second act was begun by the time we got to the theatre, and the house, in spite of the heat, very crowded. For awhile I watched with some interest the packed company in the pit, the orange-girls hawking their baskets amongst them, the masked women in the upper boxes and the crowd of bloods upon the stage, who were continually shifting their positions, bowing to ladies in the side-boxes, ogling the actresses, and airing their persons and dress to the great detriment of the spectacle. Amongst these latter gentlemen I observed Lord Culverton combing the curls of his periwig with a little ivory comb so that a white cloud of powder hung about his head, and I was wondering how long his neighbours would put up with his impertinence when Elmscott, who was standing beside me, gave a start.
"So he has come back," said he. I followed the direction of his gaze, and looked across the theatre. The Countess Lukstein and Mademoiselle Durette had just entered one of the lower boxes; behind them in the shadow was the figure of a man.
"Who is it?" I asked.
"An acquaintance of yours."
The man came forward as Elmscott spoke to the front of the box, and seated himself by the side of Ilga. He was young, with a white face and very deep-set eyes, and though his appearance was in some measure familiar to me, I could neither remember his name nor the occasion of our meeting.
"You have forgotten that night at the H. P.?" asked Elmscott.
In a flash I recollected.
"It is Marston," I said, and then after a pause: "And he knows the Countess!"
"As well as you do; maybe better."
"Then how comes it I have never seen him with her before?"
"He left London conveniently before you came hither. We all thought that he had received his dismissal. It rather looks as if we were out of our reckoning, eh?"
Marston and the Countess were engaged in some absorbing talk with their heads very close together, and a sharp pang of jealousy shot through me.
"'Tis strange that she has never mentioned his name," I stammered.
"Not so strange now that Hugh Marston has returned. Had he been no more than the discarded suitor we imagined him, then yes--you might expect her to boast to you of his devotion. 'Tis a way women have. But it seems rather that you are rivals."
Rivals! The word was like a white light flashed upon my memories. I recalled Marston's half-forgotten prophecy. Was this the contest, I wondered, which he had foretold in the chill dawn at the tavern? Were we to come to grips with Ilga for the victor's prize? On the heels of the thought a swift fear slipped through my veins like ice. He had foretold more than the struggle; he had forecast its outcome and result.
It was, I think, at this moment that I first understood all that the Countess Lukstein meant to me. I leaned forward over the edge of the box, and set my eyes upon her face. I noted little of its young beauty, little of its wonderful purity of outline; but I seemed to see more clearly than ever before the woman that lurked behind it, and I felt a new strength, a new courage, a new life, flow out from her to me, and lift my heart. My very sinews braced and tightened about my limbs. If Marston and I were to fight for Ilga, it should be hand to hand, and foot to foot, in the deadliest determination.
Meanwhile she still spoke earnestly with her companion. Of a sudden, however, she raised her eyes from him, and glanced across towards us. I was still leaning forward, a conspicuous mark, and I saw her face change. She gave an abrupt start of surprise; there appeared to me something of uneasiness in the movement She looked apprehensively at Marston, and back again at me; then she turned away from him, and sat with downcast head plucking with nervous fingers at the fan which lay on the ledge before her, and shooting furtive glances in our direction.
Elmscott, for some reason, began to chuckle.
"Let us make our compliments to the Countess!" he said.
We walked round the circle of the theatre. At the door of the box I stopped him.
"Marston heard nothing from you of my journey to Sir Julian Harnwood?" I asked.
"Not a word! He knows you were travelling to Bristol; so much you said yourself. But for my part, I have never breathed a word of the matter to a living soul." And we went in. The Countess held out her hand to me with a conscious timidity.
"You are not angered?" she said, in a low voice.
The mere thought that she should take such heed of what I might feel, made my pulses leap with joy. She seemed to recognise, as I should never have dared to do myself, that I had a right to be jealous, and her words almost granted me a claim upon her conduct. For answer I bent over her hand and kissed it, and behind me again I heard Elmscott chuckling.
Hugh Marston had risen from his chair as we entered, and stood looking at me curiously.
"You have not met Mr. Marston," she said. "I must make my two best friends acquainted."
I would that she had omitted that word "best," the more especially since she laid some emphasis upon it. It undid some portion of her previous work, and set us both upon a level in her estimation.
"We have met before," said Marston, and he bowed coldly.
"Indeed? I had not heard of that."
Marston recounted to her the story of the gambling-match, but she listened with no apparent attention, fixing her eyes upon the stage.
"I fancied, Mr. Buckler, you had no taste for cards or dice," she said carelessly, when he had done.
"Mr. Buckler in truth only stayed there on compulsion," replied Marston. "He came from Leyden in a great fluster without any money in his pockets, and so must needs wait upon his cousin's pleasure before he could borrow a horse to help him on his way."
I threw a glance of appeal towards Elmscott, and he broke in quickly:
"'Twas Lord Culverton lent him the horse, after all."
But the next moment the Countess herself, to my great relief, brought the conversation to an end.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" she said abruptly, with a show of impatience. "I fear me I am as yet so far out of the fashion as to feel some slight interest in the unravelling of the play, and I find it difficult to catch what the players say."
After that there was no more to be said, and we sat watching the stage with what amusement we might, or conversing in the discreetest of whispers. For my part I remembered that Ilga had shown no great interest in the comedy while she was alone with Marston, and I began to wonder whether our intrusion had angered her. It was impossible for me to see her face, since she held up a hand on the side next to me and so screened her cheek.
Suddenly, however, she cried:
"Oh, there's Lord Culverton!" and she bowed to him with marked affability.
Now Culverton had ranged himself in full view with an eye ever turned upon our box, so that it seemed somewhat strange she had not observed him till now. He swept the boards with his hat, and looking about the theatre, his face one gratified smirk, as who should say, "'Tis an every-day affair with me," immediately left his station, and disappearing behind the scenery, made his way into the box. The Countess received him graciously, and kept him behind her chair, asking many questions concerning the players, and laughing heartily at the pleasantries and innuendos with which he described them. It seemed to me, however, that there was more scandal than wit in his anecdotes, and, marvelling that she should take delight in them, I turned away and let my eyes wander idly about the boxes.
When I glanced again at my companions I perceived that though Culverton was still chattering in Countess Lukstein's ear, her gaze was bent upon me with the same scrutiny which I had noticed on the evening that we sat together in her balcony. It was as though she was taking curious stock of my person and weighing me in some balance of her thoughts. I fancied that she was contrasting me with Marston, and gained some confirmation of the fancy in that she coloured slightly, and said hastily, with a nod at the stage:
"What think you of the sentiment, Mr. Buckler?"
"Madame," I replied, "for once I am in the fashion, for I gave no heed to it."
I had been, in truth, thinking of her lucky intervention in Marston's narrative, for by her impatience she had prevented him from telling either the date of the gambling-match or the name of the town which I was in such great hurry to reach. Not that I had any solid reason to fear she would discover me on that account, for many a man might have ridden from London to Bristol at the time of the assizes and had naught to do with Sir Julian Harnwood. But I had so begun to dread the possibility of her aversion and hatred, that my imagination found a motive to suspicion lurking in the simplest of remarks.
"'Twas that a man would venture more for his friend than for his mistress," she explained. "What think you of it?"
"Why, that the worthy author has never been in love."
"You believe that?" she laughed.
"'Twixt friend and friend a man's first thought is of himself. Shame on us that it should be so; but, alas! my own experience has proved it. It needs, I fear me, a woman's fingers to tune him to the true note of sacrifice."
"And has your own experience proved that too?" she asked with some hesitation, looking down on the ground, and twisting a foot to and fro upon its heel.
"Not so," I answered in a meaning whisper. "I wait for the woman's fingers and the occasion of the sacrifice."
She shot a shy glance sideways at me, and, as though by accident, her hand fell lightly upon mine. I believed, indeed, that 'twas no more than an accident until she said quietly: "The occasion may come, too."
She rose from her chair.
"The play begins to weary me," she continued aloud. "Besides, Mr. Buckler convinces me the playwright has never been in love, and 'tis an unpardonable fault in an author."
Marston and myself started forward to escort her to her carriage. The Countess looked from one to the other of us as though in doubt, and we stood glaring across her. Elmscott commenced to chuckle again in a way that was indescribably irritating and silly.
"If Lord Culverton will honour me," suggested the Countess.
The little man was overwhelmed with the favour accorded to him, and with a peacock air of triumph led her from the box.
"Tis a monkey, a damned monkey!" said Marston, looking after him.
The phrase seemed to me a very accurate description of the fop, and I assented to it with great cordiality. For a little Marston sat sullenly watching the play, and then picking up his hat and cloak, departed without a word. His precipitate retreat only made my cousin laugh the more heartily; but I chose to make no remark upon this merriment, believing that Elmscott indulged it chiefly to provoke me to question him. I knew full well the sort of gibe that was burning on his tongue, and presently imitating Marston's example, I left him to amuse himself.
In the portico of the theatre Marston was waiting. A thick fog had fallen with the evening, and snatching a torch from one of the link-boys who stood gathered within the light of the entrance, he beckoned to me to follow him, and stepped quickly across the square into a deserted alley. There he waited for me to come up with him, holding the torch above his head so that the brown glare of the flame was reflected in his eyes.
"So," he said, "luck sets us on opposite sides of the table again, Mr. Buckler. But the game has not begun. You have still time to draw back."
For the moment his words and vehement manner fairly staggered me. I had not expected from him so frank an avowal of rivalry.
"The stakes are high," he went on, pressing his advantage, "and call for a player of more experience than you."
"None the less," said I, meeting his gaze squarely, "I play my hand."
Instantly his manner changed. He looked at me silently for a second, and then with a calmness which intimidated me far more than his passion:
"Are you wise? Are you wise?" he asked slowly. "Think! What will the loser keep?"
"What will the winner gain?"
We stood measuring each other for the space of a minute in the flare of the torch. Then he dropped it on the ground, and stamped out the sparks with his heel. 'Twas too dark for me to see his face, but I heard his voice at my elbow very smooth and soft, and I knew that he was stooping by my side.
"You will find this the very worst day's work," he said, "to which ever you set your hand;" and I heard his footsteps ring hollow down the street. He had certainly won the first trick in the game, for he left me to pay the link-boy.
Two days later the Countess paid her first visit to my lodging. I had looked forward to the moment with a great longing, deeming that her presence would in a measure consecrate the rooms, and that the memory of what she did and said would linger about them afterwards like a soft and tender light.
We had journeyed that morning in a party to view the Italian Glass-house at Greenwich, and dining at a hostelry in the neighbourhood, had returned by water. We disembarked at Westminster steps, and I induced the company to favour me with their presence and drink a dish of bohea in my apartment.
Now the sitting-rooms which I occupied were two in number and opened upon each other, the first, which was the larger, lying along the front of the house, and the second, an inner chamber, giving upon a little garden at the back. Ilga, I noticed, wandered from one room to the other, examining my possessions with an indefatigable curiosity. For, said she:
"It is only by such means that one discovers the true nature of one's friends. Conversation is but the pretty scabbard that hides the sword. The blade may be lath for all that we can tell."
"You distrust your friends so much?"
"Have I no reason to?" she exclaimed, suddenly bending her eyes upon me, and she paused in expectation of an answer. "But I forgot; you know nothing of my history."
I turned away, for I felt the blood rushing to my face.
"I would fain hear you tell it me," I managed to stammer out.
"Some time I will," she replied quietly, "but not to-day; the time is inopportune. For it is brimful of sorrow, and the telling of it will, I trust, sadden you."
The strangeness of the words, and a passionate tension in her voice, filled me with uneasiness, and I wheeled sharply round.
"For I take you for my friend," she explained softly, "and so count on your sympathy. Yet, after all, can I count on it?"
I protested with some confusion that she could count on far more than my sympathies.
"It may be," she replied. "But I believe, Mr. Buckler, the whole story of woman might be written in one phrase. 'Tis the continual mistaking of lath for steel."
"And never steel for lath?" I asked.
"At times, no doubt," she answered, recovering herself with an easy laugh. "But we only find that error out when the steel cuts us. So either way are we unfortunate. Therefore, I will e'en pursue my inquiries," and she stepped off into the inner room, whither presently I went to join her.
"Well, what have you discovered?" I asked.
"Nothing," she replied, with a plaintive shake of the head. "You disappoint me sorely, Mr. Buckler. A student from the University of Leyden should line his walls with volumes and folios, and I have found but one book of Latin poems in that room, and not so much as a pamphlet in this."
I started. The book of poems could be no other than my copy of Horace, and it contained the plan of Lukstein Castle. I reflected, however, that the plan was a mere diagram of lines, without even a letter to explain it, and with only a cross at the point of ascent. The Countess, moreover, had spoken in all levity; her tone betrayed no hint of an afterthought.
A small package fastened with string lay on the table before her, and beside of it a letter in Elmscott's handwriting. She picked up the package.
"And what new purchase is this?" she asked, with a smile.
"I know nothing of it. It is no purchase, and I gather from the inscription of the letter it comes from my cousin."
"I shall open it," said she, "and you must blame my sex for its inquisitiveness."
"Madame," I replied, "the inquisitiveness implies an interest in the object of it, and so pays me a compliment."
"Tis the sweetest way of condoning a fault that ever I met with," she laughed, and dropped me a sweeping curtsey.
I broke the seal of Elmscott's letter while she untied the parcel.
"Marston's conversation at the theatre," he wrote, "reminded me of these buckles. They belong of right to you, and since it seems your turn has come to need luck's services, I send them gladly in the hope that they may repeat their office on your behalf."
The parcel contained a shagreen case which Ilga unfastened. The diamond buckles from it flashed with a thousand rays, and she tipped them to and fro so that the stones might catch the light.
"Your cousin must have a great liking for you," she said. "For in truth they are very beautiful."
"Elmscott is a gambler," I laughed, "with all a gambler's superstitions," and I handed her the letter.
She read it through. "These buckles were your cousin's last stake, Mr. Marston related," she said. "Do you believe that they will bring you luck?"
"To believe would be presumption. I have no more courage than suffices me to copy Elmscott's example, and hope."
She returned me no answer, giving, so it seemed, all her attention to the brilliant jewels in her hands. But I saw the colour mounting in her cheeks.
"Meanwhile," she said, after a pause, with a little nervous laugh, "you are copying my bad example, and leaving your guests to divert themselves."
Not knowing surely whether I had offended her or not, I deemed it best to add nothing further or more precise to my hints, and got me back into the larger room. Ilga remained standing where I left her, and through the doorway I could see her still flashing the buckles backwards and forwards. Her evident admiration raised an idea in my mind. My guests were amusing themselves without any need of help from me. Some new scandal concerning the King and the Countess of Dorchester was being discussed for the tenth time that day with an enthusiasm which expanded as the story grew, so that I was presently able to slip back unnoticed. The inner room, however, was empty; but the glass door which gave on to the garden stood open, and picking up the shagreen case, I stepped out on to the lawn. Ilga was seated in a low chair about the centre of the grass-plot, and the sun, which hung low and red just above the ivied wall, burnished her hair, and was rosy on her face.
"Madame," said I, advancing towards her, "I have discovered how best to dispose of the buckles so that they may bring me luck."
"Indeed?" she asked indifferently. "And which way is it?"
"They are too fine for a plain gentleman's wearing," said I. "Sweet looks and precious jewels go best together." With that, and awkwardly enough, I dare say, for I always stumbled at a compliment, I opened the case and offered it.
She looked at me for a space as though she had not understood, and then:
"No, no," she cried, with extraordinary vehemence, repulsing my gift so that the case flew out of my grasp, and the buckles sparkled through the air in two divergent arcs, and dropped some few feet away into the grass. She rose from her seat and drew herself up to her full height, her eyes flashing and her bosom heaving. "How dare you?" she exclaimed, and yet again, "How dare you?"
Conscious of no intention but to please her by a gift which she plainly admired, I stared dumbfounded at the outburst.
"Madame!" I faltered out at last; and with a great effort she recovered a part of her self-control.
"Mr. Buckler," she said, speaking with difficulty, while the blood swirled in and out of her cheeks, "the present hurts me sorely, even though--nay, all the morebecause, it comes from you. It is the fashion, I know well, to believe that a few gems will bribe the good will of any woman. But I hardly thought that--that you held me in such poor esteem."
I protested that nothing could have been further from my designs than the notion which she attributed to me, and went so far as to hint that there was something extravagant and unreasonable in her anger. For, said I, the gift was no bribe but a tribute, and, I continued, with greater confidence as her pride diminished, if either of us had a right to feel hurt, it was myself, whom she insulted by the imputation of so mean a spirit.
"Then I am to humbly beg your pardon, I suppose," she cried, with another flash of anger.
"Oh, there's no arguing with you," I burst out in a heat no less violent than her own. "Who bids you beg my pardon? What makes you suppose I need you should, unless it be your own proper and fitting compunction? There's no moderation in your thoughts. You jump from one extreme to the other as nimbly as--as----"
I was turning away with the sentence unfinished, when:
"I could supply the simile you want," she said, with a whimsical demureness as sudden and inexplicable as her wrath, "only 'tis something indelicate," and she broke into a ringing laugh.
To a man of my slow disposition, whose very passions have a certain œconomy which delays their growth, the rapid transitions of a woman's humours have ever been confusing, and now I stood stockish and dumb, gazing at the Countess open-mouthed, and vainly endeavouring, like a fool, to reduce the various emotions she had expressed into a logical continuity.
"And there!" she continued, "now I have shocked you by lack of breeding!"
And once more she commenced to laugh with a mirth so natural and infectious that presently it gained on me, and for no definite reason that I could name I found myself laughing to her tune and with equal heartiness. 'Twas none the less a wiser action than any deliberation could have prompted me to, for here was our quarrel ended decisively, and no words said.
For a while we strolled up and down the lawn, Ilga interspacing her talk with little spirts of laughter, as now and again she looked at my face, until we stopped at the end of the garden, just before a small postern-door in the wall.
"It leads into the Park?" she asked.
"Yes! Shall we slip out?"
She looked back at the house.
"The host can hardly run away from his guests."
"There is no one in the room to notice us."
"But the room above? 'Twould look strange, whoever saw us."
"Nay, there can be no one there, for it is my dressing-room."
She took hold of the handle doubtfully and tried it.
"It is locked."
"But the key is on the mantelshelf. I will get it."
"In this little room?"
"No, 'tis in the larger room, but----"
"Nay," she interrupted, "our absence will be enough remarked as it is. Clemence will read me a lecture on the proprieties all the way home."
Consequently we returned to the house, and the Countess took her leave shortly with the rest of the company; but as I conducted her to the door, she said a strange thing to me.
"Mr. Buckler," she said, "you should be angry more often," and so with another laugh she walked away.
That night, as I sat smoking a pipe upon the lawn, I saw something flash and sparkle in the rays of the moon, and I remembered that Elmscott's buckles still lay where they had fallen. Picking them up, I returned to my seat and fell straightway into a very bitter train of thought. 'Twas the recollection of the Countess' indignation that set me on it, for since the mere gift could provoke so stormy and sincere an outburst, how would it have been, I reflected, had she really known who the giver was? The thought pressed in upon me all the more heavily for the reason which she had offered to account for her anger. She set a value upon my esteem, and no small value either; so much she had told me plainly. Now it had been my lot hitherto to meet with a half-contemptuous tolerance rather than esteem; so that this unwonted appreciation shown by the one person from whom I most desired it filled me with a deep gratitude, and obliged me in her service. Yet here was I requiting her with a calculating and continuous deception. 'Twas no longer of any use to argue that Count Lukstein had received no greater punishment than his treachery merited; that but for his last coward thrust he would have escaped even that; that the advantage of the encounter had been on his side from first to last, since I was chilled to the bone with my long vigil upon the terrace parapet. Such excuses were the merest thistledown, and it needed but a breath from her to blow them into air. The solid stalk of my thoughts was: "I was deceiving her." And it was not merely the knowledge of my concealments which tortured me, but an anticipation of the disdain and contempt into which her kindliness would turn, should she ever discover the truth.
For so closely had the idea and notion of her become inwoven in my being that I ever estimated my actions and purposes by imagining the judgment which she would be like to pass on them, and, indeed, saw no true image of myself at all save that which was reflected from the mirror of her thoughts.
I came then to consider what path I should follow. There were three ways open to my choice. I might go on as heretofore, practising my duplicity; or, again, I might pack my trunks and scurry ignominiously back to my estate; or I might take my courage between my two hands and tell the truth of the matter to the Countess, be the consequences what they might.
Doubtless the last was the only honest course, and if I did not bring myself to adopt it--well, I paid dearly enough for the fault. At the time, however, the objections appeared to me insurmountable. In the first place, my natural timidity cried out against this hazard of all my happiness upon a single throw. Then, again, how could I tell her the truth? For it was not merely myself that the story accused, nor indeed in the main, but her husband. His treachery towards me in the actual righting of the duel I might conceal, but not his treachery to Julian, and I shrank from inflicting such shame upon her pride as the disclosure must inevitably bring.
I deem it right to set out here the questions which so troubled me, with a view to the proper understanding of this story. For on the very next day, while I was still debating the matter in great abasement and despondency, an incident occurred which determined me upon a compromise.
It happened in this way. I had ridden out into the country early in the morning, hoping that a vigorous gallop might help me to some solution of my perplexities, and returning home in the evening, chanced to be in my dressing-room shortly after seven of the clock.
My valet announced that Lord Culverton and my cousin were below, and I sent word down that I would be with them in the space of a few minutes. Elmscott, however, followed the servant up the stairs, and coming into the room entertained me with the latest gossip, walking about the while that he talked. In the middle of a sentence he stopped before the window which, as I have said, overlooked the Park, and broke off his speech with a sudden exclamation. I crossed to where he stood, wishing to see what had brought him so abruptly to a stop. The walks, however, were empty and deserted, it being the fashion among the gentry of the town rather to favour Hyde Park at this hour. A chair, certainly, stood at no great distance, but the porters were smoking their pipes as they leaned against the poles, and I inferred from that that it had no occupant.
"Wait," said Elmscott; "the wall of your garden hides them for the moment."
As he spoke, two figures emerged from its shelter and walked into the open. I gave a start as I saw them, and gripped Elmscott by the arm.
"Lord!" said he, "are you in so deep as that?"
The woman I knew at the first glance. The easy carriage of her head, the light grace of her walk, were qualities which I had noted and admired too often to make the ghost of a doubt possible. The man, who was gaily dressed in a scarlet coat, an instinct of jealousy told me was Hugh Marston. Their backs were towards the house, and I waited for them to turn, which they did after they had walked some hundred paces. Sure enough my suspicions were correct. The Countess was escorted by Marston, her hand was upon his arm, and the pair sauntered slowly, stopping here and there in their walk as though greatly concerned with one another.
"Damn him!" I cried. "Damn him!"
Elmscott burst into a laugh.
"The pretty Countess," said he, "would be more discreet did she but know you overlooked her."
"But she does know," I returned. "She knows that I lodge in the house; she knows also that this room is mine."
"Oh!" he exclaimed, in a tone of comprehension, "she knows that!"
"Ay; and 'twas no further back than yesterday that she discovered it. I told her myself."
Elmscott remained silent for a while, watching their promenade. Again they disappeared within the shelter of the wall; again they emerged from it, and again they promenaded some hundred paces and turned.
"I thought so," he muttered; "'tis all of a piece."
I asked what his words meant.
"You remember the evening at the Duke's Theatre, when she caught sight of you across the pit? One might have imagined she would not have had you see her on such close terms with our friend; that she feared you might mistake her courtesy for proof of some deeper feeling."
"Well?" I asked, remembering how he had chuckled through the evening. For such in truth had been my thought, and I had drawn no small comfort from it.
"Well, she saw you long ere that; she saw you the moment she entered the box, before I pointed her out to you. For she looked straight in your direction and spoke to the Frenchwoman, nodding towards you."
"No, it is impossible!" I replied. I recollected how her hand had fallen upon mine, and the musical sound of her words--"the occasion may come, too." "There is no trace of the coquette about her. This must be a mistake."
"It is you who are making it. Add her behaviour now," he waved his hand to the window, "to what I have told you! See how the incidents fit together. Yesterday she finds out your room commands the Park, to-day she walks in Marston's company underneath the window, and backwards and forwards, mark that! never moving out of range. 'Tis all part of one purpose."
"But what purpose?" I cried passionately. "What purpose could she serve?"
"The devil knows!" he replied, with a shrug of his shoulders. "It is of a woman we are speaking--you forget that."
I flung open the window noisily, in a desire to attract their attention and observe how the Countess would take our discovery of her interview. But she paid not the slightest heed to the sound. Elmscott made a sudden dash to the door.
"Culverton!" he cried over the baluster.
I tried to check him, for I had no wish that Culverton's meddlesome fingers should pry into the matter. I was too late, however; he entered the room, and Elmscott drew him to the open window.
"Burn me, but 'tis the oddest thing!" he smirked.
For a minute or so we stood watching the couple in silence. Then the Countess dropped her fan, and as Marston stooped to pick it up she shot one quick glance towards us. Her companion handed her the fan, and they resumed the promenade. But they took no more than half a turn before the Countess signalled to the porters, and getting into the chair, was carried off. Marston waited until she was out of sight, with his hat in his hand, and then cocking it jauntily on his head, marched off in the opposite direction. The satisfaction of his manner made my blood boil with rage.
"The conceited ass!" I cried, stamping my feet.
"She heard the window open after all," said Elmscott.
As for Culverton, he tittered the more.
"The oddest thing!" he repeated. "The very oddest thing! Strike me purple if I know what to make of the delightful creature!"
"'Tis as plain as my hand," replied Elmscott roughly. "No sooner did she perceive that you were watching her than she gave Marston his congé. He had done his work, and she had no further use for him. She is a woman--there's the top and bottom of it. A couple of men to frown at each other and grimace prettily to her! Her vanity demands no less. She is like one of our Indian planters who value their wealth by the number of their slaves; so she her beauty."
"Nay," interposed the fop. "If that were the whole business, one would hear less concerning Mr. Buckler from her rapturous lips. But rat me if she ever talks about any one else."
"Do you mean that?" I asked eagerly.
"Oh, most inquisitive, on my honour! In truth, your name is growing plaguy wearisome to me. Why, but the other night, when she selected me to lead her to her carriage at the theatre, 'twas but to question me concerning you, and whether you gambled, and the horse of mine you rode, and what not. And there was I with a thousand tender nothings to whisper in her ear, and pink me if I could get one of 'em out!"
"Then I give the riddle up," rejoined Elmscott, though I would fain have heard more of this strain from Culverton. "I make neither head nor tail of the business, unless, Morrice, she would bring you on by a little wholesome jealousy." He looked at me shrewdly, and continued: "You are a timid wooer, I fancy. Why not go to her boldly? Tell her you are going away, and have had enough of her tricks! 'Twould bring your suit to a climax."
"One way or another," said I doubtfully.
"If Mr. Buckler would take the advice of one who has had some small experience of ladies' whims," interposed Culverton, "and some participation in their favours, he would buy some new clothes."
"These are new," I said. "I followed your advice before, and bought enough to stock a shop."
"But of such a desperate colour," he replied. "Lard, Mr. Buckler, you go dressed like a mute at a funeral! The ladies loathe it; stap me, but they loathe it! A scarlet coat, like our friend wears, a full periwig, an embroidered stocking, makes deeper inroads into their affections than a year's tedious love-making. The dear creatures' hearts, Mr. Buckler, are in their eyes."
With that the subject of Countess Lukstein dropped. For Culverton, once started upon his favourite topic, launched forth into a complete philosophy of clothes. The colour of each garment, according to him, had a particular effect upon the sex; the adjustment of each ribbon conveyed a particular meaning. He had, indeed, ingeniously classified the various coats, hats, breeches, vests, periwigs, ruffles, cravats and the other appurtenances of a gentleman's wardrobe, with the modes of wearing them, as expressions of feeling and emotion. The larger and more dominant emotions were voiced in the clothes, the delicate and subtler shades of feeling in the disposition of ornaments. In short, 'twould be a very profitable philosophy for a race which had neither tongues to speak nor faces and limbs to act their meaning.
This incident, as I have said, determined me upon a compromise, for it set my heart aflame with jealousy. I had not taken Marston into my calculations before; now I reflected that if I retired to the North, I should be leaving a free field for him, and that I was obstinately minded I would not do. On the other hand, however, this promenade in front of my windows, whether undertaken of set purpose or from sheer carelessness, seemed to show that after all I had no stable footing in Ilga's esteem, and I feared that if I disclosed to her the deception which I had used towards her, there could be but one result and consequence.
I determined then to forward my suit with what ardour and haste I might, and to unbosom myself of my fault in the very hour that I pleaded my love.
The Countess, however, gave me no heart or occasion for the work. Her manner towards me changed completely of a sudden, and where I had previously met with smiles and kindly words, I got now disdainful looks and biting speeches. She would ridicule my conversation, my person, and my bearing, and that, too, before a room full of people, so that I was filled with the deepest shame; or again, she would shrink from me with all the appearances of aversion. Mademoiselle Durette, it is true, sought to lighten my suffering. "It is ever Love's way to blow hot and cold," she would whisper in my ear. But I thought that she spoke only out of compassion. For 'twas the cold wind which continually blew on me.
At times, indeed, though very rarely, she would resume her old familiarity, but there was a note of effort in her voice as though she subdued herself to a distasteful practice, and something hysterical in her merriment; and as like as not, she would break off in the middle of a kindly sentence and load me with the extremity of scorn.
Moreover, Marston was perpetually at her side, and in his company she made more than one return to the Park; so that at last, being fallen into a most tormenting despair, I made shift to follow Elmscott's advice, and called at her lodging one morning to inform her that I intended setting my face homewards that very afternoon.