But he went with me to Cockington. More, he picked up the cheque, and cashed it, and let Pendarvon have his money before he went. He struck me as not being very far from drunk when we started. Having commenced to drink, he kept at it like a fish. He was in deliriously high spirits by the time we reached our journey's end. I began to suspect that there was literal truth in what he had said; that there was a strain of madness in his blood; and that, consciously or otherwise, he was in actual training for a madhouse. The more I considered it, the less his conduct for some time past smacked to me of sanity.
It was past nine when we reached Jardine's. At the door they told us that dinner had been kept waiting for our arrival. It was ready to be served as soon as we appeared. Making a quick change, I hurried down into the drawing-room. As I entered Dora Jardine advanced to meet me.
"We expected papa by the same train by which you came, but he is detained in town. I have just had a telegram from him to say so. He says that he hopes to be here for the shoot, so perhaps he will come down by the mail--it gets here in the middle of the night, just before four." I bowed. She added, in a lower tone of voice, "Isn't it odd how some people have too much to do, and others have too little?"
"I am afraid, Miss Jardine, that such inequality is characteristic; while, if you are referring particularly to me, I assure you that very shortly I hope to be overwhelmed beneath the pressure of innumerable engagements."
She turned to the others. I knew them all. There was her aunt, Mrs. Crashaw, fat, not fair, and more than forty, a childless widow, who was understood to be rich. Lady Mary Porteous, the Marquis of Bodmin's sister, who was not so young as she had been. And there was Miss Whortleberry, the daughter of Asa Whortleberry, late of Chicago, and the present possessor of all his millions. Miss Whortleberry was one of those young women who seem to be America's most peculiar and special product. To look at she was a graceful, slender little thing, with big eyes and a face that was almost angelic in its innocence. An unsuspecting stranger might have been excused for taking it for granted that in the frame of a delicate girl there was the simple spirit of a child. A more prolonged inspection would, however, have revealed to him the fact that her costume was, to say the least of it, more suggestive of Paris than Arcadia. But it was when she opened her mouth that she gave herself away. Her voice, quite apart from its nasal twang, always reminded me, in some queer way, of Lancashire streets; it was hard and metallic. Her conceit was simply monumental. You could not talk to her for half an hour without discovering that there was only one heaven for her, and that was the heaven of dollars, and that, in her own estimation at any rate, she was its uncrowned queen.
She was lolling back in a corner of a sofa as I advanced to her. She vouchsafed me the tips of her fingers.
"Ah, it's you."
That was all the greeting she condescended to bestow.
There were four men. George Innes--Lord George Innes--who, on the strength of being one of the finest shots in England, is in hot request wherever there are birds about. I believe Innes is one of the cleanest living men I know. He is not rich, but, I take it, he lives within his income. He is fond of a modest gamble, but he won't play for big stakes, and he will only sit down where there's ready-money. His manner is a trifle suggestive of a poker down his back, but if I had been run in a different mould I could have fraternised with Innes. The man to me rings true--he is a man. He dislikes me--it is perhaps, just as well for him that he should.
Then there was Tommy Verulam, an ass, if ever there was one. I suppose he was there because of his father. I don't know what other recommendation he has. Then there was Denton, the man who writes. Personally, I have no taste for men who write. They may be all right in print, but generally they are nothing out of it, and the worst of it is, they are apt to think they are. And Silcox, M.P. I am told that he is very popular in his party, as being the only man in the Radical gang who is a fool, and knows it.
Presently Archie appeared. He was flushed. I thought he looked uncommonly well. He is a handsome beggar in his way. Dora received him with a something in her air which made his flush mount higher. I guessed how she set all his pulses tingling. Even Miss Whortleberry extended to him a welcome which, for her, was quite affectionate--he was a son of the Duke of Glenlivet.
Dora went in with Innes, as being the biggest there. I came in with the tail. We would change all that!
After dinner I made straight for the drawing-room. Something seemed to tell me that I had better make the running while I could. It was the pace which would win. Besides, the consciousness that I was once more in Dora's near neighbourhood had on me the same queer effect which it evidently had on Archie. I found her talking to the Whortleberry. Presently the millionairess went off with Mary Porteous. I had Dora to myself.
It was odd how the recognition of this fact gave me what positively amounted to a thrill. And yet, for a moment or two, neither of us spoke. She sat opening and shutting her fan. I sat and watched her performance. And when I did speak at last, my voice actually trembled.
"I have been thinking of what you said to me the other evening."
"What was that?"
"Have you forgotten?"
"Haven't you?"
"I could scarcely have been thinking of it if I had forgotten."
"What did I say?"
"You gave me courage."
"Courage?"
"Yes."
"Were you in want of courage?"
"Of that particular sort of courage. Some men only get that particular sort of courage from a woman. I know you gave it me."
She glanced up with those strange eyes of hers.
"Tell me what you mean."
"It would take me an hour to explain. Don't you know?"
"You never struck me as being in want of courage of any sort or kind."
There was an ironic intonation in her voice, which, in some subtle fashion, recalled her father.
"Is that meant as a reproach?"
"No." She hesitated, as if to consider. Then went on, "It is not so much your courage which I should have questioned, as the direction in which it has been shown. It is a sufficiently rare quality to make it unfortunate that any of it should be wasted. How much of it has been wasted you know even better than I do."
"I understand you. I thank you, not only for what you say, but also for what you leave unsaid. I am not only going to turn over a new leaf, Miss Jardine; I am going to commence a new volume. Though I shall always feel, myself, that you have commenced it for me."
"I am content, so long as it is a volume of a certain kind."
What did she mean? I seldom knew quite what she did mean. She puzzled me almost as much as her father. She was not like the average girl one bit. As she looked at me with her curiously smiling eyes, with the suggestion of strength which they conveyed to me, I felt that it was probable that she knew much more of the contents of my volume, the one which I claimed to be just closing, than I was likely to know of hers.
"Do you know, Miss Jardine, that you are making of me a proselyte."
"In what sense?"
"I have never, hitherto, believed in the influence of women. You are making of me a believer."
"That certain women have influence over certain men I think there can be no doubt whatever. I have influence over you; you have influence over me. Only"--she stopped my speaking with a movement of her fan--"I should be on my guard against your influence over me until I felt that my influence over you had produced certain results."
"I suppose that any attempts on my part to guard against your influence would be vain."
"You would not attempt to make them. You are not that kind of man."
"Miss Jardine!"
"You are not. You would not attempt to resist the influence of any woman. You would rather welcome it as a sort of study in sensation, as far as it would go. But it would not go far. It would soon reach a bed-rock of resistance. As soon as it reached that rock it would vanish into nothing."
"You flatter me by making so close a study of my peculiarities."
"I do not flatter you. I take an interest in you, because, for one reason, you take an interest in me. Now, Mr. Townsend, I am sure that I should find that bed-rock of resistance at a greater distance from the surface. If ever you welcomed my influence you might find it go much farther than you had at first intended. So I warn you in advance."
I was silenced, not so much by her words as by her bearing. Her eyes had an effect on me which no eyes had ever had on me before. They mastered me, and made me conscious of a sense of satisfaction at being mastered.
"You make me afraid of you."
"Just now you said I gave you courage."
"The two things are compatible. Fear of you might give me courage."
"You mean fear of appearing contemptible to me?"
"Exactly."
"Then that sort of courage I should like to give you." A gleam came into her eyes which was almost like a flash of lightning. "Perhaps I will."
"Do I not tell you that you have given me a taste of it already?"
We might have reached delicate ground. When a man and a woman deal in personalities, and persevere in them, a situation of some sort is apt to ensue. Archie's appearance postponed the crisis which I was beginning to think was nearer even than I had supposed. Archie seemed in a condition of almost feverish exaltation. In the look with which he favoured me there was something which certainly was not altogether friendly. Dora did not seem to notice it. She welcomed him with a smile. As he sat down on the other side of her I got up. I left them together.
"Poor chap!" I told myself as I strolled off, "let him have his innings. He must be badly burned or he would make a more strenuous endeavour to avoid the fire."
Lounging into the little drawing-room beyond, I came into collision with the aunt. She had the place to herself. She appeared to be just waking up from the enjoyment of forty winks. I daresay if I had not come upon the scene she would have had another. At the sight of me she roused. She beckoned me to occupy an adjacent chair. She was the aunt, and I still was unattached. I sat beside her.
"What do you think of Dora?" Her tone was confidential. She spoke to me under cover of her handkerchief. Seeing that I was puzzled, she explained--"I mean, how do you think she's looking?"
"I think she's looking very well."
"Isn't she! Wonderfully well! Don't you think she's lovely?"
I hardly knew what to say. She could scarcely expect me to be ecstatic.
"Indeed I do."
"Of course you would!" She smiled--such a smile. "And she's all she looks, and more. She is good as she is beautiful, and so clever. Extraordinarily so! She's a wonderful girl!" She closed her eyes, as if the wonder was too great for visual contemplation. "I often think that it is unfortunate that she was not born a man."
"You can scarcely expect me to agree with you there."
"You wicked creature!" She prodded me with her fat fingers in the arm. Mrs. Crashaw was one of those old women who, whenever they can, punctuate their remarks on the persons of their listeners. She arranged her bracelets on her wrists. "Haselton tells me that he has a very high opinion of you, Mr. Townsend."
"I am very glad to hear it. I only hope he does not think more highly of me than I deserve."
"I hope not. Young men nowadays are so wicked. They deserve so little. As you probably are aware, Mr. Townsend, I am Haselton's only sister. He reposes in me his entire confidence. He has no secrets from me."
I believed her! She might be his only sister, but Sir Haselton Jardine was as likely to repose his entire confidence in a woman of Mrs. Crashaw's type as in the first town crier. Whatever he told her would probably be told with, at least, one eye to advertisement.
"My brother Haselton is a man of peculiar gifts. A remarkable man. A man of genius if ever there was one. He is, of course, respected by all of us, by his country and his Queen. He has a marvellous knowledge of the world, and a great esteem for those sacred things which are too often disregarded. And when I learn that he has a high opinion of any person I know that that person must be all right upon the moral side. I am glad, Mr. Townsend, to be able to think this of you."
I looked down. I could not help but smile.
"Thank you, Mrs. Crashaw; you are very good."
"In this age of flippancy, the most shocking things are suffered. I hear, I assure you, of things which would astound you. I have made Haselton's hair stand up on end. It always gives me pleasure to hear of a young man who is not only clever but good. For my part, let them say what they will, I think it is better to be good than clever. I hope, Mr. Townsend, that you will always bear that in mind."
Again she prodded me in the arm. I could but bow my head.
"The man who marries Dora will be a most fortunate man. She has money of her own. She will have money from her father. She may have money from me--mind, I make no promise--I say she may have. It depends." Mrs. Crashaw smoothed out her ample skirts in front of her. "Then there is the family influence and position. With a clever girl like Dora for a wife nothing ought to be impossible to her husband."
The dear old thing might be prosy, but it did me good to hear her talking. Such observations, coming from such a quarter, carried weight and meaning. They meant that my position looked already as if it was assured. They meant that the whole thing--spontaneously, so far as I was concerned--had been threshed out in family councils, and that then the decision had been given for me. The thing seemed too good to be true; and yet it was true--here was the living witness. I was in for a stroke of fortune so stupendous as to seem to verge on the miraculous.
If only I had known of it before last Sunday! If only I had suspected that the thing was even possible! Why had I been so blind? Why had I not seen it coming? Why had Sir Haselton not dropped a hint in time? Oh, if he only had!
But the game was not yet lost. Lost?--it was all but gained! I had but to breast the tape, and win. The riding would do it. Luck was on my side.
I turned in early. I had had little enough of bed the night before. I wanted to get up fit, with a clear eye and steady hand. I did not want Innes to beat me too badly with the birds. One likes to hold one's own, whatever is the game.
In the corridor, as I was making for the sheets, who should I meet but Dora. She thought that I was going to make changes in my costume, to fit me for the smoking-room.
"Going to change your coat?"
"Not I. I'm going to bed."
"Really?"
"Really. I want to make some additions to to-morrow's bag. Sir Haselton won't thank me if I don't."
She looked at me as if she was trying to read my face. When she tried to do that I felt, in some occult fashion, that she succeeded. I would have been prepared to wager that she had her father's power of reading faces--and more.
"I want you to promise me something."
"What is it?"
"I want you to promise to top Lord George's score."
"You ask a hard thing, Miss Jardine. I do not profess to be Lord George Innes's equal as a shot."
"I believe, if you like, you can do anything."
"You believe too much of me. Honestly, for my sake, I wish you would believe a little less."
"Will you promise?"
"I promise that I will try my hardest, that I will do my best; and, as the archer says in 'Ivanhoe,' no man can do more."
"You will hare to do more for me; you will have to promise, and you will have to keep your promise."
It seemed an unreasonable request to make--especially in that insistent fashion--such a promise no man could be sure of keeping. A thousand things might be against him. I might shoot better than I had ever shot in my life, and yet not be certain of topping the score. Yet, when I saw the something that was in her eyes, I cast caution to the wind.
"I promise."
She held out her hand.
"Good-night."
She allowed me to retain her hand for a moment in mine.
"I know you will keep the promise you have made."
She was gone. I turned into my room. And, when in it, I reflected.
"If she knows that I will keep the promise I have made she knows a good deal more than I do. I wonder what will happen if I don't. I can, as a rule, see pretty straight along the barrel of a gun, but I do hope to goodness the birds will be good enough to cross my line of fire. She's the sort of girl to take the miscarriage even of such a promise as an omen. I want the omen to be all the other way."
Some one knocked at the door. It was Archie. He had a smoking jacket on.
"Aren't you coming down into the smoking-room?"
"I am not. And, if you take my tip, you won't go either. You must be almost as much in want of a trifle of bed as I am."
"I am obliged to you. I make my own sleeping arrangements." His tone was snappy. He seated himself on the arm of a chair. "Were you in earnest in what you said to me this morning?"
"To what are you referring?"
"To what you said about Miss Jardine."
"Certainly I was in earnest."
He fixed his glance upon me in a fashion I did not relish.
"Haven't you a grain of pity? Is there nothing human about you, Townsend?"
I felt strongly that that sort of thing must cease. The idea of Lord Archibald Beaupré's mentorship was an idea not to be endured.
"There has been a good deal about your manner towards me lately, Beaupré, to which I have objected, and with good cause. You have presumed on the friendship which exists between us in a manner of which I should have thought you, of all men, would have been incapable." He flushed. I saw I had struck home. "You must excuse me saying that if you consider that the fact of our being acquainted with each other entitles you to unwarrantably interest yourself in my private affairs, I must request that that acquaintance shall cease."
"You don't understand me--or you won't."
"I understand you better than you imagine. You are not the first jealous man I have known."
He went white and red.
"It isn't jealousy; I swear it isn't."
"It is a matter of complete indifference to me what it is. I object to it in any case."
He was silent for some seconds. He stared at his toes.
"Tell me one thing--have you proposed to her?"
"I shall tell you nothing. After the tone which you have used towards me I decline to allow you to ask me questions."
He got off the arm of the chair.
"Then God help her." He went to the door. At the door he turned again. "I don't believe that He will suffer it."
Then he went
If Archie went on like that much longer, he and I should quarrel. Vicarious morality is a variety of the article to which the most liberal-minded inevitably objects.
I woke up feeling as fresh as a daisy. When Burton drew up the blinds the sun came gleaming through the bedroom windows.
"There's been a slight frost, sir, but I think it's going to be a clear day."
From where I lay in bed the sky looked cloudless.
"It seems just the morning for a shoot."
"I think it is a shooting day, sir--there's no wind, and a good light."
As Burton said, it was a shooting day. When I had dressed I went straight down on to the terrace. There was a slight nip in the air, and the faintest whisper of a breeze. It was the sort of day which makes one feel that it is good to be alive. I seemed to be the first one down. I never felt more fit. I stood there drinking in great draughts of the clear, cool air, with greater relish than I ever drank champagne. If one always lived in such an atmosphere, with plenty of money in one's pockets, one could afford to be a model of all the virtues.
Some one spoke to me from behind. It was Dora.
"You are the first on the scene."
I turned. She was standing at the open window of the morning-room.
"Am I the first to whom you have wished good morning?"
"The very first. Good morning, Mr. Townsend."
She held out to me her hand. I retained it in mine. A wild impulse seized me to kiss her on the lips. It was all I could do to hold my own against it. Her eyes were so provoking, her mouth so tempting. She allowed me to keep her hand in mine, though she might surely have seen my desire showing through my face. And I have no doubt she did, for she smiled at me.
"Well--good luck."
"I will keep my promise."
I released her hand. A gleam of colour was glowing on her cheeks. I doubted if she was not making fun of me.
"After all, papa cannot come. He wishes you to shoot without him. He says that he will certainly be down tonight."
We shot without him. I do not think that he was missed. I had never seen Sir Haselton Jardine handling a gun, but I should not fancy that he was much of a performer. He did not strike one as being built that way.
I spoke to Innes as we were strolling to cover.
"Innes, I'm feeling in first-rate shooting trim to-day. I don't pretend, for a moment, to compare my shooting to yours, but would you like to have a sporting wager?"
"How?"
One peculiarity of Innes's is that he never uses two syllables where one will do.
"Bet you a pony that I kill more birds than you."
"Birds? or all in?"
"All in if you like."
"Done."
That decided it. I had not expected that he would bet. I had a sort of suspicion that he rather avoided making bets with me, but now that he had bet, if I did not win his pony and keep my promise, luck would have to be against me with a vengeance.
There were seven guns--the house lot, and a local. Innes, Archie, I, and the local had the best places. The local was a man named Purrier. He seemed to be something in the gentleman farmer sort of line. He could shoot, though he was a pot hunter if ever there was one. Sport did not seem so much to his taste as killing. He potted ever so many of his birds before they had a chance of getting up. Archie shot wildly. He evidently had not taken my advice and gone to bed when I did. When he is in form his gun can be relied upon. At his performances on that occasion, I saw Vicary, the head-keeper, more than once pulling a face. Innes, as usual, performed like a book. And his luck was better than mine. The birds would rise his side. I never missed a chance. Yet, by lunch-time, he was nineteen pheasants, two rabbits, and a hare to the good--twenty-one in all.
I was a bit surprised to find that luncheon was done in swagger fashion. It was the first time I had shot at Jardine's. I had not been aware that they did things in quite such style. There was a portable kitchen, and a tent, and a regular table, and a lot of servants, and there were the ladies there. One doesn't care, if one is at all keen, for lunch being made a feature, when one is shooting. But I did not object so much just then. Dora's face was welcome, though I had such a pitiful tale to tell. We sat down anyhow. I planted myself beside her.
"I haven't kept my promise."
"Pray, how is that?"
"The stars in their courses have fought against me. The enemy is twenty-one ahead."
"That is nothing. You will keep your promise before you have finished. I know you will."
How she knew is more than I can say. She knew better than I did. And she knew quite right. I kept my promise. After lunch, I made up for all my ill-luck of the morning. Her words may have had something to do with it--and the tone in which the words were uttered. I believe they had. Anyhow, I wound up by beating my friend, the enemy, with more than two score birds in hand.
The local made all the running at the start. He shot like a keeper, for the larder, or like a dealer, for the shop, grassing bird after bird before it had a fair chance to stretch its wings. Some of the birds seemed a trifle tame; they were either weak on the wing or else they had been overfed. They would not rise until they were compelled. Some of them had to be driven right on to our guns before they would get up. This was nuts for the local. When he had a chance to stop them they never got up at all.
I began catching Innes all along. But it was in the last cover the trick was done. The bag for the day was close upon two thousand. Of these over seven hundred were winged in that last cover. Vicary had kept hisbonne bouchefor the finish.
When we reached it Innes and I were about equal. When the slaughter began he did all he knew. But I did better. I brought them down as fast as I could get the guns; and I fancy that my guns were loaded quicker than his. While it lasted it was as hot a bit as one could wish.
When it was over Innes came to me.
"You win."
"I think I do. What do you make your total?"
He told me. I told him that I made mine forty-seven more.
"I did not know that you were quite so many as that. But I knew that you were in front. The birds have broken on your gun in a crowd."
I owned that was so.
"I know that the luck has been mine. Of course, as a shot I am not to be compared to you. It was like my cheek to back myself. But, somehow, I seemed to know, in advance, that I should have the luck."
"It has not, by any means, been all luck. You're a good shot, Mr. Townsend."
Archie came slouching up. He had lost his temper--as he was wont to do when he had been making an ass of himself.
"Did you ever see anything like my shooting? I can't hit a haystack."
He was looking at Vicary, but whether he was speaking to him is more than I can say. Vicary chose to think that he was. Evidently Jardine's head man knew his business--he had given us a first-rate day. But he was one of those keepers who like to see their birds shot. When they were missed, and the principal offender gave him such a chance as that, he was not likely to let it pass him.
He looked at Archie. His face assumed an expression of rustic stupidity--it was a distinct assumption. Nature had made him look as sharp as a ferret.
"Well, sir, I did understand from Sir Haselton as how you could hit haystacks."
Archie went red all over, then went white to the lips.
I take it that last spinney was a good four miles from the house. So we drove home. It had kept clear, but it had again turned frosty. There was a keen bite in the air. They had sent our coats in the brake. The ladies were having tea when we got back. When we had changed we joined them--all but Archie, who, I imagine, stayed in his room to sulk. Innes and I got in together. The others were already in evidence, including the local, who was to stop and dine.
Mary Porteous called out as we came in--
"So you've had a good day?"
I answered. Innes, if he could, always saved his words.
"First-rate."
"And I hear that you've gained all the honours, Mr. Townsend."
"I've had a good deal of luck, Lady Mary--more than my share. But, I believe, as a matter of fact, that Mr. Purrier heads the score."
Mr. Purrier disclaimed the soft impeachment.
"I doubt it. I never saw better shooting, Mr. Townsend, than yours."
"It's very good of you to say so. You all seem very nice and complimentary."
Mary Porteous laughed.
"How modest we are!"
People went into the billiard-room after tea. I stayed for a moment or two behind with Dora. I had not had a chance of a word with her at tea. She had been entertaining Silcox and Purrier--it was she who sent them to billiards. The rest trooped after them. We were left alone. I had been sitting a little in the shadow, on the other side of the room. I crossed to her.
"I've kept my promise."
"Thank yon. It is almost as if you had done me a special and a most particular favour. But I knew you would."
"You seem to know me very well."
"I know you much better, perhaps, than you imagine."
"But, I assure you, I do not always necessarily keep promises which I make."
"Of that I am certain. But, before you make a promise to me, I shall know--know, mind!--if you will keep it. And I shall never ask you to make a promise which I do not know that you will keep."
"Are you a seer?"
"So far as you are concerned, I am."
She touched my arm lightly with her hand. I protest that she set me all a-trembling. There was a pause. She removed her hand. I do not believe that I could have spoken while she had it there.
"Papa has telegraphed that we are not to wait dinner for him, so we shall dine at eight. Papa says that he will dine alone, as he is bringing work with him from town. It seems to me that life is coming to mean, more and more, to him, nothing but a synonym for work."
I made up my mind, on the instant, that I would--if I could--put the matter to the touch before Sir Haselton Jardine appeared upon the scene. I felt that I could not hold myself in much longer, even if I tried. I was beginning to feel a longing for this girl such as I had never felt for a woman before--and I own that, in my time, I have longed for particular women now and then. Apart from all other considerations, I yearned to have her, to win her, to call her mine--for herself, and for herself alone. She always had exercised over me a sort of cerebral attraction. This attraction had grown and strengthened. It was both intellectual and physical. It was beginning to overwhelm me. I knew that, when the moment came in which we should see each other eye to eye, for the first time in my career I should look upon the face of my undoubted master. I had met my master in my mistress, if the fates would but let me win her for my wife. If but Dame Fortune had that crowning mercy to bestow! The knowledge that she was my master was beginning to fill my veins with a frenzy of desire--we should be so fairly mated.
As I was dressing, the look which I had seen in her glances was haunting me. I told myself that, after dinner, I would put my fortune to the touch, and lose or win it all.
And so I did!
We were a lively lot at dinner--all but Archie. He was black as black could be. Tommy Verulam began chaffing him about his shooting. Tommy himself, I should say, could shoot as well with one end of his gun as with the other. But that did not prevent his being down on Archie. The worse a man is at a thing himself, the more disposed he seems to be to exploit the deficiencies of others, especially if he is a fool of the transcendental sort. Tommy had heard Vicary's remark about the haystack. So he told the tale--with embellishments of his own. I thought Archie would have thrown a plate at his head. There would have been a row royal if the ladies had not been present. Trying to snub Tommy--I expected that Vicary would hear something from headquarters about that little slip of his tongue--Dora endeavoured to extend her sympathies to Archie. But Archie would have none of it. The light had gone out of the world for him.
Directly the ladies' backs were turned the band did begin to play. Leaning his arms on the table, Archie addressed himself to Tommy.
"Mr. Verulam, have you ever had your head punched?"
Tommy gaped.
"What the doose do you mean?"
"What I say. If you haven't, consider your head punched now."
Innes interposed.
"For shame, Beaupré!"
Archie turned on him like a wild cat.
"You mind your own business! Don't you interfere with me!" Evidently, as regards interference, in Archie's estimation what was sauce for the goose was not sauce for the gander. He stood up. "Mr. Verulam, so long as you are in this house you are in sanctuary. On the first occasion on which I meet you outside, I shall kick you."
With that he stalked out of the room--it's a pretty Scotch temper he has of his own!
But I cared neither for his bad taste nor for his bad temper, and as little for Tommy's folly. I went in search of Dora. I peeped into the drawing-room. Mary Porteous was making a noise at the piano, but in spite of the noise she made Mrs. Crashaw was having forty winks upon an easy-chair.
The millionairess was nowhere to be seen, nor was Dora. From the morning-room there was a door leading into the conservatory; entrance to this conservatory was to be gained from the drawing-room as well. I went to the morning-room. I looked into the conservatory. At first I thought it was empty. But, when I went farther into it, there was Dora.
The glass house was a large one. In the centre was a fountain. The water fell into a basin in which were goldfish. Looking into this basin, seated under the shadow of a palm, was Dora.
She was thinking, perhaps, of me. She did not become conscious of my approach until I was close upon her.
"A penny for your thoughts."
She looked up with that odd smile which, to me, seemed to glorify her countenance.
"They ought to be worth more than that to you."
I was silent. I, too, looked into the basin. The goldfish were swimming round and round. The fountain fell into the water with a musical splash. The noise of the piano came from the drawing-room beyond. Now that I was close to her the task seemed harder than I had supposed. My ready tongue seemed to have forsaken me. My pulses were throbbing in my veins like some young lad's.
It was she who broke the silence.
"Your thoughts; are they worth a penny too?"
"Can you not guess them?"
"That is not an answer to my question."
"I have not your gift of prescience. I cannot tell if they are worth a penny to you. To me they are worth more pennies than I am ever likely to possess."
"You place a high value on your own thoughts."
"Shall I tell you what they are?"
"If you like. Though, is it worth the trouble, if you are sure that I can guess?"
"Give me leave to tell you them."
"I give you leave."
"I was thinking what fallible creatures we men are."
"Is that all? Surely that is not worth a penny, even to you."
"Because so small a thing may change all our lives."
"Not worth a penny yet."
"Have you bewitched me?"
"I cannot tell."
"I believe you have."
"You are not bewitched so easily."
"As you say, I am not so easily bewitched. That makes it still more strange."
"I await the penny's worth."
"Will you forgive me, Miss Jardine?"
"For what?"
The words trembled on my lips. And yet, without a struggle, I could not utter them. As I looked into the water, all at once my eyes seemed blinded by its glare.
"For loving you."
She was still. I did not dare to turn to look upon her face, for fear of what there might be there to see.
"You have your methods, Mr. Townsend."
"In what sense, Miss Jardine?"
"I await the penny's worth."
On a sudden a great shame came over me; a sense of overwhelming horror. I sank on my knee. I hid my face in my hands on the basin's edge.
"God help me!"
The cry was wrung from me by something which, for the moment, was stronger than I.
"Hush!"
The word was whispered. Then she, too, was still.
"Begin again." The words seemed to come to me like the words which we hear in a dream. "What is done, is done. You cannot put it behind you altogether. But it is done. It is not yet to do. And, because it is done, therefore, you need not do it again, in the time which is to come. If you have strength--and you have strength, Mr. Townsend--play the man."
I had never thought that any one would have had to bid me play the man. But she had to bid me then. She laid her hand upon my shoulder. Beneath her touch a shudder went all over me. Then I looked up at her.
"You are not for such as I am."
"But you are for such as I am."
I held my breath. I knew not what to do or say. I stared in front of me, not understanding what it was I saw.
"What is it that you say?"
"Are you so deaf? All in an instant have you become so dull? Come, I will do the wooing, since you are afraid to woo me." That ever I should have been told by a woman that I was afraid to woo her! "If you but love me half as I love you, you will fill the world with the fame of the great deeds which you will do for love of me, and leave behind a name which men never shall let die."
"Dora! Dora! My Dora!"
"Well, if I am your's----"
"If? Is it only if?"
"Will you be mine?"
"Body, soul, and spirit. I do believe you have bewitched me. I am going mad for the love of you!"
"I am content."
"Is this a dream of ecstasy from which there will soon be waking?"
"I would that you might wake to something soon."
"What's that?"
"To the fact that I am here."
I woke to it. It was worth while to have lived if only to have woke to what I woke then. For I woke to find that her face was close to mine, that I might take her in my arms, that I was free to smother her with kisses.
Loving is such sweet pain. I learned it then!
And hardly had I loosed her, than some one came upon us. It was Sir Haselton Jardine. I saw his well-regulated eyelids suffered to open to enable him to shoot one of his swift glances. I saw his lips wrinkled by his imitation of a smile. And he said--
"I hope I do not interrupt you. I am but now arrived from town."
Dora, all rosy red, ran into his arms.
"Father!" she cried.
"My dear!" Then to me, "How are you, Townsend? I said I thought it possible that you might have something to say to me before you went away."
"I trust, sir, that I may have."
I believe that I, myself, was blushing like any boy.
While we were standing there--forming, no doubt, a sufficiently awkward group--Tommy Verulam came running in. He seemed to have recovered from the effects of his little episode with Archie. He was quite excited.
"I say, I've just been looking at the London papers. It seems that they've got the chap who murdered the woman at Three Bridges."
I turned to him.
"Indeed! Who may he be?"
"His name is Tennant--Thomas Tennant. I hope they'll hang the brute, upon my soul I do."
Sir Haselton struck in--
"I am briefed by the Treasury to prosecute. If the man's guilty, it will be a positive pleasure to have a hand in sending him to the gallows."
As I was endeavouring to grasp the drift of what it was that they were saying, I saw that Archie Beaupré was staring at us through the drawing-room window.