It was an hour later, and the outward aspect of Clodagh's drawing-room had been changed. The sunblinds had been drawn up, and a full flood of light allowed to pour in across the table in the window; thedébrisof leaves and stalks upon the table—and with them Deerehurst's card—had been removed to give place to a tea-tray; while through the room itself rang the gay talk and laughter of people who have enjoyed a genuinely pleasant meal.
The tea had been disposed of some little time ago; but Nance still lingered beside the tea-table; and at her side stood Gore and a young man of five-and-twenty, with a tall, slight figure, a pale face, and intensely shrewd and penetrating eyes.
Clodagh, still wearing her riding habit, sat in the centre of the room in radiantly high spirits, talking animatedly to a distinguished-looking woman with beautiful white hair, and to a slim, graceful girl of about Nance's age, who sat one on either side of her.
"Isn't it unkind of Mrs. Estcoit, Pierce?" she said, suddenly turning towards the tea-table. "She says you must go!"
Estcoit laughed—and when he laughed a very agreeable gleam of humour showed in his shrewd eyes.
"But it takes my mother ten minutes to go from anywhere," he said. "Ask Nance if it doesn't!"
Clodagh laughed gaily.
"Good! Then I can ask ten more questions about Boston. Mrs. Estcoit, please tell me——"
But she paused before her sentence was finished. For the handle of the door had turned; and, looking up quickly, she saw the tall figure of Deerehurst.
Had any member of the party looked at her in that moment, he or she would have seen a wave of colour sweep across her face, then die out, leaving her almost white. But beyond this, she betrayed no emotion; and, a moment later, when Deerehurst came towards her across the room with his habitual slow, silent step, she raised her head, smiling a conventional welcome, and held out her hand.
He took it silently, and with a slightly ostentatious impressiveness.
"A thousand apologies if I intrude on a social gathering," he murmured. "But on returning home, I chanced upon the book we were discussing to-day, and remembering how interested you were——" With a very quiet movement he laid a small and costly little book of verses on the arm of Clodagh's chair, and turned with his usual dignity to where Nance was standing.
"How d'you do, Miss Asshlin! Is it too late to beg for a cup of tea?"
Nance held out her hand.
"I'm afraid 'twill be rather cold," she said a little ungraciously. "But if you don't mind that, will you please ring the bell? We shall want another cup."
Estcoit glanced at her, a humorous look hovering about his thin lips; and at the same instant Gore was conscious of a sudden wave of brotherly affection.
But Deerehurst showed no embarrassment. He turned to the fireplace, pressed the bell, then looked round again upon the little group.
"Hallo, Gore!" he said carelessly. "I thought you were killing salmon at the home of the ancestors. How d'you do, Mr. Estcoit?"
He nodded to the young American; then moved away again to where Clodagh sat.
"What a dreadful afternoon!" he said. "Why haven't you changed into something lighter?" He glanced at her riding habit.
She blushed and looked up hastily.
"We have just been saying what a glorious afternoon! But I don't think you have met Mrs. and Miss Estcoit. Let me introduce you! Lord Deerehurst, Mrs. Estcoit!"
Both ladies bowed, and Mrs. Estcoit broke at once into an unaffected flow of talk, to which Deerehurst listened with polite interest, smiling now and then, and occasionally raising his eyeglass.
At last, as she paused, he looked at her in faint curiosity.
"And you really find an interest in England?" he asked.
She gave a bright, cordial laugh—a laugh that seemed to testify to the perennial youth of her countrywomen.
"This is the twenty-first visit I've paid to England," she said, "and I love it more every time. When my son turns me out of my home in Boston, I shall buy one of your country places—as a dower-house!" Again she laughed, casting an affectionate glance towards Nance and Estcoit! "But, Clodagh, we really must fly. Good-bye, Lord Deerehurst! Delighted to have met you!" She rose gracefully, shook hands with the old peer, and turning to Clodagh, took both her hands and kissed her warmly.
"Good-bye!" she said—"good-bye! It has been perfectly charming!"
Clodagh smiled a quick response.
"Indeed it has—for me. Don't forget to-morrow night!"
"Forget! Why, I'm existing to see that play! Come, Daisy!" She turned to her daughter, who had joined the group at the tea-table. "Pierce, are you ready? Good-bye, Nance! Come with us to the elevator?"
Nance crossed the room readily, while Estcoit shook hands with Clodagh.
"Good-bye!" he said. "I shall see you to-morrow night—if not sooner."
She pressed his hand warmly. "Make it sooner!" she said. And they both laughed, after the manner of people who understand and like each other.
The momentary departure of Nance, left Clodagh, Gore, and Deerehurst the sole occupants of the room. After Estcoit had closed the door there was a faint pause; and in that pause Clodagh was a prey to conflicting feelings—passionate hope that Deerehurst might see fit to go, passionate fear that Gore might leave before they could have a word in private.
And while her mind swayed between hope and fear, Deerehurst drew forward a chair, and seated himself beside her.
"I shall be interested to know what you think of this!" he said, leaning forward and lifting the book from the arm of her chair, where she had allowed it to lie untouched.
She smiled mechanically, though her senses were strained to observe Gore's attitude.
"It is very good of you! I am sure—I am sure I shall like it."
For an instant his cold glance rested curiously on her face; the next, it fell again to the book.
"I shall expect you to like it," he said enigmatically.
"What is the book?" Gore came quietly forward and stood looking down at them.
Deerehurst raised his eyes with an expression in which amusement and a faint contempt were to be read by a close observer.
"The book?" he said. "Oh, something, I am afraid, that wouldn't interest you! I don't believe the writer knew anything of far countries—or even of fishing." He paused, and deliberately turned half a dozen pages. "He only understood one thing, but that he understood perfectly."
Gore laughed.
"And may a philistine ask what it was?"
"Oh, certainly! It was love."
The door opened as he said the word in his high, expressive voice, and to Clodagh's indescribable relief, Nance entered.
In the second that she stepped across the threshold her bright eyes passed from one face to the other, and a rapid process of deduction took place in her mind.
"Walter," she said pleasantly, "Pierce says there's one question he forgot to ask you about Japan. Do you mind if I ask it now?" She walked to the open window.
Gore followed her; and Clodagh drew a breath of deep relief.
Ten minutes passed—ten interminable minutes, in which she strove to attend to Deerehurst's words, while her ears were strained to follow the conversation in the window. Then at last relief came. He rose to go.
"I must say good-bye!" he said, taking her hand. "I shall await your verdict on the verses. There is one I want you specially to read—the last one. Good-bye!"
She smiled, scarcely hearing what he said; and a moment later he had bowed to the two in the window, and passed out of the room.
As the outer door closed, Nance came across to her sister.
"Do you mind if I run down to Sloane Street, Clo?" she asked. "I never remembered those lozenges for Aunt Fan, and I can just catch the Irish mail."
Without waiting for an answer, she stooped and kissed Clodagh's forehead; and, turning, passed out of the room.
After she had left, there was a silence, in which neither Clodagh nor Gore made any attempt to speak.
Filled with a nervous sense of something inevitably impending, Clodagh sat very still. She dreaded to look at Gore, lest she might precipitate what he was going to say; yet, to her strained mind, suspense appeared intolerable. She clasped her hands suddenly, with a little catching of the breath.
At the faint, yet significant sound, he turned from the window; and coming quietly across the room, paused behind her chair.
"Clodagh!" He bent over her, laying his hands gently on her shoulders. "Clodagh, we talked to-day of the night at Tuffnell—of what you said that night."
"Yes."
Clodagh's throat felt dry.
"And it was all true—perfectly true?"
"Yes. Oh, Walter, yes!"
Gore stood upright, still keeping his hands upon her shoulders.
"Then I am going to ask a great favour of you. I am going to ask you to break your friendship—to break your acquaintance—with Deerehurst. I want you never to have him in your house after to-day. Dearest, believe me, I know what I am saying!"
As Clodagh remained silent, he bent over her again.
"It isn't jealousy, Clodagh. It isn't pique. It is just that I cannot bear to see the man in your presence, knowing what I know of him."
"What do you know of him?" Clodagh asked faintly.
"Nothing that I care to tell you! Be satisfied that I know what I ask and that I do ask. Give him up! Cease to know him! Cease to have him here!" In the intensity of his feelings, his fingers pressed her shoulders.
"Clodagh, am I asking too much?"
Quite suddenly, almost hysterically, Clodagh rose; and, turning to him, caught his hand.
"No, Walter!" she cried—"no! no! Nothing you could ask would be too great to grant. I will do what you wish. I will give him up—utterly—entirely—from to-day!"
CHAPTER XV
The next morning Clodagh rose imbued with new decision. During Gore's absence, things had worn a vague, even an impersonal aspect; for, like all her countrywomen, she possessed a fatally pleasant capacity for shelving the disagreeable. While Gore was absent, it had seemed so easy to meet Deerehurst on the footing he elected to maintain—the footing of calm, reassuring friendship. But now, with Gore's return, the aspect of affairs had altered. She was forced to look circumstances in the face—forced to consider her position. She might be a shelver of difficulties; but, before all things, she was a woman in love; and with the instinct that such a condition of mind engenders she had interpreted the look in Gore's eyes when the name of Deerehurst had been mentioned between them—and had recognised that it was not to be ignored.
As she dressed that morning, she mentally surveyed the courses of action that lay open to her; and with each moment of reflection, it became plainer to her understanding that only one was worthy of consideration. However difficult the task, she must make known her position to Deerehurst, and trust to his generosity to find means of helping her.
Her mind was full of this new and somewhat optimistic scheme when she came into the dining-room, where Nance was already reading her morning letters. With a slightly absorbed manner she kissed her sister and, passing round the breakfast-table, picked up her own correspondence.
In a perfunctory way she turned the envelopes over until one arrested her attention, as being intimately connected with her thoughts.
It was a letter from Deerehurst, and she tore it open hastily, skimming the contents with an eager glance.
"Dear little Lady," it began,"Yesterday the fates who watch over my affairs were unkind. The afternoon was frankly a failure. But I shall claim recompense; I shall look in upon you in your box at the Apollo at nine to-night. A vexatious business matter calls me out of town to-day, or I should strive to see you earlier. But at nine make me welcome."Always devotedly,"Deerehurst."
"Dear little Lady," it began,
"Yesterday the fates who watch over my affairs were unkind. The afternoon was frankly a failure. But I shall claim recompense; I shall look in upon you in your box at the Apollo at nine to-night. A vexatious business matter calls me out of town to-day, or I should strive to see you earlier. But at nine make me welcome.
"Always devotedly,
"Deerehurst."
She finished reading the note, then laid it down and hurriedly picked up another letter. How annoying it was! How malicious of Chance!
The second letter proved to be from Lady Frances Hope; it was from Brittany, and reproached her extravagantly for not having written since they parted at Tuffnell. Imploring for news of her movements, it informed her that the writer, with Mrs. Bathurst and Valentine Serracauld, was on her way back to London. She followed the lines mechanically, but her mind was elsewhere. At last she threw the letter down.
"Nance!" she said suddenly.
"Darling?"
"Nance, I'm in a horrid difficulty."
Nance's high, arched eyebrows drew together in a frown of concern.
"Nothing bad?" she said. "Nothing about Walter?"
"No. Yes—yes it is. You know Walter dislikes Lord Deerehurst. Well, he was vexed at finding him here yesterday; and after he had gone I—I promised not to see him any more—I promised to break off my friendship with him."
Nance nodded, tactfully refraining from any joy in the proving of her theories.
"Yes?" she prompted softly.
"And now Lord Deerehurst writes that he will be at the Apollo to-night, and is coming round to our box at nine."
Nance pursed up her lips.
"Oh!" she said. "And you'll have to put him off?"
"That's the annoying thing. I can't. At least, not easily."
"Why?"
"Because he's going into the country to-day, and won't be back till evening."
"Send him a note. He must go home to dress before going to the theatre."
"He might dress and dine at his club."
"Write to his club as well."
Clodagh's perplexity showed itself in annoyance.
"How absurd you are, Nance! Fancy writing a man two letters asking him not to see you, and giving no explanation! It would simply bring him round here at ten to-morrow morning."
She poured herself out a cup of tea and drank it hastily.
"Life is a hateful tangle!" she said.
"No it isn't, darling, if you only had a little patience."
Clodagh made a very impatient gesture.
"You don't understand!"
"I understand one thing—that you care for Walter."
Clodagh looked up, her mutable face lit by a sudden change of expression—a sudden look of almost passionate seriousness.
"Yes, I do care for Walter," she said suddenly; "I care so much that I honestly and truly believe it would kill me if anything came between us. I have had lots of things in my life—pleasure, excitement, admiration—but I have never had happiness until now. And I won't lose it!—I can't lose it!"
The words poured forth in vehement sincerity; then, as she saw the expression on Nance's face, she gave a little laugh and put out her hand across the table.
"Dearest! I frightened you! Of course everything comes right, if one has a little patience. Let's begin breakfast properly! My head aches."
With another laugh, she pressed Nance's fingers, gathered up her scattered correspondence, and poured herself out another cup of tea.
Nance spent a long morning with her future mother-in-law, lunching with her afterwards at her hotel. Clodagh, left to herself, ordered her horse for eleven o'clock; and after two hours of recklessly swift riding in the Row, lunched alone at her club. After lunch she wrote two telegrams—one addressed to Deerehurst's London house, the other to the club he most frequented; these she handed in herself at a telegraph office, and having despatched them, drove straight home.
At four o'clock Nance returned to the flat, to be met by the announcement that her sister had a bad headache and had gone to her own room. Full of concern, she flew along the corridor and knocked on Clodagh's door.
In a very low voice Clodagh gave her leave to enter.
She opened the door swiftly; then paused, alarmed. The blinds were drawn, and by the subdued light she saw Clodagh lying on a couch near one of the windows.
"Why, Clo! What's the matter?"
She ran forward and dropped on her knees by the couch.
Clodagh extended two rather cold hands, and took possession of Nance's warm ones.
"Nothing but a wretched headache! It will go, if I lie down all the afternoon and keep quiet to-night."
Nance looked up.
"But how can you—at the play?"
"I'm not going to the play."
"Not going?"
Clodagh drew her sister closer.
"Now, darling, don't make a fuss! If you say one word of objection, my head will get ten times worse than it is. You are just to listen, and do as I tell you. You are to telephone to Mrs. Estcoit and explain what has happened. She will do the chaperoning instead of me."
"But Walter——"
"Walter is to go with you. You are to be as nice to him as you possibly can be. Everything is to be exactly as we arranged—exactlyas we arranged."
She raised herself on her elbow to enforce the words.
"And what about Lord Deerehurst?"
Clodagh did not answer immediately; then, sinking back among her pillows, she spoke in a somewhat hurried voice.
"That will be all right; I—I took your advice and sent him two messages, one to Carlton House Terrace and one to his club. He won't be at the theatre."
"But if he doesn't get the message? If he comes all the same?"
"Then be polite to him. And now go, like a good child. Don't ask any more questions. Don't say anything. Let me see you when you're dressed, and I'll give you a letter for Walter. I'm afraid I can't dine with you; I'll just have something sent in here." Then, as if in sudden remorse, she put her arms about Nance's neck and drew her close to her.
"Darling, forgive me, if I seem impossible!"
At half-past eight Nance left the house, having shown herself to her sister, made a last loving inquiry as to her health, and taken possession of the note for Gore.
As she passed out of the bedroom, Clodagh threw off the fur rug that lay across her feet, and sat up with an expression of sharp attention. As the sound of the closing hall door reached her ears, she drew a little breath of excitement and rose from the couch with no appearance of her recent indisposition.
Without calling in Simonetta, she changed from the white silk wrapper she was wearing into a black walking-dress, and crossing to one of the wardrobes took out a black hat and veil.
She scarcely looked at herself, as she smoothed her hair and fastened on her hat. Beneath the enforced repression of the afternoon, there burned in her mind a certain sense of adventure—of enterprise—that turned her hot and cold. For though the Irish nature may procrastinate, it takes action with a very keen zest when once circumstance has compelled a decisive step.
Having finished her dressing, she picked up a pair of gloves, switched off the electric light, and left the room. In the corridor outside she met one of the maids; but without giving the woman time to show any surprise, she made haste to offer an explanation.
"I have forgotten to tell Miss Asshlin something of importance," she said. "I shall have to drive to the theatre and see her. Please ring for the lift. The porter will find me a cab." And without waiting to observe the effect of the somewhat disjointed statement, she passed to the hall door.
A few minutes later the hall porter had put her into a hansom, telling the cabman to drive to the Apollo Theatre.
While the cab doors were being closed, and the order given, Clodagh sat very still; and for a few minutes after they had started, she lay back in her seat, watching the familiar succession of lights and trees and indistinct massed faces that form the nightly picture between Knightsbridge and Piccadilly; but at last, as Hyde Park Corner loomed into view, she sat upright, and raising her hand, shook the roof trap.
The cabman checked the pace of his horse and, opening the little door, looked down.
"Don't mind the Apollo," she said. "Drive to Carlton House Terrace instead."
The man muttered an assent, and, wheeling his horse to the right, cut across the traffic.
Five or six minutes passed while the cab threaded its way across the Green Park, past Buckingham Palace into St. James's Park; then Clodagh gained her first close view of Deerehurst's town house. For one moment she felt daunted by the unfamiliarity of its aspect; but the next, she rallied her determination, and, stepping from the cab, paid her fare and walked resolutely across the pavement to the imposing door.
It was opened at once by a servant in very sombre and decorous livery; who, having thrown the door wide, looked at her, then looked at the cab, just wheeling away from the kerb. There was nothing uncivil in the man's glance—nothing that one could reasonably complain of—yet, to her intense annoyance, Clodagh coloured.
"Is Lord Deerehurst at home?" she asked.
The servant's eyes left the retreating cab.
"Have you an appointment with his lordship?"
"If he is in, Lord Deerehurst will see me. I am Mrs. Milbanke."
At the coldness of her tone, and her ready mention of her name, his manner changed, though a flicker of curiosity passed across his face.
"Are you the lady his lordship is expecting?" he said, in a different voice.
"Yes, Lord Deerehurst is expecting me."
There was a slight pause; then, with the air of one who admits a novice into inner mysteries, he stepped back, ushering her up into the spacious hall.
"Will you kindly step this way?" he said. "His lordship is in his study."
Glad that the ordeal of entering the house was over, Clodagh readily followed the man across the hall, up a wide stairs, and along a softly carpeted corridor. At the end of the passage he paused in front of a curtained door, and, pushing the curtain back, entered an unseen room.
"The lady your lordship is expecting!" she heard him say.
Then he turned quickly and threw the door open for her. An instant later, she had entered Deerehurst's room.
At the moment, her thoughts were too confused to permit of detailed observation of the room; although afterwards, when the interview had taken place, and she had time to sift reality from imagination, the scene and its central figure were destined to stand out with the accuracy of a picture that has made an indelible, if an unconscious, impression upon the observer's mind.
The room was an anomaly, viewed from a studious point of view; but the merely artistic eye would have found nothing to cavil at. It was not large, as one counts rooms in a great London house, though elsewhere it would have seemed spacious. Numberless books in costly bindings were strewn about on tables and in cases, but they were not the books of the thinker. They were the romances, the memoirs, the poems of the last half-century, but not one volume dealt with science, or even with philosophy. The walls were panelled in dark red; some beautiful lamps hung from the ceiling; and in a distant corner a large silver bowl full of crimson roses was set up, as if in homage to beauty, before an exquisitely modelled statue of Venus.
In a quick, half-comprehended flash of instinct, it came to Clodagh that she had never really seen Deerehurst until now, as he stood backgrounded by the atmosphere he himself had created. He was dressed as he had been on the night in Venice when she had first seen him. He wore the curiously cut evening clothes that he always affected, and which gave to his appearance the peculiar distinction that set him apart from other men; the diamond ring that she had noticed on that first night glittered on his hand; and, as then, the black ribbon of his eyeglass showed across his shirt front. But more clearly than in the dusk of the Venetian night she saw the long outline of his face, the peculiar artificial pallor of his skin, the cold vigilance of his eyes. And in that moment of entry a faint, indescribable hesitancy chilled her resolution. Involuntarily she halted on the threshold of the room.
But Deerehurst gave no time for her indecision to mature. As the door closed upon the servant, he came quickly forward and took the hand she mechanically offered him.
For one moment he held her fingers closely; then he lifted them and, before she could anticipate the action, pressed them to his lips.
That a man should kiss a woman's hand by way of greeting is not necessarily a significant thing. It may be a slightly ostentatious act—but it may be nothing more. Uncertain how to construe the movement, Clodagh gave a faint laugh and withdrew her fingers.
"Were you very much surprised to get my wire?"
She moved away from him into the middle of the room. Now that she put it to the test, the interview seemed infinitely more difficult than when contemplated from a distance. She felt nervous and ill at ease.
Watching her with his close, attentive look, Deerehurst drew forward a chair.
"Sit down, little lady!" he said in his thin, impassive voice.
Reassured by the formality of the action, she took the proffered seat.
"Now take off your gloves. We shall feel more at home."
Again she gave a little laugh.
"My gloves! But I must go in five minutes."
"In five minutes? When the night is so young?" He drew forward another chair, and sat down beside her.
"Do you know how glad and proud I feel?"
She looked up quickly. His tone had subtly changed.
"Lord Deerehurst," she said, "I must explain that the reason I came—the reason I came, instead of sending for you or writing——"
Deerehurst leant forward and laid his cold hands over hers.
"Let me take these off! It feels so very formal and unlike ourselves."
He began softly to open the buttons of her glove and draw it deftly from her hand.
"But you haven't listened to what I said," she objected. "I want to explain at once, so that you can understand at once——"
Before answering, he drew off the second glove and laid the two upon the table.
"Why should you explain? Have I ever been lacking in imagination?"
"No—oh no; I did not mean that!"
"Then why explain anything? Don't you think we have fenced with each other long enough?" He picked up the gloves quickly, and again laid them down. "Don't you think I can understand without explanation?"
"Understand?"
"Why you came to me to-night."
"Understand—why I came to-night?"
"I think so."
He turned and looked straight into her eyes.
At the look and the movement the blood leaped to her face; she drew back into her chair.
"And why do you think I came to-night?"
Very swiftly Deerehurst bent forward.
"I think, little lady, that you came because you know that a man cannot be played with for ever. And because, being a very proud woman, you will not say in so many words, 'I give you leave to love me!' Dear little Clodagh!" He suddenly put out his hand towards hers. "It has all been very delightful—your reticence and your innocence. But we both know that such pretty things are perishable."
Clodagh sat perfectly still. She did not attempt to withdraw her hand; she did not attempt to rise. She sat watching him as if fascinated, while a hundred recollections of looks, of words, of insinuations directed against her and him by Lady Frances Hope—by Rose Bathurst—by other women of their set—strayed in nightmare fashion across her mind.
Deerehurst sat watching her, his hand holding hers, his eyes steadily reading her face. Then suddenly he gave a short laugh and leant back in his chair.
"Little actress!" he said.
The words, but more than the words the tone in which they were spoken, roused her. She rose incontinently to her feet, a sudden memory of Serracauld and the card-room at Tuffnell sweeping across her mind.
"Lord Deerehurst," she said breathlessly, "there is some terrible mistake. You utterly, utterly misunderstand."
It was Deerehurst's turn to show emotion. For the first time in her knowledge of him, the mask of impassivity dropped from his face; his cold eyes gleamed unpleasantly.
"And how, little lady? I am not often accused of misreading men—and women."
"You think——" She paused, unable to find the words she needed. She felt like one who has inadvertently stepped upon shifting sands, where the ground had seemed most secure.
"You think——" she began again.
But she got no further. With a silent movement, Deerehurst laid his hand upon her arm.
"Don't you think we have fenced long enough? Don't you think I have been extraordinarily patient?"
Clodagh turned very cold.
"Patient?" she said indistinctly.
He drew her suddenly closer to him; and before she could resist, he had kissed her hair, her lips, her neck.
"Yes, patient, because I have never before asked for this. Because I have been content to kiss your hand, when I might long ago——" He bent over her again. But something in the white face and wild eyes that confronted him arrested him. He drew back and looked at her.
"Come!" he said. "The play is over! Give me a kiss of your own accord."
Clodagh said nothing. Terror mastered her.
"Come! Give me a kiss!"
She lay almost passive in his embrace, her lips parted, her eyes fixed on his.
He gave another short laugh, half indulgent, half triumphant.
"What a little saint! Come! Show me why you came to me to-night! Be human! Be what you know you are!"
Clodagh made no answer; but he felt her sway a little in his arms.
"What is it?" he asked sharply. Selfish annoyance was written on his face, though he asked the question solicitously.
"I feel faint," she said—"a little faint."
"Faint? Nonsense! It will pass. Rest for a moment." Without ceremony, he half lifted her across the room to a couch that stood between the fireplace and the door.
"Poor little girl! Don't be frightened! It will pass in a minute. Is there anything you would like?"
Clodagh opened her eyes.
"A little water, I think," she said in a tremulous voice.
His face cleared.
"Or some champagne! Nothing would pick you up like a glass of champagne. Why did I not think of it before? Lie perfectly still! We will have some champagne in one moment."
With the possibilities held out by the idea he turned eagerly from the couch, and crossed the room to the electric bell that was placed beside his desk.
But, quick as lightning, the instant his back was turned, Clodagh was on her feet. With a movement so swift and silent that only fear could have inspired it, she slipped to the door, opened it, and was speeding down the long corridor to the stairs.
The house was silent. The upper portion seemed darker than when she had arrived. The hall alone lay brightly lighted—a place of hope and promise, figuring the world outside—the good wholesome world lying suddenly within her reach.
She ran down the broad stairs, indifferent to the fact that the servant who had admitted her had risen from a seat near the door, and was looking at her in frank surprise. Her ears were strained to catch any sound from upstairs, her eyes were on the door.
As she hurried across the hall, the man came forward.
"Do you require a cab, madam?" he asked a little doubtfully.
"No. Just open the door!"
Still with a shade of uncertainty he obeyed, and at the same instant Deerehurst's voice sounded from the head of the stairs.
What he said—whether he addressed her or the servant—Clodagh never knew. At the mere sound of his high, thin tones she went blindly forward through the open door.
As she passed down the steps, a cab wheeled round the corner of Carlton House Terrace. Instinctively she looked towards it, still animated by the desire for flight. But the next instant she looked away again, realising that it already held a fare, and that there was luggage on the roof.
In the perturbation of the moment she failed to see, what was infinitely more material, that the occupant of the cab was Valentine Serracauld; that he had leant forward in sudden, eager curiosity as she passed down the steps of the house to which he was driving; and that, as she turned her head in his direction, he had drawn quickly back into the shadow of his seat.
CHAPTER XVI
Almost immediately a second cab appeared, and, finding it at her disposal, Clodagh hailed it eagerly and gave the address of the flat.
As the horse sped away in the direction of her home, she sat almost motionless, her only gesture being to lift her hands to her eyes from time to time, as if to shut out some near and unpleasant vision. Life in its crudest, its most repulsive aspect stared at her out of the darkness. She sat crushed by the disillusionment of the last hour.
And a new furtiveness—born of the new realisation—assailed her when at last she stepped from the cab at her own door. With an instinctive lessening of her natural fearlessness, she hurried through the vestibule and passed straight to the lift. Gaining her own door, she let herself in by her latch-key, and then paused, looking fearfully and eagerly about, in expectation of some unwished-for sound. But everything in the flat was still; and crossing the hall, she entered her own room. The electric light had been switched on and the place set in order, and Simonetta sat at the dressing-table, mending a piece of lace.
"No one has come back?" Clodagh asked.
"No one, signora." Simonetta arose and turned to her mistress.
Seeing the expression on her face, Clodagh nervously anticipated her words.
"My head still aches," she said. "I think you may go. I should like to be alone."
From previous knowledge of her moods, the woman made no protestations, but folded up her work and went quietly towards the door.
As she gained it, Clodagh turned.
"Simonetta!"
"Yes, signora?"
"Tell the servants they are to say nothing to any one of my having gone out to-night. You understand."
"I understand, signora."
"That is all—good-night!"
"Good-night, signora!"
It would be futile to relate the thoughts that passed through Clodagh's mind in the hour that followed Simonetta's departure; but when, at half-past eleven, Nance returned from the theatre, and, hurrying to the bedroom, opened the door swiftly and anxiously, she was standing by one of the open windows, her hat and veil still on, her gaze fixed resolutely on the shadowy trees of the park.
Crossing the threshold softly, Nance tip-toed into the room.
"Clo," she whispered, "'how are you? Better?" Then she paused in pleased surprise.
"What? You've been out? Then youarebetter. How glad Walter will be! He insisted on coming back to know how you were."
At Gore's name, Clodagh started and looked round.
"Walter here?" she said.
"Yes; but, Clo! what's the matter? You've been crying."
Clodagh stepped to her side and laid her hand imperatively on her arm.
"Hush!" she whispered. "Go back at once and tell Walter that I'm—that I'm asleep. Tell him that Simonetta said I was better and fell asleep. Tell him anything you can think of that will make him happy and get him away. He must be got away. I can't see him. Do you understand, Nance? He must be got away."
For one surprised moment Nance looked at her sister; then conquering her curiosity, she turned quietly and moved to the door.
"All right, darling!" she said reassuringly; "I'll send him away happy."
Clodagh put her hand across her eyes.
"Thank God!" she said. "If you had asked me one more question I couldn't have borne it. Send him away, and then come back."
In silence Nance left the room. Five minutes passed—ten minutes; then Clodagh's straining ears caught the closing of the outer door, and her hand dropped to her side in a gesture of excessive relief.
"Thank God!" she said again.
When Nance re-entered, she was still standing in the middle of the room, her face white and tear-stained, her figure braced.
"Nance," she said, almost before the door had closed upon her sister, "I am going to tell you things I have never told you before. I feel I shall go mad to-night, if I don't tell some one. Don't ask me any questions. Just listen and—if you can—love me!"
Nance paused just inside the door. Her own face looked pale above the shimmering blue and silver of her evening dress; her dark blue eyes were full of a peculiarly tender light.
"I don't love you, Clo," she said below her breath. "I adore you. Tell me whatever you like."
Clodagh threw out her hands despairingly.
"I'm not worth love like that," she cried. "You'll know it when I've finished. Do you remember long ago, Nance, when James and I went to Venice? Do you remember my letters from Venice?"
Nance showed no surprise at the sudden irrelevant questions.
"All of them," she answered—"I have them all."
"Then you remember how I met Frances Hope and Val Serracauld—and Lord Deerehurst?"
"I remember."
"I was very much alone at that time, Nance. James was only a shadow in my life; and they—they seemed like sunshine, and I wanted the sunshine. I have always been like a child, turning to bright tawdry things."
"Clo! you're upset to-night!—you're ill!"
"No, I'm not. I've been seeing myself and seeing my life to-night. I liked these people—I liked these men who talked to me and flattered me, and ignored the fact that I had a husband—I liked them and encouraged them. And one night, on the balcony of the Palazza Ugochini——" She stopped, then made a sudden gesture, as if to sweep unnecessary things aside. "But I won't talk of that!" she cried. "It is the later time I want to come to—the time after James's death, when I met Frances Hope again." She paused to regain her breath; but the look of determination did not leave her face. Her dark eyes seemed; almost to challenge Nance's. "When I went to Monte Carlo with Frances," she went on, "I did not go to forget poor James's death, as you believed; I went to forget something else that had made me much more unhappy; and the way I set about forgetting was to gamble. Yes, I know what you feel!—I know what you think! But it cannot alter anything. I gambled. I lost large sums of money that Frances advanced me. Ihadto borrow, because there were formalities to be gone through about James's will, before I could draw my income. Then I came back to London; I met Val Serracauld and Lord Deerehurst again; I took an expensive flat; I lived like people six times as well off as myself; I gambled again——"
"Clodagh!"
Clodagh put up her hand.
"Wait! It's all leading up to something. I was utterly foolish, utterly mad. I borrowed again to pay my debts at bridge. Then one day Frances asked me for her money. It seemed like the end of the world; but it was a debt of honour—it couldn't be shirked. I wrote her out a cheque that left me beggared of the half-year's income I had been counting on to put me straight."
"Oh, Clo, Clo! Why wasn't I here?"
"Yes, why wasn't somebody here? But the worst is to come. I did not know where to look, I did not know where to turn, when suddenly—quite suddenly—I thought of your thousand pounds——"
Nance gave a little gasp.
"I remembered that. And, Nance—Nance, can you guess what happened?"
Nance did not attempt to answer.
"I took that thousand pounds. I stole it. Don't say anything! Don't try to excuse me! I want to face things. I told myself I would write and tell you; then I told myself I would say it when you came back. But when you did come"—she halted for a second—"when you did come, Nance, you loved me, you admired me, yourespectedme, and—and I couldn't. When you asked me for the money that night at Tuffnell, I knew I would have to find it and pay it back without making any confession to you."
A sound that was almost a moan escaped Nance's lips.
"Yes!" Clodagh cried—"yes! I know exactly how great a fool I was. But what is done is done. The day you drove to Wynchley with Lady Diana and Walter, I stayed behind to write to Mr. Barnard and ask him to advance me the money. But somehow I couldn't do that, either; and then—hate me, Nance! hate me, if you like!—Lord Deerehurst came to me when I was most disheartened, most depressed, and offered to lend me the money."
"And you took it?" Nance said almost quietly.
"I took it—yes, I took it. I have always been like that—always—always; grasping at the easy things, letting the hard ones slip by. And now!—now!"
"Now?"
"Nance, listen!" She took a swift step forward. "It was because of that loan that I couldn't slight him since we came back to town. You were right—you were quite right in all you advised; but I couldn't do it. He had lent me the money. He had seemed my best friend. I felt I couldn't do it—until yesterday.
"But yesterday, when he left, and Walter spoke of him, I knew there was no choice. It was my own happiness or his friendship. And I—I decided for my own happiness."
She stopped, and drew a quick, deep breath.
Nance clasped her hands, fearfully conscious that more was still to come.
"When I have a difficult thing to do," Clodagh went on, "I must do it quickly. I can't wait, I can't prepare and plan, I can't brood over things. After Walter left yesterday I decided that what must be done must be done at once. I made up my mind that I would see Lord Deerehurst to-night; that I would be quite candid with him, explain my position—and appeal to his generosity to let our friendship end."
"Then to-night——?"
"To-night was all a deception. I had no headache—I wasn't ill. I shammed it all, that I might be alone."
"And while we were at the theatre you sent for him——?"
"No! I went to Carlton House Terrace to see him."
"Went to see him! Clo!"
"I said you could hate me! Do hate me! Despise me! Think anything you like! I went to see him; I went to his house—at night, alone—thinking, believing—— Oh!" She made a gesture of acute self-disgust. "Nance, need I say it all? Need I?—need I? Can't you understand without my saying? All that I had imagined about his friendship was untrue. Such people don't understand friendship. All along he had been waiting, quietly and silently, like one of those horrible hawks we used to watch at Orristown—waiting to swoop down when the right moment came." With an almost hysterical gesture she put her hand to her throat.
Nance's face had become very white; but in the intensity of her pity and love, she did not dare to approach her sister.
"Clo," she whispered, "you must tell Walter."
Clodagh's face suddenly flamed.
"Tell Walter! Tell Walter that I owe Deerehurst a thousand pounds—that I lied to him and to you all to-night, that I might go alone to Deerehurst's house! You don't know Walter! There is only one thing in the world that I can do—that I must do, and that is to go to Ireland and arrange about raising money on my share of Orristown. It can be done somehow. Father did it. I shall not eat or sleep or think until that thousand pounds is paid."
Prompted by a swift and eager impulse, Nance's face flushed, and she ran forward. Then almost as she reached her sister's side, her expression changed. She suddenly curbed her impetuosity.
"Perhaps itwouldbe a good idea," she said slowly. "When would you like to go?"
"To-night if I could! I feel—oh, I feel——!" Clodagh put her hands over her face.
Nance stood watching her for a moment longer. Then she slipped softly to her side, and put one arm about her neck.
"Don't be sad, darling," she murmured—"don't be sad! You shall go to Ireland to-morrow, if you like; and all the planning—all the explaining to Walter and to everybody—will be done by me."
And so it came to pass, in the extraordinary way with which events sometimes precipitate themselves, that at four o'clock on the following afternoon Clodagh was borne swiftly out of Paddington Station on the first stage of her journey to Ireland.
The chain of incidents that had been forged by Nance to make this departure feasible, as well as possible, had been too minute and complex to make any impression upon Clodagh's mind. Her confession the night before had been more a confession to herself than a conscious unburdening of her soul to other ears; and having made it, she was satisfied to resign herself into any hands that were willing and capable of guiding her actions.
The first incident of the morning had been a visit from Gore. But it had been Nance who had interviewed him first; and a quarter of an hour later, when Clodagh had come into the drawing-room, nervous and guilty, she had found him full of sympathy and solicitude for what he believed to be her sudden recall to Ireland. Then had come the Estcoits; and with their advent, more solicitude and more sympathy. Lunch time had crept upon them almost unawares; and—again on Nance's initiative—the whole party had adjourned to the Hyde Park Hotel, and had partaken of a meal in company.
More than once during the crowded hours of the morning, Clodagh had striven to draw her sister aside; but Nance, animated by an unusual excitement, had evaded every possibility of atête-à-tête.
It was only at the door of the railway carriage, when Gore and Estcoit were superintending the labelling of her luggage, and Mrs. Estcoit and Daisy were buying books and papers for her amusement, that at last they had a word in private. Clodagh was standing in the open doorway of the carriage, and Nance was on the step, when quite suddenly the latter put up her hand and pressed a letter between her sister's fingers.
"My proper good-bye is in this letter, darling," she said. "I couldn't say it before everybody. Kiss me, will you?"
Impulsively Clodagh bent forward, and the sisters exchanged a long kiss.
"You have been an angel, Nance! I will thank you when—when——"
"No!—no! There can never be thanks between you and me. We are one. Remember that always! Always, Clo—always!"
She drew back quickly, as the rest of the party came hurrying to the carriage.
And so the good-byes had all been said, and the train had steamed out of the station; she had watched the platform melt into obscurity, and then had dropped into her seat with that sense of quiet—of flatness—that follows the moments of parting.
The long railway journey and the night crossing to Ireland still lay between her and action. She looked impatiently at her travelling companions, an uninteresting brother and sister who had already buried themselves behind newspapers in their respective corners of the carriage, and almost angrily she turned to the heap of magazines lying beside her; but as she did so, her glance brightened. Nance's letter was still to be read!
In the midst of her perplexities, a tender thought flashed over her mind as she opened the envelope, and her face softened instinctively as she began to read. But gradually, as her glance passed from one line to another, her expression changed, she sat upright in her seat, her bearing altered in a sudden, inexplicable manner.