Serracauld laughed.
"Really!" he said. "How interesting! I shall look forward to the meeting in the flesh."
Again he laughed, as at something intensely amusing. And as Clodagh turned towards him doubtfully, she saw him shoot a swift, satirical glance at his uncle.
"Why?" she asked quickly—"why should our meeting be interesting?"
Once more a vague sense of antagonism assailed her—a vague distrust of this new atmosphere.
Serracauld answered at once in his light, ingratiating tone.
"For no reason, Mrs. Milbanke, that you can possibly cavil at!"
"But for what reason?" Her glance rested inquiringly on his face. "Do tell me. I hate things that I cannot understand."
Deerehurst smiled a little cynically.
"A very youthful sentiment!" he murmured. "The older one grows, the more one seeks the incomprehensible."
His eyes rested upon her with a fixed regard.
For a space she sat very still, attempting no rejoinder. Then, as if suddenly moved to decisive action, she rose and turned towards the lighted salon.
"It's very late," she said quickly. "I must think about getting home."
Serracauld stepped aside, and Deerehurst, who had risen with her, moved forward.
But with a swift gesture that ignored them both, she crossed the balcony and stepped through the open window.
After she had left them, the two men stood for a moment looking at each other; then, with an elaborately careless gesture, Lord Deerehurst raised his eyeglass and peered out across the dark canal.
"Rather a pleasant little gathering to-night!" he said casually. "Rose Bathurst looks particularly well."
Serracauld's lips parted; then pursed themselves together, while he cast one comprehensive glance at his uncle's stiff back.
"Oh yes!—yes! Quite!" he rejoined vaguely; then, very swiftly, he turned and hurried across the salon after Clodagh.
She was bidding her hostess good-night as he reached her side; and his attentive glance noted her heightened colour and her nervously alert manner.
"To-morrow night, then!" Lady Frances was saying; and he saw Clodagh nod and smile.
"To-morrow night!" she repeated. "Mr. Barnard, are you ready?"
As she looked round for her cavalier, Serracauld stepped softly to her side.
"Mrs. Milbanke," he said, "you will not discard my uncle's gondola? He is waiting to know if we may convey you home."
She looked up at him with a faint suggestion of coldness and distrust. Then, across the silence of her indecision, the low notes of the Venetian night music broke forth again, as the musicians' gondola passed the Palazzo Ugochini on its way homeward. For one moment it seemed to sweep across the salon through the open windows; then it faded into the distance, as the boat passed on up the canal. At the sound, Clodagh's face involuntarily softened, her lips parted, and she smiled.
"Very well!" she acquiesced below her breath. "Tell Lord Deerehurst that he may take me home."
CHAPTER VII
During the night that followed, Clodagh's excited thoughts scarcely permitted her to sleep; but with that extraordinary reserve of strength that springs from the combination of youth and health, she rose next morning as fresh and untired as though she had enjoyed unbroken rest.
Coming downstairs at half-past eight, the first person she encountered was Milbanke, entering the hotel from the terrace. And spurred by her own exuberant spirits, roused to a sense of general good-will by her own rosy outlook upon life, she went quickly forward to greet him.
"Good-morning, James!" she said. "I hope you haven't been tiring yourself."
It struck her as an after impression that he looked slightly worn and fatigued.
As he took her hand, he smiled, gratified by her concern.
"Not at all, my dear!" he responded—"not at all! I have had an hour's excursion with Mr. Tomes. I assure you I had no idea that the bye-ways of Venice were so interesting."
"All Venice is heavenly."
Clodagh's glance wandered across the terrace to the canal, radiant in the early light.
Milbanke raised his head, arrested by the fervour of her tone.
"Then you—you enjoyed yourself last night?" he ventured with unusual penetration.
"Oh, so much!" She turned to him with a glowing smile that betrayed a warm desire for universal confidence and sympathy. "So much! Mr. Barnard and the tall, dark-haired boy that you met last evening took me round the canals in the most beautiful gondola belonging to Lord Deerehurst. We saw all the interesting people from the hotels, and heard the music; and afterwards Mr. Barnard brought me to the Palazzo Ugochini and introduced me to Lady Frances Hope. She was charmingly kind and hospitable; and made me promise to go again to-night—and to bring you."
Milbanke's face fell.
"But, my dear——" he began deprecatingly.
"Oh, you must come!—you must! Lady Frances Hope feels sure she has met you before. You must come!"
Milbanke looked distressed.
"But, my dear——"
"Yes, I know you hate society. But just this once—I—Iwishyou to come——"
She made the appeal with a sudden anxious gesture, born of a very subtle, a very instinctive motive—a motive that had for its basis an obscure and quite unacknowledged sense of self-protection.
Milbanke—materialist born—heard only the words, noting nothing of the undermeaning.
"But, my dear," he expostulated, "the thing is—is impossible. Mr. Angelo Tomes has promised to expound his theories to me after dinner to-night——"
He looked at her nervously.
She was silent for a minute or two—suddenly and profoundly conscious that, in all the radiant glory of her surroundings, she stood alone. At the painful consciousness, she felt her throat swell, but with a defiant refusal to be conquered by her feelings, she gave a quick, high laugh.
"Oh, very well!" she cried—"very well! As you like!"
And without looking at him again, she turned and entered the coffee-room of the hotel.
Having partaken very hastily of her morning meal, she returned to the terrace, where—among the other early loungers—she found Barnard, reading his English newspapers. Seeing her, he threw the papers down, jumped to his feet, and came forward with evident pleasure.
"Good-morning!" he said cordially—"good-morning. You look as fresh as a flower, after last night's dissipation."
She took his hand and met his suave smile with a sense of relief.
"Good-morning!" she returned softly. "Have you seen James? He breakfasted hours ago."
"Yes," he said—"oh yes! I was talking to him just now. He has gone to write letters."
"To write letters!"
There was no curiosity and very little interest audible in Clodagh's tone.
"So he said. And you? What are you going to do?"
She looked up and smiled again.
"To idle," she said. "I have an inherited gift for idling."
Barnard smiled, then glanced along the terrace with an air of pretended secrecy.
"Take me into partnership!" he said in a whisper. "My clients don't know it, but I'm constitutionally the laziest beggar alive. Do let me idle in your company for half an hour? The canals are delightful in the early morning——"
He indicated the flight of stone steps, round which one or two gondolas were hovering in expectation of a fare.
Clodagh's glance followed his; and her face insensibly brightened.
"I should love it," she said.
"Truly?"
She nodded.
"Right! Then the thing is done."
He hurried forward. And with a little thrill of pleasureable anticipation, she saw one of the loitering gondolas glide up to the steps.
For the first few moments after they had entered the boat, she was silent; for in the iridescent morning light, Venice made a new appeal; then gradually—insidiously—as the charm of her surroundings began to soothe her senses, the encounter with Milbanke melted from her mind; and the subtle environment bred of last night's adulation rose again, turning the world golden.
As they passed the Palazzo Ugochini, she looked up at the closed windows of the first floor; then almost immediately she turned to her companion.
"Mr. Barnard," she said suddenly, "I want to ask you a question. I want you to explain something."
And Barnard, closely studious of her demeanour, felt insensibly that her mood had changed—that, by a fine connection of suggestions, she was not the same being who had stepped into the gondola from the hotel steps. With a genial movement, he bent his head.
"Command me!" he said.
Before replying, she took another swift glance at the closed windows; then she turned again and met his eyes.
"Tell me why this friend of Lady Frances Hope's is called 'Sir Galahad'?"
He smiled.
"Gore?" he said with slightly amused surprise. "I didn't know you were interested in Gore."
"I am not. But please tell me. I want to know!"
His smile broadened.
"The nick-name surely explains itself."
"Somebody with an ideal? Somebody above temptation?"
"Precisely."
She pondered over this reply for a moment; then she opened a fresh attack.
"Then why should Lord Deerehurst and Mr. Serracauld have smiled when they spoke of his meeting me?"
Barnard looked up in unfeigned astonishment; then he laughed.
"Upon my word, Mrs. Milbanke," he cried, "you are absolutely unique!"
Clodagh flushed. For one second she wavered on the borderland of offence; then her mood—her sense of the ridiculous and the sunny atmosphere of the morning—conquered. She responded with a laugh.
"I suppose I'm not like other people," she said.
"—For which you should say grace every hour of your life!" Barnard turned and looked into her glowing face. "But I'll satisfy your curiosity. Gore is known in his own set as a man who obstinately—and against all reason—refuses to believe in—well, for instance, in the interesting young married woman."
Clodagh's lips parted.
"But what——" she began impetuously; then she stopped.
Barnard continued to look at her.
"Isn't the inference of the smile somewhat obvious?"
Her glance fell.
"Oh!" she said—"oh! I suppose—I suppose I see."
"Precisely."
"But surely——" she began afresh; then again intuition interfered, though this time to a different end. It was not the moment—it was not the atmosphere—in which to parade one's sentiments! With the too ready facility of her nation for adapting itself to environment, she laughed suddenly and gaily at her own passing prudery, and raised a bright face to Barnard's.
"And when he meets these interesting young married women?" she asked amusedly.
"Ah, there he dubs himself 'Sir Galahad'! Some people call him a saint, for keeping his eyes on the ground; others call him a sinner, for not picking up what he sees there. In reality, he is neither sinner nor saint; but just that enviable creation—a man who is self-sufficing."
While he spoke, and for some time after he had ceased to speak, Clodagh sat silent. She was leaning over the side of the gondola and looking down into the calm water, her warm face touched by a mischievous expression, her hazel eyes half closed. At last she spoke, but without raising her head.
"And you are all waiting for the person who will make him see the need for some one else?"
She waited for Barnard's answer, but it did not come. Sensitive to the silence, she raised her head. Then her self-consciousness left her, superseded by curiosity. As she looked up, she saw her companion lean forward and wave a cheerful greeting to the occupant of a gondola approaching them from the direction of the railway station. Involuntarily she changed her position and her glance followed his.
The passing of the two gondolas occupied no more than a minute. But the incidents comprised in some minutes remain with us all our lives. The approaching boat was a large one, rowed by two gondoliers; for, though it had only one passenger, it carried a pile of luggage, much travel-worn. Clodagh's eyes noted this, but they did so very briefly; for instantly the gondola drew level with her own, her glance lifted itself to the owner of the luggage—the man to whom Barnard had waved his greeting.
She saw him with great distinctness, for the early light in Italy is peculiarly penetrating; and her first thought—a purely instinctive one—was that he possessed a sailor's face. His strong, clean-cut features suggested a keen and intimate relationship with natural elements; his healthily clear skin was tanned by sun and wind; and his eyes looked out upon the world with the quiet reliance that seems a reflexion of the steadfast ocean. The first impression of the man was vaguely daunting. There was something self-contained, even cold, in the erect pose of his tall, muscular figure, in the manner in which he held his head. Then, quite unexpectedly, his critic gained a new impression of him. As the gondolas passed each other, he leant forward in his seat and his lips parted in a very pleasant smile.
"Ubiquitous as usual, Barnard!" he called in a strong, fresh voice. "I might have known you would be the first man I should run across!"
He raised his cap, and Clodagh saw that his hair was crisp, close-cut, and very fair, giving an agreeable touch of youthfulness to his sunburnt face.
Barnard laughed, and responded with some words of welcome.
The stranger smiled and nodded.
"Come round and see me this afternoon!" he cried, as the gondolas drew apart. "I'm staying at the Danieli!"
"Who was that?" Clodagh asked involuntarily, as the stranger's boat glided out of sight. Then she blushed suddenly. "Why are you laughing?" she demanded.
Barnard smiled.
"I am not laughing, Mrs. Milbanke," he murmured. "I assure you I am not laughing. It is the merest smile at nature's little bit of stage management. That interestingly bronzed young Englishman is Sir Walter Gore!"
CHAPTER VIII
This little incident—this small and yet significant interlude—in Clodagh's day of new-born freedom, possessed a weight and an importance all its own. It is quite possible that, taken as a mere note in the tuneful, inconsequent symphony of her social life in Venice, Barnard's expression of his sentiments might have glanced across her mind, leaving no definite impression. But the web of fate is wonderfully woven. Barnard had propounded those sentiments through the medium of a name—a name which was to be indelibly printed upon Clodagh's memory by the strangely opportune appearance of its owner.
At the moment when the gondolas passed, at the moment when Barnard laughingly explained the stranger's identity, the name of Walter Gore took on a new significance, became a personal element in touch with her own existence.
In studying the effect of this incident upon her actions, it must be borne in mind that Clodagh's moral position was strangely incongruous—a position to which not one amongst her new acquaintances possessed a key. She was a married woman with the vitality, the curiosity, the sense of adventure of a girl in her first season. She was like a plant that, having been shut for long in dark places, is suddenly exposed to the influences of warmth and light. She glowed, she blossomed, she expanded under every passing touch.
As she leant back against the cushions of the gondola and met the amused and quizzical glance that accompanied Barnard's explanation, her thoughts sprang forward under a certain stimulus of excitement; her blood—the blood of a reckless, adventurous race—leaped suddenly in response to a new idea. She looked up at her companion, her face glowing, her hands clasped lightly in her lap.
"Mr. Barnard," she said, "will Sir Walter Gore be at the Palazzo Ugochini to-night?"
Barnard met her glance. For a moment he studied her whimsically, then he responded by putting a question of his own.
"Mrs. Milbanke," he asked, "is it true that when you dare an Irishwoman to do a certain thing, that thing is as good as done?"
Clodagh's lashes fluttered, and she coloured hotly; then with the naïve defiance, the intoxication of youthful assurance, she lifted her eyes again and gave another bright, clear laugh.
"Two unanswered questions should be as good as one reply!" she said, looking straight into his face.
All that day Clodagh went about her concerns with a delightful, furtive sense of things to come. In the evening she came down to dinner arrayed in a dress of lace and embroidery that had come from Vienna only three weeks before. The dress possessed sweeping lines that defined her slight figure; and above the jewelled lace of the bodice her graceful shoulders, smooth as ivory, and as warm in tone, showed bare of any ornament. The faint olive of her skin was enriched by the neutral colour of her dress, and in the bright light of the hotel rooms, the underlying gleam of gold was distinctly visible in her brown hair. Her whole appearance as she entered the dining-room was subtly attractive; and in every detail of her expression pleasure and anticipation gleamed like tangible things. From the colour that wavered in her cheeks to the dilated pupils that turned her eyes from hazel to black, she was the embodiment of eager expectation.
Neither Deerehurst, Serracauld, nor Barnard dined at the hotel that night, but from the eyes of more than one stranger she read the assurance that she had not arrayed herself in vain; and youthfully conscious of a subtle, impersonal success, her eager spirits rose high.
Regardless of Milbanke's monosyllabic answers, she kept up a stream of conversation; and at last, when she rose with the general company, she did not leave the room, but paused with her hand on the back of his chair.
"I am going for my cloak, James," she said. "Mr. Barnard is to call for me. Shall we say good-night now?" Her face, as she bent forward, leaning over his shoulder, was filled with a bright preoccupation.
The scene was no new one—nor was its lesson new. It merely expounded the eternal disparity between the present generation and the past. On the one hand, was the patient surrender of the being who has known life with its poor compensations and its tardy requitals; on the other, the impatience, the ardour, the egotism of the being who longs to understand, to tear the bandage from his blind, curious eyes, to shake the fetters from his eager, groping hands. It was a scene that is enacted every day of every year by fathers and daughters, mothers and sons. A scene in which, daily and yearly, a merciful nature mitigates the tragic truth by means of a blessed sanity—an instinctive renunciation. But this was no case for natural healing balm; this was no case of father and daughter, but of husband and wife.
"Shall we say good-night?" Clodagh asked again.
Milbanke started and looked up; and something in her warm beauty—something in her gracious youth affected him.
"Clodagh," he said timidly. "Clodagh, are you—are you very anxious? Will you enjoy this party very much?"
Clodagh looked down on him in frank surprise.
"Why, of course!" she said. "Why do you ask?"
His gaze wavered before her level glance. He looked round at the fast emptying room.
"No reason, my dear!" he murmured—"no reason, I assure you! Go to your party. Enjoy yourself!"
At his words she bent quickly and brushed his forehead with her lips, but so lightly, so unthinkingly that the act was valueless.
"Good-night!" she said—"good-night, James! And thank you!"
She straightened herself quickly; and with a mind already speeding feverishly forward towards the night's amusement, she turned and walked out of the room.
It was nine o'clock when she and Barnard arrived at the Palazzo Ugochini, and already the deep purple of the Venetian night was wrapping the waterways in mysterious shade. But to-night she was less absorbed in outward things. An engrossing idea occupied her mind. She felt at once surer—and less sure—of herself than she had felt the night before.
The time occupied in reaching the palace and mounting the marble steps seemed to her very brief; and almost before she realised that the moment had come, she heard her own and Barnard's names announced by Lady Frances Hope's English servant.
Her first sensation upon entering the salon, was an almost childish satisfaction in the thought that she had dressed so carefully; for it needed but a glance to show her that the evening's gathering was of a very much more important nature than that of the previous night. Quite fifty people were grouped about the lofty room, whose centre and pivot was again the gaudy, modern roulette-table; and towards this table, with its surrounding group of gay and noisy votaries, she and Barnard turned as if by instinct.
Nearing the circle of players, she saw that Luard—her acquaintance of last evening—was officiating at the game to the delight and amusement of his clients; while at a little distance from the table, she caught sight of her hostess in conversation with a tall man whose remarkably fair and close-cropped hair gave her a sudden thrill of recognition.
As in duty bound, she walked straight forward to where Lady Frances was standing. And as she murmured her greeting, her hostess turned quickly, appraising in a single rapid glance her dress, her hair, her complexion, while she extended her hand with a cordial gesture. It may be possible that the cordiality cost Lady Frances an effort—that the smile with which she greeted her radiant guest covered a suggestion of feminine chagrin; but if so, no one detected it. Her welcome sounded genuine and even warm.
"My dear Mrs. Milbanke!" she exclaimed. "How charming of you to remember! And how charming you look!" she added in a whisper meant for Clodagh's ear alone.
Then with a movement of seemingly spontaneous hospitality, she turned to the fair-haired stranger, who had fallen into conversation with Barnard.
"Walter!" she said, "I should like you to know Mrs. Milbanke! Mrs. Milbanke, allow me to introduce Sir Walter Gore!"
It was the affair of a moment. The stranger made a gesture of excuse to Barnard; turned quickly, and bowed with well-bred deference. Then he raised his head, and for the first time Clodagh met his glance—the clear, fearless glance, slightly reserved, slightly aloof, that carried with it the suggestion of the sea. His look was quiet, steady, and absolutely impersonal.
And Clodagh, instantly conscious of this polite reserve, felt her face redden. She was aware of a distinct sensation of being smaller—less important to the scheme of things—than she had been five minutes earlier. Her vanity was inexplicably—yet palpably—hurt. Her first feeling was a distressed humility, her second an angry pride. Then a new expression leaped into her eyes. Smartingly conscious of Barnard's interested, quizzical glance fixed expectantly upon her, she challenged the stranger's regard.
"How d'you do?" she said. "I think I have seen you before."
He smiled politely.
"Indeed!" he said. "In England?" His tone was courteous and attentive, but neither curious nor interested.
Her colour deepened.
"No. Here in Venice—this morning. I was in Mr. Barnard's gondola when you were coming from the station to your hotel."
He looked at her, then at Barnard—a perfectly honest, unaffected glance.
"Indeed!" he said again. "I certainly remember seeing that Barnard was not alone, but I was remiss enough not to notice who the lady was."
For one second a feeling of resentment—almost of dislike—stung Clodagh. The next, her old daring mood of years ago sprang up within her.
"Where I come from," she said, "no man would have the courage to say that."
Barnard laughed.
"Assume a virtue, if you have it not! Is that the Irish code?"
Gore smiled.
"If thatisthe Irish code," he said gravely. "I'm afraid Ireland only echoes the rest of Europe. Assumption is the art of the twentieth century. The man who can assume most, climbs highest! Isn't that so, Lady Frances?"
He turned to their hostess.
Clodagh stood silent. She was filled with a humiliating, childish sensation of having been rebuked—rebuked by some one whose natural superiority placed him beyond reach of childish temper or childish violence. The sensation that many a time in old and distant days had sent her flying to the shelter of Hannah's arms, rose intolerably keen. With a defiant sense of futility and loneliness, she turned away from the little group—only to encounter the pallid face and stiff, distinguished figure of Lord Deerehurst, as he came slowly towards her across the room.
Extending his hand, he took her fingers and bowed over them.
"Mrs. Milbanke," he said, "I have just been mentally accusing Lady Frances of surrounding me by so many acquaintances that I could not find one friend. Now I desire to retract!"
In the sudden relief—the sudden touch of unexpected flattery—Clodagh's mobile face underwent a change.
"Then you have found a friend?" she said.
At sound of the words, Sir Walter Gore involuntarily turned; and, seeing the old peer, made a slight movement of surprise and extended his hand.
"Lord Deerehurst!" he said. "I did not know you were in Venice!"
They shook hands without cordiality; and having murmured some conventional remark, the older man turned again to Clodagh.
"Yes," he said, "I have found a friend!"
His cold eyes gave point to the words.
She laughed and coloured. Again she was conscious of Barnard's amused, speculative gaze; but also she was conscious of the quiet, slightly critical eyes of her new acquaintance. Goaded by the double spur, she glanced up into Deerehurst's face.
"Well?" she said. "And now?"
"Now I am in my friend's hands."
He made a profound and eloquent bow.
Again she coloured, but again vanity and mortification stirred her blood. With a winning movement, she took a step forward.
"Your friend would like to listen to philosophy on the balcony," she said in a recklessly low voice.
CHAPTER IX
To the superficial student of Clodagh's character, this development of a phase in her mental growth may present itself as something distasteful—even unworthy; but to the serious student of human nature, with its manifold and wonderful complexities, it must perforce come clothed in a different guise.
Placed by circumstances in a singularly isolated position—springing from a race in whom love of power, love of admiration, love of love itself are inherent qualities—it is not to be wondered at that, in the first flush of her realised sovereignty over men, she should view the world from a slightly giddy altitude.
No one grudges her triumphs and her innocent intrigues to the girl in her first season. Humanity looks on indulgently while she breaks her first lance with the candid joy, the pardonable egotism that is bred of youth. And, incongruous as it may sound, Clodagh's was the position of the debutante. She was comprehending for the first time—and comprehending with accumulated emotion—the fact that she possessed an individual path in life. And with the arrogance of inexperience, she sprang to the conclusion that every foot crossing that path, should yield her a toll of homage.
And now one foot had crossed it without pause, without even a desire to linger! Her cheeks burned under the smart of her hurt vanity, as she turned from the little group that surrounded Lady Frances Hope, and allowed Deerehurst to lead her across the salon. Her emotions were many and confused, but one personality occupied her thoughts against the angry expostulations of her reason. By an illogical, but very human sequence of impressions, Sir Walter Gore had, in one moment, become the most objectionable—and the most interesting—person of her acquaintance.
As she stepped out upon the balcony, Deerehurst drew forward the low chair that she had occupied the night before; and she sank into it with a little sigh. For the first time in the glamour of her new-found excitement, she felt glad to escape from the crowd and the lights of the salon.
For a while her companion made no effort to break the silence that she seemed anxious to preserve, then at last he changed his position, stepped softly forward, and laid his hand on the back of her chair.
"Is what Barnard tells me true?" he asked. "Are you really leaving Venice in a week?"
She bent her head without looking up.
"But surely we can persuade you——"
His voice quickened, then broke off, as Clodagh turned to him.
"Does it matter to any one whether I go or stay?" she asked in a slightly tremulous voice.
The only surprise that Deerehurst betrayed, was shown in the narrowing of his cold eyes. He studied her penetratingly for a moment; then he spoke again very quietly.
"Mrs. Milbanke," he said, "can you ask that question in good faith?"
A faint touch of last night's embarrassment wavered across her mind, but this time she swept it defiantly aside.
"Yes; I mean it."
She turned, and again looked up into his face.
"And am I to answer in good faith?"
She bent her head, still looking at him.
"Then judging by the one case of which I can confidently speak, yes!—distinctly yes!"
There was a pause; and Clodagh gave a faint laugh.
"And whose is the one case?"
Her voice sounded cool, high, even slightly indifferent. It piqued Deerehurst to a further step. He answered her question with another.
"Mrs. Milbanke," he said, "have you ever heard of Circe?"
Again she laughed.
"My education was extensive, if very intermittent," she said. "Yes, I have heard of Circe—and her wild beasts."
He echoed the laugh in his thin, expressive voice.
"I see the implication! But I would willingly play even wild beast—to your Circe!"
He bent over her chair.
She drew away with a slight, sharp movement; but he did not alter his position.
"Do you know that a man would follow you—anywhere?"
"Anywhere?"
"Anywhere."
He let his hand glide softly from the back of the chair to her shoulder.
At the touch of his fingers, she slipped away from him with a noiseless movement, and rose to her feet.
"Then follow me back to the salon!" she said in a voice that still sounded high and light.
There was a constrained pause, but it was one of short duration. Deerehurst was not the man to be easily taken at a disadvantage. For one instant a glimmering of chagrin showed on his composed face; the next it was gone. He straightened his dignified figure, and felt mechanically for his eyeglass.
"'Pon my word!" he said. "I believe youareCirce. Use your prerogative!"
He turned, laughed a little, and indicated the salon with a courtly gesture.
Clodagh looked at him. He puzzled and disconcerted her. To one whose innate instinct was a yielding to impulse, his absolute impassivity in face of disconcerting situations was something incomprehensible. And now, as he stepped aside to give her passage, she gave a quick laugh, expressive of both embarrassment and relief; and crossed the balcony with a certain instinctive haste.
During their absence, the crowd in the salon had increased; the press about the roulette-table had become denser; while at half a dozen card-tables, sheltered from the general gathering by large screens of old Italian leather-work, parties of four were playing bridge.
Ignoring these latter groups, Clodagh crossed the room towards the roulette-table, and paused upon the outskirts of the crowd that surrounded it.
Deerehurst, following her closely, narrowed his eyes with a touch of interest as he saw that, either by intention or accident, she had halted beside Sir Walter Gore.
"Well," he said in his thin, satirical voice, as he gained her side—"well, shall we combine forces as we did last night? I brought you luck, remember!"
She turned upon him almost sharply.
"No!" she said—"no! I don't play roulette."
At the vehemence of her denial, he raised his eyebrows; and Sir Walter Gore looked round. Seeing the speaker, an involuntary gleam of surprise crossed his face.
"Surely you are not so unfashionable as to disapprove of gambling, Mrs. Milbanke?" he asked.
Clodagh raised her eyes; and this time her glance was free from coquetry.
"I have not been fashionably brought up," she said.
"Indeed!"
The surprise—and, with it, a reluctant interest—deepened in Gore's glance. But his eyes wandered doubtfully over her dress.
Invariably quick to follow a train of thought, she gave a short, comprehending laugh.
"Oh, I know what you are thinking of!" she cried. "I don't look as if I belong to the wilds. People never understand that dressing is a knack that comes to women, and does not really mean anything."
He smiled, amused against his will.
Again she laughed, like a child who has been praised.
"Oh, it's quite true!" she added. "I could tell you of dozens of cases——"
But her flow of confidence was suddenly terminated. Valentine Serracauld, catching sight of her through the throng of people, had made a hasty way towards her. His finely cut colourless face was animated and his dark grey eyes looked excited.
"How d'you do?—how d'you do, Mrs. Milbanke?" he exclaimed. "Please congratulate me! I've had a run of luck! Netted seventy pounds!"
Clodagh's lips parted.
"Seventy pounds!" she said breathlessly, and instinctively she turned to Gore. But Gore's place was empty. At Serracauld's approach, he had moved unostentatiously away.
At the knowledge that he was gone, a sense of disappointment fell upon her. She glanced uncertainly at Deerehurst.
The old peer, who had been a cynical observer of the little scene, gave a thin laugh.
"Our friend Gore is fearful of contamination," he said, glancing at his nephew.
Serracauld laughed.
"Gore!" he said contemptuously. "Oh, Gore and I never did chum up! But where have you been hiding yourself all day?" He turned again to Clodagh. "We have had dark suspicions that old Barny has been buying up your society with Stock Exchange tips. Come, now, confess!" He paused and laughed, looking with intent admiration into her expressive face.
And Clodagh—sailing upon the tide of present things, elated by the eager interest of two men, and excited by the grudging interest of a third—forgot that, for every frail craft such as hers, there is an ultimate harbour to be gained, a future to be reckoned with. She lifted her head, met Serracauld's searching glance, and echoed his inconsequent laugh.
CHAPTER X
The next day Clodagh made one of a party to the Lido, and the same night accompanied Lady Frances Hope, Deerehurst, and Serracauld to a theatre; but on neither occasion did she meet, or even see, Sir Walter Gore.
On the afternoon of the second day, however, he again appeared upon the scene of her interests, and in an unexpected manner.
The hour was six; and she, with Barnard and Milbanke, was seated on the hotel terrace, chatting desultorily in the warmth of the early evening.
While they talked, a gondola glided up to the hotel steps; and in the glow of the waning sun, they saw Gore step from the boat, pause to give some order to the gondolier, and then mount the stone steps.
They all three saw him simultaneously. Clodagh, to her own annoyance, coloured; and Barnard smiled in his observant, quizzical fashion.
"I didn't tell you that Gore was coming to see me this afternoon, Mrs. Milbanke," he said in an undertone. "I had a fancy that you might run away."
The flush on Clodagh's face deepened.
"Run away?" she exclaimed in angry haste.
But Barnard rose without replying, and went forward to meet his visitor.
Having greeted his host, Gore turned to Clodagh.
"How d'you do, Mrs. Milbanke?" he said, raising his hat. Then he looked interrogatively at Milbanke.
Barnard made a sweeping gesture.
"My old friend Mr. James Milbanke!" he said. "James, Sir Walter Gore!"
Milbanke looked up quickly; and the younger man held out his hand with a pleasant touch of cordiality.
"How d'you do, sir?" he said. "Are you making a long stay in Venice?"
With a friendly movement, he pulled forward one of the wicker chairs and seated himself beside Milbanke.
Clodagh, leaning far back in her own long, low seat, looked at him curiously. Unconsciously the remembrance of Serracauld's careless manner upon a similar occasion of first introduction recurred to her mind, coupled with the knowledge of Barnard's contemptuous idea of her husband—his fads and his peculiarities. What could this man see to attract him in a dry archæologist of twice his age? She found herself waiting intently for his next remark—his next action.
"Are you making a long stay?" he repeated, settling himself in his chair.
Milbanke, surprised and pleased at the unexpected attention, sat up stiffly in his seat.
"Oh no!" he said—"no! We are leaving in three or four days. I—I am interested in antiquity, and should, properly speaking, be in Sicily at the present moment. Perhaps you have heard of the very remarkable researches that are being carried on there?"
Gore smiled.
"No, I'm afraid I must confess ignorance. I know disgracefully little about the past."
Barnard, fearing a dissertation from Milbanke, interrupted with a laugh.
"I'm afraid most of us find the present more alluring!"
He cast a swift glance at Clodagh.
But Clodagh, still annoyed with him, and with herself—still puzzled by Gore's attitude—lifted her head sharply.
"At least," she said, "we can be sure that the present is genuine."
Gore turned and looked at her.
"Are you quite sure of that, Mrs. Milbanke?" he asked quietly. "Don't you think there is trickery and deception in the manufacture of many things besides the antique?"
Her glance faltered.
"I have seen a lot of unauthentic relics," she said with a touch of obstinacy.
"And I, a lot of unauthentic life."
He looked at her with a slight smile. The smile stung her unreasonably.
"Some people can never become connoisseurs," she retorted quickly.
Gore laughed, but without offence.
"Not of treasures, perhaps, but with experience and observation, surely any one can become a judge of men—and women."
Clodagh forced herself to smile.
"You disapprove of women?"
"Disapprove! Indeed, no!"
But here Barnard interposed with one of his suave gestures.
"He only disapproves of the modern woman, Mrs. Milbanke!"
Gore turned to him good-humouredly.
"Wrong, Barnard!" he said. "I admire the modern woman—the truly modern woman. It is the society woman—of any period—that I lose patience with."
Barnard smiled.
"The present-day woman is very proud of her complex life," he said smoothly, "her big card debts and her little intrigues."
Gore's healthy face turned a shade redder.
"I know!" he said tersely. "But to me, a woman with no higher ambition than the playing of cards winter and summer, afternoon after afternoon, is—is pitiable."
Clodagh leant forward.
"Perhaps they play cards because they have no real interests."
He looked at her quickly.
"And why have they no real interests, Mrs. Milbanke? Isn't it because they reject all simple, natural, wholesome things? Such women do not know the meaning of the word home. They do not want a home—or home life, as the women of the last generation understood it."
"Ah, there you touch bottom, my dear Gore! There you are in your depth!" Again Barnard gave one of his smooth, tactful laughs. "This young man has a great pull over us, Mrs. Milbanke, when he compares the present generation with the past."
At the suave words, Gore made a slightly embarrassed gesture, and looked instinctively towards Milbanke.
"Forgive my tirade, sir!" he said a little confusedly. "Mr. Barnard is right. I have rather a high ideal of womanhood. I am possessed of a—a very remarkable mother."
"A mother!" Clodagh looked round impulsively. "Oh, tell me what she is like!"
With a certain spontaneity, Gore turned to respond to her question; but before his eyes met hers, their glance was intercepted by a shrewd, amused, inquiring look from Barnard. The effect of the look was strange. His emotion so suddenly aroused, died suddenly. His face became passive, even a little cold. He straightened his shoulders, and gave the restrained, self-conscious laugh that the Englishman resorts to when he feels that his sentiments have entrapped him.
"Oh, you must not ask me what my mother is like, Mrs. Milbanke," he said. "I could not give you an unbiassed opinion. As it is, I have been wasting your time unpardonably. Barnard, do you think Mrs. Milbanke will excuse you for ten minutes?"
Barnard rose slowly.
"Do not put me to the pain of saying 'yes,'" he exclaimed. "Let me imagine that I am tearing myself away against Mrs. Milbanke's express desire. Au revoir, Mrs. Milbanke! Au revoir, James!"
He nodded, and sauntered off in the direction of the hotel door.
A moment later Gore shook hands silently with Clodagh and her husband, and moved away in the same direction.
As he disappeared into the hotel, Milbanke folded his newspaper with interested haste.
"What a well-mannered young man!" he said. "Who is he? What is his name?"
Clodagh was sitting very still, her hands clasped in her lap, her eyes fixed upon some distant object.
"Gore," she said shortly—"Gore. Sir Walter Gore."
"Gore!" Milbanke repeated the name as though it pleased him. "A fine young fellow! Very unlike the majority of young men of the present day."
Clodagh said nothing.
"Don't you agree with me, my dear?"
As if by an effort, she recalled her wandering gaze, turned her head slowly, and looked at her husband.
"He—he certainly seems unlike other people," she admitted in a low voice.
After this rejoinder there was silence. Clodagh, her brows drawn together in a perplexed frown, relapsed into her former absorbed contemplation; while Milbanke, having changed his position once or twice, shook out the sheets of his newspaper and buried himself in the lengthy report of a scientific meeting.
But scarcely had he reached the end of his first paragraph, than a large shadow fell across the page, and, looking up quickly, he saw the ponderous figure of Mr. Angelo Tomes.
At the sight of his hero he started, coloured with pleasure, and rose hastily.
"Mr. Tomes!" he exclaimed. "Clodagh, my dear, here is Mr. Tomes!"
Clodagh turned without enthusiasm, and looked at the loose figure and unkempt hair of the scientist.
"I do not think you and my—my wife have met, Mr. Tomes!" Milbanke broke in with a nervous attempt at geniality.
Mr. Tomes bowed.
"No; but I have many times seen Mrs. Milbanke," he said ponderously.
Clodagh bent her head, noting with the fastidious intolerance of youth that his clothes were baggy and his hands unclean.
Milbanke gave a nervous, conciliatory laugh.
"I—I have noticed that great men are always observant," he said jocularly.
Mr. Tomes smiled.
"That is scarcely a compliment to Mrs. Milbanke," he interposed consciously.
Clodagh looked up and met his eyes.
"I don't wish to be paid compliments, Mr. Tomes," she said. "Please don't try to think of any. Did you come to take my husband out?"
Mr. Tomes stammered, visibly crestfallen.
"Well," he began, "there is a certain archway in one of the smaller churches, which I think Mr. Milbanke ought to see. But as an archway is not too weighty for a lady's consideration, it struck me—it occurred to me——"
But Clodagh cut him short.
"Oh, Mr. Tomes, I'm much too frivolous even for archways. Don't take me into your calculations; I should only spoil them. Of course it's very kind of you," she added with tardy remorse, "but the experiment would be a failure. Ask my husband——"
Milbanke looked distressed.
"Oh, my dear——" he began.
But Clodagh's nerves were jarred.
"I know!" she broke in—"I know it's awfully kind of Mr. Tomes! But I couldn't go to see an archway to-day. I couldn't. I really—really couldn't."
Mr. Tomes relapsed into a state of pompous offence.
Milbanke looked from one to the other in nervous misery.
"Certainly not—certainly not, my dear!" he agreed. "You are tired; you have been doing too much." He peered at her through the softly falling twilight with a look of helpless concern.
She felt, rather than saw the look; and that sensitive dread of being rendered conspicuous that attacks us all in early life, caused her to shrink into herself.
"Nonsense!" she said a little coldly. "I am perfectly well. Please go and see Mr. Tomes's archway. I don't mind being left alone. I would like to be left alone."
Milbanke stirred uneasily.
"Of course, my dear, if you wish it!" he murmured. "Mr. Tomes, shall we—— Are you ready——"
He waved his hand towards the canal.
Mr. Tomes drew his loose limbs together, and bowed formally to Clodagh.
"Certainly, if you wish it, Mr. Milbanke!" he said stiffly; and walked off along the terrace.
Milbanke did not follow him at once. He stood looking at his wife in pained uncertainty.
"Clodagh, my dear," he began at last, "if there is anything I can do——"
But Clodagh turned away.
"No," she said almost inaudibly; "no, there is nothing. I'd like to be alone. I want to be alone."
And Milbanke—perplexed, embarrassed, vaguely unhappy—turned slowly, and walked across the terrace after his scientific friend.
Clodagh waited until the last sound of Mr. Tomes's loud, rolling voice had melted into the distance with the departure of his gondola; then with a stiff, tired movement she rose, walked in her own turn across the terrace, and, leaning upon the stone parapet, gazed out into the purple twilight, as she had gazed on the evening of her first arrival.
How long ago—how infinitely far away—that first arrival seemed to her! With the capacity for the assimilation of new emotions that belongs to all her race, she had lived more keenly during the last three days, than during the preceding four years. To one of her temperament, life is not a matter of time, but of experience. At eighteen she had been a child; on her twenty-second birthday she had been a girl; and now, when that birthday was past by but a few months, she was conscious of the stirring of her womanhood—roused into swift activity by the first approach of the world with its men and women, its laxities and prejudices, its infinite potentialities for good or evil.
Some vague foreshadowing of this idea was casting itself across her mind, when the thread of her musings was suddenly broken by a quick step sounding across the deserted terrace, and with a slight, involuntary movement, she straightened herself, and brought her hands together upon the cold surface of the parapet.
Sir Walter Gore had parted with Barnard in the hall of the hotel; and now he crossed the terrace quickly, conscious of the fast falling twilight. He was close to the flight of stone steps that led to the water, before the flutter of Clodagh's light dress caught his preoccupied attention.
Seeing her, he paused and raised his hat.
"You look very mysterious, Mrs. Milbanke," he said. "Has your husband gone indoors?"
Clodagh felt herself colour. Unreasonably, and seemingly inexplicably, the mention of Milbanke's name jarred upon her.
"My husband has gone to see an archway in one of the churches," she said with a tinge of sharpness.
Caught by the inflexion of her voice, Gore looked at her more closely through the gathering dusk.
"And you do not share his taste for the antique?"
She turned towards him, her eyes alight with a sharp, cold brightness.
"I hate the antique!" she said with sudden vehemence.
Almost against his will, Gore looked at her again.
"And yet you come from Ireland? Isn't everything there very old?"
For an instant she looked away across the darkening waters; then her glance flashed back to his.
"Yes, old," she said passionately; "but so naturally old, that its age is not thrust upon you. Where I come from, there is a ruined chapel on the edge of a cliff that dates from the fourth century. And at the present day the peasants pray there, just as their ancestors prayed centuries and centuries ago. They don't stare at it, and read about it, and write about it, like the antiquarians do. They pray there. The chapel isn't a curiosity to them; it's a part of their lives."
Gore was silent. An unconquerable surprise—a reluctant fascination—held him chained, forgetful of the gathering darkness and of the gondola that awaited him at the foot of the steps.
As he stood hesitating, Clodagh spoke again.
"Don't you believe that things should be lived—not merely looked at?" she asked, her voice low and tense. Almost unconsciously the desire to interest this man, to win his attention, to compel him to share her opinions, had sprung into her mind.
Gore answered her with directness.
"No," he said. "All things cannot be lived."
His voice was quiet and controlled; the pose of his body, the look in his eyes, all suggested a tempered strength—a curbed vitality. The desire to dominate him rose higher, overshadowing every other sensation in Clodagh's brain.
She stepped nearer to him, her hand resting on the stone balustrade, her body bending forward.
"Don't you think that when life is so very short, we are justified in taking all we can—when we can?"
Her warm lips were parted, her eyes shone with an added light. She was walking on the edge of an abyss with the ardour of one whose gaze is fixed upon the sun. But Gore—seeing only the abyss—girded on his armour.
"No," he said slowly and deliberately. "No; that has never been my standpoint."
"Then you refuse the good things of life when they come your way?"
"Good is a very elastic word."
He was fencing, and she realised it. With a subtle change of tone, she made a fresh essay.
"Isn't the meaning of every word merely a matter of inflexion?"
He hesitated.
"I—I suppose so," he admitted guardedly.
She smiled suddenly, looking up into his face.
"Then to me, the word 'good' means all that is warm and light and happy. And to you, it means something cold—or unattainable?"
"Indeed no! You have made a wrong deduction."
"Well, what does it mean to you?"
"Mean? I—I am not sure that I can tell you."
"Perhaps you have not found the meaning?"
"Perhaps not."
"But you are seeking for it?"
He laughed a little constrainedly.
"I may be—unconsciously."
Again she averted her eyes, and turned towards the mysterious canal.
"Now I understand one thing!" she said in a soft, slow voice.
"What is that?" Gore was curious, despite himself.
"Why they call you 'Sir Galahad'?"
There was a moment of silence. His face flushed, then turned cold.
"Indeed!" he said stiffly. "And, if it is not indiscreet, may I ask who calls me 'Sir Galahad'?"
At the tone of his voice, Clodagh wheeled round.
"Didn't you know?" she asked. "I thought—oh, I was sure you knew——"
He laughed.
"No!" he said with elaborate indifference—"no! To whom am I indebted for the name?"
But his companion was silent. Acutely conscious of having struck a wrong note, she felt angry with herself—angry with him.
"Who gave me the name?" he asked again.
"I had better not say. I thought you knew of it."
"Then I am at liberty to guess. It was Lord Deerehurst?"
His tone was curt—even contemptuous.
Clodagh flushed. It seemed as if, by a subtle insinuation, he had scorned her.
"And if it was Lord Deerehurst?" she asked sharply.
Gore made an exclamation of contempt.
"You dislike Lord Deerehurst?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"You dislike Lord Deerehurst?" She was persistent, remembering keenly and uncomfortably the favour she had shown the old peer in his presence the night before.
Gore gave a short, indifferent laugh, and the sound galled her.
"Lord Deerehurst is a friend of mine," she said unwisely.
He bent his head with a stiff movement.
"If I have transgressed," he said, "please forgive me! I have already trespassed on your time. Good-bye! Perhaps we shall meet later at the Palazzo Ugochini."
His voice was cold and very reserved.
The blood beat hotly and uncomfortably in Clodagh's veins, but she raised her head and answered in a voice as indifferent as his own.
"Good-bye! It's quite possible that you mayseeme at the Palazzo Ugochini; but I can't promise more."
Gathering up her light skirt, she turned and walked across the terrace to the door of the hotel.
Gore stood and watched her until the last gleam of her dress was lost in the lighted hall; then slowly—thoughtfully, almost reluctantly—he began his descent of the steps.
CHAPTER XI
Clodagh's mood was inexplicable even to herself as she entered the hotel, ran upstairs to her own room, and began to dress for dinner.
She changed her dress with an almost feverish haste, giving herself no time for thought; and then, scarcely waiting to take a final look into the mirror, left the room and hurried down into the hall. There she encountered Barnard.
"I have just been speaking to your husband," he said, greeting her with a smile. "He has been lured into attending some secret conclave of Italian scientists. He asked me to make his excuses to you."
Clodagh's glance fell.
"Oh!" she said with a curious little inflection of the voice.
"Of course he knew that you were going out to-night?"
"Oh yes! Of course!" She still kept her lashes lowered.
Barnard smiled.
"Mrs. Milbanke," he exclaimed in a cheerful voice, "suppose we have a gay evening! Lord Deerehurst has asked me to dine with him and Serracauld at the 'Abbati.' Let's form an even party! The old man will be absolutely charmed; and you have never dined at a restaurant. Say I may arrange it!"
For a moment longer Clodagh studied the ground; then very quickly she raised her eyes, and in their depths Barnard read a new expression.
"After all," she said tentatively, "why shouldn't we take what comes our way?"
He extended his hands.
"Why, indeed? Let me spread the good news?"
Again she let her lashes droop.
"Very well!" she said—"very well! Say that I want to enjoy myself."