"Why shouldn't I, just to punish you?" she demanded. "There are scores of men who fancy themselves in love with me. If I choose, I can keep them all their lives hanging to the hem of my skirt, praying for a word, a touch. I can make them furious one day and penitent the next—wretched always, perhaps, but I can keep them there. Why should I not treat your brother in the same way?"
He seemed suddenly to dilate. She was overcome with a sense of some latent power in the man, some commanding influence.
"Because," he declared, "I am the guardian of my brother's happiness. Whoever trifles with it shall in the future reckon with me!"
His eyes were fixed upon her soft, white throat. His long, lean fingers seemed suddenly to be drawing near to her. She watched him, fascinated. She was trying to scream. Even after he had turned away and left her, after she had heard his measured tramp descending the stairs, her fingers flew to her throat. She held herself tightly, standing there with beating heart and throbbing pulses. It was not until the front door had closed that she had the strength to move, to throw herself face downward upon the couch.
Louise ate a very small luncheon, but—an unusual thing for her—she drank two glasses of wine. Just as she had finished, Sophy came in, with ink-stained fingers and a serious expression.
"You silly child!" Louise exclaimed. "No one told me you were here. Have you had any lunch?"
"Long ago," Sophy replied. "I have been finishing your accounts."
Louise made a little grimace.
"Tell me the worst," she begged.
"You are overdrawn at your bank, your bills are heavier than ever this month, and there are five or six special accounts—one for some electric fittings, another for the hire of a motor-car—which ought to be paid."
"People are always wanting money!" Louise declared pettishly.
"People always will want money," Sophy retorted, "so long as you earn three thousand a year and spend four or five thousand!"
Louise selected a cigarette and lit it.
"Instead of scolding me, child," she yawned, "suppose you suggest something?"
"What is there to suggest?" Sophy replied. "Your bank has written you to put your overdraft straight at once—it comes to about two hundred and seventypounds. There are bills, for which the people are asking for payment, and which come to about as much again. You've nothing but your hundred pounds a week, and you're spending half of that, as it is."
Louise flicked the ash from her cigarette.
"And even you, my child, don't know the worst," she remarked. "There's Fenillon, my dressmaker. She doesn't send me a bill at all, but I owe her nearly six hundred pounds. I have to wear a shockingly unbecoming gown in the second act, as it is, just because she's getting disagreeable."
"Well, I've tried to set things straight," Sophy declared. "You'll have either to marry or to borrow some money. You can't go on much longer!"
Louise was looking up at the ceiling. She sighed.
"It would be nice," she said, "to have some one to pay one's bills and look after one, and see that one wasn't too extravagant."
"Well, you need some one badly," Sophy asserted. "I suppose you mean to make up your mind to it some day."
"I wonder!" Louise murmured. "Did you know that that terrible man from the hills—John Strangewey's brother—has been here this morning? He frightened me almost to death."
"What did he want?" Sophy asked curiously.
"He was a trifle vague," Louise remarked. "I gathered that if I don't send John back to Cumberland, he's going to strangle me."
Sophy leaned across the table.
"Are you going to send him back?" she asked.
"I am in an uncertain frame of mind," Louise confessed. "I really can't decide about anything."
Sophy poured herself out some coffee.
"I think," she said, "that you'll have to decide about John before long."
"About John, indeed!" Louise exclaimed lightly. "Who gave you the right to call him by his Christian name?"
Sophy colored.
"I suppose I have just dropped into it," she remarked. "Tell me what you have decided to do, Louise?"
"Why should I do anything at all?"
"You know very well," Sophy insisted, "that you have encouraged John Strangewey shamefully. You have persuaded him to live up here, to make new friends, and to start an entirely new mode of life, just in the hope that some day you will marry him."
"Have I?" Louise asked. "Then I suppose I must keep my word—some day!"
Sophy drew her chair a little nearer to her friend's. She passed her arm around Louise's waist; their heads almost touched.
"Dear Louise," she whispered, "please tell me!"
Louise was silent. Her hesitation became momentous. Her eyes seemed to be looking through the walls. Sophy watched her breathlessly.
"You ought to make up your mind," she went on. "You see, it isn't as if there was no one else. There is the prince."
Sophy felt the fingers that she was clasping grow a little colder.
"Yes," Louise repeated, "there is the prince. Sophy, I feel that I am drifting into an impossible position. Every day is bringing me nearer to it."
"I want to tell you this, Louise," Sophy said firmly. "John is getting to know a great many people, and youknow how men talk at the clubs. Aren't you sometimes afraid that he will hear things and misunderstand?"
"I am expecting it every day," Louise admitted.
"Then why don't you end it?"
"Which way?"
There was a silence between the two women. The muffled street noises from outside became the background to a stillness which grew every moment more oppressive. Louise returned to her former attitude. She looked steadfastly before her, her face supported by her hands.
Sophy grew paler and paler as the minutes passed. There was something strange and almost beautiful in Louise's face, something which had come to her lately, and which shone from her eyes only at rare intervals.
"You care for him, I believe!" Sophy cried at last. "You care for him!"
Louise did not move.
"Why not?" she whispered.
"You, Louise!" Sophy gasped. "You, the great artist! Why, think of the men who have tried to make you care—poets, musicians—so many of them, so many famous men! It can't be true. John Strangewey is so far apart. He doesn't belong to your world."
Louise leaned over and stroked her little friend's hair.
"Child," she said, "that's all very true. I have had it ringing in my brain for longer than you would believe. But now tell me something. No, look at me—don't be ashamed. Are you in love with John yourself?"
Sophy never hesitated.
"From the very first moment I saw him," she confessed. "Don't let that bother you, dear. He would never look at me except as a little pal. I never expected anything from him—anything serious, of course—never dared to hope for it. I have thrown myself at his head in the most shameless manner. It is all no good. I never met any one like him before. Louise, do you know that he is good—really good?"
"I believe he is," Louise murmured. "That is what makes it so wonderful."
"It's all incomprehensible," Sophy declared wearily.
There was a ring at the front door. Louise, from her place, could see the long, gray bonnet of John's car. Almost before she could speak, he was announced.
"It's an atrocious time to come, I know—" he began apologetically.
"You're in time for some coffee, anyhow," Sophy told him cheerfully. "And I know Louise is glad to see you, because if you hadn't come I was going to make her go through some accounts."
"You know I am always glad to see you," Louise murmured, pointing to a chair. "Sophy and I have been having a most interesting discussion, but we have come to acul-de-sac."
"I really came," John explained, "to ask if you cared to come and see a collection of pictures. There's an Italian—a Futurist, of course—just unpacked his little lot and set them up over a curiosity-shop in Clifford Street. He is sending out cards for next week, but I could take you to-day—that is, if you would care about it. We can go somewhere for some tea afterward."
Louise made a little grimace.
"What bad luck!" she exclaimed.
She stopped short. She felt that by her hesitation she had, in a sense, committed herself.
"I have promised to go and have tea with the prince at Seyre House," she said. "It is an engagement we made last week."
John set down his empty coffee-cup with a clatter. An inexplicable but dominating fury seemed to have suddenly assailed him. He took out a cigarette and tried to light it. Sophy, after watching him for a moment in astonishment, slipped out of the room. Louise came over to his side.
"Are you really so much disappointed?" she asked. "I am so sorry. If I had known that you were coming for me, I would have kept myself free."
"It isn't that exactly," John answered. "It's something I can't altogether explain. If you don't mind, I think I will be going. There is something I must put right."
He left without another word. She watched him step into his new motor-car and drive away a little recklessly, considering the crowded state of the streets. He drew up, a few minutes later, outside the club in Pall Mall, where, as it chanced, he had lunched that day with the Prince of Seyre.
He found the prince still sitting in the smoking room, reading a review, over the top of which he glanced up as John approached, and nodded nonchalantly.
"Back again?" he murmured.
"I came back to have a word with you, prince."
The prince laid down the review, keeping his finger in the place.
"Delighted!"
"Not long ago," John went on, "in this room, some one—I think it was Major Charters—asked you whatyou were doing this afternoon. You replied that you were engaged. There were several others present, and they began to chaff you. Perhaps I joined in—I don't remember. I think that it was Major Charters who asked you, to use his own words, whether your appointment was with a lady. You replied in the affirmative. There was a little volley of chaff. You listened without contradiction to many references concerning the nature of your afternoon's amusement."
The prince nodded slightly. His face remained quite expressionless.
"As a matter of fact," John concluded, "I have discovered by the purest accident that Miss Maurel is to be your guest this afternoon at Seyre House."
The prince inclined his head gently. He remained monosyllabic.
"Well?"
John frowned heavily.
"Can't you see," he went on bluntly, "that if any one of those men who were present, and heard what was said about your guest, found out afterward that it was Miss Maurel who came to see you—well, I need not go on, need I? I am sure you understand. The things which were hinted at could not possibly apply to her. Would you mind sending a note to Miss Maurel and asking her to have tea with you some other afternoon?"
"And why the deuce should I do that?" the prince asked, a trifle paler, but entirely self-possessed.
"To oblige me," John replied.
The prince wiped his eye-glass carefully upon his handkerchief.
"Mr. Strangewey, you are a very amiable young man," he said equably, "to whom I have tried to show some kindness for Miss Maurel's sake. I really do notsee, however—pardon my putting it plainly—what business this is of yours."
"It is my business," John declared, "because I have asked Miss Maurel to be my wife, and because I am hoping that some day, before very long, she will consent."
The prince sat quite still in his chair, his eyes fixed upon a certain spot in the carpet. He had not even the appearance of being engaged in thought. He seemed only steeped in a sort of passivity. Finally, with a sigh, he rose to his feet.
"My young friend," he decided, "your statement alters the situation. I did not credit you with matrimonial intentions. I must see what can be done!"
His lips had relaxed ever so slightly—so slightly that they showed only a glimpse of his teeth in one straight, hard line. He looked at John mildly, and his words seemed destitute of all offense; yet John felt that the lightnings were playing around them.
"I shall write a note to Miss Maurel," the prince promised, as he made his way toward the writing-table, "and ask her to visit me upon some other afternoon."
Back again to his rooms, and, later on, once more to Louise's little house in Kensington; a few minutes' masterful pleading, and then success. Louise wrapped herself up and descended to the street by his side.
For an hour or more John drove steadily westward, scarcely speaking more than a chance word. It was twilight when he brought the car to a standstill. Louise raised her veil and looked up.
"Well?" she asked inquiringly.
He pushed back the throttle on his steering-wheel and stopped the engine. Then he turned toward her.
"I have something to say to you," he said. "I have brought you here that I may say it in my own way and in my own atmosphere."
She responded instantly to his mood, although she did not yet grasp the full significance of the situation. She leaned forward in the car, and her eyes were lighted with interest. Into their faces a slight, drizzling rain was carried at intervals by a gusty, north wind. The sky was murky gray, except for one black mass of cloud that seemed bending almost over their heads.
Down at their feet—they had made a circuit and were facing London again—began the long lines of feeble lights which lit the great avenues stretching onward to the city, the lights of suburban thoroughfares, of local railways, and here and there a more brilliant illumination of some picture palace or place of amusement. Farther away still, the vast glow from the heartof the city was beginning to flare against the murky sky—here red and threatening, as if from some great conflagration; in other places yellow, with a sicklier light of fog-strangled brilliance.
"This is like you!" Louise murmured. "You had to bring me out to a hilltop, on the dreariest hour of a wet March afternoon, to tell me—what?"
"First of all," John began, "I will answer a question which you have asked me three times since we started out this afternoon. You wanted to know how I found out that you were not going to tea with the prince. Well, here is the truth. I asked the prince to change the day of your visit to him."
Her fine, silky eyebrows came a little closer together.
"You asked him that?" she repeated.
John nodded.
"And he consented?"
"I will explain," John continued. "It was a most unfortunate circumstance, but in the club, after lunch, the subject of spending the afternoon came up. The prince spoke of an engagement. He was tied at home, he said, from four to six. Some of the men began to chaff him, and suggested that he was entertaining some lady friend, his latest favorite—well, I dare say you can imagine the rest," John broke off. "The prince, thoughtlessly, I am sure, and probably to get rid of them, pleaded guilty. Then I came down to see you, and from what you said I discovered that it was you who were to be his visitor."
Her fingers played nervously for a moment with the edge of the rug. She drew it higher up.
"Well, when I left your house the first time this afternoon, I went straight back to the prince. I pointed out to him that after what had been said, as it mightbecome known that you were his guest of to-day, it would be better for him to postpone your visit. He agreed to do so."
"Was that all that passed between you?"
"Not quite," John replied. "He asked me what concern it was of mine, and I told him exactly what my concern was. I told him I hoped that some day you would be my wife."
She sat quite still, looking down upon the flaring lights. She was filled with a restless desire to escape, to start the motor herself and rush through the wet air into London and safety. And side by side with that desire she knew that there was nothing in the world she wanted so much as to stay just where she was, and to hear just the words she was going to hear.
"So much for that!" John proceeded. "And now, please listen. I have brought you out here because under these conditions I feel more master of myself and my thoughts, and of the things I want to say to you. Something takes me by the throat in your little drawing-room, with its shaded lights, its perfume of flowers, and its atmosphere of perfection. You sit enthroned there like the queen of a world I know nothing of, and all the time letters and flowers and flattering invitations are showered upon you from the greatest men in London. The atmosphere there stifles me, Louise. Out here you are a woman and I a man, and those other things fall away. I have tried my best to come a little way into sympathy with your life. I want you now to make up your mind to come down a little way into mine!"
She shook her head.
"We are still too far apart," she murmured. "Can't you understand that yourself?"
"I have been a pupil for many months," he answered, turning toward her, with one arm at the back of her cushions and the fingers of the other hand suddenly seeking hers. "Can't you understand, if you do care a little, if you have just a little flame of love in your heart for me, that many of these other things which keep us apart are like the lime-light which flashes out to give artificial light in an honest darkness? Don't you believe, at the bottom of your heart, that you can be happier if you will climb with me to the place where we first met, even where the clouds lean over my own hills? You thought me very narrow then. Perhaps I am. But I think you are beginning to understand, dear, that that life is only a type. We can wander about where you will. My hills are only the emblems of the things that are dear to me. There are many countries I want to visit. I don't want to cramp your life. You can't really be afraid of that, because it is the most widening thing in the world that I have to give you—my love, the love of my heart and my soul!"
She felt the sudden snapping of every nerve in her body, the passing away of all sense of will or resistance. She was conscious only of the little movement toward him, the involuntary yielding of herself. She lay back in his arms, and the kisses which closed her eyes and lips seemed to be working some strange miracle.
She was in some great empty space, breathing wonderful things. She was on the hilltops, and from the heights she looked down at herself as she had been—a poor little white-faced puppet, strutting about an overheated stage, in a fetid atmosphere of adulation, with a brain artificially stimulated, and a heart growing cold with selfishness. She pitied herself as she had been. Then she opened her eyes with a start of joy.
"How wonderful it all is!" she murmured. "You brought me here to tell me this?"
"And to hear something!" he insisted.
"I have tried not to, John," she confessed, amazed at the tremble of her sweet, low voice. Her words seemed like the confession of a weeping child. "I cannot help it. I do love you! I have tried not to so hard, but now—now I shall not try any more!"
They drove quietly down the long hill and through the dripping streets. Not another word passed between them till they drew up outside her door. She felt a new timidity as he handed her out, an immense gratitude for his firm tone and intuitive tact.
"No, I won't come in, thanks," he declared. "You have so little time to rest and get ready for the theater."
"You will be there to-night?" she asked.
He laughed as if there were humor in the suggestion of his absence.
"Of course!"
He slipped in his clutch and drove off through the rain-gleaming streets with the smile and air of a conqueror. Louise passed into her little house to find a visitor waiting for her there.
Eugène, Prince of Seyre, had spent the early part of that afternoon in a manner wholly strange to him. In pursuance of an order given to his majordomo immediately on his return from the club after lunch, the great reception rooms of Seyre House, the picture-gallery and the ballroom, were prepared as if for a reception. Dust-sheets were swept aside, masterpieces of painting and sculpture were uncovered, the soft brilliance of concealed electric lights lit up many dark corners.
When all was ready, the prince, with his hands clasped behind him, with expressionless face and slow, thoughtful movements, passed from room to room of the treasure-house which had come to him through a long line of distinguished and famous men. Here and there he paused to handle with the fingers of a connoisseur some excellent piece of bronze statuary, some miracle of Sèvres china, some treasure of carved ivory, yellow with age. And more than once he stood still for several minutes in rapt contemplation of one of the great masterpieces with which the walls were hung.
As he passed, a solitary figure, from one to another of that long chain of lofty, palatial rooms, his stature seemed more than ever insignificant; yet he walked always with the dignity of the master. Notwithstanding the slight excesses of his immaculate morning dress, his pallid features, his insignificant build, he appearedto belong to these things, to dominate them, to understand them. Every beautiful object upon which he looked brought back to his memory some reminiscence of his years of travel. He knew the history of the chinas and the bronzes, the statuary and the lacquer-work, the friezes, and the great pictures which adorned his house. Perhaps, he thought, as he paused to study some Italian tapestry of his own discovery, he had spent too many years in the contemplative life.
There had been many careers open to him in his younger days. France was still his own country, and he might easily have joined the long line of soldiers whose portraits filled one side of the picture-gallery. Once he had had ambitions, either to wield the sword or to take his place in the world of diplomacy. It was his political inheritance which had deadened them, the awful debt of blood that he still owed to the enemies of his race. He had found the spirit of patriotism dead within him, and in that day he had turned his back upon his country. Since then he had carried his great name through the pleasure places of the world, always upholding its dignity, perhaps, but never adding to its luster.
He was forty-one years old that day, and the few words which John had spoken to him barely an hour ago had made him realize that there was only one thing in life that he desired. The sight of his treasures merely soothed his vanity. It left empty and unsatisfied his fuller and deeper desire of living. He told himself that his time had come. Others of his race had paid a great price for the things they had coveted in life. He, too, must follow their example.
He was in Louise's drawing-room when she returned—Louise, with hair and cheeks a little damp, but witha wonderful light in her eyes and with footsteps that seemed to fall upon air.
"Some tea and a bath this moment, Aline!" she called out, as she ran lightly up the stairs. "Never mind about dinner, I am so late. I will have some toast. Be quick!"
"Madame—" Aline began.
"Don't bother me about anything now," Louise interrupted. "I will throw my things off while you get the bath ready."
She stepped into her little room, throwing off her cloak as she entered. Then she stopped short, almost upon the threshold. The prince had risen to his feet.
"Eugène!"
He came toward her. Even as he stooped to kiss her fingers, his eyes seemed to take in her disheveled condition, the little patches of color in her cheeks, the radiant happiness which shone in her eyes.
"I am not an unwelcome intruder, I hope," he said. "But how wet you are!"
The fingers which he released fell nervelessly to her side. She stood looking at him as if confronted with a sudden nightmare. It was as if this new-found life were being slowly drained from her veins.
"You are overtired," he murmured, leading her with solicitude toward an easy chair. "One would imagine, from your appearance, that I was the bearer of some terrible tidings. Let me assure you that it is not so."
He spoke with his usual deliberation, but she seemed powerless to recover herself. She was still dazed and white. She sank into the chair and looked at him.
"Nothing, I trust," he went on, "has happened to disturb you?"
"Nothing at all," she declared hastily. "I amtired. I ran up-stairs perhaps a little too quickly. Aline had not told me that there was any one here."
"I had a fancy to see you this afternoon," the prince explained, "and, finding you out, I took the liberty of waiting. If you would rather I went away and came for you later, please do not hesitate to say so."
"Of course not!" she exclaimed. "I do not know why I should have been so silly. Aline, take my coat and veil," she directed, turning to the maid, who was lingering at the other end of the room. "I am not wet. Serve some tea in here. I will have my bath later, when I change to go to the theater."
She spoke bravely, but fear was in her heart. She tried to tell herself that this visit was a coincidence, that it meant nothing, but all the time she knew otherwise.
The door closed behind Aline, and they were alone. The prince, as if anxious to give her time to recover herself, walked to the window and stood for some moments looking out. When he turned around, Louise had at least nerved herself to meet what she felt was imminent.
The prince approached her deliberately. She knew what he was going to say.
"Louise," he began, drawing a chair to her side, "I have found myself thinking a great deal about you during the last few weeks."
She did not interrupt him. She simply waited and watched.
"I have come to a certain determination," he proceeded; "one which, if you will grace it with your approval, will give me great happiness. I ask you to forget certain things which have passed between us. Ihave come to you to-day to beg you to do me the honor of becoming my wife."
She turned her head very slowly until she was looking him full in the face. Her lips were a little parted, her eyes a little strained. The prince was leaning toward her in a conventional attitude; his words had been spoken simply and in his usual conversational manner. There was something about him, however, profoundly convincing.
"Your wife!" Louise repeated.
"If you will do me that great honor."
It seemed at first as if her nerves were strained to the breaking-point. The situation was one with which her brain seemed unable to grapple. She set her teeth tightly. Then she had a sudden interlude of wonderful clear-sightedness. She was almost cool.
"You must forgive my surprise, Eugène," she begged. "We have known each other now for some twelve years, have we not?—and I believe that this is the first time you have ever hinted at anything of the sort!"
"One gathers wisdom, perhaps, with the years," he replied. "I am forty-one years old to-day. I have spent the early hours of this afternoon in reflection, and behold the result!"
"You have spoken to me before," she said slowly, "of different things. You have offered me a great deal in life, but never your name. I do not understand this sudden change!"
"Louise," he declared, "if I do not tell you the truth now, you will probably guess it. Besides, this is the one time in their lives when a man and a woman should speak nothing but the truth. It is for fear of losing you—that is why."
Her self-control suddenly gave way. She threw herself back in her chair. She began to laugh and stopped abruptly, the tears streaming from her eyes. The prince leaned forward. He took her hands in his, but she drew them away.
"You are too late, Eugène!" she said. "I almost loved you. I was almost yours to do whatever you liked with. But somehow, somewhere, notwithstanding all your worldly knowledge and mine, we missed it. We do not know the truth about life, you and I—at least you do not, and I did not."
He rose very slowly to his feet. There was no visible change in his face save a slight whitening of the cheeks.
"And the sequel to this?" he asked.
"I have promised to marry John Strangewey," she told him.
"That," he replied, "is impossible! I have a prior claim."
The light of battle flamed suddenly in her eyes. Her nervousness had gone. She was a strong woman, face to face with him now, taller than he, seeming, indeed, to tower over him in the splendor of her anger. She was like a lioness threatened with the loss of the one dear thing.
"Assert it, then!" she cried defiantly. "Do what you will. Go to him this minute, if you have courage enough, if it seems to you well. Claim, indeed! Right! I have the one right every woman in the world possesses—to give herself, body and soul, to the man she loves! That is the only claim and the only right I recognize, and I am giving myself to him, when he wants me, forever!"
She stopped suddenly. Neither of them had hearda discreet knock at the door. Aline had entered with the tea. There was a moment of silence.
"Put it down here by my side, Aline," her mistress ordered, "and show the Prince of Seyre out."
Aline held the door open. For a single moment the prince hesitated. Then he picked up his hat and bowed.
"Perhaps," he said, "this may not be the last word!"
Jennings stood with a decanter in his hand, looking resentfully at his master's untasted wine. He shook his head ponderously. Not only was the wine untouched, but theCumberland Timeslay unopened upon the table. Grim and severe in his high-backed chair, Stephen Strangewey sat with his eyes fixed upon the curtained window.
"There's nothing wrong with the wine, I hope, sir?" the man asked. "It's not corked or anything, sir?"
"Nothing is the matter with it," Stephen answered. "Bring me my pipe."
Jennings shook his head firmly.
"There's no call for you, sir," he declared, "to drop out of your old habits. You shall have your pipe when you've drunk that glass of port, and not before. Bless me! There's the paper by your side, all unread, and full of news, for I've glanced it through myself. Corn was higher yesterday at Market Ketton, and there's talk of a bad shortage of fodder in some parts."
Stephen raised his glass to his lips and drained its contents.
"Now bring me my pipe, Jennings," he ordered.
The old man was still disposed to grumble.
"Drinking wine like that as if it were some public-house stuff!" he muttered, as he crossed the room, toward the sideboard. "It's more a night, this, to my way of thinking, for drinking a second glass of winethan for shilly-shallying with the first. There's the wind coming across Townley Moor and down the Fells strong enough to blow the rocks out of the ground. It 'minds me of the time Mr. John was out with the Territorials, and they tried the moor for their big guns."
The rain lashed the window-panes, and the wind whistled past the front of the house. Stephen sat quite still, as if listening—it may have been to the storm.
"Well, here's your pipe, sir," Jennings continued, laying it by his master's side, "and your tobacco and the matches. If you'd smoke less and drink a glass or two more of the right stuff, it would be more to my liking."
Stephen filled his pipe with firm fingers. Then he laid it down, unlit, by his side.
"Bring me back the port, Jennings," he ordered, "and a glass for yourself."
Jennings obeyed promptly. Stephen filled both glasses, and the two men looked at each other as they held them out.
"Here's confusion to all women!" Stephen said, as he raised his to his lips.
"Amen, sir!" Jennings muttered.
They set down the two empty glasses. Stephen lit his pipe. He sat smoking stolidly, blowing out great clouds of smoke. Jennings retreated, coughing resentfully.
"Spoils the taste of good wine, that tobacco do," he snapped. "Good port like that should be left to lie upon the palate, so to speak. Bless me, what's that?"
Above the roar of the wind came another and unmistakable sound. The front door had been opened and shut. There were steps upon the stone floor of the hall—firm, familiar steps.
Jennings, with his mouth open, stood staring at the door. Stephen slowly turned his head. The hand which held his pipe was as firm as a rock, but there was a queer little gleam of expectation in his eyes. Then the door was thrown open and John entered. The rain was dripping from his clothes. He was breathless from his struggle with the elements.
The two other men looked at him fixedly. They both realized the same thing at the same moment—there was no trace of the returned prodigal in John's countenance, or in his buoyant expression. The ten-mile ride seemed to have brought back all his color.
"Master John!" Jennings faltered.
Stephen said nothing. John crossed the room and gripped his brother's hand.
"Wet through to the skin, and starving!" he declared. "I thought I'd find something at Ketton, but it was all I could do to get Gibson, at the George, to lend me a horse. Give me a glass of wine, Jennings. I'll change my clothes—I expect you've kept them aired."
Not a word of explanation concerning his sudden return, nor did either of the two ask any questions. They set the bell clanging in the stable-yard and found shelter for the borrowed horse. Presently, in dry clothes, John sat down to a plentiful meal. His brother watched him with a grim smile.
"You haven't forgotten how to eat in London, John," he remarked.
"If I had, a ten-mile ride on a night like this would help me to remember! How's the land doing?"
"Things are backward. The snow lay late, and we've had drying winds."
"And the stock?"
"Moderate. We are short of heifers. But you didn't come back from London to ask about the farm."
John pushed back his plate and drew his chair opposite to his brother's.
"I did not," he assented. "I came back to tell you my news."
"I was thinking that might be it," Stephen muttered.
John crossed the room, found his pipe in a drawer, filled it with tobacco, and lit it.
"Old man," he said, as he returned to his place, "it's all very well for you and old Jennings to put your heads together every night and drink confusion to all women; but you know very well that if there are to be any more Strangeweys at Peak Hall, either you or I must marry!"
Stephen moved uneasily in his chair.
"If you're going to marry that woman—" he began.
"I am going to marry Louise Maurel," John interrupted firmly. "Stephen, listen to me for a moment before you say another word, please. It is all settled. She has promised to be my wife. I don't forget what we've been to each other. I don't forget the old name and the old tradition; but I have been fortunate enough to meet a woman whom I love, and I am going to marry her. Don't speak hurriedly, Stephen! Think whatever you will, but keep it to yourself. Some day I shall expect you to give me your hand and tell me you are glad."
Stephen knocked the ashes deliberately from his pipe.
"I will tell you this much now," he said. "I had rather that we Strangeweys died out, that the roof dropped off Peak Hall and the walls stood naked to the sky, than that this woman should be your wife and the mother of your children!"
"Let it go at that, then, Stephen," John replied. "It is enough for me to say that I will not take it ill from you, because you do not know her."
"But I do know her," Stephen answered. "Perhaps she didn't tell you that I paid her a visit?"
"You paid her a visit?"
"Aye, that I did! She wouldn't tell you. There'll be many a thing in life she won't tell you. I went to let her hear from my lips what I thought of her as a wife for you. I told her what I thought of a woman who plays the part of a wanton—"
"Stephen!" John thundered.
"The part of an adulterous wife upon the stage for every man and woman who pay their silver to go and gape at! It seems I did no good—no good, that is, if she has promised to marry you."
John drew a breath. His task was harder, even, than he had imagined. All the time he tried to keep one thought fixed in his mind. Stephen was his elder brother. It was Stephen who had been his guardian and his guide through all his youth. He thought of Stephen's fifty odd years of simple and strenuous living, of his charity, of his strength—that very strength which had kept him in the narrow way, which had kept him from looking to the right or to the left in his walk through life.
"Stephen," John said, "you are growing harder with the years. Was there never a time, when you were younger, when you were my age, when you felt differently toward women?"
"Never, thank Heaven!" Stephen replied. "I was too near the sorrow that fell upon our house when our father died with a broken heart. There were the other two as well—one with a bullet in his brain, the othera drunkard. Maybe, when I was your age, I felt at times what I suppose you feel. Well, I just took it in both hands and strangled it. If you must have a sweetheart, why don't you take the little fair-haired girl—Sophy, you called her? She'd do you as little harm as any of them."
"Because it is not a sweetheart of that sort I want," John protested vigorously. "I've had the same feelings as most men, I suppose, but I've fought my battle out to the end, only for a different reason. I want a wife and I want children."
"Will she bring you children, that woman?" Stephen asked bitterly.
"I hope so," John asserted simply. "I believe so."
There was a moment's silence. Stephen lit his pipe and puffed steadily at it, his eyes fixed upon the log that blazed on the hearth.
"There is a muzzle upon my mouth," he said presently. "There are words close to my lips which would part you and me, so I'll say no more. Go your own way, John. I'll ask you but one more question, and you must take that as man from man, brother from brother. How old is she?"
"Twenty-seven."
"And she has been an actress, playing parts like the one I saw her in, for how long?"
"Since she was nineteen," John replied.
"And you believe she's a good woman?"
John gripped at the sides of his chair. With a tremendous effort he kept the torrent of words from his lips.
"I know she is," he answered calmly.
"Has she told you so?"
"A man has no need to put such a question to the woman he cares for."
"Then you haven't asked her?"
John laid down his pipe and rose to his feet. He gripped his brother by the arm.
"Stephen," he said, "it's a hard fight for me, this, to sit face to face with you and know what you are thinking, with the love for this woman strong and sweet in my heart. You don't understand, Stephen; you're a long way from understanding. But you are my brother. Don't make it too hard! I am not a child. Believe in me. I would not take any woman to be my wife, and the mother of my children, who was not a good woman. I am off to-morrow morning, Stephen. I came all the way just on an impulse, because I felt that I must tell you myself. It would be one of the best things in the world to ride that ten miles back again to-morrow morning, to have told you how things are, to have felt your hand in mine, and to know that there was no shadow of misunderstanding between us!"
Stephen, too, rose to his feet. They stood together before the fire.
"Man to man, John," Stephen said, as he gripped his brother by the hands, "I love you this moment as I always have done and as I always shall do. And if this thing must be between us, I'll say but one last word, and you'll take it from me, even though I am the only man on earth you'd take it from. Before you marry, ask her!"
John went back to town, telling himself that all had gone as well as he had expected. He had done his duty. He had told Stephen his news, and they had parted friends. Yet all the time he was conscious of an undercurrent of disconcerting thoughts.
Louise met him at the station, and he fancied that her expression, too, although she welcomed him gaily enough, was a little anxious.
"Well?" she asked, as she took his arm and led him to where her motor-car was waiting. "What did that terrible brother of yours say?"
John made a little grimace.
"It might have been worse," he declared. "Stephen wasn't pleased, of course. He hates women like poison, and he always will. That is because he doesn't know very much about them, and because he will insist upon dwelling upon certain unhappy incidents of our family history."
"I shall never forget the morning he came to call on me," Louise sighed. "He threatened all sorts of terrible things if I did not give you up."
"Why didn't you tell me about it?" John asked.
"I thought it might worry you," she replied, "and it couldn't do any good. He believed he was doing his duty. John, you are sure about yourself, aren't you?"
"Come and have tea with me in my rooms, and I'll tell you," he laughed.
"Just what I'd planned to do," she assented, with a sigh of content. "It's too late to go home and get back to the theater comfortably."
"The theater!" John murmured, a few minutes later, when they were seated in his comfortable little sitting room and he had ordered tea. "Do you know that I grudge those three or four hours of your day?"
"I believe I do, too," she admitted; "and yet a little while ago it was my only pleasure in life. Don't sit over there, please! You are much too far away. Closer still! Let me feel your arms. You are strong and brave, aren't you, John? You would not let any one take me away from you?"
He was a little startled by the earnestness of her words. She seemed pale and fragile, her eyes larger and deeper than usual, and her mouth tremulous. She was like a child with the shadow of some fear hanging over her. He laughed and held her tightly to him.
"There is nothing that could take you away—you know that quite well! There is nobody in the world whom you need fear for a single moment. If you have troubles, I am here to share them. If you have enemies, you can leave me to dispose of them."
"I think," she murmured, "that I am in an emotional frame of mind to-day. I am not often like this, you know. I woke this morning feeling so happy; and then, all of a sudden, I couldn't somehow believe in it—in myself. I felt it slip away. You won't let it slip away, John?"
"Never a chance!" he promised confidently. "Look at me. Do I seem like a person to be easily got rid of? What you need is a holiday, and you need it badly. We haven't made any plans yet, have we? I wonder whether we could break your contract at the theater!"
"We must talk to Graillot," she said. "There is a little Frenchwoman over here now. I once saw her act in Paris, and I am sure she could playThérèsewonderfully. But don't let's talk seriously any longer. Just let us sit here and talk nonsense!"
"Have you told any of your friends yet, Louise—the prince, for instance?"
He had asked this question on his way across the room to ring the bell. There was no reply, and when he turned around, a moment or two later, he was almost frightened. Louise was sitting quite still, but the color seemed to have been drained from her cheeks. Her eyes were filled with some expression which he did not wholly understand. He only knew that they were calling him to her side, and he promptly obeyed the summons. Her head fell upon his shoulder, her arms were locked about his neck.
"John," she sobbed, "I do not know what is the matter with me. I am hysterical. Don't ask me any questions. Don't talk to me. Hold me like you are doing now, and listen. I love you, John—do you understand?—I love you!"
Her lips sought his and clung to them. A queer little wave of passion seemed to have seized her. Half crying, half laughing, she pressed her face against his. "I do not want to act to-night. I do not want to play, even to the most wonderful audience in the world. I do not want to shake hands with many hundreds of people at that hateful reception. I think I want nothing else in the world but you!"
She lay, for a moment, passive in his arms. He smoothed her hair and kissed her tenderly. Then he led her back to her place upon the couch. Her emotional mood, while it flattered him in a sense, did nothingto quiet the little demons of unrest that pulled, every now and then, at his heart-strings.
"What is this reception?" he asked.
She made a little grimace.
"It is a formal welcome from the English stage to the French company that has come over to play at the new French theater," she told him. "Sir Edward and I are to receive them. You will come, will you not?"
"I haven't an invitation," he told her.
"Invitation? I invite you. I am the hostess of the evening."
"Then I am not likely to refuse, am I?" he asked, smiling. "Shall I come to the theater?"
"Come straight to the reception at the Whitehall Rooms," she begged. "Sir Edward is calling for me, and Graillot will go down with us. Later, if you care to, you can drive me home."
"Don't you think," he suggested, "that it would be rather a good opportunity to announce our engagement?"
"Not to-night!" she pleaded. "You know, I cannot seem to believe it myself except when I am with you and we are alone. It seems too wonderful after all these years. Do you know, John, that I am nearly thirty?"
He laughed.
"How pathetic! All the more reason, I should say, why we should let people know about it as soon as possible."
"There is no particular hurry," she said, a little nervously. "Let me get used to it myself. I don't think you will have to wait long. Everything I have been used to doing and thinking seems to be crumblingup around me. Last night I even hated my work, or at least part of it."
His eyes lit up with genuine pleasure.
"I can't tell you how glad I am to hear you say that," he declared. "I don't hate your work—I've got over that. I don't think I am narrow about it. I admire Graillot, and his play is wonderful. But I think, and I always shall think, that the dénouement in that third act is damnable!"
She nodded understandingly.
"I am beginning to realize how you must feel," she confessed. "We won't talk about it any more now. Drive me to the theater, will you? I want to be there early to-night, just to get everything ready for changing afterward."
The telephone-bell rang as they were leaving the room. John put the receiver to his ear and a moment later held it away.
"It is Sophy," he announced. "Shall I tell them to send her up?"
"Sophy, indeed!" Louise exclaimed. "I thought she was in the country, on tour, and was not expected back until to-morrow."
"I thought she went away for a week," John said, "but there she is, waiting down-stairs."
Louise hesitated for a moment. Then she came over to John with a tremulous little smile at the corners of her lips.
"Dear," she said, "I am in a strange frame of mind to-day. I don't want even to see Sophy. Tell them to send her up here. She can wait for you while you take me out the other way."
"May I tell her?" John asked, as he rang for the lift. "She has been such a good little pal!"
Once more Louise seemed to hesitate. A vague look of trouble clouded her face.
"Perhaps you had better, dear," she agreed spiritlessly. "Only tell her not to breathe it to another soul. It is to be our secret for a little time—not long—just a day or two longer."
The gates of the lift swung open, and John raised her fingers to his lips.
"It is for you to say, dear," he promised.
When he came back to his room, Sophy was curled up on the couch with a cigarette between her lips. She looked at him severely.
"I am losing faith in you," she declared. "There are signs of a hurried departure from this room. There is a distinct perfume of roses about the place. You have always told me that I am the only visitor of my sex you allow here. I am fiercely jealous! Tell me what this tea-tray and the empty cups mean?"
"It means Louise," he answered, smiling. "She has just this moment gone away."
Sophy sighed with an air of mock relief.
"Louise I suppose I must tolerate," she said. "Fancy her coming here to tea with you, though!"
"I have been up to Cumberland for a day," he told her, "and Louise came to meet me at the station."
"How is your angel brother?" she asked. "Did he ask after me?"
"He did mention you," John confessed. "I don't remember any direct message, though. You want a cocktail, of course, don't you?"
"Dying for it," she admitted. "I have had such a dull week! We've been playing in wretched little places, and last night the show went bust. The manager presentedus with our fares home this morning. We were only down in Surrey, so here I am."
"Well, I'm glad to see you back again," John told her, after he had ordered the cocktails. "Louise has been quite lost without you, too."
"I didn't want to go away," she sighed, "but I do get so tired of not working! Although my part wasn't worth anything, I hated it being cut out. It makes one feel so aimless. One has too much time to think."
He laughed at her, pleasantly but derisively.
"Time to think!" he repeated. "Why, I have never seen you serious for five minutes in your life, except when you've been adding up Louise's housekeeping-books!"
She threw her cigarette into the grate, swung round toward him, and looked steadily into his face.
"Haven't you?" she said. "I can be. I often am. It isn't my correct pose, though. People don't like me serious. If they take me out or entertain me, they think they are being cheated if I am not continually gay. You see what it is to have a reputation for being amusing! Louise keeps me by her side to talk nonsense to her, to keep her from being depressed. Men take me out because I am bright, because I save them the trouble of talking, and they don't feel quite so stupid with me as with another woman. My young man at Bath wants to marry me for the same reason. He thinks it would be so pleasant to have me always at hand to chatter nonsense. That is why you like me, too. You have been pitched into a strange world. You are not really in touch with it. You like to be with some one who will talk nonsense and take you a little way out of it. I am just a little fool, you see, a harmlesslittle creature in cap and bells whom every one amuses himself with."
John stared at her for a moment, only half understanding.
"Why, little girl," he exclaimed, "I believe you're in earnest!"
"I am in deadly earnest," she assured him, her voice breaking a little. "Don't take any notice of me. I have had a wretched week, and it's a rotten world, anyway."
There was a knock at the door, and the waiter entered with the cocktails.
"Come," John said, as he took one from the tray, "I will tell you some news that will give you something to think about. I hope that you will be glad—I feel sure that you will. I want you to be the first to drink our healths—Louise's and mine!"
The glass slipped through her fingers and fell upon the carpet. She never uttered even an exclamation. John was upon his knees, picking up the broken glass.
"My fault," he insisted. "I am so sorry, Sophy. I am afraid some of the stuff has gone on your frock. Looks as if you'll have to take me out shopping. I'll ring for another cocktail."
He rose to his feet and stepped toward the bell. Then it suddenly occurred to him that as yet she had not spoken. He turned quickly around.
"Sophy," he exclaimed, "what is the matter? Aren't you going to congratulate me?"
She was sitting bolt upright upon the couch, her fingers buried in the cushions, her eyes closed. He moved quickly across toward her.
"I say, Sophy, what's wrong?" he asked hastily. "Aren't you well?"
She waved him away.
"Don't touch me," she begged. "I went without my lunch—nearly missed the train, as it was. I was feeling a little queer when I came, and dropping that glass gave me a shock. Let me drink yours, may I?"
He handed it to her, and she drained its contents. Then she smiled up at him weakly.
"What a shame!" she said. "Just as you were telling me your wonderful news! I can scarcely believe it—you and Louise!"
John sat down beside her.
"Louise does not want it talked about for a day or two," he observed. "We have not made any plans yet."
"Is Louise going to remain upon the stage?"
"Probably, if she wishes it," he replied; "but I want to travel first for a year or so, before we settle definitely upon anything. I did not think that you would be so much surprised, Sophy."
"Perhaps I am not really," she admitted. "One thinks of a thing as being possible, for a long time, and when it actually comes—well, it takes you off your feet just the same. You know," she added slowly, "there are no two people in this world so far apart in their ways as you and Louise."
"That is true from one point of view," he confessed. "From another, I think that there are no two people so close together. Of course, it seems wonderful to me, and I suppose it does to you, Sophy, that she should care for a man of my type. She is so brilliant and so talented, such a woman of this latter-day world, the world of which I am about as ignorant as a man can be. Perhaps, after all, that is the real explanation of it. Each of us represents things new to the other."
"Did you say that no one has been told yet—no one at all?"
"No one except Stephen," John assented. "That is why I went up to Cumberland, to tell him."
"You have not told the prince?" Sophy asked, dropping her voice a little. "Louise has not told him?"
"Not that I know of. Why do you ask?" John inquired, looking into Sophy's face.
"I don't know," she answered. "It just occurred to me. He and Louise have known each other for such a long time, and I wondered what he might have to say about it."
John laid his hands upon the poisonous thoughts that had stolen once more into his blood, and told himself that he had strangled them. He swept them away and glanced at his watch.
"Let's have some dinner before I change, down in the grill-room—in a quarter of an hour's time, say. I don't want to be at the theater before the second act."
Sophy hesitated. There was a hard feeling in her throat, a burning at the back of her eyes. She was passionately anxious to be alone, yet she could not bring herself to refuse. She could not deny herself, or tear herself at once away from the close companionship which seemed, somehow or other, to have crept up between herself and John, and to have become the one thing that counted in life.
"I'd love to," she said, "but remember I've been traveling. Look at me! I must either go home, or you must let me go into your room—"
"Make yourself at home," John invited. "I have three letters to write, and some telephone messages to answer."
Sophy lit another cigarette and strolled jauntily through his suite of rooms. When she was quite sure that she was alone, however, she closed the door behind her, dropped her cigarette, and staggered to the window. She stood there, gazing down into an alleyway six stories below, where the people passing back and forth looked like dwarf creatures.
One little movement forward! No one could have been meant to bear pain like this. She set her teeth.
"It would be so soon over!"
Then she suddenly found that she could see nothing; the people below were blurred images. A rush of relief had come to her. She sank into the nearest chair and sobbed.