He did pull her down, and he got his arm around her.
"Why, love! Why, precious!" he murmured soothingly. "Dear, dear girl! Darling Nina!"
"I don't love you!" she cried vehemently. "I never can love you! I do love one man and I can't love any other. It's no use trying."
And then she was out of his grasp, striking him away as roughly as his other betrayer had done.
Carleigh stood paralyzed. In some ways he was little more than a boy. But—if a boyish heart that had swelled with newborn hope was shrunken suddenly by old, wizened despair—there was at any rate one man-thing about him, for presently he turned his back to her and that ghastly moan—the sob of a suffering man—fell on her ear.
At that Nina came down the two mossy steps and looked at him with curious irresolution, her hand pressed against her lips.
There was a long moment. There was another sob. Then, having drawn close to him, she placed her fingers on his arm.
"What can I do?" she whispered. "I'm so sorry."
He sobbed again. "You can love me," he whispered.
"But I love some one else."
"He doesn't love you. I do."
"But I love him."
"And I love you."
He reached back his arm and pulled her around in front of him. His eyes were shut, his face was wet. He held her hard against his bosom. Their lips met.
The staghound's growl ended the long, dumb seconds. It was provoked by Kneedrock, who was beside them.
Carleigh didn't care in the least. In spite of her struggling he held her fast, and his voice rang almost fiercely as he said:
"Don't tell this yet. You see we are going to be married."
"Yes?" observed the viscount, without a trace of wonder or any other emotion. "I wish you joy."
With that she wrenched herself free. "No, no!" she cried in a passion of protest. "It isn't so! It's not true! I have refused him. You know my story, Hal! You know how it is with me!
"I can never marry any man but one. I told him so, but he wouldn't believe it. And then he cried and I kissed him. You tell him that I can never marry him. Tell him everything."
Kneedrock's lip curled in a cynical half-smile.
"It's not my story to tell," was his retort. "I don't understand it. I never do understand love-stories. It's quite enough for me to go about alone without any love-story of my own and come suddenly upon broken-hearted people like yourselves."
Carleigh was deepest crimson. "You might spare Mrs. Darling at all events," he said haughtily.
Kneedrock glanced at him indifferently. "I'm not being rough with any one," he returned. "I haven't any faith in human nature, so stiles never give me shocks."
He paused a brief moment and looked over their heads at the gray sky. Neither of them spoke.
"I say," he added suddenly. "Do you know it's long past three? You'll both be jolly late for tea unless you make haste. I'm off." And he was gone.
"I wonder what will happen next," Nina hazarded as she watched Nibbetts disappear over the crest of the hill. Then she turned to Carleigh with a most enticing smile.
"Well, as we know one another pretty well now, perhaps you had better take me in your arms and kiss me very nicely once more, for it is quite possible we may never have another chance."
Carleigh could hardly place himself. Whether he was in his right senses or had all at once lost his reason—turned lunatic—he couldn't just tell for the life of him.
Nevertheless, he eagerly obeyed her suggestion. He took her in his arms and he kissed her—not once, but thrice.
Then they walked home.
Carleigh, in his room before dinner that evening, took his head in his hands and wondered.
He wondered a long time, but nothing very clear resulted. Then he rebrushed his disordered hair until it was smooth and shining once more, and went down.
The dinner guests were Mr. Telborn and the Marchioness of Highshire, who happened to be legally man and wife. Both of them were exceedingly lofty personages.
"We wouldn't have come if we had known the Greys were here," the Marchioness said confidentially to Lady Bellingdown, with a slight frown as they sat waiting. "Mr. Telborn never liked him, anyway, and since the affair of—"
The marchioness rested her case there.
"Where's that old Rembrandt copy of yours now?" Telborn asked his host, fixing his glass in his eye and glaring about the room. "It used to hang over there."
"Oh, that's up in London on exhibition," writhed his lordship. "Some vow it's real, you know."
"Real—huh!" returned Telborn expressively.
"Well now, it may be real, you know," said the duke, coming forward with valor. "And if it isn't, ever so many good pictures are copies. I say, Doody, haven't we a lot of copies at Puddlewood?"
But the duchess was otherwise interested.
"You've heard about Emily, of course," she was saying, addressing the marchioness. "The poor thing's run off with the second coachman. A very nice-appearing man, I believe. But it seems that he has one wife already."
"How terrible!" exclaimed Mrs. Darling, who was sitting close to the fire, yet shivered slightly.
"People do run off sometimes," reminded Carleigh, who was standing beside her. "I don't know that it's so terrible. It settles things quickly."
"But not when the man's married; only when the woman's married," the duchess qualified. "When the woman's married it does settle things, of course; but when the man's married, it doesn't.
"I will say this—a husband left in the lurch is always much more obliging at helping to set things straight than is a woman. Think of the Betterton-Nyns! They've been waiting for ten years. So has Captain Leigh."
"I wonder why people who love one another don't bolt oftener," said Carleigh in a low voice to Nina, dragging a chair near as the duchess turned away and perching himself on its arm. "Conventionality is a very ghastly thing, with which I have less patience every hour."
"If they both want to, they generally do," she replied without smiling. "But they mustbothwant to."
"Well, then, why don't the Betterton-Byns, or whatever's the name—I never heard of them before—do it, then?"
"Why, they have done it. They've been off for years. In Alaska or somewhere. Betterton-Nyn, not Byn, is the name they took. It's Claudius Synge and Elsie Fairweather, don't you know."
"No, I didn't know," said Carleigh, much shocked. "And who is Captain Leigh?"
"Leigh Fairweather, of course."
"Oh, of course."
After this came the dinner, and then coffee in the rose-pink picture-room, the royal blue picture-room being closed for the week to all but decorators.
Nina had slipped away, and the other women were having a thoroughly enjoyable time talking about her.
"She doesn't really want him, does she?" the marchioness asked Lady Bellingdown. "I thought that there was something very bad about him. If he's so nice, why didn't the mother marry him herself?"
"That's what every one is asking," said the duchess, noting her hostess's embarrassment. "I'm sure I think he's very nice myself. And so pathetic, too. We're going to ask him to Puddlewood later."
"I don't think that Nina will ever marry again," observed Charlotte Grey.
"And yet, you know, she'd be rather dear to marry," the duchess commented. "I always liked Nina Darling. Of course, we understand that she shouldn't. Yet she's very nice."
"Poor Colonel Darling!" sighed Lady Bellingdown reflectively.
"He's at rest now," said the duchess. "Poor soul! And yet," she added, "I did always like Nina."
"We all like her," agreed Lady Bellingdown. "And Caryll, who only came last night, is not only consoled, but desperately in love again, which is a great triumph for her particular talent."
"Yes," the marchioness agreed. "They say Caryll did have a hard time. Fancy! A mother jealous of her own daughter. Strange persons, those, Americans!"
"She almost killed Caryll," declared his aunt warmly. "The poor fellow was nearly crazed."
"He might do worse than marry Nina," the duchess decided. "There are a few years' difference in their ages, but that doesn't matter nowadays since Lady Grandison's leap in the dark. Ten years' difference there, and they're like a pair of turtle-doves."
"I know," said Lady Grey in her meditative way. "It wouldn't be bad, of course; but, then, Nina would never have him. She has her own story, you know."
"I know," said the duchess.
Nina, coming out of her own room to run back downstairs, ran into the arms of a man instead.
"Oh!" she cried in surprise; not in alarm.
"I saw you run away," laughed the right man's voice in her ear. "So I ran, too. Kiss me again and I'll make a bargain with you. Let me make all the love I please, and I'll promise not to speak of marriage again."
He had her locked fast against his breast. "You promise me something," she suggested. "Go to Harry—to Kneedrock, you know—and get him to tell you my story. You'll never want to marry me then; and I'll have a clear conscience."
"What rot! Fancy my fussing over your story! What do I care about your story?"
"But you must know it," she insisted, "because, you see, it will make it easier for both of us. After a while—when you've married that girl—you'll be glad that I was honest with you."
He was kissing her.
"I shall never marry the girl," he declared. "I shall marry you."
She laid her cheek against his shoulder. "If you marry me I shall get rid of you somehow," she whispered. "I love love, but I simply hate husbands. It won't do to marry me. You ask Kneedrock. He knows."
She could feel his heart flopping about in his bosom.
"You—you extraordinary creature!" he faltered.
"Yes, isn't it awful?" she asked. "I think myself it is shocking. But I can't help it. I am made so."
He tried to laugh and failed.
"Do you want to kiss me any more?... No?... Then step off my gown and I'll run back downstairs."
Sunday went off well. Some went to church and some didn't. Carleigh didn't. Nina didn't. They went for a walk instead.
"This is heavenly," said the man. "I'm so happy. You are an enchantress. I feel that before I met you I never knew what anything meant."
"Men all say that," she affirmed. "Men are very stupid. They get a little chain of pearly speeches together, and then they expect women to fancy that no other man ever even so much as saw a pearl before."
"Say what you please," he cried, all but caroling in his joy. "Only let me be by to hear, and let there be woods ahead where I may kiss you again."
"It's odd you should enjoy kissing me," she returned placidly. "It's droll. That's another thing I find charming in men. It's the energy with which they kiss a new woman."
Carleigh laughed heartily. "How rippingly you put it!" said he. "Come now, how many men have kissed you?"
"This year or in my whole life?"
"Either."
She considered a little and then she yawned. "I don't see the good in troubling to count. I know now that you are not really in love, so why bother further?"
"Bother further? Not really in love? What do you mean?"
"Why, my dear boy, don't get huffed. Surely even you know that a man really in love can't put up with a conversation like that. Of course, I'm asked here to cure you of the blues; not to plunge you into a fresh trap. You know that. And it's nice to see how well I do it."
"So you think I'm not really in love, eh?"
"I jolly well know you aren't."
There was a slight pause while Carleigh thought fast and furiously. Nina walked on,insouciante. He was the least of her troubles.
After a little they entered the woods. Then he finished reflecting and took up talking again.
"So you are just flirting with me?"
"Only that."
"And yet you know as well as I do that in every flirtation there lies the seed of a pure and passionate love."
She shook her head. "Not with me. My flirtations are pure, but my passionate love is all seed—gone to seed."
"The seed can be replanted," he suggested.
"More than planting must go toward my future harvest. I tell you frankly that my spade-and-harrow days are over."
"Let me spade and harrow."
"Oh, what rot it all is!" she exclaimed abruptly. "I'm so deadly weary of everything."
"Quite so," he interrupted eagerly. "So am I. We'll go away. I'll get a post somewhere. And we'll shunt all our troubles."
"I'd grow tired too soon," said Nina slowly. "You see, you wouldn't grow tired, but I should."
Carleigh hardly knew how to take that.
"I'm so interesting," she continued—"so fascinating—what you will. And a man always enjoys my talk while it's going on. But I'm tired of my own talk and want a change."
He smiled. "Keep still," he said, "and perhaps I'll give you one."
"That's a very old joke," she rebuked sorrowfully. "Oh, I can be quite certain of being bored to death with you. I mustn't consider you for a minute."
"What's to be done about me, then?"
"Oh, you will make up with the girl some day, and then—" she stopped.
"And then?"
"Oh, how you will hate yourself!"
Meanwhile—or later, between church and luncheon—Waltheof, in the billiard-room, was chalking a cue. "It will be a good lesson," he said. "He needs a shaking up."
"He'll get a shaking up," said the duke. "I say, Nibbetts, won't Carleigh get a shaking up?"
"It's wicked—all of it," declared Kneedrock gruffly. "I've never loved a woman in my life"—which was a lie—"but I've notions about things. Nina is unreasonable."
"You think so because you've never loved a woman," said Sir George.
"A woman is unreasonable because she is a woman—" began Nibbetts, but Sir George cut in before he could finish:
"And a man's unreasonable because she is a woman, too," he laughed. "Don't preach, but walk out and find them, if you feel it is really your duty to chaperon your cousin. All I can say is what I've often said before—poor Darling!"
"No, I won't go out and find them," Kneedrock refused, pitching his huge bulk down on the window seat. "It's none of my business."
"More's the pity," was Sir George's comment. "I'll tell you what I think. It ought to be your business. That's what every one of us thinks."
An ugly white look overspread the viscount's rugged visage, and the subject was dropped.
Later, however, in the privacy of his wife's room, the duke said more—much more.
"Doody, it's rotten how they go on here about dear Nina." That was how he began it. He repeated himself a great deal, and he appealed to the duchess for verification with every other sentence. But his finish was almost impassioned.
"I'm getting very sick of the whole thing, I'll be dashed if I'm not. Of course she shot her husband, or Kneedrock shot him, and of course Carleigh is in love with his fiancée's mother.
"But I say it's very tiresome to have to hear about 'em all the time. I'm very tired of hearing of 'em all the time. I say, Doody, you know I'm tired of hearing of 'em all the time. Don't you, Doody?"
"Yes," answered the duchess, "and I am, too. I'm sure I don't want to hear any more about them now. Do ring the bell for Olivette, and go to your room."
Monday, of course, meant the breaking up of the party and the conclusion of Nina's mission. She had done what she could and she was delighted to think that for once in her misguided career she had actually performed a service not wholly selfish.
As Carleigh emerged from the breakfast-room, where he and his aunt were among the last, Lady Bellingdown slipped her arm through his, saying:
"Well, my dear boy, we've done you good, haven't we?"
He glanced back over his shoulder to indicate whom he had in mind—for Nina had come down but a minute before—last of all—and said, smiling: "She's a wonder."
"Isn't she? Doesn't she say the most startling things? She's a bomb made animate."
"One is always wondering what will come next," he declared. "I'm wondering it just now."
As he proposed it himself, he might very easily have foreseen it without waste of speculation. They took a long walk—the last of their series of long walks.
"And now," said lover to loved as they went at swinging pace through the park, the staghound as usual at their heels, "where do you go next?"
"Carfen," she answered. "Just beyond the border of Carlisle."
"I know them," he announced delightedly. "I'll get myself asked."
But Nina shook her head. "Don't," she adjured. "Because if you do, I'll leave."
He stopped short in his stride. "In Heaven's name, why?" he asked, his astonishment and dismay undisguised.
"Because I will not have you ruined with your fiancée," was her calm answer.
"My dear girl, I have no fiancée. That's all over."
"Oh, no, it isn't."
"Oh, yes, it is."
She freed the hand he had been holding and then slipped it into his again. Then they walked on.
"Love's never over," she observed wisely. "You'll only care the more for her later." Then she raised her eyes and beheld him deeply crimson.
"With me it's all over," he declared in a voice that shook with mingled feelings. "You don't know of what you speak. It couldn't possibly be made up. I couldn't marry her. I couldn't possibly live in the house with—with—" He stopped short.
"It will straighten out," said Nina calmly. "Such things do, you know."
"Not this kind. Wait—look!" He opened his coat, thrust his hand within, and drew a jewel from some hidden pocket. It was a ring which he held out to her.
She took it from him, and her eyes opened very wide. For a brief space she gazed at him pensively and silently.
"Of what are you thinking?" he asked.
"I was wondering if you had it always with you."
"Always."
"Does your man transfer it from one suit to another?"
He had not expected just that question, but he repeated himself.
"Always," he said a bit stiffly, and added: "Do you want it?"
"Her ring?" she cried with an arrogant little laugh. "No, indeed."
He looked at her and then at the ring in her fingers. It was a rather remarkable pearl, surrounded by faintly bluish diamonds.
"Pearls mean tears," she said.
"Then throw it away!" he commanded irritably. "I don't want it, either."
He saw her, without another word, toss it off into the forest mold. In spite of his command he had not expected that. It gave him a start.
"Perhaps the stones were not real," she said lightly. "Were they?"
"Yes," was all that he could answer.
"What an effective bit that would make on the stage," she suggested. "A man bidding a woman throw away a rope of pearls if she would not accept them as a gift from him, and she taking him at his word and pitching them into the sea."
"You are a strange creature," he commented. "Fancy chucking off a ring in that manner!" It was very plain to be seen that he was annoyed.
"I know," she said seriously. "And I'd chuck myself away just as gaily if it were possible to do it completely. I was on the verge of doing it once in India. I thought anything would be better than the things that were."
"Why didn't you, then?"
"I couldn't. I was prevented. My whole life was changed again at that very instant."
"And what happened?"
"The man I was going to chuck myself away on cut his throat."
Carleigh gasped. "Killed himself?"
"Not quite," Nina answered coolly. "He was prevented, too. But he carries the scar. Every time he shaves he must think of me."
"My dear girl," he remonstrated. He was still thinking of the ring. It was of such value that he began to question whether she was quite in her right mind. "You do let one in for thrilling experiences. That I must say."
"Now as then," she admitted, stopping short. "I've been very horrid," turning her head until her eyes looked directly into his. "I'm not just myself to-day. I don't know why I threw your pearl away. Come back with me and I'll pick it up."
"Can you find it, do you think?" he asked, palpably pleased.
"Of course. I threw it on the bare roots. I meant to pick it up on our way back."
He was smiling now, as transparent as any schoolboy. "You are most awfully odd, you know," he said, vastly solaced. "But if we pick it up, you must let me put it on."
"No, no."
"Yes, yes."
"Well, if you insist. But it will mean nothing."
When they reached the spot both looked searchingly about. Carleigh went down on his knees and soiled his sensitive hands delving among the bare roots. Nina tossed aside bits of mold with the toe of her boot. But the ring was not found.
"Never mind; it's been a thrilling experience. You said so yourself," she remarked lightly. "And it isn't every day that a man gets a really new sensation, you know. And that was utterly new to you, I'm sure."
But Carleigh was far from accepting it with the same indifference. He made an effort to appear nonchalant, but throughout the rest of their walk he again and again relapsed into silence. The loss of the ring would not be kept down.
When finally they returned to Bellingdown it was to find the house full of smoke. The party lunched in the murk, choking between bites.
"That chimney always draws badly," her ladyship informed everyone with the utmost calm.
Then all the doors were opened, and they had coffee in the billiard-room.
Carleigh ate no luncheon and drank no coffee.
"They've had trouble," whispered Lady Grey to Kneedrock significantly, as they stood together by one of the billiard-room windows. "See!" she added, pointing. "He's been walking alone. I do wonder if he really did offer himself and if she really did refuse him."
Carleigh came in a few moments later, and he was evidently depressed.
"I'm perfectly sure she refused him," Lady Grey decided. But Kneedrock only shrugged his broad, burly shoulders.
Carleigh had been to search more carefully for the ring. But he had not succeeded. And now it came to him gloomily that should he ever renew his engagement with Rosamond Veynol—of course he had no intention of doing so; but if he ever should—he would have to invent some lie and tell it her.
Still, losing the ring—and losing it under such very unpleasant conditions—was the first circumstance that had ever presented the possibility of a renewal to him in a concrete form.
After he had gone up to his room Nina rose from the deep seat where she had been buried in the currentRevue des Deux Mondes, and crossed to where Nibbetts—Charlotte Grey having left him—now stood alone by the window, staring out over the desolate garden.
"I want to speak to you, Hal," she said earnestly, and turning, saw that the others—all in a waiting mood, as they were about to go—were clustered before the fire. "I want to speak to you, seriously," she emphasized, and laid a hand on his arm.
"It's no use, Nina," he returned roughly, shaking off the plaintive hand. "I am the one man you can't cajole. Don't touch me."
But she still stood there, her eyes downcast. "I want to be good, Hal," she declared, her tone all contrition. "You know how hard I try. I'm trying uncommonly hard this time; but he's so tempting.
"Please do me a favor. I'm not asking much. I'm not really. Chain him up, won't you? Don't—oh, don't let him follow me. No good can come of it. He'll never go back to them if I spoil him any more. Interfere. You can if you will. Do—please, do!"
A look of utter disgust spread over the man's face.
"You make me so devilish angry," he growled below his breath. "One expects this kind of thing from men. But not from women."
"Men go a bit further than I do," she rejoined. "But never mind that. I beg you to do something. Disable him, why don't you? It will be a mercy to us all. He isn't strong enough to stand it, you know. Take him away, at least."
Kneedrock hunched his great shoulders. "The weakling!" It was as if the word were an oath. "And you! Weaker still, yet filled to the brim with the very devil."
"I know I'm bad," she said, in the simplest possible way. "But it's not my fault, Hal. It's the spoiled joy that was never allowed. I'm all for love, and I've never had it. That's all."
"Love!" he sneered with bitterest contempt. "What rot for you to speak of love! Poor Darling, with his brains blown out! The silly ass! I wonder he doesn't—" He had meant to say "haunt you," but he stopped short.
"He does," she replied, quite as if he had finished. "But live men do it more. Listen, Hal—rough as you are you've always been very good to me. Only you and I know how good. Be good again. Take him away. Otherwise I can't promise, and—you know I can't marry him."
"Why don't you marry him, damn it?" he asked cruelly.
She looked up into his face wistfully. "Why don't I?" and there was a quaver in her voice. "Ah, why don't I?"
He made no answer.
"Love is the only safeguard that I have," she continued. "If I didn't love—" she paused.
"Couldn't Carleigh hold you to—to something?"
"Nothing could hold me."
"Oh, hell!" growled the honorable viscount with excessive force.
She smiled serenely. "You will get him away, I know. He's such a boy. You'll do that for me, won't you, Hal?"
"His grace's car," announced the butler, quietly. And the duke started up, loquaciously, as usual.
"I say, we must be getting on. Good-by, old man! I have enjoyed myself. Good-by, Lady Bellingdown! Come, Doody! Good-by, Lady Grey! Come, Doody! Good-by, Wally! Good-by, Nibbetts! Good-by! Good-by! Good-by! I say, Doody, we must be getting on."
For answer to Nina's question, Kneedrock turned on his heel and strolled after the departing duke and duchess.
Later the viscount came upon Carleigh in the smoking-room.
"I'm glad of this," he said, taking a chair near him. "I want to talk with you. I suppose you've said good-by to Mrs. Darling."
Sir Caryll was looking white and disturbed. "I didn't see her," he returned a little thickly. "I'd no idea she was leaving so soon."
"That's her way," Kneedrock made clear. "It isn't polite, or kind, or considerate. But it's her way. I don't know why others put up with it, I'm sure. It's enough that I know why I do."
Carleigh didn't seem to be listening.
"She asked me to say something to you," the other man went on, picking up a copy of theTatlerand fingering its leaves. "Something rather nasty. But I said that I'd say it." He could lie perfectly.
"Something rather nasty?" repeated Sir Caryll, staring.
It happened fortunately that they were quite alone.
"Yes"—Kneedrock nodded—"just that. She wants me to carry you off. You see she's singular when it comes to men. She likes new ones. Nothing like theTour de Nesle, of course; but just the novelty of the open play amuses her. You see, you have had your turn. That's the long and short of it. She's tired. She wants you to go away."
For a little Carleigh seemed turned to stone. "But she's gone herself," he said finally.
"Oh, yes. Of course she's gone. But you'll follow. Everybody does. I did. And she doesn't want that."
"How do you know?"
"She told me she doesn't. Besides, I know Mrs. Darling. Come, now, you'd better regard her wishes. I've a box of my own six miles from here, and I'm starting in a few minutes. Say you'll join me. I'll tell you some things, and it will be your salvation."
He paused and waited, but the younger man was still dazed.
"You'll make that other affair straight and marry some day if you break this off while you can. But if you don't stop you'll damage yourself badly. Take my word."
"And she asked you to say this to me?" It was an awful blow to the young baronet's pride. He couldn't quite believe it.
"She did. And it's nothing new for me, either. I'm quite used to saying this sort of thing to friends of hers. It's an old story.
"They had her down to divert your mind and bring you to your senses. She's done it, and now she's through. She's bothered with you until she's tired. A man doesn't last her very long."
Sir Caryll's face turned quickly crimson purple. "I've bored her, you mean?" he questioned in a tone of scorching outrage.
"Well, yes, since you put it that way," answered Kneedrock. "Or, perhaps, she's getting too fond of you. We'll never know the truth. No one knows the truth about a single thing in connection with her."
He held up his left hand and showed a nasty scar near the wrist between thumb and forefinger.
"Nobody knows just how I happened to get that, for example, except her. Nobody knows about her husband's death. I know that I'm generally supposed to have shot him. But I didn't. I wouldn't shoot a husband—too risky business nowadays.Autres temps, autres moeurs."
"Good God!" cried Caryll Carleigh.
"I don't blame you," the honorable viscount said with a sympathetic emphasis that was most unusual for him. "I know how rough it is for you just after your other scrape. But women are made that way."
The younger man lifted his eyes in appeal to the elder.
"Do you understand her, or anything about her?" he asked with pathetic simplicity.
Kneedrock shook his head.
"Come with me," he urged, putting down his paper as he spoke. "Come with me. I'll put you up for a couple of days and you can think it over."
"The duchess has asked me to Puddlewood on Thursday," came the reply, a bit heavily.
"That will be quite all right. Fits in fine."
There was a little pause and Sir Caryll got up and moved uneasily toward the window. There, with his back turned, he halted, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot and pulling at his mustache.
"It's no use," Kneedrock flung after him. "No use at all. She will never marry. She will never marry any one. She couldn't put up with it, don't you know."
Carleigh turned sharply about. "Did she ever kissyou?" he cried. "Couldyouforget it?"
"Kiss me!" calmly and indifferently. "My dear boy, of course she did. She thinks no more of kisses than other women do of touching finger-tips and saying: 'How are you?' She doesn't take osculation seriously, old chap."
Then there was another pause.
At its end Carleigh, speaking very low, said: "Thanks, my dear fellow. You've done your best and I'm grateful. But—I think I'll follow her."
And he did.
Love leading, Carleigh followed. On his way to the railway station he wired to the Honorable Julian Archdeacon, Carfen House:
Can you put me up for a few days? Longing to see you and Cecile. Wire answer Junior Carlton Club.
Can you put me up for a few days? Longing to see you and Cecile. Wire answer Junior Carlton Club.
When he got up to town the bid was there waiting for him. So he went down the next morning by a ridiculously—a suspiciously—early train.
The Archdeacons were not deceived in the least by the flattering wording of the telegram. They were strongly inclined to believe that something was up; and when their so suddenly demonstrative guest arrived before luncheon they were quite convinced.
Their first theory, however, which had to do with a certain presence at Cross Saddle Hall, the seat of the Dalgries, their nearest neighbors, was altogether wrong; as they very promptly discovered.
For before Sir Caryll had been in the house an hour Cecile came unexpectedly upon him and Nina Darling, with heads close together, ensconced in a secluded corner of the orangery.
Carleigh, blushing like a school-girl, had sprung up with a start.
"Fancy Mrs. Darling being here!" he cried, in a tone by no means free from embarrassment. "We were at Bellingdown, you know, for the week-end. But I'd no notion she was coming to you. Itwasa surprise."
The poor boy was wofully transparent. It was all Cecile Archdeacon could do to keep her face straight; especially when behind his back Nina deliberately winked at her.
Of course she lost no time in telling Julian. It was far too good to keep.
"By gad!" he cried, laughing. "Nina's never out of character, is she? Think of her catching poor Carleigh on the rebound! No man's immune from her. Even I—"
"Don't flatter yourself," his wife cut in. "You're far too pursy. Nina likes them with a waist."
"Really!" he exclaimed, swallowing his bruised conceit. "I didn't know. I've never noticed her preferences. At that I think you're wrong, Cis. It's just the chap that happens to be 'round."
"It's just the chap that happens not to be round," returned his wife. But Julian, as good, kindly and stupid as he was corpulent, never saw it in the least.
Meanwhile, Nina and Caryll were battling over old scores in the orangery.
"So you want me to go away?" said she.
"No. I want you to come away—with me," said he.
"I told you if you followed me here I'd leave."
"But you didn't mean it. I know you didn't mean it. It was just to test me."
"It was nothing of the sort. I was never more in earnest. I begged Lord Kneedrock to chain you if necessary. Did he say anything to you?"
"Oh, yes, of course. He did have quite a talk with me. Wanted to take me to his shooting-box and all that sort of thing. But I didn't fancy he meant to put me in irons. He was really very kind."
"Nibbetts kind?" queried Nina, plucking an orange leaf and doubling it in her long white fingers. "Then he must have contemplated extreme measures. What was it he said?"
"He said that perhaps you were getting too fond of me. Are you?"
"He didn't. I don't believe you. I can't hear him saying anything like that. Not at all."
"He said it," Carleigh insisted. "I'm wondering if it isn't true. You're afraid I'll carry you off by storm."
"I'm afraid you're very silly," she said, dropping the leaf and yawning without any disguise. "And I do hate to be bored."
"He said I bored you. Did you tell him that?"
"I forget. I may have. It's not unlikely."
"I'm sorry. You never gave any sign until just now. I thought you liked me no end. A woman doesn't let a man—"
She knew what was coming, and he got no farther.
"You'll bore me very much if you go into that. I'm different, you know. I thought I made that plain. I'm not at all like other women—prudish and all that. If a man can get any comfort out of holding my hand I'm not selfish enough to deny him. And you did so need comfort. It isn't at all kind of you to make more of it."
He leaned closer to her. His eyes were very big and there was an undeniable flush on his young, fair cheeks.
"But—you let me kiss you," he said, "and—and you—you—"
"You're trying to say I kissed you back, I suppose. Well, what of it?"
"Doesn't that count? Doesn't that mean anything?"
"Of course it means something. It means that I sympathized. You had been suddenly deprived of the kisses of your fiancée, and I felt how you must miss them. My kisses were purely vicarious. You were starving, and in her place—purely in her place—I fed you."
"And after two days you throw me adrift to starve some more." His tone was very plaintive.
"I can't go on indefinitely, don't you know," returned Nina. "I don't see how you can ask it. Besides it's fully time you went back to her and made it all up. After you've made it up you'll be sorry you ever saw me. My kisses will be on your conscience. You'll feel like telling her, and you won't dare. So—"
"But I shall never make it up. I've said that a dozen times. It's all over and done with forever."
"Then go to her mother. Isn't she kissable?"
"I hate her mother," he groaned.
"How about her father?"
Carleigh drew up his mouth, winked once with both eyes, and stared.
"Are you suggesting that her father might kiss me?" he asked, at length, in highest indignation.
"Oh, dear, no," answered Nina, laughing. "Did it sound like that? I was thinking faster than I talked. I was wondering about her father—her real, own father, I mean. Not the diamond man—not Veynol."
But still he looked at her, a question showing through his eyes.
"Is—is he still alive?"
"You've been readingBritish Society," he charged.
"Was there something in that about him? I swear I haven't seen the nasty rag in years."
"I saw it," he said. "It purported to give the real reason for the breaking off of my engagement. But it wasn't true. What it said I'd never so much as heard."
"What did it say?"
"It slandered Rosamond's father. And I'll not add to the slander by repeating it."
"Oh!" exclaimed Nina. "Then you don't hate the whole family."
But Carleigh made no reply. He shrugged his shoulders and, leaning forward, gazed moodily for a moment at a depending golden globe a half-dozen yards away.
So posed, he was a wistful, pathetic figure, and Nina's heart softened. "I won't go away," she said; and he looked at her, again pleased.
"You mean—"
"I mean I'll be nice to you for just one week more. If—"
"If—I don't care what the 'if' is, if you'll keep your word."
"If you'll promise to go back to the Veynol girl when the week's over."
"But there's no use," he insisted. "We had very bitter words. She would never consent to see me again. I know she wouldn't."
"I'm not saying she would," Nina argued. "Girls can be very stubborn. I'm a little like that myself. Still, you can try, you know. It's that I'm asking. Will you promise?"
He looked unutterable things at her—passion, love, adoration. "I'd promise to kill myself at the end for a week of your kindness. You can be so divinely adorable, when—you like."
"I don't want you to kill yourself. I want you to have life at his fullest—all that's brightest, and best, and most worthy. I want you to have the happiness to which you're destined."
"I'll have bliss for a week, at all events," he declared, edging closer and reaching for the hand nearest him.
"But bliss is so fleeting," she said. "You must have the joy that lasts." She drew her hand away. "Remember, I shall let you make love to me only on that condition."
He didn't in the least understand, and he told her so.
"Why are you so insistent?" he asked.
"Because I'll only do this wicked thing that good may come of it."
"Wicked thing," he repeated.
"It's wicked to her. She loves you—I'm sure she does. And it isn't right that you should console yourself for a silly little tiff by philandering with me or any other convenient woman."
"It isn't philandering," he cried indignantly. "I love you as I never loved before in my life. I'd marry you to-day if you'd say so."
"But I'm not going to say so to-day or to-morrow or any other day. I don't love you in the least. But it amuses me to play at love, and it salves my conscience when I think it's for a good cause. There! That's the whole story," and she threw him a look that conveyed finality.
He debated mentally for the best part of half a minute before speaking. Certainly Mrs. Darling was not flattering. He realized that hers was the stronger character.
"Have you always been so particular?" he asked, unable quite to dissemble his vexation.
"That's just it," she answered. "I haven't been. But I'm resolved to turn over a new leaf. I've sent so many to the devil that my heart is set on sending you to—to Heaven instead."
He opened his arms, hungrily and invitingly, and said:
"I promise. I'll take you on your own terms, since that is the only way."
"As a gentleman you can't break your word, you know," she reminded him. "Hadn't you better wait until after luncheon to think it over?"
"But luncheon won't be served for—"
"Oh, yes, it will," she interrupted. "It's served now. We mustn't set every one talking and gossiping by being late and coming in together." She was already on her feet, and his arms dropped disconsolately. "I'll go at once, and you can think a while and then follow."
"Just one kiss first," he implored.
"Not until you have thought it over. It wouldn't be fair to any one of us three." And she disappeared through the maze of orange trees.
When Carleigh reached the luncheon table it was to find Nina in animated conversation with a tall, bald, red-mustached man who sat on her left. Carleigh found his place opposite, but she barely noticed him, so thoroughly did she appear interested.
Her companion, who proved to be Sir Guy Waldron, the archæologist, just back from an excavating expedition to Sardis, in Asia Minor, was telling her about the buried riches of Cr[oe]sus, and his hope of digging them up.
The spectacle robbed Sir Caryll of his last vestige of appetite, and Lady Mary Wycherley, who couldn't take her eyes off him—she did so love romance—whispered to Mrs. Blythe, the poetess, her nearest neighbor, that it was quite clear the poor boy was eating his heart out in melancholy over the inhuman treatment of "that shocking American girl."
"It's clear he must be eating something in private," returned the poetess, who could be very literal when her pen was idle, "for he hasn't put spoon to his soup, or fork to these delicious salmon cutlets."
In point of fact Carleigh was, for the moment at least, an impenetrable puzzle to every one present, save only Mrs. Darling and his host and hostess.
They couldn't at all understand how, with the scandal still fresh in society's mind, he could face a house full of persons, many of whom were comparative strangers and a few of whom he had never before met.
And the oddest part of it was that most of them never solved the riddle, owing to the manner in which fate chose to shape immediately succeeding events.
Directly after luncheon the entire party went motoring with Cragmoor Castle as the objective, and by prior arrangement Mrs. Darling occupied a seat next to Sir Guy, who drove his own car.
Carleigh, to his utter dismay, found himself with the poetess and four very young persons who did nothing but giggle.
They had tea at the castle, and Caryll strove valiantly to disentangle Nina from the party for a much-desiredtête-à-tête; but with the poorest success.
In spite of every effort he was forced to share her with Captain Belden, a very loquacious young gentleman with an exaggerated idea of his own wit. And the fact that Nina laughed appreciatively at his dullest jokes plunged poor Caryll into deeper and deeper gloom.
On the way back to Carfen, Mrs. Blythe chose to dilate at considerable length upon Masefield and his new school, which she couldn't in the least understand, and denounced as lacking in every element of true poetic art.
Nor did Carleigh's monosyllabic comments and long silences in any wise discourage her. The young people giggled as persistently as the poetess talked, and altogether the journey was as nearly maddening as anything he had ever experienced.
Had it not been for the gladdening trust in a long evening with Nina under the stars his reason must have quite succumbed. As it was it merely tottered and threatened.
With the true Briton convention is a fetish. It ranks in his worshipful regard next to the throne—I was going to say above the throne.
Carleigh might kick over the traces of betrothal and marriage, incited by an unconventional matron from the States, but he couldn't think of defying the convention which forbids gentlemen to leave the dinner-table until the ladies have had a quarter of an hour, at the very least, to themselves in which to exchange confidences.
He didn't care in the least for the liqueurs and the cigars, nor for the gross stories which were not at all droll. There was only one thing he did care for.
He wanted to tell Nina he had thought it over very carefully, while Mrs. Blythe talked of Masefield and the callow ones giggled, and that he was more than ever determined to accept her proposition with its accompanying condition in the utmost good faith.
But it never once entered his mind to desert his fellow men until they were of one mind and ready to rejoin the ladies.
He did manage, however, to change to a seat nearer the door so that he might be one of the first in the drawing-room and gain Nina's side before the coveted place was pre-empted.
"At last!" he breathed with a sigh as she drew her skirt aside for him. Fashion having decreed scant skirts the action was more a habit than an actuality.
"You've missed me, then?" She spoke most casually.
"Have I? I've been absolutely wretched. I've been longing for you every second of the time. Do let us go out on the terrace or in the park—or somewhere that we can be quite alone together. I have so much to say to you."
His gaze was devouringly bent upon her eyes, and he was sure that he saw commiseration there. She did sympathize with him, then. She would go. In five minutes he would be holding her in his arms. But he misinterpreted.
"I'm so sorry, Caryll," she said, and it was like a dash of iced water. "I'm so sorry. But I've promised to play bridge. See, they are bringing in the tables."
"You mustn't," he commanded. "I can't let you. I've been waiting hours—oh, so many, many, long, long hours. I can't—"
And then he was conscious that some one was standing at his elbow, speaking. It was Sir Guy Waldron—and he was saying:
"Now, Mrs. Darling, if you are quite ready."
Carleigh stalked off in a pet and smoked innumerable cigarettes, not under the stars, but under heavy low-sailing clouds which swept in from the Solway Firth. His mood was as sullen as the night.
He thought unutterable things, walking to the farthest limits of the park—and farther. It was near to midnight when he returned, his light top-coat dripping, for the wind and the clouds had brought with them a chill and drenching mist.
He paused in the hall. Voices penetrated from the drawing-room. The bridge game was still on. He climbed the broad staircase, gazed down upon by Archdeacons of past centuries in time-blackened frames. On the landings stands of armor, reflecting dim lights, appeared as sentinels.
He found his valet drowsing.
"Fetch me a brandy-and-soda at once," he ordered. "Better make it a decanter and two sodas," he added. "I'm chilled to the bone."
He might have added that his spirits were low, and required strenuous lifting measures. But he was not the sort that shares emotions with one's servants.
He drank the pegs when they came, dismissed the man, and was almost pleased to find himself drowsy. Had he been conscious, it would have surprised him to realize that he dropped into the deepest of deep slumbers directly his head rested on a pillow.
He slept soundly for four hours, and then awakened with a start and sat bolt upright in bed. He was choking. The room was full of smoke.
Coughing like an unmuffled gas engine, he got his feet to the floor, crept to where he imagined the light-switch was—found it by a miracle and turned it on.
But there was no answering illumination. Somewhere the rubber insulation had been burned away and the current short-circuited.
This fact of itself told him that the fire was no tiny matter. Carfen House was ablaze, and probably some of its inmates were still sleeping, unwarned, as he had been. Nina! She was his first thought. Was Nina in peril?
Every minute the smoke in the room grew more dense. It seemed to him that he would never be able to find his coat or a dressing-gown; and even seconds were perhaps precious.
Desperately, at length, he snatched a blanket from the bed, drew it about him, and groped for the door. Half-blinded, his eyes smarting, he jerked it open and a scorching blast struck him in the face.
The smoke here was hot and lurid. And he dropped to his knees and crept. One way he could see flashes of lambent flame. The other way was black as night itself. But he chose it, and half-crawled, half-leaped, questioning that he would ever be able to reach the open alive.
In his ears was the roar of a thing more ferocious, more devouring than any beast of the jungle. And mingled with the roar was the crackling sound of havoc.
For what seemed like hours the thing was ever at his heels, gaining—gaining. Weird, horrid monsters appeared to rise out of the murk to threaten and affright.
But with aching chest, gripping his blanket closer against a rain of sparks that showered on him as he fled, he flogged his flagging soul to fresh and stronger effort.
Again and again he stumbled and fell—only to recover himself and plunge waveringly, staggeringly onward.
And then, all at once, he was conscious of a cooler breath on his brow and cheeks. The smoke thinned. His nostrils sucked in greedily a refreshing, life-giving damp.
He had reached an open window and was stretching far out into the grateful mist and sea-scented air of God's wide, unconfined world.
A tongue of flame licked his blanket and ran up and out around his neck, scorching his hair. The fire was on him. It had caught up. It was reaching for him to drag him back.
He felt its withering hand clutch at his shoulder. Its fingers seared through the lamb's-wool that cloaked them—through the silken mesh of his pajama coat beneath.
Death chanted a victorious pæan in his ears, as with open arms it waited at his back. And before him something beckoned that would not be denied.
Out there in the dark it stood with wooing finger and cool, sweet breath, waiting, too. But whether it was death's other self—or whether it was life—he could not know.
His blanket dropped—a flag of flame behind him. And he pitched forward, turning and returning, as his body dropped downward into the blackness below.
And, oddly enough, as he fell there was before him a woman's face—but not that of Nina Darling. It was younger, frailer, less trained by experience, and no less beautiful—the face of Rosamond Veynol.
He fell on his back upon a slanting slate roof, jarring his briefly recovered breath quite out of him for the moment. And then he rolled, over and over and over—three times—to drop again. This time into a mass of tall dahlia bushes and the soft, spongy mold beneath.
"Not a scratch on you, by Jove!" It was the Honorable Julian who exclaimed it, in unqualified, exuberant delight, as two of the grooms who had heard the fall and hurried to pick up the fallen object, having led him into the glow of the pyre that had once been Carfen House, rubbed their trained hands over bones, joints, muscles, and sinews without eliciting a single protesting cry.
"A miracle! Thank God! Thank God!"
But Carleigh was not so sure about the scratches. He had certainly hit his back a resounding thump on that slate roof, and though he didn't feel it now—who ever did feel anything in the relief of regaining life after having calmly, or not calmly, said good-by to it—what might he not feel to-morrow?
In point of fact he was still dazed, as he might well be. He stood gaping, mute, an almost hideous figure with blackened face, singed hair, and rent and soil-stained garments.
An excited, questioning group pressed about him. Every one seemed talking at once, but the only words that made any impression were Archdeacon's "Not a scratch," and his fervent "Thank Gods!"
The rescued—every one had been got out in some shape or other—were gathered on the edge of a wood at some distance from the conflagration and to windward of it.
The main building was doomed. Even now, it was little more than a shell enclosing a furnace at white heat.
The garages, stables, and kennels were never in danger; but the head gardener's cottage had gone up in a puff after catching from a rain of sparks wind-hurled against its thatched roof.
Some one thrust Carleigh into a great coat. He found he was wearing one an hour later, but remembered nothing of how he came by it. And he had been provided with slippers as well.
He was sitting on a damp, moss-grown boulder, and a stout woman, with strands of gray hair falling limply and dankly about her face, was addressing him in piteous tones.
The reflection from the fire made the night three times as bright as the ordinary English fine day, and he noted that his companion was wearing a bath-towel pinned about her in lieu of a skirt.
Her adipose shoulders were draped in a velour table-cover, and her right hand pressed against her ample bosom a framed photograph, with the glass-side outward. In general terms she was picturesque in the extreme.
"I do hope you can oblige me with a cigarette, dear Sir Caryll!"
They were the first words he remembered since Julian's repeated "Thank God!" The voice sounded more or less familiar, yet he couldn't place it, and the picture the lady presented failed to help him.
It was at that instant that he became conscious of the great coat. In the hope of possibility to provide he ran his hands through its pockets. All he discovered was a soiled handkerchief and a bit of string.
"Sorry," he said, "but I fear I left my case in my room. You see, I came away in something of a hurry."
He didn't in the least mean to be funny, and the stout woman took him quite seriously.
"You're the tenth man I've asked," she said, "and they've all said the same thing."
"Perhaps some of the ladies—" suggested Carleigh.
"No," came the reply. "There's not a cigarette among them. But they seem to have everything else, from jewels to tooth-brushes. Mrs. Blythe, I hear, saved her manicure set and left behind a manuscript poem that would have made lasting fame for her. It's really too bad."
Carleigh, still perplexed, looked at her again. There was something suggestive of—But no, that couldn't be. The Marchioness of Highshire had the most beautiful golden-bronze hair in the kingdom.
Then he stole a look at the framed photograph. Perhaps that would help. The glare from what was left of Carfen House made it stand out as though spotted by a calcium. It was of a small, wizened old man with gray whiskers. Certainly not Mr. Telborn.
She caught him stealing the look and turned the photograph over.
"It's the only thing I saved," she explained.
"Fancy!" murmured Sir Caryll.
"It's the marquis, you know. It's my most valuable possession. Mr. Telborn adores me for my devotion to dear Highshire's memory." Marvel of marvels, it was the marchioness, then! "He says it shows the true woman. He'll gladly replace everything I've lost twice over." She sighed deeply. "But I'd be tempted to give the photograph for a cigarette at this minute," she added disconsolately.
"Let me try for you," said Carleigh, dropping off his mossy boulder. "Did you ask Mrs. Darling?"
The Marchioness of Highshire lifted her hands, the photograph with them. "Then you don't know?" she asked in surprise.
"Don't know?" he echoed with sinking heart. "Don't know what?" Her tone had filled him with a sudden terror. Could it be—
"She's burned—very badly burned. They've taken her over to Cross Saddle Hall."
"Nina burned!" he gasped. "Good God!"
"Yes, isn't it awful? I thought every one knew. They can't say how serious it is. They fear she inhaled flames, and in that case, of course—"
"Oh, no, no!" he cried. "I won't believe it."
The eyes of the marchioness lighted. Sir Caryll was so delightfully ingenuous.
"Telborn has gone for the doctors," she went on. "Sir Guy was burned, too, you know, most fearfully. It was he who saved Mrs. Darling."
"If I'd only known where her room was," Carleigh reproached himself, forgetting that it had been all he could do to save himself.
"Sir Guy seems to have known."
Oh, how he resented that! Still it was best to be silent. If there was the double meaning he suspected he would be the last one to point it out.
"She was already safe, it seems. Had got downstairs without a mark, better dressed than any of us. But she went back."
"Went back?"
"Yes. It was suicidal. Every one said so. Every one begged her. But she wouldn't listen. She had forgotten something. Fancy that!"
Carleigh ground his teeth. The face of Rosamond Veynol was forgotten again. Anxiety for Nina tore at his heart and rent his soul in pieces. Now she was doubly precious.
And that Waldron fellow! He hoped he would die. Otherwise gratitude might play a part. It probably would—and that would mean for himself her utter loss.
"We waited five minutes," his informant continued. "It seemed ages. She didn't return. And just then Sir Guy appeared. We were all women there, you know. We told him, and he dashed off at once. It seems she reached her room quite safely. But before she could turn round she was penned in. Sir Guy went to her through a curtain of flame."
"Was she unconscious?" asked Carleigh anxiously.
"Unfortunately—no. Her screams were pitiful!"
"Don't!" he begged. "It's horrible!"
"I heard some one say it was her just recompense. You've heard she shot her husband, haven't you?"
"I've heard it, of course. But it isn't true. I know it isn't. She has the kindest heart in the world," he defended.
"Where there's smoke there's always some fire," quoted the marchioness. "We've just had proof of that. Possibly she didn't fire the shot, but I'll wager she had a hand in it."
"I'll never believe that. Never!"
"And you'll never find a cigarette for me unless you try, you know," she suggested.
"I beg your pardon," he said in a lifeless voice. "I'll go at once."
He went at once, but he forgot again almost directly. He was bent on learning more about Nina. What were her chances of life? That was what he asked every one.
"Oh, she may pull through," said Archdeacon, who was helping in the distribution of sandwiches and coffee. "I hope to Heaven she will! But I'm afraid she'll be terribly disfigured. It was her face that got the worst of it. Have a sandwich, old chap? Gad, what a narrow shave you had!"
Hugh Blissmore, the novelist, burly and long-haired, was drinking black coffee. He was likewise smoking a cigarette, but Carleigh, in spite of his quest, never noticed it.
"Awful about Mrs. Darling, isn't it?" was the way he broached the topic.
"Awful!" exclaimed the writer—and was rather interrogative as well as exclamatory. "Oh, yes, I dare say! I've been thinking of the heroic side. Devilish fine of Sir Guy, don't you know! Sorry she's got to die, too! Heroism so bootless—and all that. But situation out of the ordinary. Oh, quite out of the ordinary."
"But it isn't certain that—" objected Carleigh.
"Certain?" the other interrupted, drawing his lungs full of smoke. "Of course it's certain. Hasn't a chance, poor lady. Not the smallest chance."
Sir Caryll's chin dropped and a grim, inarticulate sound came up from his throat.
"Heard anything of the cars from Cross Saddle?" the novelist inquired in turn. "Rotting uncomfortable messing about here, I say."
"Is that what's proposed?" asked the saddened one indifferently.
"Yes. Didn't you know? They took Mrs. Darling and Waldron over to the hall in one from here, and some fellows went off to Carlisle for the doctor-chaps in the other. They were to bring back some of Lord Dalgries's cars with them. They've been gone over an hour now—and no signs."
Carleigh was about to seek something more consoling in another quarter when one of the giggling girls of the previous afternoon asked him the time.
"Haven't the faintest idea," he said. "Left my watch behind."
At which she giggled in such an irritating way that he turned sharply upon her.
"That's so funny," she managed to enunciate. "There isn't a single watch among us. They were all forgotten—and we can't find out the exact time."
"And—andyouwere saved," said Carleigh boorishly. But she didn't in the least understand.
Just then the horn of a motor echoed from the park's main drive and a minute later its lamps flared as it rolled over the sward toward the wood.
Sir Caryll ran forward, but the novelist was before him, desirous of being first to secure a place. The young baronet's object, however, was different.
"What do they say of Mrs. Darling?" he called as the car slowed down.
"Who, sir?" asked the chauffeur.
"The lady who was so severely burned. Have the doctors seen her, do you know?"
"Oh, her, sir!" The man was in ill-humor at having been called from his bed at such an hour. "I believe they have, sir. I 'eard some one say as it was all up with some one. I suppose it was 'er they meant, sir. Now don't crowd, please, there's more cars be'ind this one!"
Carleigh stood as one stunned.
It was the voice of the marchioness that recalled him.
"Did you find me a smoke?" she was asking.
"Cigarettes," said Carleigh, "are as scarce as—as watches, unfortunately." And his tone was more lifeless than ever.