“This little difference of opinion,” the Prince remarked, looking thoughtfully through the emerald green of his liqueur, “interests me. Our friend Dolinski here thinks that he will not come because he will be afraid. De Brouillac, on the contrary, says that he will not come because he is too sagacious. Felix here, who knows him best, says that he will not come because he prefers ever to play the game from outside the circle, a looker-on to all appearance, yet sometimes wielding an unseen force. It is a strong position that.”
Lucille raised her head and regarded the last speaker steadily.
“And I, Prince!” she exclaimed, “I say that he will come because he is a man, and because he does not know fear.”
The Prince of Saxe Leinitzer bowed low towards the speaker.
“Dear Lucille,” he said, so respectfully that the faint irony of his tone was lost to most of those present, “I, too, am of your opinion. The man who has a right, real or fancied, to claim you must indeed be a coward if he suffered dangers of any sort to stand in the way. After all, dangers from us! Is it not a little absurd?”
Lucille looked away from the Prince with a little shudder. He laughed softly, and drank his liqueur. Afterwards he leaned back for a moment in his chair and glanced thoughtfully around at the assembled company as though anxious to impress upon his memory all who were present. It was a little group, every member of which bore a well-known name. Their host, the Duke of Dorset, in whose splendid library they were assembled, was, if not the premier duke of the United Kingdom, at least one of those whose many hereditary offices and ancient family entitled him to a foremost place in the aristocracy of the world. Raoul de Brouillac, Count of Orleans, bore a name which was scarcely absent from a single page of the martial history of France. The Prince of Saxe Leinitzer kept up still a semblance of royalty in the State which his ancestors had ruled with despotic power. Lady Muriel Carey was a younger daughter of a ducal house, which had more than once intermarried with Royalty. The others, too, had their claims to be considered amongst the greatest families of Europe.
The Prince glanced at his watch, and then at the bridge tables ready set out.
“I think,” he said, “that a little diversion—what does our hostess say?”
“Two sets can start at least,” the Duchess said. “Lucille and I will stay out, and the Count de Brouillac does not play.”
The Prince rose.
“It is agreed,” he said. “Duke, will you honour me? Felix and Dolinski are our ancient adversaries. It should be an interesting trial of strength.”
There was a general movement, a re-arrangement of seats, and a little buzz of conversation. Then silence. Lucille sat back in a great chair, and Lady Carey came over to her side.
“You are nervous to-night, Lucille,” she said.
“Yes, I am nervous,” Lucille admitted. “Why not? At any moment he may be here.”
“And you care—so much?” Lady Carey said, with a hard little laugh.
“I care so much,” Lucille echoed.
Lady Carey shook out her amber satin skirt and sat down upon a low divan. She held up her hands, small white hands, ablaze with jewels, and looked at them for a moment thoughtfully.
“He was very much in earnest when I saw him at Sherry’s in New York,” she remarked, “and he was altogether too clever for Mr. Horser and our friends there. After all their talk and boasting too. Why, they are ignorant of the very elements of intrigue.”
Lucille sighed.
“Here,” she said, “it is different. The Prince and he are ancient rivals, and Raoul de Brouillac is no longer his friend. Muriel, I am afraid of what may happen.”
Lady Carey shrugged her shoulders.
“He is no fool,” she said in a low tone. “He will not come here with a magistrate’s warrant and a policeman to back it up, nor will he attempt to turn the thing into an Adelphi drama. I know him well enough to be sure that he will attempt nothing crude. Lucille, don’t you find it exhilarating?”
“Exhilarating? But why?”
“It will be a game played through to the end by masters, and you, my dear woman, are the inspiration. I think that it is most fascinating.”
Lucille looked sadly into the fire.
“I think,” she said, “that I am weary of all these things. I seem to have lived such a very long time. At Lenox I was quite happy. Of my own will I would never have left it.”
Lady Carey’s thin lips curled a little, her blue eyes were full of scorn. She was not altogether a pleasant woman to look upon. Her cheeks were thin and hollow, her eyes a little too prominent, some hidden expression which seemed at times to flit from one to the other of her features suggested a sensuality which was a little incongruous with her somewhat angular figure and generally cold demeanour. But that she was a woman of courage and resource history had proved.
“How idyllic!” she exclaimed. “Positively medieval! Fancy living with one man three years.”
Lucille smiled.
“Why, not? I never knew a woman yet however cold however fond of change, who had not at some time or other during her life met a man for whose sake she would have done—what I did. I have had as many admirers—as many lovers, I suppose, as most women. But I can truthfully say that during the last three years no thought of one of them has crossed my mind.”
Lady Carey laughed scornfully.
“Upon my word,” she said. “If the Prince had not a temper, and if they were not playing for such ruinous points, I would entertain them all with these delightful confidences. By the bye, the Prince himself was once one of those who fell before your chariot wheels, was he not? Look at him now—sideways. What does he remind you of?”
Lucille raised her eyes.
“A fat angel,” she answered, “or something equally distasteful. How I hate those mild eyes and that sweet, slow smile. I saw him thrash a poor beater once in the Saxe Leinitzer forests. Ugh!”
“I should not blame him for that,” Lady Carey said coldly. “I like masterful men, even to the point of cruelty. General Dolinski there fascinates me. I believe that he keeps a little private knout at home for his wife and children. A wicked little contrivance with an ivory handle. I should like to see him use it.”
Lucille shuddered. This tete-a-tete did not amuse her. She rose and looked over one of the bridge tables for a minute. The Prince, who was dealing, looked up with a smile.
“Be my good angel, Countess,” he begged. “Fortune has deserted me to-night. You shall be the goddess of chance, and smile your favours upon me.”
A hard little laugh came from the chair where Lady Carey sat. She turned her head towards them, and there was a malicious gleam in her eyes.
“Too late, Prince,” she exclaimed. “The favours of the Countess are all given away. Lucille has become even as one of those flaxen-haired dolls of your mountain villages. She has given her heart away, and she is sworn to perpetual constancy.”
The Prince smiled.
“The absence,” he said, glancing up at the clock, “of that most fortunate person should surely count in our favour.”
Lucille followed his eyes. The clock was striking ten. She shrugged her shoulders.
“If the converse also is true, Prince,” she said, “you can scarcely have anything to hope for from me. For by half-past ten he will be here.”
The Prince picked up his cards and sorted them mechanically.
“We shall see,” he remarked. “It is true, Countess, that you are here, but in this instance you are set with thorns.”
“To continue the allegory, Prince,” she answered, passing on to the next table, “also with poisonous berries. But to the hand which has no fear, neither are harmful.”
The Prince laid down his hand.
“Now I really believe,” he said gently, “that she meant to be rude. Partner, I declare hearts!”
Felix was standing out from the next table whilst his hand was being played by General Dolinski, his partner. He drew her a little on one side.
“Do not irritate Saxe Leinitzer,” he whispered. “Remember, everything must rest with him. Twice to-night you have brought that smile to his lips, and I never see it without thinking of unpleasant things.”
“You are right,” she answered; “but I hate him so. He and Muriel Carey seem to have entered into some conspiracy to lead me on to say things which I might regret.”
“Saxe Leinitzer,” he said, “has never forgotten that he once aspired to be your lover.”
“He has not failed to let me know it,” she answered. “He has even dared—ah!”
There was a sudden stir in the room. The library door was thrown open. The solemn-visaged butler stood upon the threshold.
“His Grace the Duke of Souspennier!” he announced.
There was for the moment a dead silence. The soft patter of cards no longer fell upon the table. The eyes of every one were turned upon the newcomers. And he, leaning upon his stick, looked only for one person, and having found her, took no heed of any one else.
“Lucille!”
She rose from her seat and stood with hands outstretched towards him, her lips parted in a delightful smile, her eyes soft with happiness.
“Victor, welcome! It is like you to have found me, and I knew that you would come.”
He raised her fingers to his lips—tenderly—with the grace of a prince, but all the affection of a lover. What he said to her none could hear, for his voice was lowered almost to a whisper. But the colour stained her cheeks, and her blush was the blush of a girl.
A movement of the Duchess recalled him to a sense of his social duty. He turned courteously to her with extended hand.
“I trust,” he said, “that I may be forgiven my temporary fit of aberration. I cannot thank you sufficiently, Duchess, for your kind invitation.”
Her answering smile was a little dubious.
“I am sure,” she said “that we are delighted to welcome back amongst us so old and valued a friend. I suppose you know every one?”
Mr. Sabin looked searchingly around, exchanging bows with those whose faces were familiar to him. But between him and the Prince of Saxe Leinitzer there passed no pretense at any greeting. The two men eyed one another for a moment coldly. Each seemed to be trying to read the other through.
“I believe,” Mr. Sabin said, “that I have that privilege. I see, however, that I am interrupting your game. Let me beg you to continue. With your permission, Duchess, I will remain a spectator. There are many things which my wife and I have to say to one another.”
The Prince of Saxe Leinitzer laid his cards softly upon the table. He smiled upon Mr. Sabin—a slow, unpleasant smile.
“I think,” he said slowly, “that our game must be postponed. It is a pity, but I think it had better be so.”
“It must be entirely as you wish,” Mr. Sabin answered. “I am at your service now or later.”
The Prince rose to his feet.
“Monsieur le Due de Souspennier,” he said, “what are we to conclude from your presence here this evening?”
“It is obvious,” Mr. Sabin answered. “I claim my place amongst you.”
“You claim to be one of us?”
“I do!”
“Ten years ago,” the Prince continued, “you were granted immunity from all the penalties and obligations which a co-membership with us might involve. This privilege was extended to you on account of certain great operations in which you were then engaged, and the object of which was not foreign to our own aims. You are aware that the period of that immunity is long since past.”
Mr. Sabin leaned with both hands upon his stick, and his face was like the face of a sphinx. Only Lucille, who knew him best of all those there, saw him wince for a moment before this reminder of his great failure.
“I am not accustomed,” Mr. Sabin said quietly, “to shirk my share of the work in any undertaking with which I am connected. Only in this case I claim to take the place of the Countess Lucille, my wife. I request that the task, whatever it may be which you have imposed upon her, may be transferred to me.”
The Prince’s smile was sweet, but those who knew him best wondered what evil it might betoken for his ancient enemy.
“You offer yourself, then, as a full member?”
“Assuredly!”
“Subject,” he drawled, “to all the usual pains and privileges?”
“Certainly!”
The Prince played with the cards upon the table. His smooth, fair face was unruffled, almost undisturbed. Yet underneath he was wondering fiercely, eagerly, how this might serve his ends.
“The circumstances,” he said at last, “are peculiar. I think that we should do well to consult together—you and I, Felix, and Raoul here.”
The two men named rose up silently. The Prince pointed to a small round table at the farther end of the apartment, half screened off by a curtained recess.
“Am I also,” Mr. Sabin asked, “of your company?”
The Prince shook his head.
“I think not,” he said. “In a few moments we will return.”
Mr. Sabin moved away with a slight enigmatic gesture. Lucille gathered up her skirts, making room for him by her side on a small sofa.
“It is delightful to see you, Victor,” she murmured. “It is delightful to know that you trusted me.”
Mr. Sabin looked at her, and the smile which no other woman had ever seen softened for a moment his face.
“Dear Lucille,” he murmured, “how could you ever doubt it? There was a day, I admit, when the sun stood still, when, if I had felt inclined to turn to light literature, I should have read aloud the Book of Job. But afterwards—well, you see that I am here.”
She laughed.
“I knew that you would come,” she said, “and yet I knew that it would be a struggle between you and them. For—the Prince—” she murmured, lowering her voice, “had pledged his word to keep us apart.”
Mr. Sabin raised his head, and his eyes traveled towards the figure of the man who sat with his back to them in the far distant corner of the room.
“The Prince,” he said softly, “is faithful to his ancient enmities.”
Lucille’s face was troubled. She turned to her companion with a little grimace.
“He would have me believe,” she murmured, “that he is faithful to other things besides his enmities.”
Mr. Sabin smiled.
“I am not jealous,” he said softly, “of the Prince of Saxe Leinitzer!”
As though attracted by the mention of his name, which must, however, have been unheard by him, the Prince at that moment turned round and looked for a moment towards them. He shot a quick glance at Lady Carey. Almost at once she rose from her chair and came across to them.
“The Prince’s watch-dog,” Lucille murmured. “Hateful woman! She is bound hand and foot to him, and yet—”
Her eyes met his, and he laughed.
“Really,” he said, “you and I in our old age might be hero and heroine of a little romance—the undesiring objects of a hopeless affection!”
Lady Carey sank into a low chair by their side. “You two,” she said, with a slow, malicious smile, “are a pattern to this wicked world. Don’t you know that such fidelity is positively sinful, and after three years in such a country too?”
“It is the approach of senility,” Mr. Sabin answered her. “I am an old man, Lady Muriel!”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“You are like Ulysses,” she said. “The gods, or rather the goddesses, have helped you towards immortality.”
“It is,” Mr. Sabin answered, “the most delicious piece of flattery I have ever heard.”
“Calypso,” she murmured, nodding towards Lucille, “is by your side.”
“Really,” Mr. Sabin interrupted, “I must protest. Lucille and I were married by a most respectable Episcopalian clergyman. We have documentary evidence. Besides, if Lucille is Calypso, what about Penelope?”
Lady Carey smiled thoughtfully.
“I have always thought,” she said, “that Penelope was a myth. In your case I should say that Penelope represents a return to sanity—to the ordinary ways of life.”
Mr. Sabin and Lucille exchanged swift glances. He raised his eyebrows.
“Our little idyll,” he said, “seems to be the sport and buffet of every one. You forget that I am of the old world. I do not understand modernity.”
“Ulysses,” she answered, “was of the old world, yet he was a wanderer in more senses of the word than one. And there have been times—”
Her eyes sought his. He ignored absolutely the subtlety of meaning which lurked beneath the heavy drooping eyelids.
“One travels through life,” he answered, “by devious paths, and a little wandering in the flower-gardens by the way is the lot of every one. But when the journey is over, one’s taste for wandering has gone—well, Ulysses finished his days at the hearth of Penelope.”
She rose and walked away. Mr. Sabin sat still and watched her as though listening to the soft sweep of her gown upon the carpet.
“Hateful woman!” Lucille exclaimed lightly. “To make love, and such love, to one’s lawful husband before one’s face is a little crude, don’t you think?”
He shook his head.
“Too obvious,” he answered. “She is playing the Prince’s game. Dear me, how interesting this will be soon.”
She nodded. A faint smile of bitterness had stolen into her tone.
“Already,” she said, “you are beginning to scent the delight of the atmosphere. You are stiffening for the fight. Soon—”
“Ah, no! Don’t say it,” he whispered, taking her hand. “I shall never forget. If the fight seems good to me it is because you are the prize, and after all, you know, to fight for one’s womenkind is amongst the primeval instincts.”
Lady Carey, who had been pacing the room restlessly, touching an ornament here, looking at a picture there, came back to them and stood before Mr. Sabin. She had caught his last words.
“Primeval instincts!” she exclaimed mockingly. “What do you know about them, you of all men, a bundle of nerves and brains, with a motor for a heart, and an automatic brake upon your passions? Upon my word, I believe that I have solved the mystery of your perennial youth. You have found a way of substituting machinery for the human organ, and you are wound up to go for ever.”
“You have found me out,” he admitted. “Professor Penningram of Chicago will supply you too with an outfit. Mention my name if you like. It is a wonderful country America.”
The Prince came over to them, fair and bland with no trace upon his smooth features or in his half-jesting tone of any evil things.
“Souspennier,” he said, holding out his hand, “welcome back once more to your old place. I am happy to say that there appears to be no reason why your claim should not be fully admitted.”
Mr. Sabin rose to his feet.
“I presume,” he said, “that no very active demands are likely to be made upon my services. In this country more than any other I fear that the possibilities of my aid are scanty.”
The Prince smiled.
“It is a fact,” he said, “which we all appreciate. Upon you at present we make no claim.”
There was a moment’s intense silence. A steely light glittered in Mr. Sabin’s eyes. He and the Prince alone remained standing. The Duchess of Dorset watched them through her lorgnettes; Lady Carey watched too with an intense eagerness, her eyes alight with mingled cruelty and excitement. Lucille’s eyes were so bright that one might readily believe the tears to be glistening beneath.
“I will not pretend,” Mr. Sabin said, “to misunderstand you. My help is not required by you in this enterprise, whatever it may be, in which you are engaged. On the contrary, you have tried by many and various ways to keep me at a distance. But I am here, Prince—here to be dealt with and treated according to my rights.”
The Prince stroked his fair moustache.
“I am a little puzzled,” he admitted, “as to this—shall I not call it self-assertiveness?—on the part of my good friend Souspennier.”
“I will make it quite clear then,” Mr. Sabin answered. “Lucille, will you favour me by ringing for your maid. The carriage is at the door.”
The Prince held out his hand.
“My dear Souspennier,” he said, “you must not think of taking Lucille away from us.”
“Indeed,” Mr. Sabin answered coolly. “Why not?”
“It must be obvious to you,” the Prince answered, “that we did not send to America for Lucille without an object. She is now engaged in an important work upon our behalf. It is necessary that she should remain under this roof.”
“I demand,” Mr. Sabin said, “that the nature of that necessity should be made clear to me.”
The Prince smiled with the air of one disposed to humour a wilful child.
“Come!” he said. “You must know very well that I cannot stand here and tell you the bare outline, much less the details of an important movement. To-morrow, at any hour you choose, one from amongst us shall explain the whole matter—and the part to be borne in it by the Countess!”
“And to-night?” Mr. Sabin asked.
The Prince shrugged his shoulders and glanced at the clock.
“To-night, my dear friend,” he said, “all of us, I believe, go on to a ball at Carmarthen House. It would grieve me also, I am sure, Duke, to seem inhospitable, but I am compelled to mention the fact that the hour for which the carriages have been ordered is already at hand.”
Mr. Sabin reflected for a few moments.
“Did I understand you to say,” he asked, “that the help to be given to you by my wife, Lucille, Duchess of Souspennier, entailed her remaining under this roof?”
The Prince smiled seraphically.
“It is unfortunate,” he murmured, “since you have been so gallant as to follow her, but it is true! You will understand this perfectly—to-morrow.”
“And why should I wait until to-morrow?” Mr. Sabin asked coolly.
“I fear,” the Prince said, “that it is a matter of necessity.”
Mr. Sabin glanced for a moment in turn at the faces of all the little company as though seeking to discover how far the attitude of his opponent met with their approval. Lady Carey’s thin lips were curved in a smile, and her eyes met his mockingly. The others remained imperturbable. Last of all he looked at Lucille.
“It seems,” he said, smiling towards her, “that I am called upon to pay a heavy entrance fee on my return amongst your friends. But the Prince of Saxe Leinitzer forgets that he has shown me no authority, or given me no valid reason why I should tolerate such flagrant interference with my personal affairs.”
“To-morrow—to-morrow, my good sir!” the Prince interrupted.
“No! To-night!” Mr. Sabin answered sharply. “Lucille, in the absence of any reasonable explanation, I challenge the right of the Prince of Saxe Leinitzer to rob me even for an hour of my dearest possession. I appeal to you. Come with me and remain with me until it has been proved, if ever it can be proved, that greater interests require our separation. If there be blame I will take it. Will you trust yourself to me?”
Lucille half rose, but Lady Carey’s hand was heavy upon her shoulder. As though by a careless movement General Dolinski and Raoul de Brouillac altered their positions slightly so as to come between the two. The Duke of Dorset had left the room. Then Mr. Sabin knew that they were all against him.
“Lucille,” he said, “have courage! I wait for you.”
She looked towards him, and her face puzzled him. For there flashed across the shoulders of these people a glance which was wholly out of harmony with his own state of barely subdued passion—a glance half tender, half humorous, full of subtle promise. Yet her words were a blow to him.
“Victor, how is it possible? Believe me, I should come if I could. To-morrow—very soon, it may be possible. But now. You hear what the Prince says. I fear that he is right!”
To Mr. Sabin the shock was an unexpected one. He had never doubted but that she at least was on his side. Her words found him unprepared, and a moment he showed his discomfiture. His recovery however, was swift and amazing. He bowed to Lucille, and by the time he raised his head even the reproach had gone from his eyes.
“Dear lady,” he said, “I will not venture to dispute your decision. Prince, will you appoint a time to-morrow when this matter shall be more fully explained to me?”
The Prince’s smile was sweetness itself, and his tone very gentle. But Mr. Sabin, who seldom yielded to any passionate impulse, kept his teeth set and his hand clenched, lest the blow he longed to deal should escape him.
“At midday to-morrow I shall be pleased to receive you,” he said. “The Countess, with her usual devotion and good sense, has, I trust, convinced you that our action is necessary!”
“To-morrow at midday,” Mr. Sabin said, “I will be here. I have the honour to wish you all good-night.”
His farewell was comprehensive. He did not even single out Lucille for a parting glance. But down the broad stairs and across the hall of Dorset House he passed with weary steps, leaning heavily upon his stick. It was a heavy blow which had fallen upon him. As yet he scarcely realised it.
His carriage was delayed for a few moments, and just as he was entering it a young woman, plainly dressed in black, came hurrying out and slipped a note into his hand.
“Pardon, monsieur,” she exclaimed, with a smile. “I feared that I was too late.”
Mr. Sabin’s fingers closed over the note, and he stepped blithely into the carriage. But when he tore it open and saw the handwriting he permitted himself a little groan of disappointment. It was not from her. He read the few lines and crushed the sheet of paper in his hand.
“I am having supper at the Carlton with some friends on our wayto C. H. I want to speak to you for a moment. Be in the PalmCourt at 12.15, but do not recognise me until I come to you. Ifpossible keep out of sight. If you should have left my maid willbring this on to your hotel.“M. C.”
Mr. Sabin leaned back in his carriage, and a frown of faint perplexity contracted his forehead.
“If I were a younger man,” he murmured to himself, “I might believe that this woman was really in earnest, as well as being Saxe Leinitzer’s jackal. We were friendly enough in Paris that year. She is unscrupulous enough, of course. Always with some odd fancy for the grotesque or unlikely. I wonder—”
He pulled the check-string, and was driven to Camperdown House. A great many people were coming and going. Mr. Sabin found Helene’s maid, and learnt that her mistress was just going to her room, and would be alone for a few minutes. He scribbled a few words on the back of a card, and was at once taken up to her boudoir.
“My dear UNCLE,” Helene exclaimed, “you have arrived most opportunely. We have just got rid of a few dinner people, and we are going on to Carmarthen House presently. Take that easy-chair, please, and, light a cigarette. Will you have a liqueur? Wolfendon has some old brandy which every one seems to think wonderful.”
“You are very kind, Helene,” Mr. Sabin said. “I cannot refuse anything which you offer in so charming a manner. But I shall not keep you more than a few minutes.”
“We need not leave for an hour,” Helene said, “and I am dressed except for my jewels. Tell me, have you seen Lucille? I am so anxious to know.”
“I have seen Lucille this evening,” Mr. Sabin answered.
“At Dorset House!”
“Yes.”
Helene sat down, smiling.
“Do tell me all about it.”
“There is very little to tell,” Mr. Sabin answered.
“She is with you—she returns at least!”
Mr. Sabin shook his head.
“No,” he answered. “She remains at Dorset House.”
Helene was silent. Mr. Sabin smoked pensively a moment or two, and sipped the liqueur which Camperdown’s own servant had just brought him.
“It is very hard, Helene,” he said, “to make you altogether understand the situation, for there are certain phases of it which I cannot discuss with you at all. I have made my first effort to regain Lucille, and it has failed. It is not her fault. I need not say that it is not mine. But the struggle has commenced, and in the end I shall win.”
“Lucille herself—” Helene began hesitatingly.
“Lucille is, I firmly believe, as anxious to return to me as I am anxious to have her,” Mr. Sabin said.
Helene threw up her hands.
“It is bewildering,” she exclaimed.
“It must seem so to you,” Mr. Sabin admitted.
“I wish that Lucille were anywhere else,” Helene said. “The Dorset House set, you know, although they are very smart and very exclusive, have a somewhat peculiar reputation. Lady Carey, although she is such a brilliant woman, says and does the most insolent, the most amazing things, and the Prince of Saxe Leinitzer goes everywhere in Europe by the name of the Royal libertine. They are powerful enough almost to dominate society, and we poor people who abide by the conventions are absolutely nowhere beside them. They think that we are bourgeois because we have virtue, and prehistoric because we are not decadent.”
“The Duke—” Mr. Sabin remarked.
“Oh, the Duke is quite different, of course,” Helene admitted. “He is a fanatical Tory, very stupid, very blind to anything except his beloved Primrose League. How he came to lend himself to the vagaries of such a set I cannot imagine.”
Mr. Sabin smiled.
“C’est la femme toujours!” he remarked. “His Grace is, I fear, henpecked, and the Duchess herself is the sport of cleverer people. And now, my dear niece, I see that the time is going. I came to know if you could get me a card for the ball at Carmarthen House to-night.”
Helene laughed softly.
“Very easily, my dear UNCLE. Lady Carmarthen is Wolfendon’s cousin, you know, and a very good friend of mine. I have half a dozen blank cards here. Shall I really see you there?”
“I believe so,” Mr. Sabin answered.
“And Lucille?”
“It is possible.”
“There is nothing I suppose which I can do in the way of intervention, or anything of that sort?”
Mr. Sabin shook his head.
“Lucille and I are the best of friends,” he answered. “Talk to her, if you will. By the bye, is that twelve o’clock? I must hurry. Doubtless we shall meet again at the ball.”
But Carmarthen House saw nothing of Mr. Sabin that night.
Mr. Sabin from his seat behind a gigantic palm watched her egress from the supper-room with a little group of friends.
They came to a halt in the broad carpeted way only a few feet from him. Lady Carey, in a wonderful green gown, her neck and bosom ablaze with jewels, seemed to be making her farewells.
“I must go in and see the De Lausanacs,” she exclaimed. “They are in the blue room supping with the Portuguese Ambassador. I shall be at Carmarthen House within half an hour—unless my headache becomes unbearable. Au revoir, all of you. Good-bye, Laura!”
Her friends passed on towards the great swing doors. Lady Carey retraced her steps slowly towards the supper-room, and made some languid inquiries of the head waiter as to a missing handkerchief. Then she came again slowly down the broad way and reached Mr. Sabin. He rose to his feet.
“I thank you very much for your note,” he said. “You have something, I believe, to say to me.”
She stood before him for a moment in silence, as though not unwilling that he should appreciate the soft splendour of her toilette. The jewels which encircled her neck were priceless and dazzling; the soft material of her gown, the most delicate shade of sea green, seemed to foam about her feet, a wonderful triumph of allegoric dressmaking. She saw that he was studying her, and she laughed a little uneasily, looking all the time into his eyes.
“Shockingly overdressed, ain’t I?” she said. “We were going straight to Carmarthen House, you know. Come and sit in this corner for a moment, and order me some coffee. I suppose there isn’t any less public place!”
“I fear not,” he answered. “You will perhaps be unobserved behind this palm.”
She sank into a low chair, and he seated himself beside her. She sighed contentedly.
“Dear me!” she said. “Do men like being run after like this?”
Mr. Sabin raised his eyebrows.
“I understood,” he said, “that you had something to say to me of importance.”
She shot a quick look up at him.
“Don’t be horrid,” she said in a low tone. “Of course I wanted to see you. I wanted to explain. Give me one of your cigarettes.”
He laid his case silently before her. She took one and lit it, watching him furtively all the time. The man brought their coffee. The place was almost empty now, and some of the lights were turned down.
“It is very kind of you,” he said slowly, “to honour me by so much consideration, but if you have much to say perhaps it would be better if you permitted me to call upon you to-morrow. I am afraid of depriving you of your ball—and your friends will be getting impatient.”
“Bother the ball—and my friends,” she exclaimed, a certain strained note in her tone which puzzled him. “I’m not obliged to go to the thing, and I don’t want to. I’ve invented a headache, and they won’t even expect me. They know my headaches.”
“In that case,” Mr. Sabin said, “I am entirely at your service.”
She sighed, and looked up at him through a little cloud of tobacco smoke.
“What a wonderful man you are,” she said softly. “You accept defeat with the grace of a victor. I believe that you would triumph as easily with a shrug of the shoulders. Haven’t you any feeling at all? Don’t you know what it is like to feel?”
He smiled.
“We both come,” he said, “of a historic race. If ancestry is worth anything it should at least teach us to go about without pinning our hearts upon our sleeves.”
“But you,” she murmured, “you have no heart.”
He looked down upon her then with still cold face and steady eyes.
“Indeed,” he said, “you are mistaken.”
She moved uneasily in her chair. She was very pale, except for a faint spot of pink colour in her cheeks.
“It is very hard to find, then,” she said, speaking quickly, her bosom rising and falling, her eyes always seeking to hold his. “To-night you see what I have done—I have, sent away my friends—and my carriage. They may know me here—you see what I have risked. And I don’t care. You thought to-night that I was your enemy—and I am not. I am not your enemy at all.”
Her hand fell as though by accident upon his, and remained there. Mr. Sabin was very nearly embarrassed. He knew quite well that if she were not his enemy at that moment she would be very shortly.
“Lucille,” she continued, “will blame me too. I cannot help it. I want to tell you that for the present your separation from her is a certain thing. She acquiesces. You heard her. She is quite happy. She is at the ball to-night, and she has friends there who will make it pleasant for her. Won’t you understand?”
“No,” Mr. Sabin answered.
She beat the ground with her foot.
“You must understand,” she murmured. “You are not like these fools of Englishmen who go to sleep when they are married, and wake in the divorce court. For the present at least you have lost Lucille. You heard her choose. She’s at the ball to-night—and I have come here to be with you. Won’t you, please,” she added, with a little nervous laugh, “show some gratitude?”
The interruption which Mr. Sabin had prayed for came at last. The musicians had left, and many of the lights had been turned down. An official came across to them.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, addressing Mr. Sabin, “but we are closing now, unless you are a guest in the hotel.”
“I am staying here,” Mr. Sabin answered, rising, “but the lady—”
Lady Carey interrupted him.
“I am staying here also,” she said to the man.
He bowed at once and withdrew. She rose slowly to her feet and laid her fingers upon his arm. He looked steadily away from her.
“Fortunately,” he said, “I have not yet dismissed my own carriage. Permit me.”
Mr. Sabin leaned heavily upon his stick as he slowly made his way along the corridor to his rooms. Things were going ill with him indeed. He was not used to the fear of an enemy, but the memory of Lady Carey’s white cheeks and indrawn lips as she had entered his carriage chilled him. Her one look, too, was a threat worse than any which her lips could have uttered. He was getting old indeed, he thought, wearily, when disappointment weighed so heavily upon him. And Lucille? Had he any real fears of her? He felt a little catch in his throat at the bare thought—in a moment’s singular clearness of perception he realised that if Lucille were indeed lost the world was no longer a place for him. So his feet fell wearily upon the thickly carpeted floor of the corridor, and his face was unusually drawn and haggard as he opened the door of his sitting-room.
And then—a transformation, amazing, stupefying. It was Lucille who was smiling a welcome upon him from the depths of his favourite easy-chair—Lucille sitting over his fire, a novel in her hand, and wearing a delightful rose-pink dressing-gown. Some of her belongings were scattered about his room, giving it a delicate air of femininity. The faint odour of her favourite and only perfume gave to her undoubted presence a wonderful sense of reality.
She held out her hands to him, and the broad sleeves of her dressing-gown fell away from her white rounded arms. Her eyes were wonderfully soft, the pink upon her cheeks was the blush of a girl.
“Victor,” she murmured, “do not look so stupefied. Did you not believe that I would risk at least a little for you, who have risked so much for me? Only come to me! Make the most of me. All sorts of things are sure to happen directly I am found out.”
He took her into his arms. It was one of the moments of his lifetime.
“Tell me,” he murmured, “how have you dared to do this?”
She laughed.
“You know the Prince and his set. You know the way they bribe. Intrigues everywhere, new and old overlapping. They have really some reason for keeping you and me apart, but as regards my other movements, I am free enough. And they thought, Victor—don’t be angry—but I let them think it was some one else. And I stole away from the ball, and they think—never mind what they think. But you, Victor, are my intrigue, you, my love, my husband!”
Then all the fatigue and all the weariness, died away from Mr. Sabin’s face. Once more the fire of youth burned in his heart. And Lucille laughed softly as her lips met his, and her head sank upon his shoulder.